November 27, 2005

12:14:10 am French Diary VI  

Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - Paris, France - 50, rainy.

Orsay Museum (art 1848-1914; begins where Louvre ends); World War II section of Invalids; Catacombs. Deanna continues to be sick with a sore throat and now no energy. She went back to hotel after Orsay Museum, but then ventured out later to Invalides by herself.

The Paris subway is among the best in the world. You are never much more than 500 meters from a station and the trains are frequent, the maps are plentiful, and the system is well maintained. It is similar to London in layout, but less prone to breakdown. I don't remember if it is physically uncomfortable in summer; London definitely can be, but Paris's warmer temperatures may mean they have addressed the cooling problem out of necessity. Probably Paris and Tokyo have the best systems overall, although each has a deficiency of escalators/elevators that are present in more newly built systems. Their absence is an inconvenience if you have luggage. Singapore is the sleekest system in the world, in my opinion, although it is not yet as comprehensive. Also, its stations verge on being too big, requiring you to walk long distances to get from the train to the street. Seoul's subway is excellent also, nearly as comprehensive as Paris and Tokyo, but occasionally suffering from the huge station syndrome like Singapore.

Saturday's International Herald Tribune had a great op-ed piece by Roger Cohen on the speech that French President Jacques Chirac has not given, but should, in response to the French riots. Before I discuss what Cohen said, I do have to say that Chirac's feeble response has been so invisible and lacking as to make George Bush's initial handling of Hurricane Katrina look like a model of crisis management. Also illuminating to me is that while in general the IHT has criticized Chirac, it has taken a rather mild tone, before dashing back to its comfort zone of haranguing Bush on everything he does, devoting far more column space to far less serious matters than the French riots. This unbalanced contrast, following the horribly biased Katrina coverage in Europe a few months ago, again shows me that Bush--a man who admittedly does provide much to criticize--is unlikely to get a fair evaluation by the European/US east coast media establishment for the remainder of his term. The sore loser phenomenon of 2000 has a long half-life, especially once the Iraq war re-stoked these passions.

Anyway, regarding France, Cohen providing a soaring speech that pinned the trouble assimilating immigrants to failed economic practice and a welfare state that "inhibits us, saps our creative energy, and extends a culture of dependency into suburbs of despair and vandalism." The answer Cohen says is not more government programs, but a break with past practices such as the 35-hour week and lifelong unemployment benefits that oddly have resulted in more than 60% of French citizens opposed to capitalism.

One thing I will have to commend France on is that they reject affirmative action out of hand, and have continued to do so after the riots, despite some calls to adopt this (most surprisingly by Nicolas Sarkozy, the leading conservative candidate for president in 2007). They also collect no census information on ethnic origin or religious practice, not wanting to put people in groups. Everyone is a French citizen of equal standing, with no distinctions made. Unfortunately, as the riots have revealed, in practice there has been discrimination and immigrant assimilation has not worked as well as in other countries, including the US, which falls all over itself to create ethnic and minority distinctions. I think the US success in immigrant assimilation is due to its economic model that gives hard-working people the opportunity for advancement, rather than its census taking procedures or quota systems, and I would hope if France were to adopt any of our practices it would look to the former and not the later. France's colonial past is full of historical mistakes, but this does not approach the magnitude of US slavery. Thus, I think any justification for affirmative action for France falls short. If they were to adopt any form of positive discrimination, I would hope they would base decisions on economic factors and not race or ethnicity. This might be a better method for the US to switch to as well.

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June 23, 2005

07:29:30 am Asian Baseball  

On consecutive nights, June 16 and 17, we attended games in Seoul, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan. Each country has some differences from the US and from each other, but the similarities are greater than the differences and we had no trouble following what was occurring.

Here are our notes on what we saw, along with a little extra research we did on Korean baseball on the web. We did not have an opportunity to research Japanese baseball, so some of our notes on it are less definite. There is probably more information on it than on Korean baseball on the web, since it has been around longer and is a higher caliber league.

Thursday, June 16, 2005
Samsung Lions 5 LG Twins 2 at Jamsil Stadium, Seoul
Friday, June 17, 2005
Lotte Marines 5 Yakult Swallows 1 at Jingu Stadium, Tokyo

- Attendance, stadium capacity, and ticket prices. We don't know the exact figures, but we estimate that each stadium had 25,000 - 30,000 seats, about half of which were filled. Jamsil Stadium is the main stadium in Seoul (we think), although there is one other. Jingu Stadium is a secondary stadium to Tokyo Dome, which is much larger with something like 80,000 seats. For each game, we were able to buy good tickets at the stadium right before the start. In Seoul, we sat even with first base, maybe 40 rows up, and in Tokyo, we sat around row 10 of the upper deck, exactly behind home plate. Tickets in Seoul were priced at $8 and $4. We splurged on the $8 seats, but it appeared that more people opted for the cheaper seats. While this was probably due to price, there was also a coordinated camaraderie to the cheering in the outfield that some fans may have preferred to be part of. In Tokyo, as with everything else, the tickets were much more expensive. We paid around $30 per ticket. Prices ranged from above $40, which seemed not to be available despite many empty seats, to below $10. In other words, similar prices to the US. As in Seoul, there appeared to be more people in the outfield seats than in the higher-priced locations. There were a few luxury boxes in Seoul, but less than you would find in the US. We don't remember any in Tokyo, but they would have been below us, so we may not have noticed them.

- Ball-strike count. In both countries, strikes are listed before balls on the scoreboard, making it a strike-ball count, the opposite of in the US.

- Beer vendors. In Tokyo, beer vendors don't lug the beer around with them while they walk through the stands. Instead, the beer wait staff--two or three people per section or two--patrols the stands, takes your order, goes to get the beer, and brings it to you.

- Bullpens. At Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, the bullpens were right next to the dugout, which while good for the managers, meant a large foul territory, with the fans further away from the action, much like Oakland Coliseum. At Jingu Stadium in Tokyo, the bullpens were along the outfield foul lines as they are in some US stadiums (e.g., Wrigley Field), but the foul territory was still quite large.

- Cheering. The fans at each game were livelier and more organized than in the US. The Korean crowd was a cross between a South American soccer crowd and an American high school football crowd, as it responded in unison to the cheerleaders. Much of the Korean crowd had ThunderStix, especially in the outfield, even though you had to buy them for one dollar. The Japanese crowd did not have cheerleaders or ThunderStix, but like Korea, they had drums in the outfield as if it were a soccer match.

- Dimensions. The Korean field, in meters, from left to right was 100, 110, 125, 110, and 100. 100 meters is 328 feet, so this is comparable to a US park, with center field at 410 feet a bit longer than average. The completely symmetrical nature of the park made it feel like a US park of the 1960s-1980s era. We would guess though, that it was built in the late 1980s or early 1990s, but we are not sure. The Japanese field did not have dimensions on the outfield wall.

- First pitch. In Japan, the ceremonial first pitch comes complete with a batter standing in the batter's box.

- Food. Yes, the food is different, but you can get some of the same crap they sell in America. And let's face it, US ballpark food really is crap. We each ate a full meal at the game in Tokyo, something that Nick did not do during his entire 2004 baseball stadium tour, and something that Deanna has probably only done once before, in Seattle, where you can buy sushi at the game.

- Food from outside the stadium. No prohibition exists on bringing in outside food in South Korea. There are numerous fast food restaurants right outside the stadium, but the stadium may still be getting a cut of their take, as they are part of the overall stadium complex.

- Foul balls. At both venues, ushers in the vicinity blow whistles to alert you that a foul ball is headed your way. Japanese fans are fabulously lethargic in chasing foul balls, almost as if it is a dishonor to be the one who gets to the ball first. Ideally, they prefer a foul ball that bounces to them without them having to leave their seat.

- Foul screens. Present around the entire field in Japan--not just the area behind home plate--to protect the crowd from a line drive foul ball.

- Foreign players. The South Korean league allows each team to have two non-Korean players. Japan also limits the number of non-Japanese players per team. The US leagues have no nationality requirements, and certainly every team has far more than two non-Americans, as the best players in the world tend play in the US. In Japan and Korea, the foreign players tend to be US players with a contract dispute, or on the downside of their career, or players who prefer to be a good player in a foreign league instead of a mediocre player in Major League Baseball. Luther Hackman was the starting pitcher for the Samsung Lions at the game we saw. He was a mediocre long reliever and spot starter for St. Louis in 2002, later playing for San Diego. For Samsung, he pitched 6 1/3 innings, giving up two runs on five hits--a good performance. Benny Agbayani batted clean up for the Lotte Marines, the team with the best record in Japan. In the US, we remember him playing for the Mets in 2000 when they knocked off the Cardinals in the National League Championship Series. He was a solid player, but certainly not the clean-up hitter for the best team in the league. Alex Ramirez played left field for one the Japanese teams. His name is familiar, but we can't recall if he played MLB previously.

- Game time. 6 PM or 6:30 PM seems to be the most common start times for night games in both countries, 35 to 70 minutes earlier than in the US.

- Home plate seats. In Seoul, many of the seats behind home had tables, like a picnic area you would find in the outfield of a US ballpark.

- Leagues. The Korean Baseball Organization was founded in 1982 and presently consists of eight teams in one division. Japanese baseball has been around for decades longer and consists of two leagues, the Central and the Pacific, each with six teams.

- Line score. In the US, the game status or result is often summarized by the total number of runs, hits, and errors for each team, a convention dating back to the 19th century. Example:

(We cannot get these two line score examples to align correctly, but hopefully you can figure out what we intend.)

R H E
St. Louis 6 12 0
Cincinnati 1 4 0

In both Korea and Japan, they add an extra number, labeled B, for the number of batters who reach base by walk or hit by a pitch.

R H E B
Samsung 5 8 1 6
LG 2 5 0 2

Nick has thought for a couple years that if you were designing a line score today from scratch to convey the most important information, it would be different from the US standard of runs-hits-errors. Runs would remain first, as it is always most important to know the score. But next you would probably want to know the number of players who reached base safely without making an out (through hit, walk, hit by pitch, error, interference, or strikeout followed by a wild pitch or passed ball), as baserunners are needed before runs can be scored. This piece of information subsumes, and is more important than the number of hits or errors by themselves. The Asian format of RHEB is not this exactly, but it is a reasonable compromise: preserving the traditional RHE line score and adding one additional figure that indicates the number of additional baserunners. We would like to see the US adopt usage of RHEB.

- National anthem. No signing of a patriotic song occurs before the game in Tokyo. We're not sure about Korea as we got the stadium just after the start of the game.

- Playoffs. The 4th place team in Korea plays the 3rd place team in a best of 5 series. The winner of that plays the 2nd place team, also in a best of 5. The winner of that plays the 1st place team in a best of 7 series. Home field advantage in the best of 5 series is 3-2, with the higher seed getting the first three games at home. Home field advantage in the best of 7 varies based on whether the teams are Seoul based or not. (Three of the eight teams in the league are in Seoul). Overall, compared to the US, a higher percentage of teams make the playoffs, but having the best record in the regular season is rewarded to a greater degree in Korea, as the team with the best record gets a double bye. In the US, the best record gets an extra home game in some situations (but no extra game in others and one less home game in one particular circumstance), not much of a reward. In Japan, the winners of the two leagues meet in the Japan Series. In one league, the three best regular season teams advance to the playoffs, presumably with the 2nd and 3rd place teams playing each other and the winner of that playing the 1st place team. We don't know if the other league has the same or a different playoff setup.

- Prerecorded music. The US concept of not playing music once the hitter is in the batter's box does not exist in South Korea, and why should it? After all, this is Asia, where a cacophony of loud noises occurs constantly.

- Relief pitching. Both managers at each game managed lefty/righty matchups as if they were the second coming of Tony LaRussa. One side used five relief pitchers in the last two innings, switching to a left-handed pitcher every time a left-handed batter came to bat, and then switching back to a right-handed pitcher when the next batter was right handed.

- Schedule. Each of the eight Korean teams plays each other 18 times for a total of 126 games. We think Japan plays around 130 games. This is the first year for interleague play in Japan, which has proved popular, especially after a players' strike last season. The strike protested a proposed contraction, which similar to MLB, did not occur. The number of interleague games is significantly more in Japan than the 12-18 in the US, something like 40 games or more.

- Sixth inning stretch. Nothing special happened during the middle of the 7th inning in South Korea, but during the middle of the 6th, the reserve players took to the field to do calisthenics while the grounds crew grated the field for the first time since the game began.

- Surface. The Seoul stadium was grass, while the Tokyo stadium was Astroturf.

- Ties. In South Korea, a regular-season game is declared a tie if there is no victor after 12 innings. Japan also has ties, we presume after 12 innings, but we are not sure.

- Trash pickup. Being obsessed with cleanliness, Japanese ushers come and pick up the accumulated trash to date in the middle of the game.

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June 22, 2005

04:04:33 am South Korea  

South Korea

Country Background:
Population: 49 million
Per capita GDP: $18,000 in purchasing power parity; $12,000 in absolute terms
Size: slightly larger than Indiana
Currency: won, 1000 per US dollar
Language: Korean. Basic English spoken by many people.
Independence: Korea is an ancient society although it has been controlled by other countries at times. China exerted heavy influence in unifying various Korean kingdoms and having Korea as an ally from the seventh century onward. Japan has intervened repeatedly in Korea, most recently in 1592 in an invasion that did not last and then again in the late 19th century. Japan's influence in Korea grew as follows. In 1874, Japan imposed a treaty on Korea, effectively ending its close relationship with China and guaranteeing Japan commercial access to the country. In 1895, after defeating China in a war primarily over the status of Korea, Japan made Korea a protectorate, and in 1910 annexed it as a colony of Japan. After Japan's defeat in World War II, the Soviets provided security in Korea north of the 38th parallel, and the Americans did the same south of the 38th parallel. Attempts at peaceful reunification failed. After the Americans withdrew their security forces in 1949, North Korea attempted to reunify the country by force, invading South Korea in June 1950. The United Nations, led by the Americans, intervened, saving the south from the north, but ultimately fighting to a stalemate once the Chinese entered the war on the side of the north. A truce has held since July 1953. Since then the south has boomed, and the north has stagnated as most closed communist country remaining on earth. Following the example of Germany and Vietnam, it seems almost inevitable that the two Koreas will rejoin, but whether this will happen within a few years or a few decades remains unclear.

Itinerary:
Mongolian Airlines flight from Ulaanbaatar to Seoul
Four nights at Hamilton Hotel, Itaewon area

Seoul
Monday, June 13, 2005 - Friday, June 17, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 85/65
Population: 11 million

Seoul is the capital and largest city in South Korea. The city hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics and co-hosted the 2002 World Cup, along with Tokyo.

Notable Activities:

Panmunjeom & DMZ Tour. Two distinct tours in the same area; each has don't-miss elements. At Panmunjeom, you see the conference room where the cease-fire talks occurred and you can step over into North Korea. The atmosphere is intense--South Korean soldiers stand in a ready posture to repel an attack while North Korean soldiers watch you from their observation tower. On the DMZ tour, you explore the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel, over 200 feet underground, which North Korea built in the 1970s to launch an invasion of the south.

War Memorial of Korea. Spend a half day at this excellent museum that chronicles Korea's military history. Naturally, the bulk of the museum is devoted to the Korean War.

Baseball at Jamsil Sports Complex. The Korean Baseball Organization is an 8-team professional league founded in 1982. Three of the eight teams are Seoul based, so there is a game in town most nights. We saw the Samsung Lions beat the LG Twins 5-2, scoring one in the 8th to tie the game and three in the 9th to win. See separate post on Asian baseball.

Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. We had wanted to see this movie since its May 19 premiere, but we were in China then, and China is the only country we have been in so far which dubs English movies in their own language. All of the other countries have kept the English audio but added subtitles in their own language. Star Wars had not opened yet in Mongolia, so we had to wait until Korea to see it. We could have purchased an English-language DVD of the film for about $1 in Beijing, as it was commonly available on the street in easy view of the police. China is addressing its piracy issue, but at a much more leisurely pace than it leads US politicians and business leaders to believe.

Kyobo Book Centre. The best English language book selection of any bookstore we have yet encountered in a non-English-speaking country on this trip (this comment made before visiting Japan and Europe, where an even-better selection may be available).

Changdeokgung Palace. Seoul's city tour is mediocre and consists of a succession of similar looking palaces. This palace is the best one in Seoul, says Deanna, although it does not equal the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Commentary:

We were not sure at first if we wanted to go to South Korea. Nick had been there before in 1990, and since his shopping gene has been excised since then, he was not sure if he wanted to return. His impression was that South Korea offered great bargain shopping but its culture was less interesting than Japan, China, and other places. Ultimately, Deanna decided we should go, if for no other reason than she had several Korean-American friends and so she wanted to see the country for herself.

We are both glad we went. Seoul has become more modern and mature than it was 15 years ago, and was a nice place to spend four days after five weeks in less developed China and Mongolia. Seoul really is moving toward becoming a world-class city where people from any country could live. Just as South Korea is overlooked because of its larger neighbors Japan and China, Seoul is overshadowed as a city by larger and more advanced Tokyo to the east and faster changing Beijing and Shanghai to the west.

Consider this. South Koreas per-capita GDP is now only about 20% below that of New Zealand. The UN places Seoul as the 20th largest metropolitan area in the world. It has hosted the Olympics and co-hosted the World Cup. It has 11 subway lines. People learn English in school and can speak it to you on the street (of course, not perfectly, but you can get by if you are patient).

A significant lingering American presence remains from the Korean War, and we stayed right in the middle of it--Itaewon, which in the spirit of Chinatown as a place name, ought to be called Americatown, but is not. Over 30,000 US troops remain in South Korea, many of them at a base in Itaewon. Tourists looking for a native Korean experience stay far away from Itaewon, but for us it was nice to be in somewhat familiar surroundings after the past five weeks.

Considering how poor the country was 50 years ago after experiencing in succession 35 years as a Japanese colony, World War II, and the Korean War, it is remarkable to see how far they have come. South Korea is one of Asia's numerous economic miracles. It was christened in the late 80s as one of the four tigers--the others being Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan--four Asian countries following in Japan's footsteps with tremendous economic growth. Today, and for some time, the tigers are on the threshold of no longer being considered developing countries. Statistically, you cannot really label Hong Kong, Singapore, or Taiwan as developing any more. They have developed, with per-capita incomes on par with places like Spain, Italy, and Australia. South Korea is not far behind.

One day Korea will unify. That occasion, as in Germany, is likely to be marked with unlimited joy and optimism, followed by a difficult decade or two of integration. In ballpark terms, the countries are similar sized, Germany at around 80 million people and Korea around 70 million if you add the north and the south together. South Korea is not as wealthy as West Germany was, and North Korea is much poorer than East Germany was. On the other hand, South Korea does not have the extensive and expensive social programs that West Germany replicated in the east when unification occurred. So it is unclear to us if Korea's unification will be more difficult or less difficult than Germany's--you could make the case either way. What is clear, though, is that unification will be difficult.

The optimism surrounding unification when it occurs may be correct in the short term and probably also the long term, but there will be a tough period of 10 or 20 years in between. The wealth disparity between the two countries, the written language differences (South Korea still uses Chinese characters, North Korea does not), and the different methods of government, laws, social programs, lifestyles, and customs after 60 years and counting of separation will be difficult to bridge. As one example, North Korea will provide a source of low-cost labor for South Korea, allowing it as a unified country to remain competitive in manufacturing for longer than South Korea by itself otherwise would. This, however, will drain manufacturing jobs away from the south (to the north) faster than would have occurred without reunification. So what's good for the combined country, or even South Korea as a whole, may be bad for segments of South Korean society. Nevertheless, that's the case with any form of change, even positive change.

Once unification appears likely, it will probably be touted as an investment theme. We think this may be correct measured over many decades, but is uncertain to provide excess returns in the first decade. In fact, if anything, unification may lead to Korea underperforming as an investment for a decade or so as it works through the many challenges of uniting.

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