the other miss saigon

Greetings from the Ho Chi Minh City Airport in Vietnam.

When I travel, I'm usually treated like a VIP. People I meet know that I make the final decisions for a lot of things that we do, and that I'm usually the senior person in our traveling group. As such, CEOs, chairmen, managers or whoever the senior person on hand is from the other side will want me to ride in their car or sit next to them at the table or whatever. Asians are big on protocol. It's nice to be treated like you're important, but it's not my style and can create some awkward situations. Yesterday was the best example of this I've experienced thus far in my glorious corporate career.

Three cars were waiting for my two colleagues and me when we arrived in Vietnam yesterday. The chairman of the factory (the company and all its leadership are Japanese) invited me to ride with him in his personal car, while my two colleagues were assigned to other, lesser vehicles. Traffic in Vietnam is among the worst I've ever seen--there are too many motorcycles and scooters, and there are few obvious rules--so it took over an hour to travel what seemed like less than 10 miles. This gave the chairman and me lots of time to talk. It was during this ride that he first mentioned karaoke and something about "girls being arranged" for the evening.

The subject came up again during our ride to the hotel after our factory tour and meeting. It was at this point that I wove into our conversation the fact that my colleagues and I were married, and I also asked the chairman if he had a family. He told me he had three children. Despite these facts, the subject of karaoke and girls came up again during the ride. The chairman also told me that he hoped "the girls would be quiet, just like Japanese girls". I laughed nervously, trying to play along while wondering what I should say next to try to get out of any uncomfortable situations.

After dinner, we again got in the same car to be driven to our next destination, which he told me was called Miss Saigon. At this point, I made it clear to him that I had discussed the matter with my colleagues, and we all agreed we wanted no girls there and that it was against our company policy to accept more than dinner. He replied that he had made reservations, so we needed to go but would not have to worry about the girls.

Miss Saigon looked shady--there were bright neon yellow lights on the outside, and only Japanese men and scantily clad Vietnamese women inside. We were led to a room and seated. A big bottle of Jack Daniels was brought out, which all three of us promptly refused. A few minutes later, one girl for each of us was brought out, each wearing a sheer, see-through blouse and a very short skirt. It was at this point that we starting freaking out, particularly my Chinese colleague. He excused himself from the room for a few minutes under the pretense of a phone call, while my other colleague and I gave each other "WTF" and "What should we do?" looks. The girl seated next to me couldn't speak English very well, but she was trying to talk to me so I told her my name and asked hers, and we tried communicating a bit more but didn't get too far. She tried to get me to pick a song to sing out of a phonebook-sized karaoke list, but I refused and told her to pick one. She picked Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" or whatever it's called--a loathsome ditty, but whatever. After much pushing from a couple of the girls, I jumped in for one chorus but then handed the mic back. I was really freaking out. The girl next to me kept touching my arm and leg and sitting closer, and while she was decent looking and seemed nice, hey--I'm married and don't need a hooker, thank you very much.

My Chinese colleague came back in the room and announced that he wasn't feeling well and that he had to go. My other colleague and I said we would accompany him, so we all got up when we were told that a car was ready. The girls looked bewildered, and the chairman became very upset. He tried to force me to stay in the room while letting my colleagues go, and looked like he wanted to kill me when I told him that I absolutely had to leave right then. He followed us outside and insisted that I ride in his personal car again. Fortunately, one of his subordinates got in rather than him, and while I was freaked out that I was going to be taken somewhere other than the hotel, they delivered me there as I had requested. I explained our ethics policy to the subordinate and also told him that while the Japanese may find this kind of entertainment acceptable and normal for business (and they do), Americans did not and we could not accept it. He apologized and said it wasn't a problem, but I didn't feel like he was being very sincere.

The chairman had said that he would arrange for us to be taken to the airport today, and sure enough, he did--he was waiting for us in the hotel lobby this morning at the appointed time. You can imagine my dread when I saw him waiting there. The first thing he did was apologize and say that he'd "take care of things in the future", whatever that meant. Regardless, it was a pretty awkward ride to the airport. At least I had one colleague with me this time.

To be honest, I'm surprised something shady/uncomfortable like this hasn't happened earlier in my career. We've had people in our China offices fired for demanding and/or accepting bribes, and since I'm in a position to make decisions on tens of millions of dollars in business, it's natural that I would be a target for "special services", bribes or other forms of influence that are not acceptable in the U.S.

It's unfortunate that my trip had to end this way. My trip has generally gone very well, and Vietnam is a fascinating place--I would liked to have seen more of it. The people seem very friendly and welcoming and there's a lot of interesting culture here. I'm sure I'll be back someday, but hopefully not to visit this factory again. If so, maybe I'll just forward them a copy of my company's code of business ethics before I arrive.

Anyway, I'm excited to go home. It's been a long trip.

The view from my hotel window in Ho Chi Minh City:

shanghai surprise

After a couple of days of meetings and walking around at the Hong Kong Consumer Electronics Show, I flew to Shanghai on Friday night. The flight was an interesting affair. I flew on Dragonair, which is a Cathay Pacific subsidiary. This meant that there were a lot of carryovers from Cathay: 90% of the stewardesses were very pretty, the service was impeccable, and the meal was far better than decent. It's worth mentioning that this flight was just over two hours, and that I sat in coach...Yet I was still given a full meal with Haagen-Dazs ice cream at the end. It would be nice if American airlines could find a way to not take things like meals for coach class away and still make money. Clearly Asian airlines can do it. Anyway, I was given an awesome exit row seat when I checked in. It seemed like it was going to be the best coach seat I'd ever had when I saw that there was no seat in front of me. That all changed, of course, when I was kicked awake after falling asleep. You see, there was a plastic panel where the seat in front of me should have been, and it turned out that this panel was a fold-down seat. For reasons I cannot understand, Dragonair has a stewardess sit in one of these seats on either side of the plane during takeoff and landing, which resulted in 30 minutes or so of the flight being very uncomfortable as the stewardess and I tried not to look at each other. Not being able to put headphones on and fall back asleep, I finally tried to strike up a conversation at the end. It didn't get anywhere until I switched to Cantonese, but even then, it was still weird. Oh well--I'd still give the flight an A- overall.

Getting through Shanghai's Pudong airport was fairly easy, and pretty uneventful. The health checks and precautions for H1N1 are pretty entertaining. Almost all the workers and officials in the airport wear surgical masks, and all arriving passengers are required to fill out declaration forms regarding where they've been, any symptoms they've experienced and the symptoms of any people with whom they've been in close contact. Chinese immigration officials have the right to make people submit to random temperature tests and will quarantine anyone they think looks sick, so I'm glad I was feeling and looking OK. A guy in our Shanghai office was once quarantined for five days due to one of these inspections, and it was not a pleasant experience.

I'm currently staying at a Radisson hotel. It's in a decent, if fairly quiet part of town. I went for a walk before hitting the town yesterday, and here's what the area around the hotel looks like:







Yes, as modern as Shanghai is, there are still some things here that are throwbacks to another era.

My first stop of the day was the first Best Buy store in China, located in the ultra-busy Xujiahui district. I believe this is the largest Best Buy store in the world. It occupies 5-6 floors of a high rise building, and is definitely larger than anything in the US. I've always heard this was super-expensive real estate, and it didn't take long to see why. Here's the store and surrounding area:









The last photo, with the little kids surrounding the man, is to show you what happened to me. I was standing on the bridge waiting for my colleague to show up when these kids and a couple moms walked over to me. After some coaxing, they got up the nerve to say "hello" in English, and since the moms were telling them to ask me if I understood Chinese, I told them that I understood a bit, so they went into their fundraising spiel. I gave them like $.75, which apparently was a lot because they gave me not one, but two fake roses and a sticker for my contribution.

After visiting Best Buy, we hit two of our competitors' stores. Both of these competitors are far bigger than Best Buy and its Chinese subsidiaries, but hopefully that will change. Both stores reminded me of the now defunct Circuit City: poor lighting, less clean/inviting environment, unfriendly/unhelpful staff. Their prices are, however, more competitive than Best Buy's in many cases. One interesting thing I noticed in all three stores is that even though most consumer electronics are manufactured in China, they're all more expensive here than in the US, at least, the name brand ones are.

After we were done with the store visits, we went to Cheng Huang Miao, which can best be described as an insanely crowded "temple" in which many little shops and restaurants are located. Shanghai's most famous culinary development, the xiaolongbao dumpling, is served in the most famous xiaolongbao restaurant in the city here. The lines for this restaurant were super long, but we were finally seated after ~45 minutes of waiting. We ordered three types of xiaolongbao (pork, crab and spicy pork), as well as crab spring rolls and giant xiaolongbao that had crab soup in them. The soup was sucked out of the xiaolongbao with a straw. Kind of weird, but very tasty. In fact, everything was very tasty. It was a nice trip down memory lane. My only other visit to Shanghai was nine years ago, when I was a student, and my friend that showed us around also took us to this very same restaurant.















After more walking around, we left and went to another part of town, near Jing An temple. We were kind of beat, so we went to a donut shop to hang out. Like Haagen Dazs and some other American eateries in China, what is essentially a fast food affair had been turned into a sit-down experience at this place. We ordered some beverages and hung out for a few hours, discussing various work topics. The weather was really nice and we had seats outside in the shade, so it was a good experience overall. Here's the area near the donut shop:





My colleague had gotten excited that I had mentioned that I liked hot pot (you cook your food in flavored, boiling water), so she insisted that we go to a popular hot pot restaurant for dinner. Now, if you know me, then you know that my digestion sucks and that I can't really eat more than once a day without feeling like I'm going to explode, so I wasn't really looking forward to this. The lack of air conditioning in the mall and people smoking where we were waiting (for over an hour, I might add) only made matters worse. Still, I'm glad we went. The restaurant's decor and ingredients were of higher quality than any hot pot establishment I'd ever been to, and my colleague explained that this was the reason why the place was so popular, and that it had been widely copied since it opened a few years ago. Anyway, I got curry-flavored water, and we ordered beef, pork, lamb, winter melon (a slightly bitter melon I've never seen in the US) and white mushrooms (the only kind I will eat) to cook in the water. It was the best hot pot I'd ever had.

By the end of dinner, I was hot and exhausted. I fell asleep about 30 seconds after getting into the taxi to get back to my hotel. Since it was 45 minutes away, I got a nice nap. All in all, a very good day.

the joys of travel

Travel can be so hit-and-miss or up-and-down, and the last 24 hours have been no exception.

- There was no one sitting next to me on my flight to San Francisco, which was awesome. That made it easier to stretch out, especially because I was sitting in coach. The only downside to the flight was that it was an hour late.

- I flew business class from San Francisco to Hong Kong, which meant I got access to a business class lounge (British Airways, in this case) while I waited for the flight. This meant free internet access, free drinks, free snacks, comfortable chairs, etc. My experience was only marred by the old dude who chose to sit on my side of the lounge while he proceeded to talk loudly on his cell phone for over an hour about live animal tests or something like that.

- I got settled into my seat early (again, the benefits of business class), but we ended up sitting at the gate for three hours before getting cleared to take off (apparently the crosswinds "exceeded tolerance for the Boeing 747" or something like that). However, it wasn't like the horror stories you hear about on the news. We were offered snacks and drinks multiple times. I don't know if that happened for the people in coach, but if I know Cathay Pacific, it did.

- Cathay's business class seats are interesting. You get a pod of your own. Size-wise, these pods were probably designed more for someone of typical Chinese size than American size, but they certainly did have benefits. The major benefit was privacy. The pods are slanted rather than side by side, so you don't actually sit next to anyone. This meant that I didn't have to have any awkward conversations or listen to anyone blather on about their business--a frequent occurrence, based on my previous business class experiences. The other major benefit to this seat was that it reclined so that it was perfectly flat. I think I slept like six hours, which absolutely rocks for a flight.

- Cathay has good food and wonderful service. Meals typically had 4-5 courses, and included tablecloths, alcoholic drinks if you wanted them, hot towels before and after, etc.

- You gotta love the Chinese response to swine flu, SARS and the like. Most of the airport workers were wearing surgical masks, which was funny and creepy at the same time.

- When traveling in Asia, it always seems like white people get through immigration faster than everyone else, and tonight was no exception. All the Asians from places other than HK seemed to be taking forever to get through. Immigration officers were asking questions, challenging answers, etc. When my turn came up, not a word--my passport was quickly stamped and I was waived on. I observed similar experiences for my white brothers and sisters.

- HK's public transportation system rocks. There's nothing like being able to take a quick subway ride from the airport into the city (on a train designed for people carrying luggage, no less), and then a short taxi ride from the subway station to the hotel. The total cost for both was less than I pay for a taxi ride in Minneapolis, despite the fact that it took 3-4 times as long.

- HK taxi drivers. Still fairly rude. I think that's normal for most HK people until you get them to open up, though.

All in all, so far so good. My late flights only resulted in my having to cancel dinner plans with an old friend, and I was able to easily reschedule. Four hours of delays could have been much, much worse.

Tomorrow: Hong Kong Consumer Electronics Fair. Woo hoo!

winter storm warning

That's right--after Saturday's light snowfall, today we have a winter storm warning in effect until 4pm. We already have roughly two inches on the ground. This is crazy. Also crazy is how crappy my Canon G9's ISO 1600 performance is. I hadn't previously played with it much, but the grain is...um..."exceptional."

I checked the weather for a few of the cities I'll be visiting in Asia (I leave tomorrow morning), and it looks like high 80's/low 90's for most of my trip. I'm sure I'll be complaining in a few days about how hot/humid it is.

powerline sunrise redux

32 degrees this morning, but great clouds and colors. It's nice to be able to see this stuff standing in my driveway. (Click on the photos to make them bigger).

We're supposed to get 1-3" of snow tomorrow, so maybe I'll have more interesting photos to share then.

it's too early for this

I have an above average love of snow, but even I have my limits. This is the earliest in the year I've ever seen snow, and I don't think I'm mentally prepared for it yet. Just a few weeks ago we had temperatures in the high 80's, so to wake up to a bit of snow and 27 degrees is just a tad disconcerting.

I hope I will one day win an award based on the belief that I will do something.

The list of Nobel Peace Prize winners has long been dubious. I mean, let's be honest--Henry Kissinger? Yasser Arafat? Al Gore? Questionable accomplishments, causing more harm than good, etc.--these have all been part of the game. And the stakes in this game were raised today when it was announced that President Obama is this year's winner. What exactly has he done? What peace has he brought to the United States, or to the world for that matter? Are U.S. troops not still fighting wars in two different countries? Call me kooky, call me wacky, but Barack Obama hasn't done a damn thing to benefit this world--not now, not ever. He was unaccomplished as a senator and is, as of this date, unaccomplished as our president--no major legislation passed, no major foreign policy coups, nothing. This is not to say that he won't accomplish anything; he just hasn't accomplished anything yet. And there is no reason to give someone a famous award and over a million dollars for doing nothing. At least he's donating the money to charity. That's the one ray of sunshine in this disgrace.

As far as I'm concerned, the Peace Prize has always been the least impressive of the Nobel prizes. Today's announcement locked in that distinction for life.

three documentaries and a flick

The little lady was occupied with things of a religious nature this past weekend, so I "took advantage" of the "free time" I had and went and saw three documentaries:

"Capitalism: A Love Affair" - the latest Michael Moore documentary looks at the financial crisis and at how it affects our country. Moore makes some compelling arguments against the American capitalist system, but as usual, I disagreed with the way he presented a lot of his information. He tends to show statistics and act like they're all correlated because they happened at the same time, when the truth is obviously more complicated than that. Furthermore, I'm not a fan of how he takes one or two examples of people who have been affected by an issue, and then says that all people who are affected are as "innocent" as his examples. Having said all this, I think it's difficult to come away from the film not wondering if we, as a nation, shouldn't be more focused on people as a priority rather than profit and financial prosperity. I'll give this one a B-.

"It Might Get Loud" - Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2) and Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs) are filmed discussing how they started playing guitar, their first guitars, their sound, how they compose, etc. Sometimes they're filmed together, and sometimes apart. The parts where they're in the room together are pure magic. The Edge and Jack White have the same reverence for Jimmy Page that many guitarists would, and I couldn't help but smile at those moments. If you're a fan of any of these bands, or of the guitar in general, then this documentary is a must-see. I'll give it a solid A. It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.



"No Impact Man" - A liberal/environmentalist/tree hugger-type guy decides to put his money where his mouth is. Rather than just talk about the environment all the time, he and his family attempt to live an environmentally impact-free life for a whole year. This includes the following:

- No eating out
- No eating food produced more than 250 miles away (including no coffee)
- No eating meat (carbon impact from livestock is very high, so they cut it out)
- No using cars or public transportation
- No using elevators or escalators
- No electricity at home (they started this in month 6)
- No buying anything other than food at the farmers market

In general, the family experiences a number of benefits from living their life this way. The wife, in particular becomes healthier, overcoming a pre-diabetic condition and coffee addiction. They spend more quality time together because they no longer watch TV. They get more in touch with people in the community, particularly the people that produce the food they purchase at the farmers market. I enjoyed this documentary and didn't find it at all preachy. It really just encourages you to think about what you really need and what you can live without. Afterward, I decided I hadn't been to the farmer's market for a while myself, so I went and picked up some locally produced vegetables and fruits, as well as some organic chips and salsa. Anyway, I'll give this film an A-.



Last night, we went to dinner and a movie. I can't remember the last time we did this, especially during the week. Our movie selection was "The Invention of Lying", and I found it thoroughly disappointing. The premise of the movie is that the main character (Ricky Gervais) lives in a world where nobody lies. One day, in a moment of desperation, he tells a lie. Quickly realizing the power of lying in a world where people believe everything that's said, he uses his new ability to win fame and fortune. There were some funny moments, but the whole nobody lies and everyone tells the truth thing got old after about ten minutes. It's too bad, really--I like Ricky Gervais quite a bit and think he's done a lot of really funny movies and shows. I'll give this one a C+.

the desert beyond

Three more of my colleagues arrived in Phoenix on Friday afternoon. Among them was the engineer with whom I work closely on digital imaging products. If I'm obsessed with photography (and I am, to a degree), then he foams at the mouth. He tends to bring his DSLR, tripod and several lenses everywhere we go, regardless of whatever inconvenience this might cause him. This Phoenix trip was no exception, so as soon as he and the other two new arrivals got checked in at the hotel and at the convention center, we took his suggestion and drove into the desert so we could check it out (not like there's much else to do in Phoenix) and take pictures. We arrived in the late afternoon, and the sunny weather made photography fairly difficult, but I still managed to get a few decent shots. Had I known I'd have a chance to go, I definitely would have brought my DSLR. A lens hood and a polarizer, in particular, would have been handy.

Anyway, there were some really tall cacti (tallest I've ever seen, for sure) and some of the bluest skies I've seen in a long time out there. It was a good afternoon and a good way to end my trip.

















Phoenix in the distance:

hot october nights

The view from my hotel window in Phoenix early this morning:





Phoenix isn't the most exciting place in the world, but I really like the desert scenery that encircles the city, especially close to sunrise. If I had more time, I'd head out of town and go play with the cactus and rattlesnakes. Minnesota's grenery is great, but mountainous deserts have their appeal as well.

Now, if I could only get that traffic helicopter that's been hovering outside my window for the last half hour to go away, that'd be great. Kinda creepy...

fairly sissy methods for obtaining better sleep

I've never been able to sleep all that well, or at least, not for very long (as evidenced by my writing this post at 5:30am, after trying to fall back asleep for an hour and a half). I think most people prefer or are at least capable of 8-10 hours of sleep a night; I can rarely sleep more than 5-6 hours a night, and if I'm able to get seven hours, that's a REALLY good night. In fact, I can only remember 3-4 instances this year when I actually got seven hours of sleep. It's not that I can't fall asleep--I can usually fall asleep in under a minute--I am just incapable of sleeping in or for long periods of time. I've always been like this. As such, I'm always looking for ways to improve my sleep.

METHOD ONE: CALORIE/BEVERAGE RESTRICTION

Over the last few months, I can remember sleeping seven hours straight on three separate occasions. On each of those occasions, I had restricted my calorie and beverage intake for the day. I probably drank a liter or less of water, had no soda or milk, and only ate a few small meals that day: an apple for one meal, an orange for another, an apple for another, and a small sandwich might be one day's meals. This is obviously not easy to accomplish, especially when you're a prodigious eater like me, but it is possible with some planning. I've also found that combining low intake with a little exercise helps, too. Not surprisingly, a few days of this can mean dramatic weight loss.

METHOD TWO: SLEEP MASKS



I can't think of anything particularly manly about wearing a sleep mask, and not surprisingly, I couldn't find a picture of a man wearing one in my three-minute search of the internet.

I first resorted to the covering-the-eyes method of obtaining better sleep when I was in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) before my mission to Hong Kong. We were granted exercise time a few times a week, and since I'd usually rather have cancer than exercise, a like-minded friend and I would usually high-tail it back to our room and take naps instead. This was always in the middle of the day, so I would cover my eyes with a sock to block out the light. It always worked like a charm, even if the method was fairly emasculating.

I got my first real sleep mask on the flight over to HK (bless Cathay Pacific for being such an awesome airline). I used that mask like crazy over the next two years. It was so beat up by the end of my stint in HK that gluey bits of elastic started coming out of the band and getting stuck in my hair. The little lady later bought me a new one to replace it, which was a nice gesture. I think she got some weird looks from the people at Spencer's Gifts (the only place she could find them) when she bought it, though. I think Spencer's intended their sleep masks for some kind of sexual debauchery rather than a good night's sleep.

METHOD THREE: TEDDY BEARS



Nope, definitely nothing manly about this. A girl in HK that liked me gave me a creepy looking stuffed panda bear for some occasion, probably my birthday or Christmas. I don't remember what I was thinking, but I decided to try sleeping whilst holding onto it one night. As mentioned above, I usually fall asleep really fast, but on this particular occasion, I fell asleep lightning fast. So, I decided to try it again...and again...and again. Pretty soon, I was using it every night (thank heaven I didn't have to share my room with a roommate). When Becca and I were dating, I told her about the panda bear and I think she got jealous, because she gave me a new teddy bear for Christmas that year (along with the sleep mask, a blanket and maybe one or two other sleep-related items--strange theme for a set of gifts, but nice nonetheless).

I still have both teddy bears, but no longer use them. My favorite weapon of choice now is just a regular pillow. Becca hates this, however, because said pillow has a bad habit of ending up on top of her or swatting her in the middle of the night. I guess I move around a lot when I sleep. Oops.

You might be wondering why I don't just hold onto my wife while sleeping. It's a nice idea, but impractical. If I did that, I might as well be holding onto a radiator. I'm really sensitive to warm temperatures, and thus hugging the wife is a one-way ticket to a horrible night of sleep. Thanks, but no thanks. Sorry, Becca, but you'll have to continue to battle the pillow.

Got any good methods for getting better sleep? I'd like to hear them.