The Way I See It – Mark Kolier

I really like to travel.   It gives me great new perspectives on things.   In less than a week leave for Tokyo where I will spend a week with a great friend.   Getting there is not necessarily half the fun.  7:30AM to Chicago, then to Tokyo arriving 1:50PM THE NEXT DAY!    I look so forward to watching the little plane icon inch its way across the screen for 16 hours.    But in all it sure beats getting there any other way.   

This will be my third trip to Asia and if the first two are any example I will see things in Japan that will be new and different and sure to be exported for the United States.    It’s hard to not sit here and wonder what some of those things might be.   

In 2000 I remember watching Olympic gymnastics on a big high-definition television.  It did not take long for  HDTV to come to the United States.   I also went to Singapore on that trip and never watched so much ping-pong as I have in my entire life combined.    A Singaporean woman made it to the medal round in ping-pong.  They did not televise much swimming or basketball (ok Singaporeans are not all that tall anyway). 

In 2005 while riding the subway (and the Japanese subway system is remarkable and I never saw any ‘pushers’ packing more people into a train – maybe that’s a myth) I noticed the younger Japanese people were typing on their phones non-stop the whole ride (yes above and below ground – I thought having service underground was kind of cool).   What I did not know is that they were texting their friends.  Shortly after I returned I began to notice the rising possibility of text messaging here in the States.   The popularity of Manga (Graphic Novels) was on the fringes here at home but with the release of the movie ‘Watchmen’ Manga is sure to gain much more notoriety and popularity. 

Fashion in Tokyo is cutting edge – at least to me.  People dress better in general particularly the women.  Sometimes I see American women wearing fashions I saw in Tokyo more than 3 years ago!  

I am planning on playing a round of golf (sure to be an interesting experience) and maybe stay at a Ryokan (traditional Japanese inn – quite Spartan I am told).  But what new things will I find there that might be big in America in the near future?   I remember having Chu-hi the last time I was there a fermented soda in several citrus flavors.  It was unusual, memorable, and is about as alcoholic as a beer.  Cheap too.  I have looked for sources that import it into the United States but have not been able to find one.   And you cannot bring anything but an empty can back home on the plane.   Maybe this is the next big thing – but I suspect and hope not.   More soon from the other side of the planet – at least it is to me.   

Can I bring you back anything?

Having just spent a week in London with a quick day trip to Paris (via the Eurostar train which was a great experience) I was struck by the truly international flavor both cities exhibit.   And it all seems to work so well.   In fact there were several times when I thought ‘where are all the Brits?’.   Everywhere we went there were people of varied descent who were working, helping and living amongst London’s 8 million citizens.   I don’t know why I was so surprised at this and probably that should have not been the case. 

America’s larger cities are places where diversity and people from all over the world are more likely to live and work.  Once you get outside of the major cities things tend to be a little less international to be sure.  The same is no doubt true in England and France as well as other countries in the EU and around the world.   Both London and Paris have a large proportions of Muslims many of whom speak multiple languages and which is something not seen in the States.  Made me feel very one dimensional. 

But what struck me most was speaking accents that made me realize that people from all corners were coming to London (I did not spend enough time in Paris to get a really good feel) to live and work.   They come from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.  Yes there were more than a few North Americans as well.   What draws them all to London is the prospect of finding work and living in one of the world’s great cities.  

Great expensive cities I should add.  Being from the New York Metropolitan area I am not unaccustomed to the inherent escalated costs of a major city but even by those standards London is crazy expensive.  Simple pub meals (complete with a pint or maybe even 2) are $ 25.00 per head – and I could never get the service charge thing straight whether I was over tipping or under tipping feeling like a stupid Yank often.   I wondered how people could afford to work in hotels; restaurants etc. and live in even the greater London area. 

We Americans have taken pride in being called the ‘melting pot’ of the world but my feeling now is we no longer own that appellation.  It’s probably been that way for longer than I realize and that’s not a bad thing in any way – in fact I think it is entirely positive.  I head back to Tokyo for the first time in a few years for a week in early March.  The Japanese are famous for their homogeneity and I will be watching for changes there that might indicate Japan is becoming more welcoming and attracting to foreigners.   

There are things we Americans put up with simply because most of us have not had occasion to sample the way things could be.   Yesterday  was a nice and bright 20 degree day (wind chills in the single digits) here in New York City.   I (like most New Yorkers) find that the subways are the best way to get around particularly when you have to go downtown to south Manhattan from midtown or beyond.     I do prefer to walk when the walk is less than 20 minutes. 

Subway service in the city seems to be slipping once again.  More ridership has not reduced an increasing deficit and the plan is for fares to go up probably in later in 2009.

But with higher fares will New Yorkers be able to expect better service?   Well it’s pretty lousy overall now if you ask me.   

First off there’s the communication issue.  Or lack thereof more properly.  Have you ever tried to listen to the ‘announcements’?   Even if you can hear them through the tiny speakers built in 1945 I challenge to tell me what language is being spoken.    And the information if the words can even be made is unintelligible anyway!  Today’s message for instance – ‘Due to an incident the R & Q trains are running slower than normal). ‘This was after I was standing waiting for a train for 20 minutes in the freezing cold.  Really?    Then there was some garbled information about transferring.  Of course there was no train to get on to transfer to!   NO mention of when the next train might arrive (or if).  Finally when a train arrived it was neither an R nor a Q but some other train that I got on simply because I was tired of waiting and was hoping to go somewhere at least. 

Then there’s the issue of personal communication when riding the subway.  There is hardly any cell phone service.   At least not in New York.  Tokyo has it all over New York when it comes to moving people.   Granted the New York City Transit Authority is famous for having more miles of train tracks than any other system and it has been around for a very long time.  Yet Tokyo and several other cities have mobile phone service in their subways.   Their communication systems tell you the next few trains and when they are to arrive on what track to the minute.  And they arrive precisely on schedule.  I lived in New York City for years before I knew the subways even ran on a schedule (yes amazingly there is a schedule)!  

So why do we have to content with substandard service?   The MTA fare structure is a bit unusual – $ 2.00 and you can ride as much as you want.  All 200 miles.  Of course the mayor has noted that the prices must go up ($ 2.50 is being thrown around) and service curtailed even more.  I don’t know of many other cities that price their subway service this way.  You pay for how far you go.   Maybe it’s just because New Yorkers for the most part just don’t realize what the alternatives are, and so we take what we have.   Dirty, smelly, poorly lit, inconsistent service, lousy information and non-existent cell phone service underground.   Are we getting what we deserve?   I sure don’t feel that way.  Do you?

Maybe you will watch Ryan Seacrest this New Year’s Eve.  Maybe Dick Clark?  But hopefully you are not watching it alone.   Even if you alone at least you are sharing a media experience where if something interesting happens many people will have watched it at the same time.   But this is happening less and less frequently since the dawn of television and radio. 

DVR’s and things like Hulu and YouTube allow people to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch.   And that’s a great thing.  Yet we lose something with all this on-demand consumption of media.  There was a big energy jolt during the Olympics this past summer when we all watched Michael Phelps dominate the pool (even on tape delay but we mostly all watched it together even when we knew the result!).   The same thing happened when President-elect Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech in Grant Park on Election Night. 

The Super Bowl is the largest shared media experience on the American landscape.  People talk about the ads (sometimes even the game) for days and sometimes weeks after the event.  But with television viewership continuing to fracture into smaller and smaller pieces the opportunities for shared media experiences will dwindle away.  I feel a lot is lost when viewers (and even readers) of content view things over an extended period of time.   Time was when we had to have a shared experience with mass media because there were 8 channels of television content (maybe 20 of radio).   But it was cool that people would talk about what they had seen and it would often be provocative.

I don’t see this as any kind of solvable problem and I venture a guess that there are those that do not feel it is any kind of problem at all.  We are indeed a long way from the time that people gathered outside an appliance store to watch Uncle Miltie.  (Ok I am old but I NEVER did that).   Certainly standing in the street to watch a television is not the answer.  But in this internet age where we have social networking sites to help us share experiences with people we want to ‘follow’, care about and want to reconnect with, large scale shared experiences are going the way of analog TV.  

What do you think? 

Have a safe New Year’s Eve and a healthy and prosperous 2009.