Untitled Document

28 January 2001

Farewell to Asia and All That

I don't think I will ever spend my nickel to go back the Far East, so with this last suckle at the public teat I say my goodbye to Asia, and to the ghosts who live there. It has all changed so much. Korea twenty years ago was a sleepy post-colonial backwater, not yet one of the young tigers. Japan was just beginning to flex her muscles. Vietnam was still months away from all-out war. The Khmer Rouge were operating the killing fields, Subic Bay still American soil, and the hostages still held in Tehran.

This last publicly-funded trip touched all the bases. We were starting in Japan, talking to the folks in the Embassy. That had been our first chore upon arrival. We stumbled down the jet-way after the fourteen hour flight, looking and feeling our best. After we cleared immigration and customs we were greeted by the Embassy escort officer, who took us in tow and got us loaded in the van for the trip into the city. Narita is fifty-odd clicks out in the countryside. Back in 1978 when I first showed up, the place was under seige from a variety of radical groups protesting the seizure of rice fields to expand the runway. The riot police where thick, and it was a fortress airport. They told you to arrive at least three hours before flight time- the security was that bad. Taken with the five-hour drive just to get to the place, it made travelling out of Japan a real thrill.

I hear the Chukaku-Ha nutcases still occasionally shoot a bottle rocket at the terminal, but otherwise the roles have shifted a bit. The radicals have accepted the fact that Narita is likely to be there for the foreseeable future. Now it is the U.S. Embassy that is the fortress. We looked at the countryside morphing into megalopolis as we hurtled toward Tokyo. We caught a glimpse of Disney World before we plunged into the sound barriers around the expressway. The Magic Castle is the same everywhere you go. I also listened to our escort officer frantically trying to get the disbursing clerk at the Embassy to release the envelopes of cash for the Congressional Staffers on the delegation. Staffers without their per diem money are a cranky lot. Trust me, you don't want them like that. It can lead to ugly things.

You are probably getting the idea that Congress and its creatures are not like the rest of us mortals. For an average bureaucrat like me on official business, the travel company bills my credit card for the airline tickets five days before the travel begins. I'm responsible for it. The government agrees to pay me a fixed rate per day for subsistence, based on a worldwide chart rating the relative expense of places like Rangoon and Fort Huachucka. Then, when things are all over, they agree to examine your travel claim and determine how much they are going to reimburse you. If you have missed no receipts, you theoretically get an electronic fund transfer just before the credit card bill is due. This is part of the Re-inventing Government initiative. Uncle Sugar saves millions by transferring the burden of travel off his books and onto the travelers.

Naturally that doesn't work with the Congress. Members and Staffers get their money in cash and up front wherever they go overseas. They also don't have to file travel claims, since they are reimbursed as they go, and it isn't funded off their budget anyway. On this trip, all meals, lodging and airfare were paid for by the Department of Defense. State picked up the overseas per diem. There is a stipulation, of course, in the interest of Good Government. Congressional travelers are expected to turn back any per diem they have not spent. I understand that through careful management this contingency has never been necessary.

So with the background of an increasingly urgent escort officer on the phone, we made our way through the astonishing tangle that is Tokyo and to the Embassy. The re the mighty gate rolled open after the little man with his mirrored trolley inspected the undercarriage of the van for explosives and all our identification had been scrutinized. The money was waiting for the Staffers in manila envelopes, and after a quick exchange of signatures we proceeded to the All Nippon Airways Hotel for a little downtime. Our bodies were screaming for sleep, but that was about the worst strategy to follow. Sleeping now meant we would be awake again before midnight, still on Washington time. So we agreed to rendezvous in the lobby in forty-five minutes and assault the city.

Assault isn't quite the right word for what we did. Stagger, perhaps, or lurch. Five of us mustered in the lobby to head out to the exotic streets of Tokyo. The sixth and senior member of the delegation passed us coming back into the hotel, carrying an exotic meal in a bag labeled "Subway Sandwich."

So maybe exotic isn't for everyone every time. But this was the farewell tour, and we have only had a night in Tokyo. I proposed we head up to Ropponghi, younger sister to the Akasaka entertainment district, and at least look at the bright lights, even if we didn't take advantage of them. We left the hotel in the now-full darkness and took the pedestrian fly-over to cross the street. The fly-over was the critical link in this neighborhood, for without it you would follow the road below bound by the expressway and wind up funneled toward the Russian Embassy and the Tokyo Tower. There is nothing of interest there, only trouble.

It is cold and the wind is blowing tonight. I remember Tokyo in the humid swelter of summer, and I remember earthquake weather, the full stillness broken by tiny shudders almost erotic. But tonight it is raw and crisp and the stylish young men and the lovely Japanese women are all in black, leather-clad and multi-layered. We pass each other with different purpose. Our group is tentative, rudderless. They are decisive, headed for home after a full day, or out to a club to begin the night's work. We see a flash of color in a traditional kimono, a latter-day geisha ducking into her place of business. The colors of her dress presage the riot of neon that is Ropponghi. We reach the crossroads and gaze at the layers of clubs and activities that rise around us into the sky- bars on the eighth floor, disco and restaurants up and down in a dizzying array. In the bustle we are the only ones adrift in fatigue and wonder.

In the end we settle for an alley and a bright restaurant door under a kanji character meaning "soup." We need beer ("Sumi ma sen, sen beru, ku desai! Hai! Domo!") and hot, savory dan-dan soup that clears the sinus- ("Ichi Ban! Domo arigato, gozai-musta!") The words and phrases begin to come back, old friends from long ago, and the Japanese delight that the Americans make the attempt, matching us in gusto. When the last noodle is slurped and the last ichi-ban Kirin beru is drained, we find ourselves back in the alley, floating down deserted back streets. We will be asleep as soon as our heads touch the pillow, but we also know we will be full awake by 0300. A full day of meetings beckons, with a return to Narita, another airplane, and China before we sleep again.

When I awake in the darkness on the 14th floor, I find the in-room coffee from the mini-bar costs 310 yen. That is expensive for lousy coffee. The Tokyo Times has been slipped under my door. One of the headlines marvels that a tuna has been auctioned at the Tsukiji fish market for well over a million dollars. It must have been a hell of a fish.