July 29, 2005

02:13:09 pm Dubai, United Arab Emirates  

Thursday, July 21, 2005 - Monday, July 25, 2005

The United Arab Emirates are just that--seven emirates (i.e., city-states ruled by a sheikh) on the Arabian Peninsula that united in 1971 to form a country when the UK pulled out of the Middle East. Dubai is the best-known emirate, due to its hugely ambitious development plans to become the top destination in the world in an economic race against time before its oil runs out. The capital of the UAE is the emirate/city of Abu Dhabi. The other five UAE emirates are not well known--Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Umm al-Qaiwain, and Ras al-Khaimah. Two other emirates that contemplated joining the UAE, but instead formed their own countries are Bahrain and Qatar.

Country Background

Population: 2.5 million

Per capita GDP: $23,200 in purchasing power parity; absolute figure not available.

Size: slightly smaller than Maine

Currency: Emirian dirham, fixed at 3.67 per US dollar

Language: Arabic (official); English is widely spoken; other languages are common due to high numbers of foreign workers.

Emirians are a minority in their own country. Less than one-fifth of the population are citizens of the UAE, with most skilled and non-skilled work performed by foreign workers. The country is a melting pot of people from the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. However, with the melting pot concept not extending easily to citizenship, the workforce may be transitory--here for a few months or years and then back home.

Independence: 1971 from the United Kingdom

Trip Itinerary:
July 21: Cathay Pacific flight from Mumbai, India to Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Four nights at the Radisson SAS Resort, Sharjah
One overlapping night at the Burj al-Arab, Dubai

Our lodging takes some explaining. The Burj al-Arab bills itself as the most expensive hotel in the world. A discounted standard room starts around $850 per night. For this you get a two-floor suite (see image gallery) with a private butler and a seeming unlimited array of amenities. For everything you get, it is actually a better value than most resort hotels worldwide, which only provide a fraction of the offerings, but still cost $300 - $600 per night.

After much debate, we decided that a proper trip around the world should include such a stop. We stayed one night at the Burj al-Arab, and then slummed it back to our mid-range accommodation in the neighboring emirate of Sharjah.

Notable Activities:

Desert Safari: This consists of an occasionally heart-stopping 4-wheel drive through the desert, careening over sand dunes, followed by a camel ride, dinner, and belly dancing. Recommended.

Wild Wadi Water Park. A water park for couch potatoes. Rather unique in that their water jets propel your inner tube uphill on the water slides so you don't have to climb up stairs. Overall, though, with one exception, the slides are tamer than most parks. Wild Wadi is next to Burj al-Arab and its four other sister properties.

Burj Dubai Presentation Center. We saw an ad in the newspaper for the presentation center of the world's tallest building. Not knowing what to expect, we went to it and viewed a model of a two-bedroom condo. The building is slated to be mostly condos, with a hotel on the lower floors, but no office space. A one-bedroom condo starts at $550,000, a two-bedroom unit begins at just under $1 million, and a three-bedroom unit starts at just over $1.2 million. These are the base prices, the actual amount you could spend may be much higher. Overall, these are reasonable prices for large city condos, which is why Dubai is a popular second-home location, especially for people from expensive Europe.

Dubai Museum. Located in an old fort in the old part of the city.

Shopping is another prime attraction in Dubai--we did a limited amount of this.

City Background:

Dubai

Temperature high/low during our stay: 110/90. Yes, that's right, the overnight low is 90. But it's a dry heat! Temperatures are hottest in June, July, and August, and most comfortable in the winter months. It's like Phoenix.

Population 826,000 in 2000. Today the population is probably around 1 million.

Commentary:

The discovery of oil is a mixed blessing for a country. Oil wealth promises great things, but too many countries become addicted to this economic narcotic, enjoying booms, and suffering busts. Oil makes things too easy for unambitious countries who are content to let the good times roll, oblivious that the good times may also run out. Countries are probably no different from human beings who fall into a huge financial windfall. Some become overreliant on their newfound gain, ceasing all other forms of productive activity, and ultimately squandering their bounty in a shortsighted manner. Others are more balanced and never become addicted to wealth, and even use it to achieve a desirable outcome that otherwise would not be possible. The United Arab Emirates is a country that would seem at first to be of the former type. Oil is the primary thing it has going for it. (In fairness, it also has a decent location for trade.) But Dubai is trying to become the latter case. It knows its oil will run out some day, perhaps only 10-15 years from now. And it is trying to make something sustainable of itself before it does.

Dubai's goal is to be the top destination in the world. That goal is not qualified. It is not satisfied to be the top destination in the Middle East, or the top destination in the world for tourism, or the top destination for Muslims. It wants to be the top destination for everything for everyone. It's a long way off from that of course, but it has a lot in the works.

Dubai is a city of imagination, much like Las Vegas, but striving to make Las Vegas look unambitious, if that is possible. There's no gambling here, but already you will find a long list of world firsts and bests, many of which are presently under construction. Notable attractions are:

- Burj al-Arab, the self-proclaimed world's most expensive hotel and an iconic building to rival Sydney's Opera House.
- Burj Dubai, to be the world's tallest building upon completion in 2008. Its exact height is a secret but some estimates have it topping the present champion by 600 to 700 feet, a magnitude unprecedented in that new world's tallest buildings tend to surpass their predecessors by less than 100 feet.
- Dubai Mall. A shopping mall next to Burj Dubai. Naturally, it will be the largest in the world when it opens in 2008. Sorry Mall of America!
- Emirates Mall. Opening in September 2005, this underachieving mall will be only the third largest in the world. However, it makes up for this by having an indoor ski resort in the desert.
- The Palms. A high-end condo and housing development built on man-made islands in the ocean, with the entire development looking like a giant palm tree when viewed from above. Hype being all the rage these days in Dubai, the Palms has the audacious marketing claim that it can be seen from the moon, a point that everyone and every publication repeats as fact. Probably someone thought that if the Great Wall of China can be seen from the moon, then certainty the Palms should be observable. The problem is that--despite the urban legend--the Great Wall of China is not viewable from the moon, and we doubt the Palms are either. Nonetheless, it is an impressive design.
- The World. One-upping the Palms, the World is a collection of 300 man-made islands in the shape of the continents of the world.

There are many other developments in progress such as a hotel that's completely underwater, Dubailand, a Disneyland imitation, and many others. For every project that's complete, one or two more are in progress it seems.

For Americans, a long ways away from Dubai, and thus knowing little about it, this may all seem a bit unbelievable. But Dubai is already a significant tourist destination for Europeans. You can't watch a European sports event without seeing the ubiquitous "Fly Emirates" slogan for the national airline plastered throughout the stadium and on player jerseys.

It is an odd place. Definitely Muslim, but tolerant of all cultures, you see bikini-clad Europeans next to Arabian women clad from head to toe with only their eyes revealed in a full-length black burqa. In 110-degree heat. At the water park. An adventuresome burqa-clad female may hop onto one of the inner tubes--still wearing her burqa, of course.

For those inclined to work, the country features no corporate income tax for 15 years for companies locating here and no personal income tax for employees of those companies. The UAE is the only country we have flown into (other than inter-EU travel) where as a US citizen you do not need to fill out any paperwork. It is trying hard to get you here and keep you here.

Without doing any research, though, we have an impression that citizenship is hard to obtain. Assuming we are correct and this is by design, we wonder if this may be a shortsighted mistake in this otherwise visionary country. A mercenary workforce can pack up and leave rather easily if the going gets tougher, as may well happen. The government may want that, so that it does not have to stretch its social safety net in tough times. But this may also preclude building a heterogeneous multicultural country (as opposed to just a multicultural workforce), whose diversity is a source of strength. The government may not want that either, but we somehow think its future would be more secure, not less, if it maximized the incentive for people to feel connected to the place.

Dubai will be an interesting place to watch. The city they are building should be spectacular. What happens to it whenever the oil money runs out could be spectacular too. Will they win the race against time and create enough non-oil related critical mass to survive in a post oil-wealth era? Or is what they are creating uneconomic, not able to be maintained in the absence of oil money?

Jim Rogers wrote how cities like Las Vegas and Dubai built out of the desert from temporary wealth over a few decades can easily be reclaimed by the desert. Will our ancestors visit the Dubai ruins in few centuries and marvel at the abandoned Burj Dubai and wonder who had the audacity to build the world's tallest structure in a desert? Will they look at the crumbling marble facade of the Burj al-Arab jutting up through sand and water and try to imagine that it once looked like the sail on a ship, and was seen as one of the most iconic buildings of the 21st Century. Visiting the ruins of numerous great cities all over the world, we know this is a possibility. Other great cities have lasted for century after century, however, as they have rebuilt and reinvented themselves. Dubai's fate is not pre-ordained; it will be determined by whether its leaders have the same level of willpower in bad times as they now have during good times.

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July 20, 2005

08:23:49 am The Philippines--What are the Structural Problems?  

Before we head off to the Middle East and Europe, we have one final post on the Philippines. We have read numerous magazine and newspaper articles over the past 15 years that began something like this:

In [insert any year in the 20th Century up to the early 1960s], the Philippines [and Burma] was [were] viewed as one [two] of the most promising economies in Asia. Since then, the [these] country [countries] has [have] been an economic disappointment, never realizing its [their] potential, where countries once seen as less promising, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, have zoomed past the Philippines [and Burma] economically.

Future versions of similar articles will be able to add China to the list of countries that has passed the Philippines, and we wonder if others such as Vietnam will also see the Philippines in their rear view mirror some day. (China's per-capita GDP was half or less of the Philippines 15 years ago; now they are equal, with China on a much faster trajectory. Vietnam's per-capita GDP, however, is less than half the level in the Philippines today.)

The question that interests us is why? Burma, now Myanmar, is rather easily explained. A coup overthrew the democratically elected government in 1962, and various repressive military governments have held power since. These governments have pursued an isolationist, socialist economic policy that have put the country more on par economically with countries in Africa rather than Southeast Asia. It's not the military per se that is the problem for Myanmar, but rather their economic policies. In fact, military or at least non-democratic governments were a feature of most of Southeast Asia's fast-growing economies during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (for this reason, the Philippines economic stagnation cannot be explained by pointing to a lack of democracy for 14 years under Marcos).

The Philippines, on the other hand, appears to have many things going for it--a large domestic market in terms of population, democracy, and English-language skills--but it can't seem to ever get going. The articles we have read have never really satisfied us in terms of providing a comprehensive answer. So here we offer our take, from having lived in the country, thought about this for 15 years, and visited recently. In fairness, the Philippines have made tremendous progress in the past 15 years as we documented in our other posts on the country. Visually Nick observed more change in the Philippines than any other country in Asia he visited 15 years before (although it must be pointed out that he did not visit China post-Tiananmen in 1990). Nevertheless, statistically, while the Philippines made absolute progress, relative to other Asian countries it gained no ground, and perhaps fell further back.

Such an analysis could fill a book, which is not our intention here. Thus, with limited patience and without apology, we offer a few reasons that record our view on the structural issues in the Philippines.

Population growth. As discussed in our Country Background post, the Philippines are hurt by too high population growth of 2.0%-2.5%.

Roman Catholic Church. The church, a legacy of nearly 400 years of Spanish influence, pervades many aspects of Philippine society. While the church undoubtedly is beneficial in many areas, it is harmful in our opinion in at least three ways. First, it is far too heavily involved in politics, often making or breaking presidents. While this was useful in overthrowing Marcos, in general we think the country would be better off if church leaders curbed their desire to play kingmaker. Second, the church has a backwards view on population control, opposing all forms of unnatural birth control. This unrealistic policy keeps the people poor and the pews full. Finally, we think the church furthers a Filipino belief in fatalism--that the outcome of events is predetermined, and not the result of human action. Too often, we have observed Filipinos being swept along with the tide of events, thinking they cannot or even should not change the tide. Now this comment is subject to an immediate objection--wait a minute, haven't People Power revolutions twice thrown out corrupt presidents? Yes, they have (with significant church intervention, we would add), but we are not sure this invalidates the point; after all, all rules have exception. Further, we would argue the last thing the country needs now is another demonstration of People Power. Useful once and maybe twice, it is a bad precedent if it is used again this century.

Spanish Colonial Rule. In our final post on South America, we observed that every Spanish colony has a history of political instability. We don't think the Spanish were particular good colonialists, compared to the British. Whatever the reasons--pervasive influence of the church, a poor colonial attitude or model that emphasized wealth extraction rather than nation building--the results observable today are striking.

Lack of Leadership. Without noting the pros and cons of the various Filipino presidents, let's just agree that if the US has the good luck of having a series of good role models at the top at the beginning of our history to set a precedent for their successors to follow, the Philippines has not had the same good fortune. Too often Philippine presidents have had poor judgment, been corrupt, been incompetent, or not been willing to take tough action to do the right thing for the country. (President Aquino, who followed Marcos, is an example of the latter. She had impeccable moral leadership--coming to power in a revolution that overthrew her husband's murderer--but she was too weak, and perhaps over her head. The current president, Arroyo, is competent and may be tough enough, but severe judgment issues have undermined her.) This may be simply statistical variation, or the root cause may be endemic, and perhaps revealed in some of the other entries here. Whatever the reason, the Philippines need a series of strong leaders who can fix the problems and set the example for their successors.

Too Little Respect for the Rule of Law. We see two issues here. First, there is the typical high level of corruption and inconsistent application of the law. Second, perhaps in response to the Marcos dictatorship where press and political freedom were suppressed, there is too quick a tendency toward mob rule. We observed exactly the same thing in Argentina, which similarly suffered through and overcame a dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. The press and politicians, if anything, are too free. They will say or print anything, no matter how unreasonable or reckless. There is a standing group of leftists, students, and farmers ready to protest over anything. Price of gas up five cents? Let's march on the capital and call for the president's resignation! Personal restraint is in short quantity and much needed. Too often, the political scene resembles the machinations of college student government, with people acting emotionally and immediately with no foresight and no regard for precedent. For example, when the last president, Estrada, was being (necessarily) impeached, senators loyal to him would not allow evidence in the impeachment trial, so the rest of the senate walked out, leaving the government in stalemate. Eventually, the public took to the streets, and the president rather than resigning, took a "leave of absence." Finally, the vice president was then sworn in, an action uncertain enough that the Supreme Court had to step in to uphold the transfer of power. Even today, some supporters of Estrada are trying to restore him to power. Now, this is not the way to run a country. The people are not blameless either, for they elected the buffoon in the first place (the best equivalent we can come up with as to Estrada's qualifications would be to say he is on par with Ozzy Osbourne.)

Military. Like the Roman Catholic Church, far too involved in politics. Coup talk is recurring theme.

Taxes. Anyone who knows us well will be stunned by this statement. The Philippines has a problem that it taxes too little. There is simply not enough government revenue. We don't have the exact numbers at hand, but Philippine government revenue is something like 12% of GDP, compared to around 20% for the US, and higher for most other countries. We don't advocate that the Philippines try to get to 20% or higher, but it should strive for the mid- to high teens. The problem is two-part. First, tax evasion is rampant. Second, though, even if tax collections were at a reasonable level, the current tax rates are too low. President Arroyo has taken the tough, necessary step of raising the VAT rate from 10% to 12% and extending it to previously excluded products. The Supreme Court is presently deciding if this change is legal. It needs to be, for the country's credit rating hangs in the balance.

Wealth concentration / land reform. We don't have the exact solution here because we aren't in a position to diagnose this problem completely. Our observation is that, probably dating back to colonial days, there is too much land ownership and subsequent wealth generation ability concentrated in too few hands. We are not sure whether trust busting, land reform, inheritance taxes, or something else are the right prescription--we need to understand better how much of a problem this is today, if at all.

Public infrastructure. See taxes entry. The government needs to spend more on roads, ports, subways, etc. They don't have the money.

Education. The educational system has not kept up with competing countries. 10 years primary education is two years too few. 15 and 16 year-old high school graduates are not ready to face the world. Cost is an issue. See taxes entry.

Barriers to foreign investment. Without being able to point to specifics, Nick's view in 1990 was that there was not as much foreign investment as there ought to be, perhaps due to foreign exchange controls, excessive regulation, or other market barriers. To the eye, this seems less of an issue today, possibly due to reforms under President Ramos in the mid-1990s. While there is usually more that could be done, we don't have a sense of whether barriers to foreign investment remain an issue today or not.

There is talk now in the Philippines of replacing its presidential system with a parliamentary form of government, given the problems the country has had with its presidents. Initially this struck us as wasting time by not addressing any of the core structural problems. It's always more interesting to fritter away effort on a feel-good project of designing something new rather than fixing known deficiencies in your present system. It could be argued, though, that this addressing a structural issue, given the checkered record of Filipino presidents. Whatever system the country has going forward, it needs a tough, incorruptible leader, who offers no feel-good promises, only straight talk and hard work, putting the country ahead of all personal interests. A Filipino Lee Kuan Yew if you will. Someone whose conviction and willpower does not waver in the face of inevitable obstacles or a negative opinion poll.

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04:04:20 am India: Sunday, July 10, 2005 - Thursday, July 21, 2005  

India: Sunday, July 10, 2005 - Thursday, July 21, 2005

Country Background

Population: 1.065 billion.

Per capita GDP: $2,900 in purchasing power parity; $530 in absolute terms. This absolute figure is one of the lowest of any country we will visit this year. Mongolia is lower at $480, but to the eye, poverty levels in India seem far higher.

India's population is second in the world to China's, but it is projected to overtake China in two to three decades. While India's rate of population growth is not that much higher than the US, it would likely benefit from a slower rate. For one thing, it's pretty crowded already (more than 10 times the population density of the US); for another, its economy is growing quite fast without any population growth kicker. Living standards would probably rise more quickly if the population grew more slowly. But Indians love the fact they are going to be number one at something, especially when it means passing up China. Indians tend to be embarrassed that China, a communist country that once lagged behind them economically, has zoomed ahead of them in terms of prosperity and economic accomplishment over the past decade. (China's per-capita GDP figures are $5,000 PPP, $1,100 absolute--roughly double that of India.) India's real GDP growth is around 7%, a fast rate of growth that allows their economy to double every ten years. Nearly every country would be happy with this kind of growth, but India is frustrated because China is growing at an even faster 10%, allowing China to double every seven years.

India's complex relative to China is quite amusing to observe. All of our guides have talked repeatedly about China and the newspapers in India are full of stories comparing the two countries. The comparisons are dubious at times. One article we saw, trumpeted in the headline how India now has more kilometers of paved roads than China. Anyone who has traveled in both countries would find this absurd--China's highway infrastructure is far better than India's. It is like the US road network in the 1950s (China, rapidly building an interstate system) versus the US road network in the 1920s (India). Buried well below the lead paragraph come the details that total counts all roads, including the ridiculously crowded two-lane roads that comprise over 90% of India's paved kilometers. The article acknowledged that in terms of expressways, China possesses 15 times the kilometers of India, and in terms of annual spending, China tops India 10-fold.

This complex is one way. The Chinese tend to compare themselves to developed countries, such as the US, the EU countries, and Japan.

China's overtaking India is due to their earlier conversion to capitalism. This is further support for our contention that capitalism is more important than democracy in raising living standards (India became a democracy in 1947, before China even turned communist). China began liberalizing its economy in 1978 while India remained largely a command economy shut off to foreign investment until 1991. For example, you could not buy a Coke in democratic India prior to this, something you probably could do in some communist countries at that time.

Size: slightly more than one-third the size of the US

Currency: rupee, 43 per US dollar

Language: Hindi, English, and 14 other official languages. 24 languages spoken by a million or more persons each. Hindi is the national language and the native language for 30% of the people; English is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, and serves as the unifying language of the country.

Independence: 1947 from the United Kingdom

Trip Itinerary:
July 9: Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Delhi, arriving 2AM July 10
Three nights (including July 9) at the Oberoi Hotel
July 12: Train to Agra, 2.5 hours
Two nights at the Taj View Hotel
July 14: Car from Agra to Jaipur, 5.5 hours
Two nights at Taj Jai Mahal Palace
July 16: Indian Airlines flight from Jaipur to Aurangabad via Mumbai
Two nights at Taj Residency
July 18: Jet Airways flight to Goa via Mumbai
Three nights at Fort Aguada Beach Resort
July 21: Indian Airlines flight from Goa to Mumbai to fly out of the country

Notable Activities:

Unlike most other places we have visited, all of the places we visited in India are old, well documented in guide books, and have one or more pictures in the image gallery. So rather than go into detail here, we refer you to the image gallery for pictures of the Humayun's Mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, Ajanta and Ellora Caves, and so on.

City Background:

Delhi

Sunday, July 10, 2005 - Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 100/80
Population: the metropolitan area was 12.4 million and growing as of 2000, according to the UN. At that time, the UN said it was the ninth largest metro area in the world. Lonely Planet puts the population at 13.8 million.

Delhi as a city has existed for centuries. In 1911, Britain announced it was moving the seat of government from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to New Delhi, where it would build a new capital. New Delhi is built in the modern capital style with wide boulevards and open spaces, in contrast to the crowded conditions of old Delhi. Technically, Delhi and New Delhi are two separate, but adjacent, cities. In practice, though, most people just use the name Delhi to refer to the entire area. If someone is referencing the older section, he or she will usually say "Old Delhi."

Agra

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - Thursday, July 14, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 85/75. It rained most of the time we were in Agra, which we welcomed after the 100-degree heat of Delhi.
Population: 1.1 million according to Lonely Planet

Agra is best known for the Taj Mahal, which has a legitimate claim to be the most beautiful building in the world. The Agra Fort is also worth seeing, and Fatehpur Sikri, about a 75-minute drive away, is spectacular. All are in the image gallery. Fatehpur Sikri was the capital of India for only 14 years, from 1571-1585, which makes its architectural splendor all the more impressive.

Jaipur

Thursday, July 14, 2005 - Saturday, July 16, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 90/75
Population: 1.86 million according to Lonely Planet

Our drive from Agra to Jaipur was eventful. When Sunil Gupta, our driver, quipped, "The roads in India are like a zoo!" he meant that literally not figuratively. As we sat in the back seat, he dodged sheep, people, bikes, peacocks, camels, ox, cows, buses, dogs, goods carriers, auto rickshaws, manual rickshaws, and other cars. The journey was about 150 miles, so being India it took six hours. It is monsoon season, so flooding is rampant, and at one point, the road was submerged under water. Then we stopped to change a flat tire--that is, we watched our driver change the tire.

Jaipur has numerous, centuries-old buildings that you can see in the image gallery.

Mumbai (formerly Bombay)

Just passing through: Saturday, July 16, 2005, Tuesday, July 18, 2005 and Thursday, July 21, 2005
Population: The UN's figure is 16.1 million for the metropolitan area as of 2000, making it the fifth biggest in the UN's world rankings. They project it will be 22.6 million by 2015, second only to Tokyo.

Mumbai is the largest Indian urban area. Nick spent a few days here in 2003 on a business trip, and considers it the most impoverished city he has ever seen. Homeless people and beggars were everywhere--even by Indian standards, it was depressing. So we skipped it this trip. Nevertheless, its size demands you can't avoid it completely--our flights to Aurangabad and Goa pass through Mumbai and our flight out of the country departs from Mumbai. Going to Aurangabad, we had a six-hour layover, so we took a quick city tour of Mumbai. Actually, the omnipresent signs of poverty seemed less visible to Nick this trip. Or maybe we were just desensitized to it. Whatever the explanation, it was encouraging to see some progress in Mumbai.

Aurangabad

Saturday, July 16, 2005 - Monday, July 18, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 90/75
Population: 682,000 according to Lonely Planet

Aurangabad is a base from which to visit the Ellora and Ajanta Caves, sites with cave paintings and rock-cut shrines that date from around 200 BC to the 9th century AD. We had not heard of the caves until they were recommended to us by Michael and Denise Moys of South Africa, who sat next to us on the train from Machu Picchu to Cusco, in Peru. Their impassioned recommendation spurred us to make Aurangabad part of our Indian itinerary. We spent a day visiting these sites. To visualize just one part of the Ellora site, think of a single block of stone about the size of a football field, and 100 feet high. Then imagine over 150 years, carving intricate temples, rooms, and sculptures from this single block of stone, using only a hammer and chisel. No stones or carvings from off site were brought in; everything you see in one of the pictures in the image gallery is from one stone block. Part of Ellora is billed as the largest single-stone monolith in the world. On this trip, we have learned that most claims to be the world's biggest or tallest are erroneous, either deliberately or in ignorance, so we can't validate the Ellora claim. Mt. Rushmore may be bigger, for example, we don't know. Nevertheless, Ellora and Ajanta are impressive, especially when you consider the primitive methods available for construction.

Goa

Monday, July 18, 2005 - Thursday, July 21, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 90/75. Being monsoon season, it rained frequently. This was not all bad, however, because off-season tourist crowds are correspondingly lower, without being so low as to make the place seem dead.
Population: 1.3 million according to Lonely Planet

The state of Goa is a former Portuguese colony on the western central coast of India. Goa returned to Indian control in 1961, 14 years after Indian independence from Britain. Goa is quite different from the rest of the country, making it a very pleasant way to end a stay in India. Located on India's west coast, Goa has beautiful beaches along the Arabian Sea. Moviegoers may recall that the opening beach scenes in last summer's The Bourne Supremacy were shot here. With palm trees, beaches, less crowdedness and less poverty than the rest of India and with a southern European colonial history, Goa strikes American visitors as a cross between India and a Caribbean island.

India: An All-Out Sensory Assault

India is a land of contrasts. As Spock would say, it's "fascinating." That is true in every sense of the word--both good and bad. The poverty is extreme--overwhelming at times. The country can be disgusting. Basic sanitation is often lacking. It's crowded, dirty, and smelly, more often than not. Beggars and touts swarm on you like flies. The sights are outstanding, but often marred by the people surrounding them. Just when you can't take anymore, though, it's time to go back to your hotel. There you can cocoon yourself in an oasis that shelters you from everything bad. Your sanity returns and by morning you are ready to face another day in India. How backpackers--unable to afford the rejuvenating benefits of a luxury hotel--ever make it through India astounds us. We wouldn't want to try.

Throughout our visit, a punch line from the Seinfeld episode "The Betrayal" kept running through our mind like a tune you can't get out of your head. This is the episode broadcast in reverse order, with the story told from end to beginning. In it, the cast travels to India for the wedding of Sue Ellen Mischkes to Pinter. Pinter's parents, immigrants from India now relocated in New York City, advise Elaine repeatedly not to travel to India. Just buy a gift instead, they tell her. We're not even going back for the wedding, they add, because "India is a dreadful place."

The enjoyable part of visiting India comes after you leave. Once away, you can look at your pictures of impressive sites, astound your friends who have not been there with stories about what it's like, and commiserate with your friends who have been there about what it's like. Being there is not something really to be enjoyed, but rather endured. There are other places on Earth that have the poverty and overcrowdedness present in India. But there is no place on Earth that has India's bad qualities, while simultaneously offering so many interesting historical sites, such good food, numerous luxury hotels, and an extremely promising, dynamic business environment. These contrasts are what make India so fascinating.

The best example of the country's contrasts we can think of is in Bangalore. We did not go there on this trip, but Nick had visited there in 2003 on a business trip. The hotel there, the Oberoi, may provide the best hotel experience Nick has had anywhere in the world. The two information technology giants, Infosys and Wipro, are headquartered there, and they are transforming the city into the Silicon Valley of India. Their corporate campuses, especially that of Infosys, are as advanced as any in the world, more impressive than Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, in the opinion of Steve Mack, who accompanied Nick. Yet just outside of the Infosys compound, you return to India. A two-lane road where nine different forms of transportation compete to creep along at a few miles per hour. It's a noisy, dirty, smelly, and sweaty journey of chaos back to the Oberoi. Once there, you are again sequestered from everything bad in India, and your sanity returns.

The roads infrastructure seems on par with the US in the 1920s, while at the same time the country is becoming a global technology leader. The technology companies have video conferencing and meeting facilities that rival the UN in terms of the ability to link up dozens of people from all over the globe simultaneously. These companies also, though, have their own power generation capabilities because the electrical grid is too unstable. Welcome to India. It is a dreadful place, but a fascinating one!

English Usage in an Indian Context

Native English speakers will be reassured by the widespread usage of English in India. But be advised that many phrases have a different meaning on the subcontinent. Below are common situations that travelers will encounter.

Indian speaker: As you prefer.
Translation: I will do as I prefer and you will be none the wiser.

Indian speaker: No problem.
Translation: I have no idea of what you are talking about and I want to change the subject.

Indian speaker: Do you have any questions?
Translation: Please provide me with the opportunity to speak for five to ten minutes on a topic of my choosing, unrelated to your question. During my monologue, I will be oblivious to any non-verbal clues that you have no interest in what I am saying.

Indian speaker: May I help you sir?
Translation: I am going to annoy you with unnecessary questions and I am going to try to perform unnecessary tasks for you. For this, I will expect a tip.

Indian speaker: Hello sir!
Translation: I offer worthless crap for sale.

Indian speaker: Excuse me, sir.
Translation: The merchandise that I sell is of a lower quality than the "Hello sir" man. Because of this, I will be much more persistent.

Indian speaker: Is there anything more I can do for you?
Translation: I sense you wish me to leave. For a gratuity, this is possible.

A task not possible in India is to order a meal without the waiter suggesting you try something different than what you order. Here is a simple example:

Deanna: We would like two orders of plain naan, no butter.
Waiter: One order is enough for both of you I think.
Deanna: No, we want two orders.
Waiter: Of course. You want to try garlic naan.
Deanna: No, plain naan.
Waiter: Garlic naan goes well with your main course.
Nick: We want plain naan.
Waiter: No problem. Plain buttered naan.
Nick: No butter. Two orders of plain naan, no butter.
Waiter: As you prefer. You want to try garlic naan also?

Chronic Overhelping Syndrome

With so many people, every business in India is overstaffed. Companies have large numbers of people, affectionately called office peons, whose main purpose is to fetch tea. Hotels and restaurants have far more people than they really need. All of these people must do something, of course, to demonstrate their value, so extra tasks are invented to justify their position. When boarding an airplane, one person checks your boarding pass to ensure it was stamped during your security screening, and another person five feet beyond the first, checks your boarding pass to ensure it is for the correct flight. Certainly one person could do both, but that would mean one less job. Actually, the security stamp process creates two extra jobs: one at security to stamp your boarding pass and another at the gate to verify that you have the stamp. Despite all this, your bag will be searched a second time just before you board the airplane. While this provides some degree of added security, more importantly, it employs five extra people.

Our friend Steve Mack was so amused by the ridiculous bureaucracy of India during his first visit in 1990 that he had a stamp custom made while he was there. Whenever someone would stamp a document of his, Steve would whip out his stamp and immediately add his seal, which read "Official Important Stamp" next to the bureaucrat's mark. No one ever questioned why he was stamping his own paperwork. Instead, he received approving looks from the bureaucrats, impressed that he took paperwork seriously enough to carry his own official seal.

India is full of make work, and of course all of these extra workers don't speed things up, they slow everything down. This is in contrast to China, where extra staff seems actually to increase efficiency at times. If you check out of a hotel in China, for example, you can be sure that no less than three people will be involved in settling paperwork and payment, but no extra time, and perhaps less, is required. We came to call this Chinese triple processing--and we admired how the Chinese seemed to have an innate Borg-like sense of the exact microtask that each co-worker would process. Indians do not work together like this. Each person does one discrete, most likely unnecessary thing, and then hands it off to the next, who performs his or her unnecessary task. Meanwhile, you wait.

In service situations, all of the extra people who presumably exist for providing you with extra service, actually serve to degrade the service experience. Spend a night in your hotel room and you will be interrupted three to six times by phone or in person by various people from the hotel and from the local rep of your travel agent checking to see if there is anything you need. Of course, what you need most is just for everyone to go away. Even in your luxury cocoon to insulate you from India, you never completely can get away. In fairness, some companies seem to recognize that overhelping is an irritant not a help, and their staff are trained to be helpful but not be intrusive. More often though, you have to shoo away the staff just as you have to shoo away touts at tourist sites.

The level of overhelping is absurd at times. During the day we traveled from Jaipur to Aurangabad, we had no less than eight handlers from the local travel company assisting us with various parts of our journey. Behind the scenes, there were numerous others, constantly ringing the cell phones of our guide and driver to check up on them, to ensure that everything was okay, and to offer suggestions. When flying from Aurangabad to Goa, a mere five people assisted us--we felt a little abandoned--including one person to meet us at the airport in Mumbai and walk us fifty feet to the transfer area. There is no doubt we would have been unable to figure this out by ourselves during our two-hour layover.

The worst at Chronic Overhelping Syndrome are the Indian men, who are forever trying to demonstrate usefulness. Indian women seem to have retained some degree of the superior listening and empathy skills that females worldwide possess. So we began to seek out women wherever we could and avoid the men. We tired quickly of the ritual arguments with male waiters over what we should eat, or of convincing male porters that we were actually were capable of transporting our wheeled luggage without assistance.

You Got a Long Way to Go, Baby!

Travel allows you not only to learn about other countries and cultures, but also to learn about your own. Only once you spend time outside of your country do you experience that many things you assumed are normal, are if fact peculiar to your country. Elsewhere things may be quite different from what you have known and assumed. Further, sometimes you may inherently know of a difference, but you have never experienced the difference. It is one thing to know something is true, but often it is quite another to actually feel the difference firsthand and to appreciate the magnitude of the difference.

Relative equality between men and women is one example of the latter. While more progress is possible in the US, the US is far ahead of most of the world. We are not alone completely; other Anglo areas such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK are also relatively advanced, as is northern Europe. Beyond those areas, however, with a few exceptions, extreme male chauvinism still rules the day. This is true not just in places like the Middle East where women are second-class citizens, but also throughout Latin and South America, Asia, India, and elsewhere, where more subtlety beneath the surface old-fashioned attitudes remain the norm. That this is the case is probably not that much of a surprise even to those who have never traveled outside of the US. However, through travel you begin to appreciate the conditions that women endure elsewhere in the world.

India is not a particularly progressive place for women. Many, many places are worse, of course, but those places are not free-market democracies. India has had a female prime minister (albeit the daughter of Nehru, himself a prime minister), so it's not that women can't be successful here. They just have to overcome many obstacles. Moreover, of course, like most places, attitudes are slowly changing, especially in the cities. For now, though, Indian males dominate society, and Indian society is probably held back because of this.

Indian society does have some deplorable practices. Decades after Gandhi preached against it, the caste system lingers on, weakened, but not extinguished. Female feticide (aborting female babies because of a societal preference for boys) is widely practiced here, despite being illegal. This practice is common in Korea, China, and other Asian countries, also. Here's a statistic that will stun you. Indian families with two girls who decide to have a third child, produce 219 girls for every 1000 boys. Hmmm. India, China, and Korea all suffer from a gender imbalance that may lead to future social unrest as male babies become horny male teenagers and twenty-somethings and realize there are not enough women for mating and marriage.

Dowry--paying the groom's family to marry off your daughter--also flourishes despite being outlawed, with occasional violent consequences to the bride if the in-laws are not satisfied with the magnitude of their payoff. (At this point, I must interrupt my writing to relate that Deanna has just returned from the pool, complaining that she was being ogled and chatted up by so many Indian men that she could not read her book and will not return without me as her chaperone.) While we are reluctant to report anecdotal stories in the press as fact in the absence of hard statistics, domestic violence appears rampant based on the local media's reporting. Familial rape of women who have not conceived with their husband seems an everyday occurrence. And about once a year, somewhere in the country, there's a story of a widow burning herself to death on her deceased husband's funeral pyre. Typically, thousand of pilgrims then travel to the site of this self-immolation to honor the widow for her observance of this ancient custom. Widows who restrain themselves from sympathy suicide are expected never to remarry. A dreadful place, indeed.

It is possible, an economist might even say likely, that all of these practices will die off due to the current gender imbalance. Far from being viewed as a burden, women could become more highly valued in coming decades due to their relative scarcity.

Having said all this, one in six people on this planet live in India. With its economy freed--for the most part--of state control and with its excellent technology firms, India is on the ascent and cannot be ignored. India is on a path to become one of the future world leaders. By the middle of this century, the odds-on favorites list of the world's most influential countries are presently the US, China, and India. Their destiny is not ordained--events or mismanagement could derail India from this outcome. Until some alternate outcome becomes likely, however, US business and political leaders would be wise to cultivate ties to India. Thus, the US providing all of the pomp and ceremony of a full state visit for Indian Prime Minister Singh's current trip to the US is a wise move. This trip is seen as a historic meeting in India--the US should view it the same.

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July 14, 2005

08:00:01 am Stopover in Hong Kong; Day Trip to Macau  

On Friday morning, July 8, we flew from Manila to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. Cathay's flight to Delhi, India was not until 11PM, so rather than have an undesirable 10-hour layover, we opted to spend the night in Hong Kong and fly to Delhi the next night, Saturday, July 9 (arriving around 2AM Sunday, July 10).

As we had previously spent four nights in Hong Kong in May, our sole reason for going there again was that it is the most direct routing from the Philippines to India. We stayed at the same hotel, Miramar, in Kowloon and ran a few errands, including laundry, and tracking down the only optical store in Asia that sells Boston Advanced Daily Cleaner for Rigid Gas Permeable Contact Lenses.

Saturday the 9th was a busy day as we took a day trip via the one-hour high-speed ferry to Macau. So less than a day after we exited the Philippines and entered Hong Kong, we exited Hong Kong, entered Macau, exited Macau, entered Hong Kong, exited Hong Kong, and entered India. That's eight passport stamps in one and one-half days!

Macau was a Portuguese colony for several hundred years before reverting to China in 1999, much as Hong Kong reverted from a British colony to Chinese control two years earlier. Similar to Hong Kong, China agreed not to change Macau's existing political and economic systems for 50 years after the handover. As indicated above, even though Hong Kong and Macau are now both controlled by China, you have to clear immigration in both places when traveling between them.

Macau is the only place in China where gambling is legal. After the Chinese assumed control, they opened up the casino licensing process (previously one Hong Kong businessman controlled all of the casinos), and the Las Vegas casinos are now rushing in. The Sands is open, Wynn Casino (Steven Wynn opened Treasure Island, Mirage, and others in Las Vegas) and several others are under construction.

Macau is a lucrative market for the US operators because the Chinese tend to be serious gamblers, betting far more than the typical Las Vegas customer does. Macau casinos generate far more revenue per square foot of casino space than does Las Vegas. With several major casinos under construction, we had read that Macau is on a pace to surpass Las Vegas in terms of total gaming revenue once they open.

After visiting, we find this hard to believe. Even with all of the construction, Macau looks less impressive than Atlantic City or even downtown Las Vegas (ignoring the Strip). Nick was in Macau in the fall of 1990, and the place looks more like it did then, than the future gambling mecca of Planet Earth.

The companies planning to open in Macau are generally US public companies, so there must be some substance to what they are saying about the gaming revenue potential. Nonetheless, we'd like to see a bit more detail backing up these claims before we bet the house on Macau displacing Las Vegas as the top gaming revenue location in the next few years.

To be clear, no one has said that Macau is going to put Las Vegas out of business, or that it will come close to matching Las Vegas as a destination. Las Vegas simply has too much more too offer in terms of entertainment beyond gaming, while Macau is pretty much a place to go to gamble, period. And being the only place in China for gaming is legal is a huge advantage for Macau. There are other places in Asia where gambling is legal, but traveling outside of China is not easy for most Chinese. So this gambling monopoly, if you will, will be a huge boost for Macau. One day it may be a glitzy city, and a sought out destination, known the world over. But for now, that process is at the very beginning, with progress less visible than we expected. We expect Macau will likely see more change in the next 5 years, though, than it has in the last 15, and it will be interesting to see what this nearly 500-year-old city becomes.

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July 11, 2005

11:12:56 am The Philippines: Sunday, July 3, 2005 - Friday, July 8, 2005  

Country Background

Population: 86 million. This figure was around 60 million when Nick lived here in 1990. The rate of population growth, at between 2.0%-2.5% annually is one of the highest in Asia, and a big problem holding back the country's economic progress. The Catholic church deserves most of the blame--over 80% of Filipinos are Catholic, a legacy of Spain's nearly 400 years of influence in the islands--as it opposes all forms of birth control. A poor, rapidly growing population keeps the church pews full, we guess. There is a strong link between reduced population growth and economic development. Although if population growth slows to the point where the overall population is projected to decline, that's bad too, as we have said in prior posts, most recently in our Japan post. The balance needs to be right, not too fast like the Philippines, and not too slow like Japan. The US is growing about 1% per year, which seems like a good rate to us, at least for it at this point in history.

Per capita GDP: $4,600 in purchasing power parity; $1,080 in absolute terms. The large difference between these two figures implies that the cost of goods, services, and labor are very cheap here.

Size: slightly larger than Arizona

Currency: Philippine peso, 56 per US dollar. When Nick arrived in the Philippines in late November 1989, the exchange rate was around 20 to 1. About one week later, it was 30 to 1 due to the coup. It dropped to 40 to 1 with the 1997-98 Asian Crisis, and was 50 to 1 by the end of 2000. It has drifted down to 56 to 1 gradually over the past four and one-half years. This peso depreciation offsets local inflation to keep dollar prices cheap. While dollar prices are higher than in 1990, relative to other countries, the Philippines are as much if not more of a bargain as it was then.

Language: Tagalog and English are both official languages. The English here is better than any other Asian country, including the other English-speaking areas of Singapore, Hong Kong, and India. Most Filipinos speak good English, but to each other they converse in Tagalog or Taglish, mixing Tagalog and English words in the same sentence. The use of Taglish can be quite frustrating for example if you are trapped in an apartment during a coup with only local TV stations available to you. One ATM we used offered two language options: English and Taglish, but not Tagalog.

Trip Itinerary:
China Airlines flight from Taipei to Manila
Five nights at The Peninsula Hotel, Makati area of Metro Manila

City Background:

Metro Manila

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - Friday, July 8, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 90/75
Population: Approximately 10 million.

Metro Manila is comprised of over a dozen adjacent cities, including Manila, Quezon City, and Makati. When people refer to Manila, they usually mean Metro Manila in its entirety, as there are no distinctive boundaries between the various cities. Manila itself is not that interesting, in our opinion. It was the second most destroyed Allied city in World War II after Warsaw, and with the shift of the business center to Makati after the war, the economic life drained out of the original city for which the metro area is named. Business travelers may never set foot in Manila, instead spending nearly all of their time in Makati. Since Nick lived there, and since most of the nice hotels, shopping, and restaurants in the country are there, that is where we stayed.

Notable Activities:

Makati. Nick spent most of his time walking around observing what had changed. A lot had. See subsequent post.

The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. This is largest American war cemetery outside of the US with over 17,000 burials and over 36,000 missing soldiers commemorated. Located only a few miles from where Nick lived previously, this was his first visit, perhaps an indication of the differences in interests at age 38 versus age 23. See image gallery for pictures of this moving site.

Dinner with AJ Enriquez. The project Nick worked on in 1990 had about 60 Filipino employees on it, but most now live in the US. AJ worked closely with Nick then, and after living in the US for much of the 1990s, AJ is now back in the Philippines. It was great to see him for the first time in 15 years. We reminisced about the old days, talked about how much Makati has changed, and discussed the Philippine political situation. See the image gallery for AJ's new hairdo or lack thereof.

Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Finals, Game 3: Talk 'n' Text Phone Pals 103 San Miguel Beermen 77. San Miguel still led the best of seven series two games to one. San Mig is the New York Yankees of the PBA, playing in the final something like 27 out of the 31 years of the league's history, winning around 17 times. Talk 'n' Text have won two titles in recent years, though. Yes, all of the team names are corporations, which is the norm in Asian sports leagues. US leagues are far less commercialized than leagues in other countries, but not a single US sportswriter seems to be aware of this.

Corregidor Island tour. Corregidor was the last position held by the US in the Philippines after Japan invaded. General McArthur fled from this island to Australia where he issued his "I shall return" proclamation. The story of Corregidor is a powerful one with US forces holding off surrender for five months after the initial Japanese attack, and Japanese forces engaging in suicide attacks and mass suicide when the US retook the island three years later. The tour takes you into the Malita Tunnel, a series of underground laterals and caves featuring a 1000-bed hospital and the temporary residence of Philippine Commonwealth President Quezon, once he evacuated Manila. You see the bombed out barracks and gun batteries from the war and numerous memorials built since the war. See image gallery. Highly recommended.

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11:11:01 am The Philippines: Stunning Changes but the Same Old Political Problems  

Having been away for 15 years Nick expected significant change. The magnitude of change in Makati, though, staggered him, and as a pleasant surprise, nearly all of the changes were good. For the first two days, he tended to walk around with his mouth open. The amount of change in Makati exceeded any other place in Asia that he was revisited on this trip. Admittedly, he was in a better position to notice change in Makati, having actually lived there for a year, as opposed to just visiting for a few days in the dozen or so other countries.

Having prepared Deanna for the worst, she never really understood what he had been complaining about. "This is like a tropical paradise--sort of like California with cheap prices," she said two hours after arrival. Nick thought to himself that he had done an excellent job of expectations management. He also knew that first impressions, while vivid and lasting, often prove incorrect over time. He thought about how much he enjoyed this first three months in the Philippines, coup and all.

Speaking of which, some things do not change. In 1989, on his sixth morning in the country, Nick awoke to a phone call from his manager, "There has been a coup." Now 15 and one-half years later, the Philippines current president, Gloria Arroyo, was in trouble. The week before we arrived, she admitted finally that she had made "a lapse in judgment" by speaking with the head of the election commission the night of her 2004 election. This possible election fraud--and it is not certain that any fraud has occurred or if it has that it affected the outcome or was any worse than possible fraud conducted by the opposition--has led to calls for her to resign and coup rumors. However, public protests have been mild to date. Having ousted two presidents through People Power demonstrations, including Arroyo's predecessor in 2001, there is not much appetite right now to go down this path a third time.

Our friend AJ Enriquez said before our arrival that we had little to worry about because none the three most important constituencies--the Catholic Church, the military, or the middle class--favors a change in presidents now. This reminded Nick of a similar feel-good statement made to him by a Filipino executive on the morning of the December 1989 coup: "Don't worry, the rebels know better than to come to Makati!" The next day the rebels did come to Makati, taking over the building Nick lived in to set up sniper positions. In fact, there was nothing to worry about during our 2005 visit, which went off without a hitch. But the political heat keeps rising on Arroyo, as one opposition politician or public figure after another keeps falling all over themselves to make their self-righteous statement of indignation against her. We wondered as we were leaving the country if the combination of Filipino fatalism, a press willing to publish any remark, and a history of the rule of law being trampled upon when it comes to presidents, would yet result in the outcome that the majority does not want. For now, we expect Arroyo to stay in office, but her hold on power is certainly tenuous.

What a Difference a Decade and a Half Makes

So, as we said, the magnitude of typical changes--new buildings erected, old buildings torn down, the new being nicer than the old--was greater than expected. More remarkable to Nick, however, were subtle cultural changes that you would not be aware of had you not lived in a place. Erecting a building is an easy task compared to changing society's behavior. Societal habits build up over decades and centuries after all.

The single biggest difference Nick noticed was in the quality of restaurant service levels. If you have never been to the Philippines and you were to go to there now, you would not notice anything about the service quality. It would be similar to what you are used to in the US--generally good, with an occasional outlier experience that is either exceptional or poor. That you would not notice anything now is what's remarkable (it's like good refereeing--you don't notice it). For in 1990, there was much to notice.

In 1990, where Nick worked, the lunch break was 90 minutes long. There were dozens of nice sit-down restaurants within walking distance, but none was capable of seating you, taking your order, serving your food, and settling payment in less than 75 minutes. Thus, if you decided quickly on where to eat and walked there and back briskly, you could just about get a meal in during the 90-minute break. The Americans on the project did not necessarily want to take 90 minutes for lunch, so after a few months frustration we re-engineered the lunchtime ordering and payment process to fit our needs. Upon being shown to our table, we told the server not to leave, we all then ordered from memory, and requested the check be brought to us immediately. After a few visits, the bewildered Filipino staff got used to our rude but efficient American ways. The check still took its normal 20 minutes to arrive, but we were able to settle payment shortly after finishing our meal--assuming of course we paid in cash and had exact change--rather than having to suffer an interminable wait. Thus, we cut our lunchtime allotment from 90 minutes to 60.

Fast forward to 2005. Here is a composite of our dining out experience in Makati, juxtaposed against 1990.

1. 2005: Staff shows you to the table. You are given one menu per person. 1990: Staff did not have menus with them, requiring a second trip after a long delay, which produced one menu per table. A request for more menus brought a long sigh, a slow walk away, an additional unreasonable delay, before exactly one more menu was produced, regardless of the size of your group.

2. 2005: There are normal napkins at the table. 1990: if requested, you were given begrudgingly one napkin, the size and durability of a Kleenex pocket tissue.

3. 2005: Staff waits at or near the table for you to order. Actually, this is unusual in the US, but highly efficient and appreciated by us since we eat every meal in a restaurant and thus desire a quick meal to eat more than having a relaxing dining experience. We actually had to send them away to give us more time to order, something Nick would have never risked doing before in the Philippines.

4. 2005: When you place your drink order, instead of rushing off, the order taker waits to see if you want also to order your food. When you are done ordering, they carefully repeat exactly what you have ordered including any special requests to ensure they have understood correctly. Food arrives in a reasonable time. 1990: you had to lasso the person to be able to order food with drinks. Order was never repeated, requests rarely came out correct, but the food took so long to arrive that sending it back was unthinkable.

5. 2005: If you finish a drink, you are asked if you want a complimentary refill (common in the US, uncommon elsewhere, unheard of here in 1990). As an aside, while this is not true in the Philippines, drink prices outside the US often are twice as much for about one-half of the amount. And if you want more, you pay again, pal. So, for example, two or three glasses of ice tea at a meal which would set you back $1.50-$2 in the US might cost you $10 or more in Hong Kong, that is until you learn not to request that second glass. For an American, this is maddening. For most Asians or South Americans, though, they cannot understand why a customer would expect to get more for free. Actually in terms of logic, they are correct; nevertheless, illogically this infuriates us. Thankfully, however, the Philippines have become an oasis of free refills.

6. 2005: Several times during a meal, the staff will check in to see if everything is okay, if you need anything, and so on. 1990: despite staffing levels several times that of a US restaurant, you could never actually get anyone to come to your table. The staff was usually off in a corner, giggling amongst themselves (probably at the table of Americans who asked for the check when they placed their food order).

7. 2005: It is no problem to get the check quickly. Payment can be made in cash or by credit card. Change or the credit card receipt arrives without undue delay. 1990: Don't even think of using credit cards. They are probably not accepted, but even if they are, your card will likely expire before the transaction is processed, the wait will be so long. As for cash, better to always have correct change, to be able to leave 10 minutes earlier.

The changes in Makati service levels are so extreme that Nick noticed it within the first minute of sitting down at our first meal. The change continued throughout that meal and was present at literally every meal we ate, regardless of the type of restaurant or who owned it. It was if the government had put on a 15-year long public service campaign, spending millions of dollars, on how to wait tables properly. We mentioned this observation to AJ and he immediately knew what we meant. Having lived for many years in the US, he was aware of cultural differences between our countries. "When I first ate in the US in the early 1990s, I could not believe it when the waiter asked me if my meal was okay. No one ever asked that in the Philippines at that time," he related.

So what brought about this sea change in customer service levels? Like most social phenomenon, there are probably numerous factors that led to this change. Filipinos frequently travel to the US and many of them work and live in the US and other foreign countries, so as they have become more aware of customs in other countries, they have probably become more demanding of service levels in their country and less tolerant of poor service. Further, outsourced call centers are becoming a significant employer, so even Filipinos who don't travel or work outside their country, are receiving training in how to provide excellent customer service in their jobs. Many of these call centers are in Makati, and workers who are expected to provide good service on the job probably now expect good service when they are the customer. The biggest reason, though, in our opinion, is that the restaurants have changed. Before the restaurants tended to be sole proprietorships. Often, these were run by foreign ex-pats, typically older individuals who decided to stay in the Philippines because they enjoyed the relatively slower pace of life and the opportunity to date subservient women half their age. Those restaurants are nearly all gone now, replaced by corporate-run restaurants from the US, Japan, Singapore, and locally, with no tolerance for lax processes. In a separate post entitled Philippine Memory Lane, we trace what has happened to some of the old restaurants where we used to enjoy the food and endure the service.

So New Orleans, San Mig, and Flavors and Spices have now been replaced by TGIFridays, California Pizza Kitchen, and Hard Rock Cafe (a legitimate one, not the bootleg versions that were here before). And Outback, Tony Roma's, and Chili's. Starbucks is everywhere, or you can try Gloria Jean's or Seattle's Best. There's even Bubba Gump Shrimp! From Singapore, there's Banana Leaf Curry House and BreadTalk. From Japan, there's Yoshinoya. While there are now plenty of recognizable restaurants, the number of locally owned restaurants is even greater. Unlike the elegant but sleepy restaurants of 1990, however, the 2005 versions have the service levels of the imports. They tend to be more fusion in nature rather than strictly offering the cuisine of one specific country. Moreover, they've become hip, complete with designer furniture and techno music ambiance.

When done eating you can now shop at Prada, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Kate Spade, Kenneth Cole, DKNY, Bally, and any other designer boutique you can imagine. For more everyday needs, there's Guess and Nine West. You can buy a CD at Tower Records, have an ice cream at Haagen Dazs, work it off at Gold's Gym, before you head back to your Oakwood corporate apartment.

For entertainment, Makati has even more movie theatres than before. But the experience has completely changed. US blockbusters are released here immediately, not months later. The theatres are new with stadium seating and surround sound. People no longer walk into the movie during the middle and then stay through the next showing until it gets to the part they have seen. Seats are reserved so that you do not have to go early to find a good seat, and the theater no longer reeks of urine. (Reserved seating exists in many countries outside of the US, and we are a bit puzzled why US theaters have not adopted this convenience.) In other words, the experience is just like the US--better actually, when you consider the benefit of reserved seating. The prices are higher of course, but still a bargain. In Makati we paid 130 pesos (about $2.30), but we saw other reserved seat theaters advertised at 90 pesos ($1.60), with general admission theaters at 75 pesos ($1.35). In 1990, pricing was two-tiered, with the higher priced seats not necessarily being much better, but rather separating you from the people in the lower priced seats. Prices were something like 15 pesos and 10 pesos then (around $0.50 and $0.33 at the exchange rates then), so the better experience has come with a much higher price tag.

Overall, the retail areas of Makati are quite different. That is not to say that nothing is recognizable. In ballpark figures, let's say that 50% of the shops and restaurants are new, 20% was there before but is now in a new location, and 30% is where it was before. But even this 30% is sometimes hard to recognize because everything surrounding it is different, so it looks out of place even though it has not moved. The Landmark hypermart is still there, more crowded than ever, and at first glance unchanged, although definitely beginning to fade as it ages. Walking through the supermarket in the basement, however, you notice that it too has changed. The produce section is full of fresh fruits and vegetables, not a limited selection of picked over items. The aisles are full of varied products. In the past, within a given category, you might see hundreds of an identical item and nothing else, if that's what arrived on the on the cargo ship that week. Modern inventory management has arrived. You no longer have to hold your nose as you walk through the fresh meats section. They even have Snapple, although with only six bottles of raspberry iced tea and about a hundred peach iced teas it appears the inventory management algorithm broke down here.

When Nick returned to the US in 1991, he loved going to the grocery store and admired the amazing selection of products. US stores had everything you could ever want in multiple brands, flavors, and sizes. If you saw something you liked, you did not need to buy a three-months supply, afraid that it might not appear again for that long. Such a repatriation experience seems unlikely now.

National Bookstore is still there, but now so are many other newer, more modern competitors. The quality of the paper used in the books is now the same high-grade white paper as in developed countries, not the low-quality gray writing tablet kind of paper used in 1990.

Pizza was available in 1990 from places like Pizza Hut and Shakey's. While we often consumed the product, it never tasted quite right. Now, there is no difference in taste between California Pizza Kitchen in the US and in Makati.

The scale of shopping has multiplied along with the quality of the service and products. Where there was the Greenbelt Mall, now there are Greenbelt 1 (the original), Greenbelt 2, Greenbelt 3, and Greenbelt 4. Across Makati Avenue, the one-story open-air Makati Commercial Center has been mostly demolished to make way for Glorietta 1-4, four connected, enclosed malls, each three stories tall.

Arriving and Getting Around

Politics are not the only thing that has not changed. Outside of Makati, the pace of change is much less, barely noticeable at all in some places in Manila. The airport looks identical, but 15 years the worse for wear. That is very unusual--we cannot think of another airport we have been to that has not changed dramatically over the past 15 years. Those reassured by the familiar can take comfort that around the baggage claim carousel there is still the same parade of cardboard box after cardboard box, containing gifts and goods for local Filipinos from their stateside relatives (see image gallery).

Fortunately, one thing has changed at the airport and this has improved the airport experience more than any renovation program could have. It used to be that as soon as you exited customs, the doors opened, the muggy humidity hit you, and you were suddenly and unexpectedly face to face with thousands of smiling Filipinos, a sight and experience quite intimidating for a jet-lagged new arrival. If you had not arranged transportation ahead of time, you now were condemned to figure things out while hauling your luggage through the sweaty crowd, with every other person asking, "You need taxi, sir?" Bracing for this, Nick had arranged for our hotel to pick us up and he ordered Deanna to stay close to him as we exited customs. The doors opened, Nick tensed up, and then nothing happened. The weather was pleasant. He could see in front of him. There was no mass of humanity blocking our path. In other words, it was just like most civilized airports. Outside, we quickly found the airport driver and he explained that the crowds were now kept well away from the exiting passengers. Others can lament that perhaps the Pinoy custom of an entire village turning out to greet a returning neighbor may die out, but for us this was a very welcome change.

For completeness, we will report that there is another terminal, but we don't know if that is new or if Nick just never had a flight in or out of it before. In any event, the main international terminal is the one Nick has always flown into and it looks just the same. We did read in the newspaper that a third terminal was about to open--it has actually been ready for a while, but the opening is halted over some construction payment issue--so some progress appears to be occurring. We do not know what the scope of this third terminal is to be (domestic versus international, or how many carriers will utilize it).

AJ told us that the roads infrastructure outside of Manila was much improved, but we did not venture outside of the metropolitan area to test this for ourselves. Traffic inside the metro area is quite bad, but that is nothing new. In 1990, Nick thought Manila had the second worst traffic in world, next to Bangkok. For her part, Deanna did not think traffic in Bangkok was very bad when she was there in 2000. Whether that's due to Bangkok's subway system (which did not exist in 1990), a lessening of economic activity in 2000 due to the Asian Crisis, luck, or selective memory on the part of one or both of us, we do not know. For its part, Manila now has three LRT lines instead of just one and there is more focus on overhead walkways and tunnels to keep pedestrians away from street traffic. Nevertheless, there are also nearly 50% more people in the Philippines, so these measures--while helpful--are not resulting in an overall reduction in the level of traffic.

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11:08:39 am Philippine Memory Lane  

As a sort of Appendix to our post on the changes in the Philippines, here we list some of places that Nick and his US Andersen Consulting colleagues used to haunt in the Philippines, nearly all of which no longer exist. Anyone is welcome to read this of course, but it will be of most interest to those who lived there. Read the "Stunning Changes but the Same Old Political Problems" post if you want more of an overview on the changes in Makati.

New Orleans restaurant. Building torn down to make a rather ugly two-level parking lot. This is probably the only change in Greenbelt that seems to be a step backwards.

San Mig. This British pub with the Saturday-night curry special (the perfect meal prior to watching MacGyver and Star Trek Next Generation reruns) suffered the same fate as New Orleans. Other locations still exist in Metro Manila.

Flavors and Spices. Closed last year. Signs still up, but space is now a used bookstore.

La Primavera. Same as Flavors and Spice. Signs still present, restaurant not. Nick cannot remember this restaurant, but the name is familiar, so he thinks we went there with some frequency.

Spanish restaurant in Greenbelt Park, name may have begun with a G, served great peppercorn steak. Gone. Building likely torn down to make way for Greenbelt 3.

Aunt Mary's Aunt. Mexican. Did anyone other than Martin actually like this dark place? Gone.

French restaurant near corner of Leap and Dela Rosa. He doesn't remember the name of this place, but Nick had a memorable male-bonding meal and night out here right before he left the country. Building torn down as part of the Ayala Museum expansion/Greenbelt 4 construction.

Schwarzwalder. Germany restaurant. Building is gone for same reasons as the French restaurant. Restaurant is one of the few in Makati one on this list that lives on, having relocated to Makati Avenue just past the Peninsula.

Faces Disco. Same fate as French restaurant and old Schwarzwalder building. History.

Japanese teppanyaki restaurant on second floor of same (?) building as Schwarzwalder. No more.

Japanese teppanyaki restaurant in Makati Commercial Center near Ritz Towers where we had to exit through the kitchen as rebel troops began patrolling the parking lot. Not even a historical marker remains.

50's American dinner near corner of Leap and Greenbelt Drive where Nick got food poisoning from Pork Hawaiian. Gone, thankfully. Replaced by a Burger King, we think.

Brick oven pizza place that opened around November 1990. Can't remember exactly where this was, but likely gone.

Pasta place that opened in mid-1990, similar to Mama Mia in Chicago (pick a pasta, pick at sauce, they cook it, you pay and take cooked meal to your table), always crowded. Like Mama Mia, now a relic of the past.

Fabulous Italian gelato place in Greenbelt Mall that opened mid-1990. This open-air area is now covered and the gelato place is no more. Haagen Dazs is everywhere now, instead.

Swiss fondue restaurant. The building remains, the restaurant does not.

British pub, name forgotten, where we watched the 1990 World Cup games. Wasn't this near the Swiss fondue place? In any event, no sign of it today.

Now for a few things that have not changed:

Bootleg Hard Rock Cafe in Malate section of Manila. The place is still there, complete with the airplane crashed into the building. IP laws being what they are, however, it is now called Unplugged, acoustic bar and restaurant. A real Hard Rock Cafe is now open next to Landmark.

Hobbit House in Malate. Jeff Harvey would be proud--the Hobbit House lives on. We did not go inside, but there's a picture of the outside in the image gallery.

Hotels: Peninsula, Intercontinental, Nikko, Mandarin Oriental. Unlike the restaurants, all of the five-star hotels remain, in the same buildings as before. Joining them is the Shangri-La between the Peninsula and Landmark (it was being constructed in 1990) and the New World Renaissance Hotel just south of Greenbelt.

Landmark. You can still live it up at Landmark. When we were there, there were approximately 1 million people shopping in the grocery store. The food court looks the same, and they still serve McSpaghetti at McDonalds, not that we had any.

Shoe Mart. SM is still there, bigger than ever and unlike Landmark--which is looking quite frayed at the edges--SM looks newly renovated.

Rustan's. Grocery store across the street from Ritz Towers. Still there.

Grocery store in Greenbelt Park, can't remember the name, it was not as nice as the other stores. Gone, its space now dedicated to either Greenbelt 2 or Greenbelt 3.

Grocery store right next to Landmark. Gone. In its place are Glorietta 2 and Glorietta 3 malls.

Fast food places. American franchising remains resilient. Most of the places we would venture to at age 23 are still there: McDonalds, KFC, and Wendy's. Pizza Hut and Shakey's moved to new locations because their buildings were knocked down. No sign of A&W though.

Greenbelt Park and the chapel within. Both still in place, although the park is reconfigured and upgraded some. Handholding in the park observed.

Ritz Towers, Sunrise Towers, and Tropical Palms. All still there. James still works the door at Sunrise, and he enjoyed hearing an update on the MAC-PAC crew. He could not believe Chris Hasbrook is responsible enough to father a child. There's a picture of him in the image gallery. His brother works there now too.

Building where we worked. Its fate is similar to that of our project. Demolished. A 40-plus story condo building is rising in its place--see image gallery.

To read about the explosion of new restaurants and stores in Makati, that have taken the place of those no longer with us, read our related post, "Stunning Changes but the Same Political Problems."

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July 07, 2005

10:04:53 pm Taiwan  

Country Background:
Population: 23 million
Per capita GDP: $23,000 in purchasing power parity; figure in absolute terms not available, but we guess it is in the $15,000 - $19,000 range.
Size: slightly smaller than Maryland
Currency: New Taiwanese dollar, 31 per US dollar
Language: Mandarin, Taiwanese. Basic English taught in schools, and thus common, similar to South Korea.

Itinerary:
Cathay Pacific flight from Tokyo to Taipei
Four nights at KDM Hotel

Taipei

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - Sunday, July 3, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 95/80
Population: 2.6 million. Unlike most Asian cities, Taipei's population is not growing--it peaked at 2.7 million in 1990. We suspect this may be partially explained by a migration within the metropolitan area from the city to the suburbs, but we don't have any data on this. Within the city, the birthrate is dropping as the population ages. Births are barely above deaths and look to fall below deaths in a few years if the present trend continues. In addition, more people are moving out of the city than moving in. This was a common phenomenon in the US after World War II but it is unusual for Asia.

Notable Activities:

Taipei 101. For now the world's tallest building (see pictures in the image gallery and the previous post on The World's Tallest Building), making this a must-do attraction. The elevators zip you to the top in 37 seconds, making them the world's fastest elevators. They take a slightly more leisurely 45 seconds to descend, "so not get sick," according the elevator operator, suggesting perhaps a human limit to high-speed elevator design.

In addition to having the world's tallest building, this area is the epicenter for a new part of Taipei, with government, businesses, shopping, and entertainment all intermingled to create a vibrant area day and night. The basement of Taipei 101 has a huge Asian food court and a grocery store that sells Raspberry Snapple by the case. The first four floors of Taipei 101 are a shopping mall with a fantastic English language bookstore, the near equal of Borders. Within walking distance are some historical/tourist attractions of medium interest such as the Discover Taipei Center in City Hall, with okay exhibits on Taipei's history, and the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial with an overview of the life and times of the man regarded by the nationalists and by the communists as their father figure.

Taipei International Film Festival. This is not a reason to visit Taipei, but it was something fun to do that happened to be held while we were there (it runs during late June and early July). We saw Born into Brothels, a documentary about children of prostitutes who work in Calcutta, India's red-light district. This film first debuted at Sundance in January 2004, but we could not get tickets as all of its viewings sold out. The film went into general release about a year later in early 2005, as we left the US. So having missed it twice, we saw it this third opportunity. Very good.

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. The most impressive public space in Taipei, with a huge square surrounded by a Chinese gate at one end, the CKS Memorial Hall at the other, and the National Theater and National Concert Hall on the two sides. Inside the memorial are exhibits on the life and time of CKS, including a startlingly lifelike wax reproduction of the man, sitting at his desk (see image gallery).

Lunch with Brian Chan and family. During the city tour of Seoul, Deanna met Brian, president of Inspire I.T., a Taiwanese software company, who was in Seoul on a business trip. He invited her to contact him once we were in Taipei, which we did. He and his wife and son Henry (see image gallery) graciously took us out to lunch and to a few sites we had not seen. Throughout our trip, we have often met other travelers who have invited us to have a meal or stay with them later when we reach their home country. For us, this has been a great part of the trip, allowing us to see places with people who know them best and giving us the ability to talk with people other than each other. We really appreciate the hospitality we received from Brian and his family and our numerous other hosts around the globe.

National Palace Museum. The building has the greatest single collection of Chinese artifacts anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, due to renovations you cannot see many of them right now. The work is schedule to finish sometime in 2007 or 2008. More generally, on this trip we have learned that one-third of all museums in the world are being renovated at all times.

Commentary:

We are fond of what-if questions and we had two as we visited Taiwan. One is a historical question. The other is a current question, which makes it technically not a what-if question, but since we have not seen the future yet, it still has the attribute of the answer not being knowable (for the moment at least).

The questions are:

1. What if Chiang Kai-Shek and the Republic of China leaders had not proclaimed Taiwan as the continuation of the Republic of China when they retreated to the island following their defeat by the communists in the Chinese Civil War? What if instead, they simply acknowledged their defeat, renounced all claims to be a legitimate government of the mainland Chinese people and any future attempt to retake the mainland, and instead proclaimed that they were creating a new country, Taiwan, that would forever be different and separate from China?
2. With China adopting a capitalist economic system, is Taiwan losing its relevance?

With regard to the first question, let's review what did in fact happen. After the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, Sun Yet-Sen and others founded the Republic of China on the mainland in 1911. During the decades that followed, the nationalist government battled the communists for control of the country. World War II intervened, but after the defeat of the common enemy Japan, the two sides went back to fighting each other, with the communists prevailing in the late 1940s and the nationalists retreating to Taiwan. Taiwan was an already inhabited island of mainly ethnic Chinese with a small Taiwanese aboriginal minority. Taiwan had been a Japanese colony from 1895 onward, but China ruled it previously, and the Allies returned it to China following World War II. When the nationalists retreated to Taiwan, neither they nor the communists viewed the conflict as over, each vowing to take over the territory controlled by the other. Aside from some intermittent skirmishes over small islands in the Taiwan Straits, the military conflict did end in the late 1940s, with the US security guarantee for Taiwan keeping the superior Chinese forces from invading otherwise vulnerable Taiwan. Separate from the armed conflict, was the battle of diplomacy. Each side claimed to be the one legitimate government of the Chinese people. At first, Taiwan held the upper hand here, but in the 1970s the worldview gave in to reality. The Chinese communist government was not going away and the mainland did represent over 98% of the combined population of Chain and Taiwan. Further, the mainland accounted for one in five people on the planet, a number too large to pretend did not exist. Therefore, during the 1970s, one government after another recognized China as the government of the Chinese people, dropping relations with Taiwan. Taiwan lost its UN seat and other world bodies such as the IMF and World Bank booted Taiwan out.

China has maintained all along that Taiwan is part of China, not a separate country. This One China policy has been abetted by Taiwan's historical stance that as the Republic of China, founded on the mainland, it is the legitimate government of the Chinese people. Today, if Taiwan were to announce that it no longer speaks for the Chinese people and is declaring itself as a new country, it would spark a diplomatic crisis and risk a war with China, who is determined not to let its rouge province of Taiwan secede. Thus, Taiwan is boxed in. Its own diplomatic policy has led unintentionally to a situation where hardly any country recognizes it and it has little representation in world government bodies. It is nearly impossible, however, to change this policy. So Taiwan tries to maintain an uneasy status quo while improving its ties to China gradually. It does not want to unify with China now, but maybe over two or three decades once China's economic reforms lead to political reforms, unification would be thinkable or even desirable.

While declaring itself a new country is not likely or advisable now, what if Taiwan had done this in the late 1940s? There would still have been a risk then that China would have not accepted this declaration and invaded Taiwan. With the US defending Taiwan, this could have been a disastrous situation. Alternatively, the fighting may have been limited--such as how Chinese and US troops fought each other in Korea. That was a significant conflict, but it was limited to Korea--in other words, it stopped short of being an all-out battle between global titans. On the other hand, China just as likely might have limited its anger to harsh rhetoric but no aggressive military action. In that circumstance, the rest of the world would not as easily accept China's one-China policy. There would be much less justification for excluding Taiwan from world bodies such as the UN. Since Taiwan was once a member of these groups, our guess is that they would have never booted out Taiwan had it never claimed to speak for all of China. With the world not paying attention in effect to the one-China policy under this scenario, China might have no choice but to abandon it. A renouncement of any claim on Taiwan might even have been a condition of establishing diplomatic relations with the US and other countries in the 1970s.

So our view is that Taiwan's late 1940s determination to preserve its historical link to China has put them in a worse spot on the global stage than they otherwise would have commanded. Ironically, though, because they cannot now claim they are a separate country, reunification down the road is more likely than it would be had they declared themselves separate from the beginning. So the goal of maintaining the historical link with China may one day be fulfilled. Therefore, in a roundabout way, Taiwan's policy may succeed in preserving the historical link to China. Their intention to retake the mainland by force won't occur, but if a capitalistic China eventually adopts some democratic reforms, then it could be said that Taiwan's ideals defeated China's in a way that Taiwan's military never could.

Let's back up and ignore the future, which of course could turn out differently than anything projected here. Just focusing on what has actually happened to date, it could be said that Chiang Kai-Shek made a mistake in not declaring Taiwan a new country in the late 1940s because of the diminished stature Taiwan now has on the world stage. Even if it were agreed this was a mistake, it would have been nearly impossible in the late 1940s to visualize the sea change that occurred in the 1970s where China was recognized and Taiwan was shunted aside. So having to make a decision in the present, as all decisions must be made, we are not critical of Chiang Kai-Shek's decision to call Taiwan the continuation of the Republic of China. After all they had ruled the mainland only a short time before, and it was not clear if the communists would have the staying power they have shown in the nearly six decades since then.

Further, we have come to realize that such a stance may have been hugely unpopular at the time or even since. We asked Brian Chan if he thought Taiwan would have been better off declaring itself separate from the beginning. He said such a view would be unacceptable to him. Brian is our age, so Taiwan has had no realistic chance of retaking the mainland his entire life. Moreover, he like most Taiwanese, does not want unification any time soon. China needs to reform politically before the Taiwanese take unification too seriously, no matter how excited they may get about developing closer ties to the mainland now. Despite this, having grown up reading Chinese history, Brian sees it as his history, and he would not have wanted his country to cut itself off from the rich culture of China's past.

So depending on how you look at it, Chiang Kai-Shek's decision could be 1) ingenious, foreshadowing a day in the 21st Century where capitalism and democracy would infiltrate the mainland; 2) an unfortunate decision that lessened Taiwan's stature for decades; or 3) a decision that made sense at the time, led unexpectedly to problems for Taiwan in the medium term, but worked out well in the long term (assuming there is one day unification on terms acceptable to Taiwan). Our view is #3.

Is Taiwan becoming Irrelevant?

In an earlier post, we stated that we thought Hong Kong was losing its uniqueness and would be one day surpassed by Shanghai as the most important commercial city in China. We don't expect that to happen suddenly or immediately, however. It will take a couple decades to play out given how much of a head start Hong Kong has and how much higher its income levels are. Even with its astounding growth rates, the math dictates that Shanghai will need this long to catch up. But the laws of compounding also suggest that it is likely to catch up.

Taiwan is not Hong Kong. It is more complete, although less vibrant. It is a country that now has democracy, not a former colony that never had full democracy. Nevertheless, the logic is similar in that if China's adoption of capitalism causes Hong Kong to lose uniqueness, this must also hold true, at least partially, for Taiwan. Let's accept that Taiwan must lose some of its uniqueness if for no other reason that managing over one billion people under a communist economic system was going to fail eventually. So the period where Taiwan was the only Chinese country with democracy and capitalism was bound to only last a few decades anyway, we can say confidently in hindsight. Losing the capitalism differentiator still leaves the democracy differentiator. Of course, everyone, including Taiwan, wants to see China become a democracy. But if it does, will Taiwan have anything left? Will it become irrelevant? Is it already becoming so? We have opined that we actually think capitalism is more important than democracy because capitalism creates over time the conditions of prosperity that lead to people demanding democracy. So is Taiwan's fate sealed?

We pose these questions not because we have the answers, but because they are the questions on our mind as we visit. Again, we asked Brian Chan this question. He said that many in Taiwan saw China's opening up as an opportunity. It created a much bigger market for Taiwan's products and services. It also provided a source of low-cost labor. On the other hand, manufacturing employees and others in low-value-added positions in Taiwan were already losing their jobs to people in China. Taiwanese farmers are especially worried and vulnerable. So as with all changes, there are winners and losers, people who benefit and those who do not. Brian's explanation of what is happening in Taiwan sounded similar to what we expect will happen in South Korea should unification with North Korea occur (see our South Korea post). For him, a member of senior management in a software firm, the change is positive. For others, it is not. Whether it is positive or negative for Taiwan as a whole depends on whether Taiwan can move up the food chain, adding new valued-added jobs and innovative service companies while it sheds old jobs and sees old companies wither away. The more it tries to resist the change (e.g., by protecting old jobs and companies), the more it will suffer. The more it embraces and attempts to accelerate the change, the more it will benefit, as long as it can avoid the pace of change becoming so dislocating that social unrest occurs. So, to conclude, we think whether Taiwan remains relevant or not is largely up to how Taiwan responds to China's move to capitalism. If Taiwan resists change, its relevance will diminish. Taiwan must embrace change to have the best opportunity to remain a unique place on the world stage.

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10:03:15 pm World's Tallest Buildings  

A couple of months ago we posed a trivia question that asked what two cities had projects underway that would surpass Taipei 101 as the world's tallest building. We received several responses, but we never got around to answering the question because the responses revealed that we needed to do more research. Moreover, that research reveled, well, the answer we had in mind was not correct, and any answer is more complicated than we anticipated. Now having just visited Taipei 101, we procrastinate no further and provide an answer.

The cities we had in mind were Shanghai and Dubai, and the buildings we had in mind were, respectively, the World Financial Center (WFC), and Burj Dubai. Subsequent research on our part has shown Shanghai's WFC not to be a correct answer. At the time of its original conception in mid 90s, it was to be the world's tallest. A multi-year construction delay occurred, however, due to--take your pick--1) a glut of office space in Shanghai; 2) financing problems after the 1997 Asian crisis; or 3) soil tests showing the site would not support the original design structurally. Whatever the reason, the architects changed the design during the delay, and the WFC will now be shorter, coming close, but no longer surpassing Taipei 101. On our visit to Shanghai, we confirmed that construction has resumed, although at this point there is nothing to see but a hole in the ground. Some rumors suggest there is a secret plan to add some form of structural appendage to the top so that WFC would be taller than Taipei 101. This strikes us as wishful thinking by Shanghai boosters because the design of WFC does not allow easily for such an appendage (see Shanghai image gallery for a depiction of the finished building). Further, it's probably a moot point anyway, because with the delay in Shanghai, the much taller Dubai building is now scheduled for completion around the same time.

This illustrates an issue with the announcement of future world's tallest buildings. Most announcements never get off the ground. We recall that two different projects announced in Chicago over the past two decades, the Miglin-Beitler Tower at Madison and Wells in 1989, and the Dearborn Tower at Madison and Dearborn in 1999 were never built due to financing problems. That developers announced each shortly before a recession that scuttled their financing plans is no coincidence. Tall building announcements are often a contrarian indicator about future economic activity. For someone to have audacity to build the world's tallest building usually takes a prolonged period of economic prosperity. And after such a prolonged period, things are usually due to take a tumble. For such a project to be completed, it must be well under construction when the downturn hits. Consider three prior world's tallest buildings. Each signaled a major economic downturn, but each was far enough along to be completed. The Petronas Towers were completed in 1998, the year after the Asian Crises hit Malaysia and the rest of developing Asia. The Sears Tower was completed in 1974, while the painful 1973-1974 OPEC oil embargo recession was underway. The Empire State Building topped out in 1931 during the Great Depression.

Here are the figures. Taipei 101 is 1,670 feet tall. Burg Dubai is scheduled to finish in 2008 at an eye-popping 2,314 feet. While a building is never certain until it's finished, the foundation work is complete and we think more likely than not, this building will be built. (We will be in Dubai in two weeks and probably will talk more about what's happening in that city at that time.) There are some rumors that the final height of Burj Dubai may be different from the initial figure here, and it could be even higher. The Shanghai WFC now will not finish until 2008 and it will be 1,614 feet.

Here's a web link to information on Burj Dubai:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Dubai

Note that outdated information for Shanghai WFC remains prevalent on the web, indicating an earlier completion date than 2008 and taller height. You will also find incorrect information on the web for a project called Union Square Phase 7 or Kowloon Station Phase 7 in Hong Kong. The outdated information is that this building will be around 1900 feet, which could have made it the world's tallest. Developers have since redesigned that building down to 1,588 feet. It has a 2007 completion date--we do not know if it remains on schedule. Also on the web are extremely sketchy details on something called the Center of India Tower in Katangi, India that is to be 2,222 feet, making it the world's tallest, if you ignore the Dubai building. This project was first announced years ago and with no substantial information available on it today, we are skeptical it will ever be built. Finally, there's the Freedom Tower in New York City to be built on the site of the World Trade Center. A third iteration of its design was released last week. While this iteration fixes the security problems present in the second iteration, in our opinion it re-introduces the aesthetic concerns that scuttled the first iteration. Now not scheduled to be completed until 2010, the present design retains the spire that will rise to a symbolic 1,776 feet. At present, we believe the chance of the current design being built is 50% at best. Even if it is, we think it is unlikely that this building will ever hold the title of the world's tallest building.

Now let's recognize those who answered our question. Cheryl Hays of Plant City, Florida, aka Deanna's mom, was not the first to answer, but she was the first to provide the answer we had in mind. She not only named the buildings in Dubai and Shanghai, she also mentioned Union Square in Hong Kong and the Freedom Tower in New York City. No penalties for guessing here! We award her the no*prize for this trivia question!

Larry Padgett of Buchanan, Michigan aka Nick's dad responded first. He also named the Hong Kong building, which he prefers to call Kowloon Station, as well as the Center of India Tower. Sorry dad, but you had outdated information on Kowloon Station's height and the India building is does not have a credible chance of being built, in our opinion. Nevertheless, we do not want to be ungracious, so we award you an honorable mention early bird no*prize for your superior responsiveness!

Finally, John Stierman of Macomb, Illinois, aka Nick's mom's neighbor, correctly, albeit a bit belatedly, named Dubai as one of the two cities we were looking for. He had the good sense not to name Shanghai since it wasn't a correct answer anyway. John wins the high-percentage answerer no*prize honorable mention award.

The link below details the 100 tallest buildings in world as of right now (buildings under construction are not listed). We list the top 20 in this post (the formatting is messed up but you should be able to read the table). We note that the city of Hong Kong now has as many buildings in the top 20 as the entire United States. China leads all countries with five in the top 20--nine if you include Hong Kong and 11 if you include Taiwan. Asia has 16 of the top 20, the US four. The US does have 11 buildings in the next top positions, 21-40.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001338.html

Rank; Building; City; Year; Stories; Height in Feet
1. Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan
2004 101 509 1,670
2. Petronas Tower 1, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
1998 88 452 1,483
3. Petronas Tower 2, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 1998 88 452 1,483
4. Sears Tower, Chicago
1974 110 442 1,450
5. Jin Mao Building, Shanghai 1999 88 421 1,380
6. Two International Finance Centre, Hong Kong 2003 88 415 1,362
7. CITIC Plaza, Guangzhou, China 1996 80 391 1,283
8. Shun Hing Square, Shenzhen, China 1996 69 384 1,260
9. Empire State Building, New York
1931 102 381 1,250
10. Central Plaza, Hong Kong 1992 78 374 1,227
11. Bank of China, Hong Kong 1989 72 369 1,209
12. Emirates Tower One, Dubai 1999 54 355 1,165
13. Turntex Sky Tower, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 1997 85 348 1,140
14. Aon Centre, Chicago 1973 80 346 1,136
15. The Center, Hong Kong 1998 73 346 1,135
16. John Hancock Center, Chicago 1969 100 344 1,127
17. Wuhan International Securities Building, Wuhan UC05 68 331 1,087
18. Shimao International Plaza, Shanghai UC05 60 331 1,087
19. Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang, N. Korea 1995 105 330 1,083
20. Burj al Arab Hotel, Dubai 1999 60 321 1,053

Finally, as we have written before, there are multiple definitions of how a building's height is measured. The definitions multiplied when Petronas Towers surpassed Sears Tower by the official measure, but Sears boosters pointed out that it was actually still taller by three alternative measures. As of its completion, Taipei 101 now tops the list under three of the four definitions (including the official definition), with Sears still holding the title under one definition, and Petronas no longer having any claim as world's tallest.

Here is an article that explains these definitions (1 meter = 3.28 feet). Again, the formatting is messed up, but you should be able to read what it says.

For immediate release – April 20, 2004

“World’s Tallest” Confirmed for Taiwan

Chicago . . . The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s Height Committee, after reviewing its height criteria, has officially designated Taiwan’s Taipei 101 as the “World’s Tallest”. The initial announcement was made by CTBUH Chairman, Ron Klemencic, at the Structural Engineers Foundation of Illinois’ 2004 Lecture on April 15 in Chicago, where members of the Taipei 101 design team made a presentation on the construction of the building.

Measured to the architectural top, Taipei 101 has a height of 508m, which places it above Malaysia’s twin Petronas Towers, measuring in at 452m. Chicago’s Sears Tower now moves into fourth place at 442m, followed by the Jin Mao Building in Shanghai at 421m.

The CTBUH official criteria states that “The height of a building is measured from the sidewalk level of the main entrance to the architectural top of the building, including penthouse and tower. Towers include spires and pinnacles. Television and radio antennas, masts, and flag poles are not included.”

In 1996 the Council voted to expand the data gathered to include three additional height categories – Highest Occupied Floor, Top of the Roof, and Top of Pinnacle or Antenna. Although the Sears Tower held the record in these three categories, Taipei 101 has now taken over two of the three, with the Sears Tower remaining as the record holder for Top of Pinnacle or Antenna at 527m.

The international membership of the CTBUH Height Committee includes Mir Ali of the University of Illinois, Champaign, IL; Eli Attia of Eli Attia Architects, New York, NY; Georges Binder of Buildings & Data, Brussels, Belgium; John Chapman of Schindler Elevator Corporation, Morristown, NJ; Joseph Colaco of CBM Engineers, Houston, TX; W. Gene Corley of Construction Technology Labs, Skokie, IL; Mahjoub ElNimeiri of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL; James Forbes of Scott Wilson Irwin Johnson Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia; Tom Fridstein of the Hillier Group, New York, NY; Marshall Gerometta, St. Joseph, MO; Jeff Herzer of World’s Tallest Media, Inc., St. Joseph, MO; Nicholas Isyumov of The University of Western Ontario, Southwold, Canada; Tom McCool of Turner Steiner International, Doylestown, PA; R. Shankar Nair of Teng & Associates, Chicago, IL; Gary Pomerantz of Flack + Kurtz, New York, NY; Mark Sarkisian of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, San Francisco; Jan Vambersky of Corsmit Consulting Engineers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and George von Klan of Edgett Williams Consulting Group, Mill Valley, CA.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, based at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL is the only international organization that brings together all of the disciplines involved in creating the urban environment on a global basis. Its mission is to disseminate information on healthy urban environments and tall building technology, to maximize the international interaction of professionals involved in creating the built environment, and to make the latest knowledge available to professionals worldwide in a useful form. Currently there are over 1,000 members from 80 countries representing a wide spectrum of professional specialization.

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July 02, 2005

05:31:29 am Japan  

Country Background:
Population: 127 million
Per capita GDP: $28,000 in purchasing power parity; $35,000 in absolute terms. This is the first country we have visited on this trip where the purchasing power number is below the absolute number. Translation: it's expensive here (but not as bad as it used to be; deflation is occurring--see commentary)
Size: slightly smaller than California
Currency: yen, 110 per US dollar
Language: Japanese. English spoken some. For us, we found the level of English good, but then we've been traveling for six months, and are used to getting by in foreign language countries. When Nick was here in 1989 he thought English was uncommon. English usage probably has increased some since then, as it has almost everywhere in the world, but what has changed more is his comfort level with being in a foreign environment.

Itinerary:
Japan Airlines flight from Seoul to Tokyo
Four nights at Sunroute Asakusa
Nozomi Super Express Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto, 2 1/2 hours
Four nights at Tomiya Ryokan in Kyoto; ryokans are traditional Japanese inns, with a Japanese bath, where you sleep on a futon mattress on the floor.
Local train to Osaka, 30 minutes
Two nights at Comfort Hotel in Shinsaibashi area, the heart of Osaka shopping and nightlife.
Nozomi Super Express Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima, 1 1/2 hours
Two nights at Comfort Hotel Hiroshima. Comfort Hotels, part of the US chain Comfort Inn, are an excellent value for Japan. We stayed at them in Osaka and Hiroshima and they are located throughout the country. $70-$80 per night, centrally located, with free breakfast and high-speed in-room internet. Rooms are small, but clean and modern. The Osaka hotel was new, the Hiroshima hotel's public areas were faded, with new carpet needed, but it was still a good deal.
Nozomi Super Express Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo, 4 hours, for flight out of country.

Tokyo
Friday, June 17, 2005 - Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 85/65
Population: The New York Times Almanac says 8 million in one place and 35 million in another. Lonely Planet says 12 million. We have frequently seen numbers between 15 and 20 million also. As usual it depends on how narrowly you define the city or how broadly you define the metropolitan area. By the broadest measure (35 million), Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area in the world according to UN figures, taking this title from New York City sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. Mexico City and Chongqing, China also lay claim to this title by alternate methods of counting and there is no real agreement as to who is biggest.

Tokyo is the capital and largest city in Japan. The city hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics and was the lead city in Japan when it co-hosted the 2002 World Cup, along with South Korea.

Notable Activities:

Yushukan Museum. This museum, commemorating Japan's wartime past, is one of the most stimulating museums we have ever been to, but not for the reason the curators intended. See commentary section below. The museum is on the same grounds as the Yasukuni Shrine, honoring Japan's war dead, including executed World War II criminals. Continued visits to this shrine by Japan's politicians, including Prime Minister Koizumi, have enraged Japan's Asian neighbors, most notably China and South Korea. In China in April, the shrine visits and other examples of Japan's sanitized view of its war history, led to widespread protests and destruction of Japanese property.

Japanese baseball at Jingu Stadium. We saw the first place Pacific League team Chiba Lotte Marines, coached by former Rangers and Mets manager Bobby Valentine, beat the second place Central League team 5-1. See previous post on Asian Baseball.

Tokyo Metropolitan Tokyo-Edo Museum. Good city museum covering Tokyo (known as Edo prior to the 1860s) throughout the centuries.

Tusukiji Fish Market. This is a strictly commercial operation, so don't expect anything similar to the touristy fish market on Seattle's waterfront. Still, it's interesting to stroll around for a half hour and view the infinite varieties of seafood available for sale. Leave the little kids elsewhere; they undoubtedly would be run over by the bikes, forklifts, and other vehicles zooming in and out of the crowded aisles.

Walking around different neighborhoods and commercial centers. For bustle, shopping, people watching, try Ginza (good on Sunday when the streets are closed) Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Roppongi. The latter destination is geared to Westerners, although you can get by fine about anywhere. Akasuka, especially the area around Sensoji Temple, is a quieter, older neighborhood, interesting for its contrast to the other areas.

This is just a small list of what Tokyo has to offer, and is not inclusive of everything we did. Buy a guidebook and do whatever interests you.

Kyoto

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - Saturday, June 25
Temperature high/low during our stay: 85/70
Population: 1.4 million

Kyoto is the cultural capital of Japan. The imperial family lived here from 794 to 1868, although at times the political capital was elsewhere.

Notable Activities:

There are so many temples and historical sites available that it is easy to suffer from temple fatigue. We skipped doing these on our own, as the Johnny Hillwalker Walking Tour (see below) visited many temples, satiating our interest.

Johnnie Hillwalker Walking Tour. We read in the Lonely Planet guide that an older Japanese man (see image gallery), with an Anglicized name of Johnny Hillwalker, gave personalized group walking tours of Kyoto three times per week, departing from the train station, about a block from where we were staying. So we did this 5-hour walking tour of Kyoto the first full day we were there. Johnny led us through streets and alleyways of Kyoto that many tourists do not see as they are rushing off to the main attractions. Highly recommended.

Kyoto Museum for World Peace at Ritsumeikan University. A breath of fresh air after the unbelievable propaganda of the Yushukan Museum in Tokyo. Unfortunately, after properly providing the unvarnished truth about Japanese wartime atrocities, the second half of the museum degenerates into Neville Chamberlain-like wishful thinking that war is never necessary, and all we need to do is give peace a chance. This part of the museum can't seem to make up its mind. In one place it says war should only occur with UN sanction, yet another display seems unfavorable on the Korean War, Persian Gulf War, and post 9-11 Afghanistan War, all fought with UN approval. Is it trying to suggest that the world would be better off if South Korea was communist, Kuwait was controlled by Iraq, and the Taliban still ruled Afghanistan? In another place it deplores ethnic violence in Yugoslavia, but elsewhere it cites the Kosovo bombing as a post-Cold War example where the US can flex its military muscle unchecked. That may be true, but the larger point of noting that the NATO-backed bombing stopped the ethnic killing of Albanians goes unmentioned. Despite this naiveté, the museum is worth visiting for its accurate view on Japanese military aggression.

Bicycle rental. There are plenty of affordable places around the city to rent a bike (about $10 per day)--something we did and recommend.

Osaka

Saturday, June 25, 2005 - Monday, June 27, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 90/75
Population: 2.5 million

Osaka International Peace Center. We went to the Osaka Museum of History, with its impressive building and modern displays, and were generally underwhelmed by the content. Then noticing the something called the Osaka International Peace Center on a local map, we walked 10 minutes to this place, which was not in our guidebook, and came away very impressed. So skip the history museum and come straight here. Like the peace museum in Kyoto we discuss above, this museum has none of the revisionist justification of the Yushukan Museum in Tokyo, instead painting the Japanese as brutal aggressors in World War II who caused unnecessary pain and suffering throughout Asia. This museum covers World War II in more depth than the one in Kyoto and does not fall into the peacenik trap of thinking war is never justified.

Minami area. The hub of Osaka shopping, eating, and nightlife. We stayed in this area, which is great for people watching.

Amerika-Mura. Adjacent to Minami, an interesting if not entirely accurate urban area that attempts to mimic the US. Populated by teenage and college student fashion victims, whose knowledge of the US is probably drawn from MTV and Hollywood movies. Reminds us of late 1980s New York City, before the graffiti was cleaned up. Yes, Japan has graffiti, more than we would have ever expected. See commentary.

Hiroshima

Monday, June 27, 2005 - Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Temperature high/low during our stay: 90/75
Population: 1.1 million

Peace Memorial Museum
Peace Memorial Park
A-Bomb Dome

All of the atomic bomb history you want to see is in one area in central Hiroshima: Peace Memorial Park. Peace Memorial Museum is the main building in the park, and you really must spend a couple hours there if you are in Hiroshima. There are numerous other memorials to view as you stroll through the park. Just outside the park is the A-Bomb Dome (see image gallery), one building near ground zero left in its damaged state.

Commentary:

Impressions of Japan

Below are generalized observations of Japan and its people. Of course, when commenting on an entire nation and its population, what you say is not true of every person. There are exceptions. For example, we would have no hesitation writing "Americans are fat" or "Americans have dirty public bathrooms" because statistically as a nation we have a larger percentage of overweight people than other countries, and by observation it is rather obvious that our public toilets are not as clean as those in most developed countries. This does not mean, of course, that every American is fat or that every American public toilet is dirty. But to let the exceptions restrict you from writing about the common, would leave you with nothing to write about. So with that said, here are a few tendencies we observed in Japan.

- Cleanliness. Japan is very clean, on par with Singapore. The Japanese are obsessed with cleanliness, be it personal hygiene or public areas. As mentioned in our Asian baseball post, ushers pick up trash in the middle of the game. Ever seen that in the US? There is hardly any trash on Japanese streets despite relative few trash cans. People think nothing of carrying their trash with them, disposing it later if by chance a rare trash bin appears, or if not, taking it home with them. And just as Americans on occasion may find fault with the personal cleanliness and bathing habits of some Europeans, the Japanese often consider all Westerners--yes, including those from the US--to be a bit smelly and offensive.

- Punctuality. In Japan, if a train is to depart at 7:38 and arrive at 8:23, you can be sure that each time will be met--not one minute earlier and not one minute later. To say someone is not punctual is a great insult. Japanese who travel in the US complain that planes are always delayed. Americans complain about this too, but not necessarily from the perspective that transportation should never be delayed by even one minute.

- Economy. Japan has been in an economic funk for 15 years. The Nikkei stock market index peaked at 39,000 in December 1989. Today it is only around 11,500. House prices are lower today than in 1989. Consumer prices are falling and have been for most of this period. Unemployment is around 5%--still a low level relative to most countries--but up from the 1%-2% common during most of its post-war history. If you did not know any of this, however, you would never guess it from walking the streets and traveling around the country. Everything looks prosperous--there are no signs of closed businesses, poverty, or any visible sign of economic trouble. In 12 days, we think we saw four homeless people. Maybe that's up from none 15 years ago, we don't know, but by the rest-of-the-world's standards it's incredibly low.

- Prices. First impression: Japan is very expensive. Second impression (after being in the country a while, gaining some sense of the price differentials that exist in every country, and remembering to compare Japan to the US, not the rest of relatively cheap Asia where you have been for the past two months): Japan is not as expensive as we thought. It's more expensive than the US, but it may not be the most expensive country in the world any more.

Deflation for 15 years while the rest of the world has had some inflation has made a significant impact in reducing Japan's traditional lack of affordability. Yes, there are outrageous prices--a taxi from the international airport to downtown Narita is $150, for example. But once you are there a while, you start to make economic choices like everyone who lives there. Because taxis are so expensive, most people don't use them. You remember that you also would not take a taxi from London's airport to downtown because of cost. The train from Tokyo's airport is around $10 (local) or $20 (express), less than a Chicago cab, albeit not quite as convenient. Once in Tokyo, the subways are about the same price as Chicago and much more convenient (more stations, more lines, less time between trains--we probably never waited more than two minutes). We ate an excellent breakfast in Tokyo for about $10 for the two of us. Lunch for two with waitress service was readily available for $20 or less. You could easily spend more in Chicago without trying hard.

- Toilets. Japanese lead the world in toilet design. US toilets are primitive by comparison. Most of our hotel rooms, and we were not staying in expensive places, had a western-style sit down toilet with numerous amenities. There were multiple built-in bidet features to wash your private parts in numerous combinations of directed streams, showers, and water temperatures. Never should you have to bear a cold toilet seat, for the seats are heated, with adjustable settings. Why it’s a wonder that anyone ever leaves the bathroom, such are the water park of tushy delights available to you.

- Food quality. Even if you do not like Japanese food, you have to marvel at the quality of its preparation. Even in diner-type places where an entrée goes for 5 bucks, you get a well-prepared fresh-tasting meal, served quickly and efficiently. The US is upset that Japan will not allow US beef imports over mad cow concerns. Each side has a point here. Yes, Japan is being somewhat too restrictive, to promote domestic production. But at the same time, the US fails to understand Japanese cleanliness and food quality standards. This is not just how the Japanese government thinks, it is how Japanese consumers think and act. Consumers here just don't want any food product that has the slightest chance, no matter how remote, of being tainted. The Japanese think food standards in Japan are higher than in the US, something Americans just can't believe is true, but likely is.

The Group versus the Individual

Just when you think we've gone native and this post is a lovefest for all things Japanese, let's point out a basic flaw Japan has, which at times can be fatal. Like most Asian societies, in Japan the emphasis is on the group rather than the individual. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. This has many advantages--clean cities and public bathrooms, low or non-existent crime rates, excellent public transportation and trains that are nearly always exactly on time. People willingly subordinate their needs on a daily basis, so that society prospers. Your first few days here may have you thinking you have traveled to a much more advanced place than you are used to.

In Western societies, the emphasis is more on the individual than the group. There is an extreme focus on individual rights, and the results of this at times are exasperating. With everyone having a no-one's-gonna-tell-me-what-to-do attitude, we have dirty cities, dirty bathrooms, massive traffic problems, excessive litigation, insubordinate youth, high crime, and so on.

However, all is not good with group-focused societies and all is not bad with individual-focused societies. Let's hone in on the Japan and the US, arguably the extreme examples of each. To a lesser extent, what we say here is true of other Asian group-focused societies and other Western individual-focused societies. US societies, with their messy free market of everyone asserting their individual rights all the time, tend to be self correcting. Through a noisy, untidy process that at times may turn your stomach or even defy description, problems in society do tend to be identified and solved in the US. In Japan, with everyone subordinating their needs most of the time, problems often are not raised, addressed, or solved. The most obvious and extreme example of this was Japan's acquiescence to the actions of its military government during the first half of 20th Century. Clearly, citizens of Western governments were similarly guilty, although the degree of personal sacrifice in Japan--civilian island populations obeying military command requests for mass suicide to avoid American control--does exceed what Western cultures did or would seem willing to do.

Facing its Problems

Now in some areas the Japanese are phenomenal problem solvers--manufacturing quality, public transportation efficiency, for example. They are relentless in the pursuit of perfection and improvement, and they often end up with a system or process better than that of any other country. But in other areas, obvious problems never are addressed, for reasons that we and other Westerners fail to comprehend.

The best current examples of this are 1) the financial crisis that began in 1990 and continues to this day, never fully tackled; and 2) the looming demographics problem of an aging population, which by some estimates could shrink Japan's population by 2/3 over the next century. This population decline could create its own financial crises, as fewer workers exist to pay retirement benefits and shrinking government tax revenue makes it impossible to maintain Japan's expensive infrastructure.

We've talked about these problems in past posts. The solution to the demographic problem is straightforward--maintain the population by either increasing immigration or incentivizing more childbirth, or both. If faced with the same problem, the US or China would address it head-on: after some period of national debate, the US would increase immigration levels and tax credits for children, while China would plaster cities and the countryside with posters and slogans exhorting parents that is better to have more than one child. (Then if that did not work, China would fudge the numbers to show the population increasing even if it is not--but we jest.) Japan is doing none of this and its male population has already begun to decline.

The solution to the financial problem is less straightforward, but actually more discussed, as the Western press for 15 years has laid out various reforms that Japan ought to take to reform its banking and financial system. Other than some timid half measures, Japan has stood pat, like the proverbial frog in the pot of water that is being brought to a boil, gradually enough that the frog never jumps, but eventually it dies.

So why does Japan not address obvious problems? We've read many explanations for this, and even come up with a few ourselves, but no explanation has ever really satisfied us. Any possible explanation that begins to make sense loses credibility if you just ask, "Okay if that's true, then explain why Japan is better than anyone else at solving other problems." We don't know why manufacturing excellence is obtainable but financial reform is not. Perhaps solving issues with inanimate objects is easier than issues involving people. Who knows? We would like to.

We know that Japan is unlikely to turn to immigration to solve its population problem. Frankly, a century and a half after the US forced Japan to re-establish contact with the outside world, it remains rather xenophobic. Okay, why then, no national campaign of raising awareness and providing incentives to have more children? We don't know. Many Japanese don't have more than one child because of the high cost of housing and raising children in Japan, and because of some degree of economic uncertainty about their future. That's understandable, but why the government does nothing is not. From our perspective, we are not confident that Japan can defuse its demographic timebomb. (As we have written in other posts, other countries--Russia, Italy, and many others--have similar timebombs. But Japan's situation, with the oldest citizenry of any country and high resistance to immigration--appears the most severe to us.)

Another shortcoming of group-focused societies, albeit not a fatal one, is that they tend not to encourage creativity and innovation to the degree that individual-focused societies do. This seems only natural when you think of it--of course of these two societal models, the one focused most on individuals will foster more individual accomplishment--and it has been much discussed elsewhere so we won't belabor this point. It is worth pointing out that Japan is more creative and daring than their stereotype. They are more fashion conscious than any country in the world in our opinion, and we don't just mean the suited-up salaryman. Walk the streets of any Japanese city and you'll be surprised by the clothing, hairstyles, and appearance of the teens and twenty-somethings. Even though much of their fashion emulates the West, especially hip-hop culture, you as a Westerner might even feel outdated in your mode of dress, if you were prone to care about such matters. We were not greatly troubled by this. And of course we must acknowledge Japan's culture gifts to the world--karaoke, Nintendo, and anime and magna cartoons (think Speed Racer, but with Trixie revealing her midriff).

Japan since the Bubble Burst

Nick visited Japan briefly in December 1989 a few weeks before the peak of the Japanese bubble. He did not realize then that his visit was so well timed. Fresh off his disaster speculative foray into airline merger stock arbitrage that fall, he even bought a book in Tokyo about how to invest in Japanese stocks. He remembers the book advising that it was normal for Japanese stocks to trade at high PE multiples because the perspective of the Japanese investor was long-term oriented. Fortunately, his short-term financial situation prohibited another speculative foray into equities he did not understand.

What observable changes were there in Japan during this 15-year interlude? Really things did not appear that different, but Nick did notice three things. First, the Japanese, while quite fashionable in 1989, were even greater slaves to fashion now, as noted above. Colored hair, wild haircuts, and an MTV-style of dress are quite common. Second, prices, as noted, are relatively less expensive. Third, there is graffiti. Not that bad now, but present. He remembers none in 1989. His stay was short then, just a couple of days, but giving his built in radar for noticing this, more likely is that it was not there. In some places, there is quite a lot now, and given the Japanese fastidious for cleanliness and order, this is puzzling. You would think they would be like Singapore and be hyper-zealous in its removal and prevention. But removal seems minimal. This may seem like a trivial observation, but it seems so counter to the Japanese character, it struck Nick as the most surprising observation of our visit. He is tempted to assign great meaning to this, wanting to see it as a visible sign of the country's economic stagnation and loss of will. Or perhaps it indicates that today's youth is truly different from their parents, and does not hold the view that society and the group is more important than the individual is (this would not be all bad by the way). Or maybe it has been there all along and he just overlooked it. We would be interested in comments on this point from readers who have traveled to Japan.

World War II in Asia--Animosities Still Simmering

In the Notable Activities section above, we mention our visit to the Yushukan Museum in Tokyo. It was the most memorable thing we did in Japan, and we recommend it highly. This is not because it is a good museum. It is good in the sense of it being a new building, with modern displays, and English translations. But it is a terrible museum. This museum tries--with a straight face--to pace off Japan's wartime aggression as a logical and justified reaction to external pressures the country faced. Atrocities? What atrocities? The Rape of Nanking? Why you must be referring to the Nanking Incident where the Chinese were to blame for not surrendering and for its commander abandoning his troops! The Japanese of course were under strict instructions to observe military rules to the letter of the law (Klingon law perhaps?), with severe punishment promised for any Japanese soldier who disobeyed (proving that a promise is easier to make than to keep). Why, once the Chinese military was defeated, the citizens of Nanking went back to living their lives in peace (that is the few hundred thousand citizens not murdered).

We are no stranger to museums with ridiculous levels of propaganda. Certain history museums in Cuba, Vietnam, and China have all made us involuntarily laugh aloud at times when reading some of their most outlandishly biased statements. But that is almost to be expected. Those are still communist countries with limited or no mechanism of free speech, and those museums are poorly put together, with out-of-date exhibits, poor lighting, and grammatically incorrect English translations. You almost expect those museums to be laughably biased.

The Yushukan Museum is not that. It was built in the last 10 years at great cost with exhibits created with great care. Japan is one of our strongest allies with a half century of democracy and free speech. It is the second largest economy in the world, with uniformly high education levels and living standards. In such a society, a revisionist museum such as this is shameful, inexcusable--a real embarrassment to the country. Such a museum could not exist in the US. Protests would have closed it within a few weeks or months of opening.

Equally upsetting as the museum's exhibits were some of the comments written in notebooks at the end of the exhibits. Amid an occasional thoughtful comment pointing out the hypocrisy of the place, was comment after comment mainly from Americans, thanking the museum for enlightening them as to other side of the story. It reminded us of the terrorist apologists who, after 9/11, opined that we really had it coming to us because we had not single handedly solved all problems in the Middle East. Yes, the terrorists and the Taliban and the World War II Japanese military leadership had a perspective. Rapists and mass murderers do too. That does not mean there is any validity to their perspective. While there are gullible idiots at all times in all societies, we wonder if the comments we read are the product of an American educational system that has become so politically correct that students are unable to make any value judgments, not able to distinguish between right and wrong, seeing every opinion and view expressed as equally valid.

We had a good sense of why--even 60 years after World War II--there is a smoldering hatred of Japan throughout parts of Asia before visiting this museum, but this visit really drove home the point through a personalized experience more impactful than what you gain reading a newspaper.

The quick background story is this. While there is nothing to match the Holocaust Germany perpetrated on Jewish civilians, Japan treated prisoners of war horribly, paying little attention to the Geneva Convention. With regard to civilians, Japan brutalized most of the populations they conquered, raping and murdering at random and without cause. In the West, the horror of the Holocaust overshadows these acts, but in the Pacific Rim, it is the Japanese crimes that are documented in history museum after history museum. The museums of Australia and New Zealand (which had POWs in the Pacific); as well as Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, and China, all countries partly controlled and brutalized by Japan, all tell this story. After World War II, Germany, led by Konrad Adenauer, profusely and repeatedly offered heartfelt apologies, expressing genuine sorrow. And while the occasional German joke still exists, Germany's enemies have for the most part forgiven them. Japan has apologized numerous times too, but only in the last 10-15 years, only when coaxed into it, and never with the same emotion and deep felt feelings as the Germans. So much of Asia, who on the surface works side by side with the Japanese, below the surface deeply resents them. There is probably a lot of economic jealousy and rivalry at play here as well. While Germany may be first among equals in Europe (and in recent years its economic leadership is in doubt), Japan, despite 15 years of stagnation and a fast-rising China, is still the economic giant of Asia, with numerous followers.

For years, Japanese government officials have visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors all of Japan's war dead including 12 executed Class A war criminals. This of course irritates Japan's neighbors, especially China and Korea. Japan tries to justify and explain the visits, which of course is pointless. No matter how sound their logic may seem to a Japanese domestic audience, the visits are stupid and the solution is simple. Either remove the war criminals or just stop going. Take your pick--either will work. End the hand-wringing national debate about building a second secular shrine, or trying to educate Asia about why it would be dishonorable to the non-criminal fallen servicemen not to visit the shrine. Asia ain't buying your story Japan. It's time to switch tactics. And this is becoming so obvious, that even some right-wing proponents of the shrine visits are now calling on the prime minister to stop going.

The other issue is that over the past 10 years Japanese school texts have gradually become more opaque in their discussion of Japan's wartime behavior, with references to the Rape of Nanking and Comfort Women (foreign female sex slaves forced to serve Japanese soldiers) softened. The latest row in April occurred when Japan approved one textbook where these references were removed altogether. This led to protests, rioting, and destruction of Japanese property in China. Now, let's be clear, China is quite guilty itself of whitewashing history, and we imagine its own textbooks are more distorted than Japan's. Further, it is surely stoking nationalistic fires by allowing the protests to occur. But two wrongs don't make a right, and Japan as a democratic, developed country ought to be above such Orwellian attempts to alter the historic truth. Moreover, South Korea is also angry over the shrine visits and textbooks, and while all countries act in their self interest, we don't think South Korea protests are strictly to promote patriotism. There are genuine unhealed wounds in Asia over World War II.

Fortunately, it is a minority in Japan who want to downplay its troubled past. Museums in Kyoto and Osaka, and to some degree Hiroshima, lay out the plain truth in black-and-white language. One plaque in Kyoto read:

"Japanese military forces conducted indiscriminate bombing and used poison gases and biological weapons against countries such as China. In war zones, they killed and tortured soldiers and civilians alike, their operations aimed at totally destroying areas that put up resistance."

So for now the right-wing revisionists in Japan have a long way to go for their version of history to take hold.

Hiroshima: Shameful Decision or Brave Action by Bold Men?

Of as much concern to us is the peace-at-any-price crowd present in the West, which does not know its history and does not think critically, and thus could condemn its or a future generation to an unfortunate and completely avoidable fate by repeating mistakes of past generations. The apologist crowd was present again in Hiroshima writing all sorts of statements condemning the US bombing there. Now what happened in Hiroshima was so horrible that most people focus only on that event in isolation. Dropping an atomic bomb on a defenseless city was a terrible thing to have to do, and the people of Hiroshima did not deserve what happened to them, just as citizens of any city would not deserve a similar fate. But we are convinced that this action and a second atom bomb on Nagasaki three days later saved millions of lives, most Japanese, by ending the war far earlier than otherwise would have occurred. Far from condemning President Truman for this act, we praise his bold decisiveness to do a bad thing and thus save so many others from the death they otherwise would have met.

To evaluate the atomic bombings, you must answer the question the apologists never address: how would you have ended World War II? Although the war was over in Europe and Japan had been steadily losing for three years, the Pacific War was far from concluded. Japan's imperial government refused to see the writing on the wall. In its mind, surrender was unthinkable, a fate worse than death. It commanded its citizens to prepare for "100 million deaths with honor" defending Japan from Allied invasion. It was training ordinary citizens to resist invasion and fight the Allies in hand-to-hand combat. When the Allies took Okinawa, a Japanese island on the way to the mainland, tens of thousands of civilians died, about 25% of the island's population. Some were involved in the fighting; many killed themselves in a mass suicide, following the instruction of the military commander. They believed self-inflicted death to be more honorable than living under American rule. The figures we viewed in one museum suggested that 95% of the Japanese soldiers died on Okinawa, many of them in suicidal attacks designed to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy before an inevitable death occurred.

Facing an enemy that refused to give up, the US military planned to invade Japan, beginning on November 1, 1945, in a sort of Pacific D-Day. Their estimates of deaths: 500,000 to 1 million US soldiers and 1 to 3 million Japanese civilians. The war certainly seemed likely to have dragged into 1946. Obviously, the US planned for victory and presumably the death estimates represented a victory scenario. Giving the Okinawa experience, we wonder if the estimates were too low. Fortunately, we will never know. Two atomic bombings and some 200,000 Japanese civilians gave their lives involuntarily so that millions of their fellow citizens did not have to do so. (Exact estimates of Japanese deaths from the atomic bombings are difficult to calculate because many died from radiation poisoning months and years afterward. The Peace Museum in Hiroshima estimates that 140,000 died in Hiroshima by the end of 1945. We did not visit Nagasaki, but we believe the number of deaths there may have been about half of Hiroshima's level, bringing the total to around 210,000.)

One can take the what-if analysis two steps further without being too carried away. What would the Soviet Union's role have been in the invasion of Japan? Recall that the Soviet Union declared war and attacked Japan in the waning days of World War II. By agreement at Yalta, their attacks in August 1945 were limited to Japanese-controlled areas in China and some of Japan's northern islands (which today remain the source of a territorial dispute), leaving the Japanese mainland to the US. The atomic bombings ended the war abruptly before the Soviet Union was able to make much of an incursion into Japanese areas. But if the war dragged into 1946, as it likely would have without the atomic bombings, the story might have been different. The Soviets might have stretched the Yalta agreement to suit their interest. If the Japanese invasion was extremely difficult, might the US have even been forced to call upon their Soviet allies for assistance? Could Japan have been divided into a communist north and a democratic south for the four or five decades that followed? Could Japan have been the site of a hot war, between communist and capitalist forces, ala Korea and Vietnam? Could Japan even be divided today, like Korea?

The other what-if question is what would have happened since 1945 if there had not been the deterrent effect of actually seeing atomic bombs used on civilian populations. Maybe atomic weapons would have been used in Korea, Vietnam, or in a Japanese civil war if that country became divided as outlined in the paragraph above. Even if not used in all of those cases, perhaps the Cuban Missile Crisis would have played out differently if the parties on each side had never witnessed the power of the atom unleashed on a population. Of course, any later use of a first atomic bomb would have been far more powerful, deadly, and destructive than what occurred in Japan in 1945. It seems fortunate that if there were to be two uses of atomic weapons, that they would be at the very beginning of the development of such weapons, when the weapons--as powerful as they were then--were still relatively basic compared to what was developed later.

So if opposed to the usage of atomic bombs in Japan in 1945, you must answer how to end the war against a country that vowed never to surrender--and meant it. This was not rhetorical propaganda. Japan never intended to surrender. The population was not calling for surrender. There were no protests or demonstrations in favor of surrender. Even after the horror of Hiroshima, there was no surrender--it took a second bombing to demonstrate what would occur in city after city if surrender did not occur. Only then did the emperor decide to surrender, a decision that was controversial and which many disagreed with, seeing it as premature and unnecessary. But duty bound, it was a decision accepted by the military and public.

We have not seen any evidence that suggests that a negotiated settlement acceptable to the Allies was realistic. Japan, despite three years of defeats, still had its armies spread across much of Asia, holding territory in many countries. The only settlement Japan might have accepted would have been completely unacceptable to the Allies--one with Japan's military strength intact and perhaps still holding some territories such as Korea and Taiwan, countries colonized decades prior to Pearl Harbor. No, unconditional surrender was the only desirable outcome, and there were only two ways to achieve it. Neither choice was good, but atomic bombings until surrender seems strongly superior to the thought of a conventional invasion that would have drawn out the war, killed millions of additional people, and potentially introduced Soviet control into parts of Japan. The involuntary sacrifice of the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was well worth it we think, when one considers the benefits their tragedy brought to their fellow citizens and their country, their Asian neighbors (who immediately realized peace), the Allies, and the rest of the world in the decades hence.

The nature of this post on Japan may leave the reader in doubt as to our feelings about the country. Let us be clear. We had a great time there. It is a modern, efficient, and friendly place to visit--one of our favorite countries on our trip so far. We expect an American visitor to Japan would probably have an easier time than a Japanese visitor to America, in terms of language, cultural differences, and politeness. We admire what the country has become, and we wish them success at addressing the problems they now face. It is better for the US and the rest of the world if they do overcome financial and demographic issues in front of them. You won't notice these problems if you go there, and we recommend you do visit.

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