Gratitude 2013

Maybe it is a little late but I wanted to post this. 2013 has been a horrendous year for many people I know. It has been fraught with divorces, health problems, legal issues, employment challenges, parenting issues, issues with parents, and relationship struggles the confluence of which I have not seen among my friends and myself in my lifetime. I'm loathe to attribute too much to providence (or her big brother, God) but the blessings of life have ebbed for much of this year and yet, finally, in this last quarter they have once again begun to flow for myself and others. Here is a list of things that I am grateful for this year. Some are specific and some are obviously purposefully vague to protect those who dare associate with me too closely.

1. My slow cooker (first attempt at Taiwanese 牛肉面 was last night and it was amazing.)


2. That the Navy's newest aircraft carrier is the U.S.S. Ford.


3. My house

4. That I've lived the life that I have and seem on the cusp of the life I've always wanted.


5. That the Star Trek novels are continuing the story in the Prime Universe.

6. That the geeks won the culture war. Now Hollywood makes our movies, Target sells our t-shirts, and beautiful women dress like our adolescent fantasies.


7. For BIC.

8. That there are two Chinese restaurants in Boulder that serve great beef noodles.

9. That I have a stationary bike in front of my TV.

10. For my heroes: Ben Sisko, Malcolm Reynolds, William Adama, and other fictional starship captains.


11. For my health.

12. For my job which allows for flexibility, intellectual curiosity, and personal fulfillment.

13. That certain people are in my life and certain people are not. (That's the most passive aggressive I'll get in a public forum ;)

14. For Chris Traeger and Ron Swanson. If you put them together you have the father figure I hope to be someday.



15. For Rachel Bloom

16. That I'm American. There's a lot of great cultures on Earth, but damn, I love being American.


17. That life is long and course corrections possible.

18. That my car, computer, roommates, and self made it through the 1,000 year flood of 2013.

19. That I have enough going on that Ben Affleck being cast as Batman only ruined three or four days of my year.


20. That I'm male. I love women but my chromosomes were definitely picked correctly.

The Adventure is over; I bought a TV.

In the last seven years I've lived in a half dozen countries. When I would intermittently return to the United States and see friends I was always impressed by the entertainment systems they owned. These wide flat screen TVs far outstripped anything that was available a decade prior and put anything my parents had owned before to horrible shame. Beyond that these televisions were accompanied by game systems that I didn't know existed, spectacular DVD collections, and sound systems that could bombard you from every angle.

They were impressive. I wanted them. They stood in stark contrast to the entertainment centers which I'd had in Taiwan or Mainland China. I didn't have any particular desire to watch TV for hours or own a lot of DVDs, and my interest in video games had seriously waned since I discovered that girls weren't just slightly softer versions of boys. Having the ability to spend that much money on things that were nothing more than luxuries was far beyond my means. My salaries in China and Taiwan paid for my rent, food, Mandarin classes, my train and plane tickets to my destination of the month. Owning expensive things that wouldn't fit into a suitcase and then an overhead compartment made me salivate in spite of myself. In a strange reversal I envied the freedom that their sedentary lifestyles gave them to own such devices.

There was the other side to it as well. I could look at a row of DVDs and picture my two weeks in Thailand during Christmas 2007. That sound system might equal my month of backpacking through southwestern China in 2008. The TV itself was probably worth the entirety of my eighteen months of classes at the Taipei Language Institute (shameless plug.) A TV or Mandarin abilities? I'd like to believe that my answer is obvious, but part of me still wanted the TV. I really don't care about professional sports much but I could be entertained by golf on a screen that wide and clear.

I couldn't fly away from a TV like that. It would be the anchor that kept me in the United States. Eventually I had to flee temptation and not let any of my friends know that I was impressed. I tried instead to engage them in conversation while I was at their apartments or show them picture after picture of my travels. Was I showing them pictures to share my adventures with them or to remind myself of why I couldn't have a flat screen? I dunno.

(The Matsu Archipelago)

So going to the Columbus Day sale at Best Buy with the express purpose of buying a 46 inch flat screen felt like a concession. Picking one out was one part glorious and two parts tragic. I finally had my legitimacy: the ability to purchase a space wasting luxury item. I also was admitting that I wasn't about to strap all my possessions on my back and fly to the Matsu Archipelago or Machu Pichu or some girl I met on facebook in Beijing. (Shout out to you if you're reading this, MB.)

That portion of my adventure is over. I try to tell myself that there will be more excitement to come and it'll be different and appropriate to the stage of life that I'm in. I try to remember that if my entire adult life was about exploring villages on islands off of East Asia that I'd never attain the other things that I want in life. Furthermore the Nick that was doing those things knew that it was a season of his life and that's one of the reasons he did them with great abandon. I have to honor him by going forward and a weird part of that is watching the pros swing their way through the back nine at Pebble Beach.

The Territorial Disputes of Japan - The Northern Territories/Southern Kurils

Disputed islands are always so pretty! Here's what we're looking at:



If you're Russian you call them the Southern Kuriles and if you're Japanese you call them the Northern Territories. These islands were originally split down the middle between the two countries by the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda. These peaceful deliberations would continue in 1875, when Russia agreed to cede the entire Kurile Island chain to Japan in exchange for being the sole claimant on nearby Sakhalin Island (Japan and Russia had divided the island in half in 1855.)

This negotiated give and take would be shattered in 1904 when Japanese and Russian imperial ambitions towards Manchuria and Korea would lead to the first major war of the 20th century. Every battle was either a draw or an outright victory for Japan. The world at large was shocked at Japan's victories as it became the first non-western power to decisively defeat a Western country in war. The long term effects of this change in the regional order would be America encouraging Japan to have a free hand in Asia (documented masterfully in James Bradley's "The Imperial Cruise,") and Japan's continued aggression against its neighbors in the decade preceding World War II. The immediate effect on Russian territory was cession of the southern half of Sakhalin Island.

Japan's ascendancy wouldn't last, as we all know. It bit off far more than it could chew when it declared war on the United States and the British Empire. Although the Soviet Union and Japan remained at peace during virtually all of World War II, the Soviets invaded just as Japan was surrendering to the United States. In the week following the atomic attack on Nagasaki, Soviet soldiers landed in the Kurile Islands. Japan was powerless to prevent all of the islands between the northernmost Japanese home island of Hokkaido and the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka from falling under de facto Soviet control. This status has persisted to this day despite the break up of the Soviet Union, with Russia claiming suzerainty over the area.

Here's a quick breakdown of what the borders looked like at different times:



The Claimants

Russia:

As the successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia claims that agreements between the USSR and the western allies during the war stated that the whole of the Kurile Islands would be administered by the Soviets after Japan's surrender. This claim is somewhat contradicted in the writings of President Truman, who made distinctions between what Roosevelt and Stalin discussed, and what Truman, Stalin, and Churchill actually agreed upon. The Treaty of San Francisco, which ended the war, stated that the Japanese would renounce claims to the Kurile island chain, but did not state that the Soviet Union could have all the islands. This is one of the reasons that the Soviets declined to sign the Treaty, and a formal document of peace between Japan and the USSR/Russia has never been signed.

Japan:

The Japanese position is that some of the islands between Hokkaido and Kamchatka are not part of the Kurile Island chain, but rather they are offshore islands of Hokkaido. Specifically four islands/collection of rocks are not a part of the Kuriles. Japan can point out that historically the islands closest to Hokkaido were never claimed by Russia and never under Russian control (pre-1945), therefore the Japanese did not take them by force from anyone during any war. This is an important point because the Treaty of San Francisco was meant to strip Japan of territories acquired due to "violence or greed;" it was never meant to permanently dismember parts of Japan itself.

Recent events

For most of the time since the war the Soviets/Russians were uninterested in antagonizing the Japanese and did not make a big show of their possession of the disputed islands. This changed in the recent past as former President Medvedev visited the islands and Russian jets have been begun flying near them and Japanese airspace. This has resulted in nationalist protests in Japan, which has never accepted that Russia should control the islands closest to the Japanese home islands.

WAR?

Compared to the risk of conflict between China and Japan, even an accidental military clash seems nearly impossible. Even though the Russians have been reinforcing and modernizing their far Eastern Forces, their goal appears to be to maintain military parody with Chinese, rather than protecting a chain of sparsely populated and relatively unimportant islands. The Japanese, even with nationalist sentiment rising, still have a pacifist constitution that prohibits them using war as a means of attaining political goals. That could change, but it won't change soon.

Still, if it was up to this guy...



America

It takes a little bit of digging to find the American position on the dispute, but according to the State Department's website, the United States supports Japan's claim to the Northern Territories (http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/japan/10834.htm.) This is the really the least America can do, since it prevented the Soviets and Japanese from signing a peace treaty in the 60's which would have returned some of the islands to Japan.

The Territorial Disputes of Japan - The Senkakus

Pretty, huh?

As a return to blogging I’ll be doing a three part series on the territorial disputes of Japan. The most widely discussed dispute involves the Senkaku island chain, which is claimed by China, Japan, and Taiwan.

Part 1- The Senkakus

The Senkakus are located just to the north of Taiwan and to the south of the Ryuku Island Chain. Over the last several years various nationalist groups from each of the rival claimants have made pilgrimages to the islands to bolster their claims. The recent uptick in rhetoric has been partially caused by the Japanese government purchasing the islands from their private owners.



The Claimants:

Japan: Either Japan or the United States has had de-facto control over the islands since 1895. In that year Japan wrested Taiwan away from China, reduced Korea to unofficial colony status, and took possession of the disputed islands after conducting an historical survey and determining that no other government had claimed the Senkakus. After the Treaty of San Francisco, which ended World War II, the United States assumed control over the islands as well as over Okinawa. These territories were returned to Japanese control in 1972.

China: China has made inconsistent claims to the islands, but has recently stated that they have been a part of China since “ancient times.” While the Japanese have stated that the incorporation of the Senkakus is a different matter than the conquest of Taiwan in 1895, the Chinese view the issues as linked, both due to geographic proximity of Taiwan and the Senkakus and the similar dates of their incorporation into Japan. However, China’s stance on the issue is understandably complicated. Chiang Kai Shek was not in the position to challenge the Japanese claim to the islands as he required continued support from the United States. On the other hand, Mao Ze Dong’s China was shut out of the international system until the late 70’s and was completely internally focused.

Taiwan: Taiwan’s claims rest on the same historical basis as China’s. This is one of the few international issues that China and Taiwan agree upon- whomever the islands eventually are controlled by, the government should represent Chinese people. This interest may reflect a desire to raise Taiwan’s international profile during a time when its international profile is receding behind that of Mainland China.

Recent events: In the last several years expeditions from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Mainland China have sailed to islands, harassed the ships of the other claimants, or attempted to make landfall. In most cases the Japanese Coast Guard has turned the ships away, or the crews arrested. This led to a tense several weeks in 2010 where it appears the Chinese government cut off shipments of valuable natural resources to Japan in response to the arrests.
Of course money is involved: Surveys in the 1960’s and 70’s revealed the likely presence of natural gas and oil near the islands. Obviously, all of the claimants would like the rights to harvest these natural resources.

WAR: Neither Japan or China wants war with the other, and Taiwan would be incapable of prosecuting one against Japan. However, wars between powers that have mutually beneficial economic relationships typically occur due to miscalculation rather than intent. The dangers of a midair collision between Japanese and Chinese fighters, which would then lead to nationalistic responses from both populations should not be underestimated. Additionally the ethnic disdain that both sides have expressed for the other could lead the commanders directly involved in the patrols to underestimate the other side’s potential. The lack of transparency by the Chinese military regarding its capabilities only enhances the risks.



America: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated that the United States makes no ruling on who should control the islands. However she also stated that in any conflict over the islands the United States would come to the defense of Japan… meaning the USA has an opinion on who does control the islands.

The Washington Apple Commission

A brief case study on the creation of the Washington Apple Commission and the subsequent "Washington Apples" brand.

Formation

The Washington Apple industry had undergone difficult times during the 1920's and 1930's. The depression had hit Washington hard and mitigated the attempts of an advertising association of apple farmers that had some success prior to the ripples of Black Tuesday reaching the Pacific states.

All the while worm controls had required the use of a costly pesticide that could only be cleaned by using expensive washing methods. This method also sharply reduced the longevity of apples, making the marketing season shorter and shipping cross-country even more difficult.

Into this situation stepped a horticulturalist, Ralph Sundquist, who realized that the apple growers of Washington must work together to seize a share of the apple market. He and other businessmen created a pilot program, using assessments leveled upon participating farmers to pay for an advertising campaign. The program was a success and demands for a permanent organization were being heard from across the state.

Shortly thereafter the Washington Apple Commission was formed and the legislature passed laws requiring participation from all apple growers. The legislation, and the commission, was almost nixed by a powerful State Senator, but he relented once an amendment was added to the bill that only producers of fresh apples had to participate, and those who made apples for processed products, a la applesauce, were exempt.

Once the compromise was made all Apple Growers paid a 1 cent per 42 lbs box. This assessment fluctuated to being as high as 40 cents per box before returning to its present level of 3.5 cents per box.

Structure

The Washington Apple Commission was designed to represent all of the apple growers in the state. Its leadership consists of a 14 member Board of Directors. Nine of the board members are elected by the farmers themselves and an additional four are elected by the apple shippers and marketers of the state. Each of these commissioners serves a three year term. The final member, who has a largely ceremonial supervision of the board, is the state director of agriculture. Despite the presence of a state official, the Commission is under the control of the growers as they pay the assessment fees which fund the Commission’s activities. The Commission also has full time employees in a variety of departments. They have ranged in number from the current 14 employees to over 80.

The Brand

The Washington Apple Commission chose to use a two pronged branding strategy. The first aspect was to brand all apples grown in the State of Washington as Washington Apples. Individual growers were still permitted to put their own logos on their apple shipments but the Washington Apple logo, along with a rating system to represent quality, would still be there.

A second prong of the campaign was to associate Washington Apples with health. The fruit had long been assumed to be a part of a healthy lifestyle, but the Apple Commission wanted to be able to prove it scientifically. To accomplish this the Commission gave tens of thousands of dollars in grants to scientists and doctors to research the health benefits of apples. The research proved that apples were of great value health wise, and this became a staple of future advertising campaigns.


Individual growers were still permitted to put their own logos on their apple shipments but the Washington Apple logo, along with a rating system to represent quality, would still be there.

More research went into discovering whether the “hot baths” the apples were subjected to were actually necessary. Originally intended to remove agricultural residue thought to be harmful to the consumer, these baths also robbed the apples of some flavor and damaged their longevity. After several studies it was determined that the “hot baths” were unnecessary and other less damaging cleaning methods were substituted. This discovery led to tastier apples that still protected the health of the consumer.

Success

At the time of the Commission’s founding in 1937, Washington Apples only accounted for 15% of the total apples sold in the United States. By the turn of the century, Washington growers commanded 70% of the domestic market and was selling in 30 different countries. In 2002 the Washington Apple Commission began to exclusively market internationally. Washington now exports 1/3 of its apple crop to countries as varied as Mexico, China, India, and Indonesia.

A continuing legacy of the Commission's lobbying efforts is the shelf design of the produce section of most supermarkets. It remains difficult to walk into any American supermarket without immediately seeing a pile of apples.(Shown below)

I'll miss "Outsourced"

Very few people were surprised when NBC declined to make a second season of "Outsourced." For the uninitiated, it was a sitcom that centered around a naive and overly enthusiastic mid-westerner (Todd) who is sent to India to manage a call center. The series included two stock characters which should be recognizable to any western expat: Charlie, a fellow American call center manager who has done his best to pretend he is still in the US (and is implied to be an alcoholic), and Tonya, a sexually aggressive western woman who isn't afraid to pounce on a man from a similar cultural background as hers. The five remaining characters in the ensemble are all Indian and embody sitcom and cultural stereotypes ranging from an unsuccessful horndog to a hard-ass manager.

When I first saw the commercials for the show I couldn't understand what NBC was thinking. It was entirely possible that it would be entertaining but I couldn't see what the target market was. There was a lot of comedy for people with an expat background and there were lots of situations that could appeal to Indian-Americans but there wouldn't be an emotional connection for the average person (as opposed to shows about working in an office (The Office) or having friends (Friends.) (See what I did there? ;) )

I can't criticize anyone for thinking it wasn't funny or didn't engage them- that's a matter of personal taste. What I was disappointed in was the amount of people who found it offensive because of perceived racism. To date I have yet to find (in real life or on the internet) someone of Indian origin that was offended by it; in fact, I'm pretty sure the parties that took umbrage at the show are largely white, have not lived outside of their own culture for long periods of time, and view "being offended" as their god-given duty to the rest of mankind. If you grew up in Boulder, CO as I did, you probably know the sorts I'm talking about.

The two American characters are largely portrayed as clueless about or uninterested in Indian culture. They make all sorts of cultural faux pas and their ignorance is normally played for laughs. In one exchange, which received an incredible amount of complaints, the main character is surprised to learn that Indians celebrate Valentine's day. This reminded me of an actual exchange from my first few months in East Asia when I learned about Taiwanese Valentine's day.

Nick: Wow, you all have Valentine's day in August?
Taiwanese girl: Yes, but we also have your Valentine's Day, in February.
Taiwanese boy: Yes, it is terrible to be a boyfriend in this country.

The Indian characters, on the other hand, tend to be most familiar with the negative stereotypes of Americans. The perceived promiscuity of Americans is brought up frequently by the Indian characters, as is (more positively) the less hierarchical structure of American society.

We Americans tend to self-flagellate for being nationalistic but our sense of humor is fairly self-deprecating. The Simpsons has become one of the most successful shows of all time, primarily because it is constantly making fun of American culture. That Indians, who are an increasingly visible part of American society, have the same capacity for self-mockery should leave us saying "We're not so different, after all," rather than feeling guilty about taking advantage of another culture. This is especially pronounced given that a majority of "Outsourced" writers were of Indian heritage and many of the East meets West situations came from their personal experiences.

The show had a small natural market (expats and Indian Americans) and the capacity to offend the vocal minority of Americans who calculate their IQ's by tabulating how many times they are offended per week. With those liabilities I was surprised that a full season of the show was made at all. Even if it had been spectacularly funny rather than just "fun," it was a big risk for NBC. Given that, I think the proper response to the show is gratitude for having aired at all rather than disappointment over not being renewed.


Please, please, NBC, find a way to bring Parvesh Cheena into another show!

The Red Menace

I was too young to remember Red Dawn's premiere in 1984 but have seen it several times since. It's a stirring and patriotic film about a group of high schoolers turn guerrillas who resist a Soviet invasion of the US. I was excited to notice that remake has been in the works for a couple years; this time with the Chinese as the villains. China is sort of the obvious choice given the tenor of the moment. Despite the improbability of a Soviet invasion we still watched the original Red Dawn. A Chinese invasion would be similarly impossible but it could still make for good, mindless fun.

I was surprised when I realized that all of the actors portraying Chinese characters were actually Korean- I wasn't sure if this was a result of Chinese actors not wanting to portray China as the bad guy or if it is more of a commentary on the average non-Asians inability to tell the difference between Koreans and Chinese. Either way it was also prescient.

The film has now been retooled (via digital editing) so that the North Koreans have somehow invaded the American homeland. (If I thought China couldn't do it, guess my opinion on the likelihood of a country with a GDP of $19 crossing the Pacific.) This obviously bodes terribly for the film... was it really so unintelligently made that through a few digital edits the villains can be changed from one of our largest trading partners to a country we have all but no contact with?

Either way the reasoning behind this seems to be a desire to get the movie into the (theoretically) lucrative Chinese market. This is unlikely regardless of the geopolitics of the film because the Chinese government only allows in a select few foreign films per year. American films can be bought on pirated DVD (with no money going to the production company) but they are rarely shown in theaters. This trend is unlikely to change as the Chinese government has been increasing its enforcement of anti-free speech laws as of late.

This also highlights another pressing issue for business in China: if the Chinese can build it themselves they won't buy it from us. Many companies have learned the hard way that the Chinese government only gives them preferential treatment in exchange for technology transfers. Once those transfers are made the foreign companies find themselves being treated with much less deference and much less favorable business terms. Hollywood has not picked up on this yet and is keeping its fingers crossed that the Chinese government will spontaneously stop acting the way it has for decades (and declares that it will continue to act). Of course, this means we are unlikely to see a Falun Gong or Tiannanmen Square movie, despite how interesting they would be.