Beijing Blogger Blocking

There was little chance for "live" blogging of my Beijing trip because China blocks access to blogging Web sites such as this one. Apparently there's too much free discussion involved, so there was no instant way to post an update from the otherwise Internet-wired Radisson SAS. China also blocks the BBC's Web site, although Yahoo! News is fine. Granted, it's easy enough to technically bypass the censorship.

It's hard to summarize the trip, but here's a stab:

1. Dirt. After spotless Tokyo it's quite a shock. I'm used to dirty streets and buildings, but the polluted air really bothered me. I wonder if the 2008 Olympians will need respirators.

2. Cheap! You're shopping at Wal-Mart's Wal-Mart. I didn't haggle well and probably paid triple what I should have for a coat, but I still did well. The Carrefour (no haggling required) was amazing.

3. Huge business opportunities. China has business computing problems that only mainframes can solve. The forecasted transaction volumes for many of these businesses are enormous. I visited one customer that will probably be running 50,000 per second within five years. (Yes, we can do it even today. Nobody else can.)

4. Growth. Everywhere you turn there's a construction crane. Workers are slapping up buildings as fast as they possibly can. I visited another customer that moved into its offices two weeks ago, and workers were still trying to finish up the inside of the building.

5. Government. I had interactions (directly or indirectly) with five Chinese businesses. All five are owned, partially or fully, by the Government. The state as the ultimate capitalist!

6. Traffic. I read in China Daily that every day there are 1,000 more cars added to Beijing's already crowded streets. Mix with bicycles, buses, motorscooters, pedestrians, carts, and several other ways of getting around and you've got a deadly mess. There are no rules of the road. I heard lots of stories (which I believe) about awful car crashes with lots of carnage. "Life is cheap here," said one outsider.

The whole place is probably like Chicago was in the mid-1800s, or California during the 1849 Gold Rush. The boom is in full overdrive. Let's hope China doesn't repeat the same mistakes.

Chicken Breath

A bunch of office mates (mostly expats) went out to a Yakitori restaurant this evening. More sake, more beer, and lots of chicken. Some of the menu items are a bit strange to Westerners — chicken cartilage skewers, anyone? — but my dad could eat here. There's one downside, though: your clean suit and tie will reek of chicken smoke when you leave.

Yesterday I actually visited the health club. I'll be back. Tomorrow morning? I also reaffirmed my appreciation for the Hanamasa chain of grocery stores. Hanamasa sells in "bulk" and started as a restaurant supply company, but anyone can shop there, and the stores are open at any hour. Japan's bulk sizes would be standard U.S. sizes, so as long as you've got a decent sized refrigerator it's a good place to stock up. Hanamasa has lots of discount frozen foods. I got a half kilo of frozen strawberries for 199 yen, for example.

Chicken prices are a bit strange. Breasts are one of the least expensive parts: around 45 yen per 100 grams at Hanamasa. Thighs and wings cost more oddly enough. Maybe that's because expats spend 4250 per person eating them from skewers. [Insert your own joke here about cheap breasts.]

It's confirmed. I'm leaving for Beijing on Wednesday. Unfortunately I could only obtain a single entry visa at the Chinese Embassy because I had a faxed copy of my invitation letter, so I get to stand in line again next time after I receive the original. I probably don't have to deal with visas since somebody at the office could handle the whole process, but the Chinese Embassy is an easy walk from home, and it's one more way to experience life.

On the Hot Seat

Mainframes may be newer in Europe and the United States, but Japan's bathroom fixtures outclass all others in modernity.

When I moved into my apartment I shut off the heated seat, thinking the whole idea absurd. A few days later I turned it back on, thinking I should try to embrace cultural phenomena. This morning I thought, "Maybe this idea makes sense." At this rate, in about two weeks, what started as a ridiculous feature may become as necessary as toothpaste.... OK, maybe not.

Given the electricity required to heat Japan's seats, how many tons of greenhouse gases do they produce each year? (Will local warming result in global warming?) And has anyone in Japan ever been commodiously electrocuted? If someone in this blog's home audience wants to offer some answers, post a comment.

The Alien Has Landed

I felt a little — only a little — guilty leaving the office early today to stop by the Minato ward office ("city hall") to pick up my alien registration card. I guess that's my official welcome to Japan.

This week I got at least tentative requests to visit China, Taiwan, and Indonesia. We shall see what happens. I received an invitation letter from our Beijing office, so I can apply for a visa on Monday.

Tilting at Windmills

I stopped by the Don Quijote store in Roppongi to see why it's popular among expats. One reason is the food section: lots of staples, some Western, for less money. I picked up a couple quarts of orange juice for 105 yen each — the normal price for a pint in other stores. They had 300 gram blocks of tofu for 39 yen, bean sprouts for 39 yen per bag, and good prices on canned tomatoes, coffee, tea, and lots of other items. I'm still bewildered by all the Japanese foodstuffs, so I have some experimentation ahead. They didn't stock too many fruits, vegetables, or meats. I enjoyed the Engrish store jingle that plays over their loudspeakers every ten minutes. I'm sure I'll have it memorized after my second visit.

I found several battery powered alarm clocks at Quijote, but with such big numbers (980 yen and up) I had to ponder the purchase a little more, so I left them all on the shelf. Then I realized that I live in an apartment that costs more to keep than an airplane, so why don't I take the one broken item I inherited in this apartment (the alarm clock) to the front desk to see if they'd replace it? Surely they can afford the luxury ~1900 yen model.

I received my first complaint about this blog: an expat in Norway (paying bills in Kroner) finds it difficult to decipher the yen prices I post. After considering this complaint for many seconds hours I believe it has merit even if this particular expat is a little annoying. (Just kidding, Mark.) So I will try to put a little currency converter on every page with today's exchange rate. For now, just chop off the last two digits of any yen price to arrive at something close to the U.S. dollar price.

Sorry, no Tokyo nightlife reports yet except second hand ones. No, I really can't post what I overheard those two blokes saying too loudly. In the meantime, check out blogs here and here if you want stories. See if you can find the single sheet "language guide" at the second blog. I laughed.

Old and Getting Older

[Crossposted to The Mainframe Blog.] Part of my challenge in writing this blog is to provide enough meaningful information about why I'm in Japan without giving away sensitive IBM details. Please bear with me if I seem a little abstract in this update, but that's the reason.

Several days ago I mentioned that it's harmful to your business if you allow your IT infrastructure, including your mainframe, to deteriorate. Inertia can often be the most costly decision of all. One simple situation that everyone can understand is if a person is bleeding. Of course that person would seek a doctor immediately, understanding there will be costs. But the costs of inaction are far more dire: death is much more expensive.

The analogy is imperfect but valid. Let your mainframe age too much — get behind in your upgrades, hang onto old hardware too long, rely on unsupported middleware — and your business will suffer. You will pay more for software, maintenance, and support (if you can get it) every month. You will buy demonstrably more expensive computing solutions as your businesspeople desperately try to deliver new function, bypassing what you've neglected. You will bleed talented employees who will leave to work for a more progressive company. You will compete against businesses who have better technology and thus superior business functionality. You will actually experience more planned and unplanned outages with longer recovery times — newer hardware and software have substantial improvements in those areas. And you will risk compromising your customers' privacy because newer systems have better encryption facilities than older systems. Already one corporation which couldn't protect customers' privacy went out of business.

I guess it's no secret that the most technologically advanced industrialized country in the world, Japan, is struggling with this issue of aging IT infrastructure spectacularly and uniquely.

SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is part of the answer. SOA fosters reuse of IT assets so that your technical infrastructure can respond much more quickly and easily to changing business demands. It's also one of the few ways businesses and governments will be able to reduce their IT expenses over the long term while actually improving their capabilities. SOAs will only be successful if the mainframe provides services (the S in SOA) and hosts at least the major part of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). (The ESB is the core foundation of any moderately sized SOA.) Quite simply, if your mainframe is not the key ingredient in your SOA then you really don't have an SOA strategy.

Mainframes are as youthful as you want them to be, and they deliver the highest qualities of service for the lowest total costs per transaction. SOA means you can exploit your mainframe's abilities for maximum business advantage. You can bet at least one of your competitors has already figured out these facts.

Chicken Soup

I wonder if some of my coworkers fight all the time they're around their spouses. The mainframe software sales manager just sent me an e-mail timestamped 9:36 p.m. I left the office around 8:00 p.m., and I thought that was late enough. Whether all this time in the office is productive is another question.

I took the chicken soup broth and added what little chicken I could salvage, tofu cubes, a can of tomatoes, some mustard greens, a little rice, bean sprouts, straw mushrooms, and leeks. If you ever have to cook something, try soup. Just look around and toss random ingredients into the pot. It's hard to screw up soup, although I suppose it's possible. This soup is exceptionally tasty, and I even managed to add the sprouts and mushrooms at the last minute.

Sticker Shocked

On Saturday I moved into my new home, unpacked, and cooked my first home dinner: lamb, rice, and tofu. At least it was edible. Costco provided most of the ingredients — yes, Costco has made it to Japan, although you'll need to know someone with a car to help out. Most grocery store items most of the time are expensive, although there are some strange exceptions. I found a big bottle of grapeseed oil on sale for 315 yen at Nissin World Delicatessen, for example. I haven't exactly figured out what to do with a big bottle of grapeseed oil, but what a find!

My favorite grocery store so far is the Pororoca store, and that's not just because there's an English pub next door. They had lots of sale items including some vegetables priced below the 100 yen barrier. I got a fairly large leek for 58 yen, 200 grams of straw mushrooms for 98 yen, and a package of bean sprouts for 58 yen. Pororoca has a laundry on site, and their shirt prices are a bit lower than the Ark Towers delivery service. Nissin had a small double package of mustard greens ("day old") for 105 yen, and I also found a roughly one pound package of chicken for 164 yen. I thought the chicken was a great deal until I got home and discovered it was just leftovers for soup stock, so I made (expensive) soup.

A block of tofu seems to be 89 yen predictably. Canned tomatoes aren't too far out of line (about 85 yen per can at Costco), and Pororoca had a large can of mandarin oranges for 100 yen. Beef is ridiculous, especially now with the embargo on U.S. beef. Spices are pricey, but I found a packet of chili powder for 71 yen and a bottle of minced ginger for around 330 yen.

After studying the rough English translation of the washer and dryer manuals, I did a couple loads of laundry. My office compatriots will appreciate my breakthrough in fabric management.

Tonight I went to church. There are a few Catholic churches in Tokyo, and one of them is a ten minute walk from my apartment. There are five weekend masses in English including the 6:00 p.m. mass. This mass was a bit somber: last night one of the parish priests died after a long illness. There were a couple other unusual aspects to the mass. Parishioners could submit personal intentions to be read aloud, and one of them requested prayers for a successful visa application. Also, a karaoke machine (or something sounding like it) produced nearly all the instrumental accompaniment.

Sake Nights

I just got back from the second night of drinking with my coworkers. That's extremely common, and more business gets done after 8:00 p.m. at the bars than just about any other time. Last night about 15 of us gathered with some very senior visiting IBM managers to congratulate a top sales award winner. There's a lot of laughing and backslapping at one of these events. A word of advice: make sure you pour drinks for the people next to you, and do not pour for yourself.

I had a productive day at the office on balance, although the last meeting was a little tense. We identified potential customers for some new offerings, and I feel hopeful that we will actually be able to help these customers.

Then tonight we had a party to celebrate the promotion of a senior manager here in Japan. This event does not happen every day, so I was fortunate to be a new member of the organization to watch it happen. While all the workers knew about the promotion, the manager only found out at the surprise party this evening. (That's exactly the reverse of IBM practice in the United States. I think I prefer the Japanese approach — this manager was genuinely moved by the event.) Again, lots of laughs, conversation, and this manager even took the karoke microphone to sing.

These drinking events can drain the wallet quickly. One of the visiting managers settled last night's bill, but tonight each IBMer paid 8000 yen to join the celebration.

Tonight the team surprised me with news that a potential brand new customer has approached IBM to inquire about our capabilities. This news will keep me occupied probably for the duration of my assignment. Did I mention that more business gets done after 8:00 p.m. in Tokyo than during "regular" work hours?

Almost No Longer Homeless

My stay at the Capitol Tokyu Hotel is coming to an end this Saturday. IBM's relocation specialist made appointments at three apartment buildings, and I visited them all on Tuesday morning. The first building had a perfectly wonderful unit on the ground floor, and the Nissin market (which sells one gallon jugs of Tide liquid detergent for a mere 2500 yen) was just two blocks away. But unfortunately this small building was just too quiet, there wasn't any exercise equipment, and it was the most expensive of the three.

The third building was the Oakwood Apartments in the middle of Rappongi, but the building management couldn't actually show me the exact unit I'd be renting. Oakwood is a worldwide chain of corporate housing, and a franchise just didn't seem right.

That left the second building, Ark Towers near the IBM Asia-Pacific Headquarters. Unfortunately I work in the other IBM office, but Ark Towers has a great health club which I can feel guilty about not using. I also liked having windows on two walls in the bedroom. (I need light to wake up sometimes.) Ark Towers and the Oakwood Apartments are perhaps more "luxury gaijin ghetto" than the first building, but there's something to be said for having a few people to talk to about the Superbowl and just how bad George W. Bush is.

I spent some time between each appointment walking around each building's immediate neighborhood trying to get a sense of the place. For example, I sat for a little while in the Starbucks near the Ark Towers. Two British blokes were chatting about their sexual conquests and how they cheated on their girlfriends. How disgusting.

When I got back to work at the IBM office later that afternoon I called the relocation agent to ask for the Ark Towers.