The Correspondent, March 1992

MARCH 1992

Pearls

Of Wisdom From P. J. O'Rourke

I

COVER STORY

2

THE FOREICN CORRESPONDENTS'

P.J. O'Rourke, author andRolling Stone columnist imparts his views on American politics, farming and artifical insemination.

CLUB North Block, 2 Lower Alben Road, Hong Kong.

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NEWS AND VIEWS

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David Tumley wins World Press Photo of the year.

Presidenl - Peler Seidlitz

First Vice President - Steve Vines Second Vice President - Wendy Hughes

Correspondent Member Governors Jonathm Friedlmd, Humphrey Hawksley, Gillim Tucker, Claudia Rosett, Martin Howell, Bob Davis, Catherine Ong, Ha¡i Bedi, Mary Ellen Fullam Journalist Member Gove¡nors David Thunton, Stuart rrvolfendale Associate Member Governo¡s Roger Thomas, F. C. H. Wadsworth, Peter Humble, Mike Smith Professional Comm¡taee: Carv¿¡or.' Steve Vines, Members: Peter Seidlitz, Hri Bedi, S¡ua¡t Wolfendale, Wendy Hughs, Humphrey Hawksley, Catherine Ong, Paul Bayfield

Membership Committee:

Mafin Howell, David Thurston

Former West German Chanceller, Helmut Schmidt, on the new world order.

14

Canada's Privacy Commissioner, John Grace, rights in the age of technology.

17

Meeting the money makers.

19

Mike Smith on Safari Down Under.

2t

the individuals

returns to complete Macau portfolio.

Entertainment Comm¡ttee: Irene O'Shea

Video Committee¡ Mike Smith, Gillian Tucker Publications Committee: Convenor: David Thuston, Members: F. Wadsworth, Htri Bedi, Peter Humble, Bob Davis, Martin Howell, Wendy Hughc, Francine Breveni

Wall Committee: Bob Davis, David Thuston

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23

Small earthquake in Peru, not many dead.

24

Former FCC-President, Al Kaff, on John Toland's latest book, said to be the definitive history of the Korean war.

26

Steven Herman on the other side of Tokyo.

28-29

PEOPLE

THE ZOO

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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT AROUND THE RBGION NEW MEMBBRS A PEDDLER'S JOURNAL

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Cover photography David Thurston Photographs supplied by David Thurston, Hubert Van Es, Ray Cranbourne and Bob Davis.

THECORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992

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1

COVER STORY

A Republican with a sense of humour saying things like "You kids today just

wrote a book about the American government called A Parliament of Whores -- sub-titled "A lone humorist attempts to explain the entire US government". ln the two years I spent writing that book the only thing I was able to figure out about the American political system was that giving tax dollars to Uncle Sam was like giving whisky and khaki fatigues to boys.

The American political system is like a Mexican Christmas fiesta. Think of each political party as being like a papiermache donkey. This donkey is full of low inflation, full employment, comprehensive insurance benefits, free day care, a balanced budget and all sorls of goodies.

Now the American voter is blind{olded and given a stick. The voter swings widely in every direction trying to hit a politician ... trying to knock some sense into the silly bastard.

That is basically the American political system. We have two padies. There are the Democrats ... the party of government activism. This is the party that says the government can make you richer, smarter, taller and add 20 pins to your bowling average.

Then we have the Republicans. They

are the party which says government doesn't work and when they get elected they prove it.

The Democrats are a coalition party. A broad-based institution.

Republicans are more of a type - my type to tell you the truth. I know about

Republicans because I am one. What Republicans do is cause allthe trouble in the world. Remember how Ronald Re-

agan used to sneak out of the White House late at night and sell crack and get teenage girls pregnant? Basically this is what Republicans do. Republicans campaign on what I call a 'grumpy dad' plat-

form. Speaking sternly to the voters,

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THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH1992

don't know how good you got it. Why

Photographer f ohn Giannini had it all planned.

Rolling Stone magazine had assigned him to go with P.J.O'Rourke to V ietnam.

Giannini, who had been absent

from these shores for

a couple of years, told O'Rourke that the quickest way to get there from the United States was via Hong Kong. How could he question John's geo graphical knowledge he had lived and worked in these parts for years.

O'Rourke, author and politic al c olumnist for Rolling Stone, spent less than 24 hours last month in Hong Kong on route to Vietnam. But he managed to drop by the Club for a couple of hours and ímparted some of his thoughts on American politics,farming and artifi c iql ins eminati o n....

back in the days of Jimmy Carter a nickel cost 50 cents and the Dow Jones was so low that Merrill Lynch had to give out food stamps with every share of publicly traded stock. You couldn't even take out the garbage at nightwithout getting kidnapped by an lranian."

Democrats run on the whining, spoilt brat platform. You know "You promised that we were going to have a drug free America and I want my free drugs now."

Democrats are for more of something

to be named later. Republicans are for less of whatever it is except the death

fore they come into the house. This is the sort of American government they are talking about. Now this is the party that when in power could not deliver the mail.

How hard is that? The stuff has our own address on the front of it.

So basically you vote Republican and

that look like 7 Elevens and won't cash

get robbed blind or vote Democrat and

stead the savings and loans invested the money in things like fur bearing trout farms. Now allthe money is gone and the United States government is spending $300 billion to preserve America's electronic time and temperature signs.

The $300 billion we are talking about is

you are too poor to be worth robbing.

Now I have a couple of examples to illustrate our government in action.

The first one is our wonderful savings

and loans crisis which we have been having in the United States for the past half decade or so. I believe the cost is going to be something like $300 billion.

But you can be assured it will be a great deal more once the government has bailed

out the savings and loans industry.

Savings and loans are pretty much like banks except banks conduct business in

architecturally impressive buildings and won't cash your cheques whereas savings and loans conduct business in places

your cheques. You can't even buy a six pack of beer there either.

People deposited money in the saving and loans expecting they would do something sensible with the money like banks

and lend it to places like Argentina. ln-

double the pre-recession combined annual profits of GM, Ford, lBM, GE, AT&T plust the GNP of Finland plus the US Department of Education's budget for the next eight years. That $300 billion is enough to pay for a New York city cab ricle from earth to Uranus and back - six times, including tip.

It is enouç¡h to buy every single homeless person in America a large commer-

cial buìlding so they can sleep on their own steam grates instead of someone else's.

Rememberthe Marshall Plan

-

ìt

saved

Western Europe from Russian communism after World War ll. Well, it only cost US$50 billion in today's dollars. So with what the savings and loans bail-out is costing we could have saved Western Europe f rom the Russians and had enough

to send 25 million Americans on an

all

expenses paid European vacation. Then when the 25 million Americans realised just how rude the Europeans are we could have paid the Russians to take it back and still had enough money left over to save Chrysler from bankruptcy.

So there you have it -- US$300 billion smackeroos out the blow-hole. lt's a daunting thing to consider and even more

daunting to consider who is to blame.

I

mean, with US$300 billion blown you have to blame someone. Perhaps we should blame the scumbags in the sav-

penalty.

Democrats say we'don't know what is

wrong with America but we can fix it.

Republicans say there is nothing wrong with America but we can fix that.

Basically, in the United States we have a choice'between Democrats who cannot learn from the past and Republicans

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who can't stop living in it. Democrats who want to tax us to death and Republicans who would prefer us to die in a foreign war.

When you look at Republican politicians in the United States, what you see is the scum off the top of the business world. But when you look at Democratic politicians you see the scum off the top of politics.

Personally I'll take business any day. A businessman will steal from you personally instead of getting the tax guys to do it for him. And when Republicans ruin the fordable housing and wreck the industrial infrastructure at least they will have made a buck from it.

Democrats just do it for fun - Democrats want the government to solve every one of America's problems from AIDS to making sure the kids wipe their feet be-

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MARCH 1992

3

ings and loans industry who had senators

I

trained to sit up and beg.

We could blame the federal govern-

a

ment of the United States. lt seems to me that the job of the federaì government these days is to give money to jerks and they certainly did it with the savings and loans.

But the fact of the matter is that the savings and loans crisis was caused by federal legislation. The federal govern-

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government of the United States forgot one simple fact, one simple rule, a rule that governments all over the world have been foregetting. And that is, when buying and selling are controlled by legislators the first thing that gets bought and sold are the legislators.

A couple of votes...that's all it takes. A good example of this is the farm lobby

-

ment went out of its way to legislate its way into a U5$300 billion pit.

I

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could run. They were regular little small town banks.

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Their traditional business had been home mortgages. When inflation went

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through the roof in the 1970s, they found themselves not making enough money from this traditional business so Congress changed the law and let savings and loans do all sorts of high roller things with their deposits. Such as playing the Martian currency market, buying lvana Trump divorce futures.

The government also raised the savings and loans deposit insurance which the government guarantees. They raised the ceiling that was supposed to protect small mom and pop type savers. They raised this to $100,000. Which was about $95,000 more than mom and pop had in their savings account.

What this huge deposit insurance ceiling did was let professional dollar jockeys put together hundreds of grand packages of cash and move them around like a shell game operator.

They moved these packages around to whatever savings and loans operation was paying the highest rate of interest on that particular hour of that particular day.

The best savings and loans in the world was one which had no assets except a box of rubber thumb things which you use to count money. They could get endless new deposits by the very simple

method of offering interest rates that would have made a mafia loan shark blush.

Meanwhile, who was minding the regulatory shop...no one. Why?Because the

amount of land they are planting.

An if the weather should be bad for some of the time and good for the rest of the time -- in other words if the weather is normal -- God knows what it will cost.

The 1985-90 farm bill was supposed to have cost US$15 billion. ln fact it cost more than US$100 billion. experience of farming was limited to growing dead marijuana plants under grow lights in the closet of my off campus apartment. But I did once help.artificially inseminate a cow.

I was at the head of the cow, OK. I had this friend who always did lunatic things.

He had to be the first of my friends to join the marines, first to get married,

banks guys as dumb as you and me

)

and pay farmers to cut down on the

Now, like most people of my age, my

Savings and loans, or baby banks were the product of the 1930s. They were

\ \

even more than that. Because if the weather is good the United States government will have to buy surplus crops

things like that. One day he decided he was going to raise cattle. So he bought a farm and some cows.

I

visit this friend of mine at a time when

the cows are about to get in the family way. Now, this is not done as you or

I

P.J. O'Rourke

the farm vote. Most people think the farm vote in the United States is big. OK, that's

fair enough. The United States is a big country. There are lots of farms so there-

fore the farm vote must be big

?

ln fact 46 of our 435 seats in the House

of Representatives are actually controlled

by the voting farmers. But this did not stop the United States Congress from passing an Omnibus Farm Bill which is going to cost the United States tax-payer a minimum of US$50 billion.

That US$50 billion however, will cost a lot more if the weather is bad. Because if the weather is bad, the government will have to pay a disaster payout and federal

crop insurance to farmers. However,

if

the weather is good the farm bill will cost

would have thought. You know, you get a cow and a bull together in a heart shaped stall, switch on a little mood music and let nature play its course. Oh no. Breeding cattle is like teenage pregnancy but more so. Not only is the bull not there to help raise the calf...it's not even there in the first place.

What you have is a big liquid nitrogen thermos bottle full of frozen bull sperm.

Yeh, I know...how do they get it ? I don't think we should talk about that over lunch.

Anyway, there is this device that looks like a cross between a giant hyperdermic neeedle and a sort of douche nozzel of the gods. My friend gets a real farmer, Pete, from next door, to do the honours on the cow.

So here am I holding the cow's head, my friend is holding the middle of the cow and Pete takes this syringe thing and he inserts it into a very personal and private parl of the cow. Then what Pete does is squirt liquid dish washing liquid all over

his arm and then sticks his arm into an even more personal and private part of the cow...all the way up to his elbow.

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH

SoeAgent Shriro(HK'l

Ltd,2lF

Centra,HongKong Te 524503

I

1992

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Pete does this not to have his picture taken but so he can feel the tip of the inseminator tube through the cow's uterus.

It was a pretty gruesome thing to watch and I am glad I was at the other end of the cow. But l'll tell you one thing, I'll never forget the look on that cow's face as long as I live. lt was the same look I got on my

face, and for the same reason, when

I

started to read up on the 1990 Omnibus

Farm Bill.

All over the United States there are some 314,000 full lime commercial farmers...farms with over US$100,000 a year in gross sales. So how many employees do you think the United States Agriculture Department has ? Roughly 106,000...about one for every three full time farmers in the nation.

We would be better off to shove these people out to hoe weeds. But Department of Agriculture employees are too busy administering things like the federal wool and mohair programme. ln 1954 the United States government

established a wool and mohair price suppon programme to encourage domestic wool produclion in the interest of national defence.

I guess back in the 50s the military school of thought was that in the event of a Russian attack we could confuse and temporary disorientate the enemy by throwing blankets overtheir heads. While the Russians were punching each other in the dark and trying to figure out who turned out the lights we would have to run to our missile silos and blown up the world.

Sofrom 1958to 1981 some US$1.1billion of American tax payers money was spent on the federal wool and mohair price support programme with 80 per cent of that money going to 6,000 shepherds.

This is US$146,000 per BopeeP. She

didn't lose those sheep -- they were all sent off to boarding school in Switzerland.

Then there isthe US honey programme.

This was instituted in 1952 to stabilise honey prices. You may recall how the US economy was almost brought to its knees by wild fluctuations in the price of honey.

The honey programme was established

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THE CORRESPONDENT MARCHI992

to stabilise prices, and.l quote, "to maintain sufficient bee populations for pollinating food and fibre crops."

the government eat the wheat and not even get an ink-smudge on their credit

The honey programme gives away

transaction. lt's like doing a real estate deal with your dog.

That's the government of the United States for you. lt sotl of resembles a college fraternity pledge to every special interest group in the nation. Willing to undertake any task no matter how useless or absurd.

So who is to blame for this situation ?

Traditionally it has been media...we get the blame for most things.

I don't think we are really to blame for this. I don't really blame the would be politicians either...they're just looking for

US$100 million a year to 2,100 bee keep-

ers -- $47,000 a piece. Now for that sort of money l'll go out and sit on a flower and

wiggle my behind.

American farmers have got it set up so that a full 25 per cent of their net cash income comesfrom direct payments from government.

The only other businesses in the United

States that get this type of lip clamp on the public teet are defence contractors.

At least when we give billions of dollars to defence contractors we get something

for

it.

We get a 82 bomber for instance. We probably don't need it and it probably doesn't work, but at least the defence contractors were thinking of us. At least they are making a gesture. We give billions of dollars a year to the farmers and we don't even get a bucket of zucchinis on the porch.

Do you know anything about the non-

history. lt's a completely no risk business

work -- something every able bodied person in America is expected to do at least once in a Republican administration.

I think the guilty parties are to be found a little closerto home in the United States.

The problem is the voter wants a low cal, poly unsaturated, salt free election slate, otherwise we wouldn't be out on the lawn

rolling in every smelly detail about Bill

recourse loan ? This is a wonderful f inan-

Clinton's private life.

Back in 1988 we didn't even try to get

cial instrument the government has for

the presidential contenders to tell us what

grain farmers.

A non-recourse loan is a loan you get using your crop as collateral. Except the

they meant or what they would do. ln-

value of the collateral is not the price you can get for that crop but it's the price you would like to get.

As an illustration, let's take wheat. Say wheat is selling for US$3.50 a bushel.

ing Bob Dole's war wound, trying to get Jesse Jackson to say hymie again, trad-

Now the farmers and their friends in Congress think it ought to sell for US$4.

So the Department of Agriculture sets the non-recourse loan rate at US$4 and the farmers get a loan of US$4 for every bushel of wheat that they have laying around.

Then, if America happens to suffer a terrible outbreak of weevils and the price of wheat goes to US$10 a bushel, the farmers can sell the wheat at US$10, payback the $4 they owe the government and keep the profit. But if all of a sudden everyone in America goes on an all meat diet and the price of wheat goes down to 15 cents a bushel, the farmer can blow off the loan, keep the four bucks and make

The World Press Photo of the Year 1991 by David Turnley of the Detriot Free Press shows Sgt Ken Kozakiewics weeping after his best friend had been killed by friendly fire in the Gulf war.

Reuter

Fcc...Fcc...Fcc...

stead we spent the whole election looking down Donna Rice's bathing suit, pok-

ing locker room stories about Jack Kemp and waiting for Kitty Dukakis to explode.

Everybody in America and probably everyone one in the world with any wit or spunk has done something which would keep him or her from being elected president. A nation like the United States which has the sort of divorce and child abuse statistics and the amount of consumers of drugs and alcohol as we have should play down the character issue.

As long as we Americans keep treating elections like a visit to a department store

Santa Claus, we are going to keep on getting the Congress and White House we deserve.

This is basically the meaning of de-

- governments are always run by arseholes but in a democracy the mocracy

arseholes are us. lts that simple.

Club members should note the following events for March and early April. ¡ South Africa After the Referendum...The ANC's verdict.

Speaker Jerry Matsila, the ANC's chief representative in Tokyo. March 20, 12.45pm.

NZA

Meat Co., Limited AGENT FOR

o Hong Kong Governor Lord Wilson. March 23,12.45pm.

¡ Ruth

Richardson, New Zealand Finance Minister.

March 24,12.45pm. o Meet the Ghina specialists : Roderick MacFarquhar,

USA Top Quality Beef

Dwight Perkins, Ezra Vogel and James Watson.

March 24, 4.30pm.

Cocktail party for senior army and police officers.

March 24, 5.30pm - 7.30pm. o Fiji Prime Min¡ster Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara April 1,

¡

12.45pm

Board of Governors nominations for 1992-93. April 1, 6pm.

Members should check with the off¡ce for res-

ervat¡ons on 521-1511

chmond New Zealand chilled beef and lamb, 10 Forl Street, G/F North Point, Hong Kong Telephone 566 5415 (6 lines) Telex 66129 HX Fax No.8071352

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH

1992

7

-----r

NEWS AND VIEWS

Soviet industrial and military complex.

Central Europe's Economic Mess

When Empires fall

major client and major customer

former chanc'ellor of West Germany, Helmut Schmidt, was in Hong Kong recently where he addressed a symposium on trade and investment opportunities in a united Germany. Schmidt, one of post-war Europe's most distinguish.ed political figures, is now a publisher and journalist, The following ts an edited version of his address.

The

f f /e nave seen this century Íive great empires dlsmantteo. ln W Y Y 1919 it was the Ottoman and

to reform communism in order to revital-

the Austro-Hungarian empires, followed by the demise of Hitler's Third Reich and the collapse of Japan's military empire at the end of the Second World War. The fifth was the British Empire.

-

ise it. Apart from his foreign policy strategies, he had two main strategies at home glasnost and perestroika.

Glasnost, meaning openness, was a marvellous success. Not since lvan the Terrible, had there been so much freedom on Russian soil to speak one's own mind and to publish one's own opinions.

The demise of the British Empire, however did not come about by war, the

Perestroika on the other hand, both political and economic, was a total failure. ln many ways the enormous success of glasnost contributed to the demise of the old system because glasnost gave

British dismantled it themselves. They did it with a great degree of common sense and piagmatism. But even the British could not prevent parts of their former empire disintegrating into chaos. One only has to look at lndia and Pakistan.

Although these empires no longer exist the repercussions of their demise can still be felt today.

Since 1945 there have been six major wars fought in the Middle East. None of them would probably have occurred if the Ottoman Empire were still alive.

Although the demise of the Hapsburg's Austro-Hungarian Empire was in 1919 the repercussions can still be felt some 70 years on in Yugoslavia.

The repercussions of the demise of Hitle/s Reich and Japan's military empire are still being felt in Europe and Asia.

Today we are witnessing the collapse of another empire - the Soviet Empire.

The repercussions from its collapse will be felt for at least the next 50 years or more and it is almost impossible to forecast or to predict what will happen. lts impact is being felt right around the world.

ln relative terms its demise

does

strengthen the geopolitical role of China.

Whether Washington likes it or not China will be a superpower. lt may not necessarily be an economic superpower but it will cerlainly be a strategic and political

8

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH1992

And it was much the same for Hungary and East Germany. All have lost their

WITH the collapse of communism has come major economic hardships in Central Europe. Countries which relied almost totally on the Soviet Union for expons now find they no longer have a market.

Finland is facing great economic hardships because its main trading partner has withered away. Today Finland is faced with considerable unemployment brought on by the fact that the Finns can no longer exporl to the Soviet Union because the

Soviet Union no longer exists and its replacement cannot pay.

It is the same for Poland and is more complicated forcountries like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which until recently were integrated parts of the Soviet economy. Then you have Czechoslovakia and in parlicular Slovakia where almost all its

industry was geared to supplying the

people from Russia who fled the economic hardships.

The situation within the former Soviet

virtu-

Union of course iscatastrophic. ltis unclear

ally overnight.

The customer would still like to import from these countries but the customer is broke, unable to pay. So all of them now have to find new customers for their products and most are in the process of replacing a communist dictatorship with a market-orientated economy. ln coun-

whether this newly founded Common-

-

tries like Romania and Bulgaria change is taking a little longer. On the Bulkan peninsular, however, the future is bleak. Not only for Yugoslavia and the eight nations and nationalities that have been bound togethei in that artificial state, since 1919, but also for Romania and Bulgaria.

Over the next decade or so I expect we will see the Bulkan peninsular become a cauldron of unrest and armed conflicts.

The result of which will be wave after

wealth of lndependent States is going to become a reality. Much will depend on the economic conditions. Right now in Russia you have inflation comparable to that which we have seen in a couple of Latin American states. By the end of this year lthink you will see inflation in Russia running at between 600 and 1,000 per cent.

True, they have liberated prices but they have not stopped the printing presses.

They are printing roubles like others are

printing newspapers.

The food situation in the big cities is desperate. There have been no attempts to privatise agriculture, retail trade, food

or trançort. I am sure the leadership recognises this but without the money to

wave of unwanted and unwarranted

pay for imports none of these reforms

economic refugees. The Poles have al-

can be put into practice. Obviously there has to be an effort to increase exports

ready received hundreds of thousands of

people the freedom to speak out. So, despite what Gorbachev may have had in his own mind when he set out to reform

the Soviet system, he was instrumental in destroying it. He couldn't, for example, st¡ck to glasnost and deny it to the Esto-

âHflJ

nians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians

Helmut Schmidt

superpower.

When Mikhail Gorbachev came to office in 1985, he understood that the

communist regime had permanently overexploited the physical, psychological and economic resources of the almost 300 million inhabitants of what was then the Soviet Union.

He knew that this situation couldn't go on for much longer. lt may have staggered on for another five or ten years but Gorbachev saw the need to redress the old strategy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

He pulled out of Afghanistan and tried

or

East

Germans.

It was not Gorbachev's intention to liberate Poland or Estonia, Hungary or East

Germany. lt just happened through his own inability to renovate and restructure the Soviet system.

By the time the Warsaw Pact countries had taken control of their own fate and destiny, it was too late.

We Germans owe the unification of our nation paftially to the failure of Gorbachev and partially to the freedom movements that existed in parts of Russia and Central Europe such as Poland's Solidarity and Czechoslovakia's Charler 77, most of which emerged after 1975 when the final Helsinki agreement on human rights was signed. A document which bears the signatures-- of Brezhnev, Honecker and all the other East European communist dictators.

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At present the European Community

and at the moment Russia has only two goods which are expoftable natural

consists of 12 countries with Austria, Sweden and Finland expressing their desire for membership. lf Sweden and

-

gas and petrol. Natural gas is still flowing but there are problems facing Russia's petrol industry. Because of the lack of investment the industry is now suffering.

Equipment, pipelines and pumps need replacing. Some experts believe they are losing about 30 per cent of production because of these poor facilities.

Already we see a struggle for control of the military. Who is going to be on top of the military, who will inherit the Black Sea Fleet, who will be on top of the 28,000 nuclear warheads? Who will inherit the signature of Gorbachev and who is going to honour the treaties he signed now that the Soviet Union no longer exists You see nuclear mercenaries, the sci-

Finland become members, Norway will

almost certainly follow along with lceland. The Poles, Czechs and Hungarians too have said they wantto become member

states also.

It is not unlikely that within the next 15

years membership of the EC will grow from 12 to 20 and a little later on grow even fufiher to perhaps 36. lt will be, by far, the greatest market in the world.

Who will inherit Gorbachev's signature ?

!

entists and engineers who are familiar with nucleartechnology, emigrating. Some

to America and others to less desirable places such as the Middle East. can foresee decades of chaos in what was formerly the Soviet Union, including I

the likelihood of several regional and local armed conflicts.

Consequences for the United States

let the resl Gonform

SOME people in the United States believe they now are the only superpower.

It's a nice feeling for some of them but it is an unrealistic concept. I have hinted already that China will emerge as a superpower and let us not forget Japan which has already established itself as a financial superpower - more powerful than the United States. During the arms race the United States became the biggest net debtor nation in the world. Within the next one, possibly two, years the net indebtedness of the United States will be in the order of one trillion dollars.

So f창r all the foreign investors, including those from Asia, have been happy to invest in the United States and receive interest in US dollars. But what will happen once there is a decrease of confidence in the US and those who have their money invested in the country want the interest paid in a different currency ?

Financially the United States is not a

superpower and it is financially too weak to play the leading role as world's policeman. During the Gulf War we saw the United States, for the first time ever, go around cap in hand to collect money to help finance the war. This cannot happen a second time. lt would be detrimental to the prestige of the United States.

There is an enormous lack of willpower, both in the Congress and in the White House and indeed allthe political classes, for some sort of budgetary restraint. True, there is talk of some military reductions and some trimming of the defence budget but that's about it. Even in this presidential campaign there is no sign of any major steps to put America's fiscal and budgetary house in order. lf this situation is allowed to go on I can foresee a number of unfortunate developments occurring in the United States.

But having said that, one can not ignore the incredible vitality of the American nation. Once the political leadership gets itself right, I am sure the country will pull itself out of the economic mess it now finds itself in. The vitality is there, only the political leadership is lacking.

The New Europe

SO, what of the consequences on Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Empire?

It is not a common market as yet and it will not be, even afterthe end of this year.

That is the wishful thinking of politicians.

I have yet to see anywhere in the world a common market with 11 currencies.

Great steps stillhaveto be taken among

the 12. Personally I would like to see them achieve one common currency.

Why? Because the more member states you have the more difficult it becomes to deepen the institutions. I remember what it was like when we were only six members and how difficult it was. lt become even more difficult when we grew to nine members which included Britain. Now we

are 12 and still growing. I say let us formalise the institutions first such as creating one currency and one central bank before we expand any further.

There was a rather nebulous agreement last Christmas at Maastricht between the 12 heads of the EC member states. But it left many back doors open through which countries can opt out.

The member states of the Community would be very prudent to create an allEuropean central banking system and one currency because if they lose another decade Europe will be dominated by the Deutschemark. Whether Maggie Thatcher likes it or not ... because it will happen.

Unless there is a common currency the Deutschemark will become by far the most dominant currency in Europe within 10 to 15 years. Why ? Because Germany is a country much bigger than the others and due to the fact that 80 million Germans save much more than the other Europeans.

So, in order to ensure the future cohe-

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992 IT

-l

sion of this European Community it would be wise to replace Deutschemarks and other currencies early in order to prevent a domination of the community by one individual currency like the Deutschemark. lf Europe can also forge some kind of common foreign and security policy, this European Community will also become a superpower - economically, financially and militarily.

-1

money from the German Federal Government and privatisation is underway.

We ve made an enormous mistake by the way in which we organised the State Trustee Agency So far. some 200 busi-

nesses have been sold to foreigners; thousands have been sold to Germans. east Germans as well as west Germans.

Only 200 have been sold to foreigners among which you hardly find anybody f rom East Asia or South East Asia. There's one country that sticks out as regards

investment in east Germany and that is France, which I think is very good for

The New Germany

German-French cooperation. Butwe would

still like to see more people coming from Asia and from this part of the world ĂŹn

THE population of Germany today is almost 80 million people 16 million

general.

-

former East Germans. These people lived under dictatorships with Hitler from -first 1933 and then the communists after the war - for almost 60 years. lf you had 12 people to dinner in your home, friends who had visited you for a wedding anniversary or birthday or something, at least one was a spy who was writing a report the next morning on what had been said at the dinner table of Mr or Mrs so-and-so. An awful situation. With the collapse of the East German regime some 200 kilometres of files about the private lives of ordinary citizens came to light.

All these files have now been opened to the public. People are now discovering the extentof the spying. Husbands, wives, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, friends etc, spied on one another. That is just one example of what faces us as we transform a people who had lived under a communist dictatorship into a free society.

On a practical side, back in the middle of 1990 we introduced the Deutschemark, replacing the old currency of former East Germany.

East Germany lost its old Soviet clients and the rest of their Comecon clients as well because they couldn't pay any longer.

Even east Germany's industry lost its domestic market through the superior quality of goods entering the market from the West.

A used Volkswagen or a used Peugeot, three years old from France was

12 THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH

1992

There are great difficulties regarding the legal situation with property and all that but we are in the process of over East Germany left 200kms of files about the private lives of ordinary people.

cheaper than a new east German car and at the same time was of better quality.

And therefore no newly produced east German cars could be sold any more.

As a result, all the people who had been producing these horrible cars had to be laid off. And what has happened to this car industry ? The name of it was Traband, it was the name of the car.

People called it Traby. Until the summer

of 1990, you had to wait 10 to 11 years until you got your Traby. lf you had asked for and signed a contract to buy a Traby in 1978, the Traby would have been delivered to you in 1989. This was normal.

And it cost DM13,000.

But all of a sudden, nobody wanted this Traby any more. They wanted a used car from western Europe and the used car was cheaper than the Traby and was still in better order although three or four

years old.

So, what happened was, they not only lost their East European and Russian clients, but also lost their domestic clients.

And this happened not only to the car industry. lt happened to almost all industries in east Germany. lt even happened to parts of agriculture because the Dutch farmers were able to wrap and present

their tomatoes in a much nicer way than the east German communists could present their tomatoes.

Some of these difficulties have now been overcome. ln the meantime, we also made some mistakes in the process.

For instance by offering an exchange rate of one for one.

The productivity obviously per man hour was then around 30 per cent of West European and West German productivity, two years ago. Now wages are rising quickly.

The wage hikes lead of course to addi-

tional unemployment. Unemployment is

high, very high, and will be overcome only gradually and will take quite a bit of time.

On the other hand you have an enormously high motivation to work among those who have been able to keep their jobs or find new ones. You find a good level of vocational skill in east Germany and enormous motivation to work.

What they need is better management than they have hitherto had. Not necessarily better engineers, better management is what they really need.

The infrastructure is unsatisfactory, but it's being improved quickly by budget

coming it. Right now, we are transferring from federal budgets into east Germany, some 130 billion Deutschemarks, or roughly speaking US$85 billion dollars.

Almost as much as the US$100 billion Gorbachev was asking for the Soviet Union.

The greatest part of it still goes towards consumption by way of unemployment

benefits, short-time labour benefits and all that. Some of it goes into infrastructu re.

guess the order of magnitude of transfers will decrease slowly over this decade and may come to an end by the end of the decade. lt remains to be seen.

Which of course leads to a situation in which the Federal Republic of Germany as a whole has gone into deficit in current account, which is not a great tragedy.

Why shouldn't we be in deficit in current account for a couple of years ? We have been in surplus for so many years.

We are also no longer a net capital exporter. All our capital goes to east Germany now. We are in the process of becoming a net capital importer, and that's not a tragedy either. We've been a net capital expofter over so many decades, why shouldn't we be a net capital importer for a couple of years ?

I

On the other hand, it does have an effect on the United States. The United States has been able to finance their

federal budget only due to capital imports, in the main from Japan and Germany and a few others. Now they will

Saxony will, within the next 10

or

15

years, become the most modern industrial regions of Europe because they have

have to offer some higher interest rates on the long end of the market.

I have no reason to be optimistic, nor do I have any reason to be pessimistic but in my judgment east Germany will

to build up from scratch.

have reached 1 00 per cent of the productivity per man hour that we then will have

where it will happen to this degree.

For the people in east Germany, this is

reached in West Germany, in about a decade's time Which will mean 100 per cent of the standard of living in real wages. With one grave exception, which is housing.

Housing takes half a century. Nobody says so in Germany but all the people know that all the politicians try to make optimistic noises. lt takes half a century.

It takes a long time. lt takes long term capital, and it will take some such long periods as well in eastern Germany. So

too long a time. They were filled with

housing standards will take a longer time

than the consumption standards in general.

fa

We don't wish in 10 or 15 year's time to come

out as the major power in Europe.We don't wish to stick out our own necks. Hitler and Auschwitz are not so far

away.

,,

The only thing which they can use is the

soil. All the machinery will be scrapped and no machinery will be put in place.

There'll be no other region in Europe

illusions two years ago. They thought

it

would all be done overnight, but speaking as an economist, 10 years is a very short time.

And after these 10 years, you will see Germany as a major engine, industrially, financially, trade-wise, within the European Community and there are enormous chances over the next 1 0 years to invest

in

it.

Once you come to the year 2005, you may as well stay out, because there are no great advantages. But now there are good chances, this is a good time to take the step to invest as a foreigner. You will not see proceeds in the first two or three years but you willsee an enormous growth within the decade.

There are, of course, fears from others in Europe, with regards the economic role and future importance of Germany.

There is concern that Germans might be tempted to use their economic strength for political purposes.

The French know very well that 80 mil-

lion Germans is almost one and a half times France; almost one and a half times ltaly; and one and a half times Britain.

So, the Germans are aware, and ought

to be aware, and the political class and the Federal Chancellor are aware of the fact that there are some concerns being There will be enormous growth in east Germany. ln real terms, I would expect a

growth rate over the next 10 years on average of 10 per cent. Right now it will be higher, later on of course, it will slow down, but if you assume it reaches 100 per cent of 1 999 or 2001 year's produc-

tivity, you have to imagine what

an

voiced by our neighbours. That is why we need to propel the European integration process as quickly as we can.

We don't wish in 10 or 15 year's time to come out as the major power in Europe.

We don't wish to stick out our own necks.

Hitler and Auschwitz are not so far away.

We want to be embedded within the

enormous growth rate this would bring

Economic Community. We want the

about. ln other words, regions like Berlin and

Community to become a community and not a so-called Common Market.

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992

13

A case for protecting the individual orthe past eight years John Grace has occupied one of the most

sensitive areas government sioner.

-

of

Canadian that of Privacy Commis-

A former journalist of some 22 yeaß, most of them with lhe Ottawa Journal, Grace found himself lured to the otherside. First working in the government's telecommunications depafi ment and then appointed Privacy Commissioner. He was recently appoìnted lnformation Commission for Canada a post which combined both information and prìvacy.

Grace was in Hong Kong last month, where he addressed a seminar on freedom of information, organised by the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Justice and the Hong Kong Human Rights Commission.

Despite a busy schedule, he took the

time out to address a Club luncheon on Thursday, February 27, when he spoke on the individual's right to privacy in an age of computerisation.

And it was perhaps a little ironical that Grace should have been in town at the same time the local administration an-

does not depend on your good character or documentary proof of citizenship. lt depends on what comes up on the screen at the border post.

"Your entitlement to an income tax

Karl Wilson

"Breathalysers can detect how much

we drink, hidden cameras watch

us,

computers can detect levels of stress in the way we speak and computers can match things we have said in the past. "ln shor1, according to professor Marx, the song conveys a chilling message on the dangers of information technology," Grace said.

"Perhaps that is a little paranoid. But the technology of the past decade has resulted in an unparalleled increase in our ability to collect, process, match and transmit personal information.

"One cannot deny the fact that computers have made a vast difference to our society. Their use has multiplied and reached the point where they are now networking and matching their information."

Grace said that although he is a firm

Every breath you take, Every move you make, Every vow you break, Every step you take every single day, Every word you say, Every night you stay, Every claim you stake,

believer in the private sector and the free market he firmly believes that computerheld information, especially information on individuals, can only be protected through a regulatory authority. "lt is the only chance we have of maintaining Some control over what the government knows about us and what it does with the information it collects," he said. ln Canada, the Privacy Act provides some control over the information the federal government has. But it does not cover the private sector.

"Canadians are learning through bitter

Every smile you fake, I'll be watching you...."

experience that who they are is fast becoming less impoftant than what is

nounced that there would be no Freedom of lnformation Act for Hong Kong.

Grace began his address quoting a

verse from the song Every Breath You Take.

recorded about them in computers.

"Although it's a love song, the eminent

"One's ability to board an airline no

American sociologist, professor Gary Marx, has linked every line of that song to an

longer depends on your presence at the counter with a ticket. lt depends on what comes up on the computer screen.

"Your ability to cross national borders

existing surveillance technique," Grace said.

14

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCHIgg2

rebate or to a pension is based on a review of your records, most off which are stored on computer these days.

"No matter how much money you have in the bank you have no chance of getting

it if the computer finds a reason not to give it." ln many ways, Grace said, the computer had become the realìty. "But more insidious still, the computer has made it possible for us to be a watched society,"

the online data business.

"Ours,

it is said, is the age of the

information revolution. I suggest there is another one afoot - a privacy revolution.

"The public is growing increasingly apprehensive about the potential of the new information technology and how much information can be held in computers. "ln the flowering welfare state never has so much been known about so many.

"But no matter how benevolent a government may be it exacts tolls for its benevolence. One is collecting an enormous amount of information about its citizenry.

"The information we give different gov-

ernment departments is potentially innocuous.

"But with the technology has come the temptation to collect more information than is necessary. More information than government needs. Add data from one

file to another, temptations to blend it a little with a bit of this with a bit of that and top it off with a few personal notes.

"So what have you got ? Surveillance by computer. Surveys have shown that

Canadians are worried about their privacy, They fear that they are losing control of their information to the technological wizards who control the computer."

Grace believes that governments and journalist have responsibilities in the way information is used.

"There is fast developing something called data base journalism...the mining of computerised lists of personal information," Grace said. "lt's a sort of hi-tech fishing expedition.

You can search computers for all sorts of information, cross it, match it...do all sorts of things. All this may lead to a good story

but what about the individual's right lo

privacy ?

"The individual has the right to be left alone and the right NOT to be the subject

to search and seizure via computer."

Grace said that for any privacy legisla-

tion to be successful the following principles have to be observed:

r

Collect no personal information unless

it is needed. r Do not collect information in secret. ¡ Make sure the subject is aware that information is being collected. ¡ Collect information from the subject concerned.

Make sure the information is accurate.

. ¡

Don't make information available to a third party without the subjects consent.

"Basically, the individual not only has the right to know, he or she also has the right to know what is being collected and what is stored on computer," Grace said.

he said.

"The computer makes it possible to collect so much information, to manipulate it and retain it for eternity that the potential for what has been called the new surveillance has been created. The drudgery and routine maintaining records manually was their own built in privacy protectors.

"Records on paper files are bulky and cumbersome. lnformation stored in thousands of f iles can now be neatly filled in a small computer disk.

"With the computer the balance has lipped in favour of the information holders or a more insidious concept I think, in favour of the information manager.

"Thousands of names can be matched, scanned and compared in seconds. The computer can put on its list who isn't there, who should be there etc. A camera can only see one act at a time.

"A computer transcends time and space and through matching of the information can interrelate actions and persons."

Grace said the computer now has enormous power to threaten or to promote human autonomy.

"They can either protect privacy and also threaten it. We don't have time to dither over it," he said. "The fastest grow-

THE ZOO

BY ARTHUR HACKE.F.

I A BHOR LAVATORIAL H UAAOU R

Powrn

ing sector of the information industry is

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992

15

trLJtr

THERE'S ALWAYS

A STORYAT

Meeting the money makers

THE

Executive magazine, held a successful evening on February 26 with some The FCC, in conjunction of the territory's leading movers and shakers.

HONG KONG TRADE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

Mike

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Somerville,

Thornton Management (teft )

Richard

Hornik Time magøzine.

Øeft-Right ) Ted Rule, SCA; Mark Armour, Meridian Global Funds Management; Peter Fletcher, Bermuda Trust (Far East) Ltd and Philip Jay, Asia Pacific Securities Broker Directory.

Steve Ushiyama,

Lloyds Bank

International Private Banking and Doris Lau. Joan Howley, Executive and Dr M.J. Thomas, Deutschebank.

The Hong Kong lrode Development Council con help you moke business heodlines every doy of the yeor, As

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Hong Kong Trade Development Council We Creote

(Left-Right ) Paul Chow, chief executive of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong with Mike Somerville and Peter Dew of Thornton Management.

Opædunilies

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992

17

THE ZOO

BY ARTH

1992. _I-H= YEAR. CF

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Into the outback of Down [Jnder n the film "Crocodile Dundee" the Australian outback looked interesting so when Royal Brunei Airlines recently offered discounted fares from Hong Kong to Darwin I decided to forego my usual Christmas trip to Bangkok and to do the inside of Oz instead. I even paid a bit extra for business class luxury. At 40,000 feet, reclining comforlably in a plush new Airbus (the Sultan can afford it), I rang for champagne. That's when my first BIG MISTAKE of the trip became

apparent. "No alcoholic beverages on board, sir." Another six hours to go and nothing to do but look out the window.

KUNG HEI FAT BOY./

Damn

!

Darwin is a neat coastal town. Cyclone Tracy razed the original place in 1974, so just about everything is new. One of the few exceptions is the old Hotel Darwin, modelled after Singapore's Raffles with its Palm Garden and colonial atmosphere.

It's a bit downmarket now; fairly cheap

and patronised by locals. This makes it the ideal place to stay.

Down the road from the hotel Darwin is the Frontier Brewery Bar, a typical Aussie

AND PER.FIDY

pub with eccentric characters. The pub brews four types of beer

-

Matilda's ale,

Kakadu is not exactly the bush - it is actually a tropical rain forest. Our tour

Mike Smith

group was a motley crew, and included a maths professor, a surgeon, some backBuffalo bitter, Kakadu lager and Top End

pilsener. Sampling each, I decided the Buffalo bitter was best ...1 think. lt was in Darwin that I first encountered Moreton Bay Bugs. These are ugly sea creatures, about six inches long, with a segmented

shell like a centipede. However, eaten cold with a spicy sauce dip, the bugs taste divine, somewhere between crab

packers and an èlderly ltalian mafiosi (probably) whose wife wore high heeled shoes throughout the three-day hike. We

saw many odd rock formations, some with crude aboriginal paintings. There were waterfalls, streams and pools. Animal life was abundant --frill-necked lizards, fat guanas, giant termite nests, wallaroos, crocodiles and allmannerof plants

and lobster. Too bad you can't find them in Hong Kong.

Kakadu is the largest of the National Parks in the Northern Territories. I was booked on a three-day tour of the park with a company call "Terra Tours" (an outfit that sounded more suitable for Transylvanian trips). They would collect me in the morning. Meanwhile I had to get kitteded up. The NT General Store produced a floppy wide-brimmed hat (to keep the sun out), a bottle of grade S sunscreen (in case it got in), a cotton

patch come alive. However, there's no quality control and anyone can call himself a bush guide. On the East Alligator

mesh head net (to keep the flies out) and a jar of insect repellant (in case they got in). I was now ready for the bush.

River cruise our guide fancied himself as a comedian. "How do you separate a pair of mating crocs ? You give them a yank.

and birds. The oddest bird, dubbed the

Jesus bird by the locals, looks like a chicken except that each of its spindly toes is about 12 inches long, enabling it to

walk on floating waterlily leaves to peck around for food.

The enjoyment of a trip like this

is

proporlional to the skill of the guide.Our group experienced good and bad. A good ranger can make an apparently barren

lt's a long drive from Darwin to Alice Springs ...1,600km

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992

19

Why is this called the Alligator River, when there aren't any alligators in AusTralia ? lt was discovered by a Pommie who couldn't tell a croc from a gator. The best time to see crocodiles is in June.

Then there are more crocs than Kiwis in a dole queue." ln just about five minutes flat he'd managed to alienate the Americans, Brits and New Zealanders on board.

It's a long drive from Darwin to Alice Springs -- 1 ,600 kilometres straight down through bush country. Car rental outfits are reluctant to let you have a car for a one-way trip. However, the local NT tourist office can fix things. I set out early, passing the Hard Croc cafe on the edge

of town, then several abandoned WWll airstrips by the roadside and I was well on my way racing down the Stuart Highway when I realised my second BIG MISTAKE of the trip. At about 100 kilometres out of Darwln the radio signals expire. should have bought a heap of music I

cassettes in Darwin. Now no radio, no music for the next two days. Damn I

The Emerald Springs Roadhouse looked

Mike Smith... in a Town Like Alice

car shudders and you snap back to reality ... 160 kph on the dial and dritting to the side of the road. ln Darwin l'd been warned of cars doing somersaults off the road and into the bush not to be found for days. Keeping alert on a road like this is not easy. I tried allthe methods I could think of. I opened the windows to let the hot air rush by. I swivelled my head from side to side while keeping my eyes on the vanishing point.

I tried to recall the words of a pop song to sing, but couldn't. Then I remembered a long dramatic speech from Henry V that I learned in school years ago - the one about St Crispin's day. I recited it repeatedly at full volume. The Whistling Kites

circling overhead must have thought gone nuts.

From time to time a group of carrion birds could be seen on the road ahead, picking over a dead kangaroo which had been hlt by a car or perhaps a roadtrain.

Roadtrains are allowed only on remote outback roads in Australia. ln front is a I'd

-

up and it was very hot outside. After two or three hours gunning down a hot empty

they eat well. Eggs, rashers, sausages,

road, straight as an arrow, your mind

baked beans, fried tomatoes, bubble and squeak, fried bread all washed down with several cups of strong hot tea. I was ready to hit the road again. The sun was

wanders ... that problem at the office, the magnificent squash game you played last week, your amah deserves a raise, the dinner you'll have in Alice ... then the

inviting at about 9.00am, so I pulled in for

breakfast. One thing about Aussies

drive vehicle pulling three gigantic container trailers - about 200 feet in all. When you see one coming at you on the road you slow down and get well clear to avoid being sucked into the radiator and spat out through the exhaust pipe. lt's said that a driver doesn't notice hitting a kangaroo any more than if it were a fly on the windscreen.

Daley Waters historic pub, about half way to Alice, is a convenient stopover. At sunrise I was on the road again and

wanted to make it to Alice Springs by early evening. After all, I was due to be collected at four in the morning for a hot air balloon ride.

You know when you are approaching a town in the outback by the number of beer cans by the roadside, then the occasional upturned car. Sometimes the cans have been collected and hung on the branches of a dead gum tree, like leaves.

All this, l'm told sadly, is the work of the local aboriginals who come to town to collect their welfare, get drunk, steal a car

and drive it out of town until it runs out of gas, then upturn it and go for walkabout in the bush.

I made it in to Alice Springs on schedule. I was surprised at how big the town was. lwas expecting afewwooden houses along the lines of the famous movie. The movie theatre where A Town Like Alice had its world premier in the 1950's is now gone, but the town library is named after Nevil Shute. The Overlanders steakhouse is probably the best restaurant, and its

specialty was a mixed grill of kangaroo, camel and crocodile. I passed that up for a simple steak.

Before winging back to Hong Kong on Royal Brunei Airlines I learned that the airline had no problem with passengers taking their own alcoholic beverage on board. They just didn't want to serve it. ln fact the hostess even supplied me with a jug of ice to cool my two bottles of Aussie

white. The only problem I had was in getting the corkscrew through Darwin airpod security check.

Zanoni returns to Hong Kong AUSTRALIA artist Murray Tanoni returns to Hong Kong on March 10 to complete his Macau portfolio. Zanoni, you may recall, was commissioned to do the official sketch of the Club which hangs in the front foyer. Prints are still available from the front counter. Anyone interested in obtaining one of these fine prints should call the Club direct or Bob Davis at The Stock House 866 0887.

Zanoniwill be available to sign prints while he is in Hong Kong.

Calcada Centralde Macau

Macau with the facade of St Paul's.

THECORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992 2I

THE INNER

,,1/ü&

CIRCLE

n

?Ñ't Ì øurlt4 ,

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(Behind'Cit¡corp.' Centre) llatson Road, Causeway Eay East, tlong [ong, r Free Valet Parking n¡ghtly r

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Tel.:

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elegant setting, with a spectacular view

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ü

Wirue

tank, shows that far from turning

cultural colonies of America, most places are interested only in themselves.

The imperialists have a point. Except for Tass (now cosily renamed RITA, for Russian lnformation Telegraph Agency), the world's big wire services are all west-

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so? A new study, published on January 31 by the lnternational lnstitute of Communications (llC), a London-based think-

HONG KONG 88 Queensway,

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agenda because it owns the news services, and thus spreads its own ideals at the expense of local ones. ls this really

Shop 132, The Mall

PacificPlace

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of the subject

have complained that too much of the world's news flows from nofih to south, and from the first world to the third. The West, it is said, sets the

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ern-owned. So, too, are the

into

three

big

television news-clip providers - VisNews, World Television News and CBS News lnternational. These firms make money selling - on newsfilm to stations that cannot afford their own on-the-scene camera crews. Unsurprisingly, their output tilts homewards. ln a 1980 study Anthony Smith, an Oxford don, showed that 40 per cent of Reuters'and AFP's stories covered European events, and 70 per cent of UPI's American or Canadian ones.

The same imbalance does not seep abroad, however. The llC study surveys

the news broadcast on one evening,

November 19,

1991

, by 87 television

channels in 55 countries. Four big events dominated the day: fighting in Yugoslavia, the release of hostages Thomas Sutherland and Terry Waite the day before, a massacre in lndonesia, and the reappointment of Edward Shevardnadze as Soviet foreign minister.

The survey's most striking discovery is notthat countries covered these stories in a similar way, but that most hardly covered them at all. Outside Europe, the Yugoslavian fighting was almost ignored.

Outside Asia, the lndonesian massacre hardly got a mention except on a Portuguese channel, where footballers were seen to observe a minute's silence. On the vast majority of channels, domestic stories came top of the news. Sao Paulo's Channel 5 told viewers about a traffic jam in Rio; Bangkok's station railed at the cost of eggs.

True to form, Japan emerged as peculiarly isolated. NHK, the state-owned broadcaster, led with sumo wrestling.

Tokyo Broadcasting's only foreign story was about the release in America of a raunchy Michael Jackson video. ln turn, the world ignored Japan. A mild earthquake, which halted Tokyo traffic for 20 minutes, failed to cause tremors anywhere overseas.

Americans are obssessed with health

stories; Australians love sport. Places with royal families give them lots of space.

Britain's Sky News, Spain's TVE-1 and Thalland's Channel 3 all ran stories about local royalty.

So the world's news is not all alike. But is it becoming more so? Graham Chapman, the geography professor who compiled the study, points out that

although developing countries cover domestic news for themselves, and give it lots of prominence, they tend to buy in coverage of foreign events from

western agencies. The survey produced few direct reports by journalists of one

third-world country about events in another. So although developing countries' views of themselves are their own, their perspectives on the rest of the world are at least partly the West's.

Second, since broadcasters are state-

controlled in most places, television news often reflects less what viewers want to watch than what governments

thinkthey should. Af rican channels eagerly repofi worthy symposiums on birth control

and crop-breeding; Eastern Europe is

lf they could get uncensored commercial television, both

still heavily "cultural".

the first world and the third might turn out to be fai more interested in foreign news than they seem today.

The Eòonomist

Small earthquake ¡n Peru, not many dead Location of news stor¡es, November 1gth 1991 ; percentage of time for each broadcasting region

Southern Latin Africa America

was not the to marry a storic English town of Lewes. Keating was in the midst of a "pommie" bashing frenzy and English honour had been sullied by his cuddle with the Queen. But the long-awaited marriage of Anthony "Digge/' Dyson, latterly Far Eastern Economic Review Focus editor, and Margaret Wilson-Sadler, an FCC stalwart who lent a bit of spark to club ambience, finally took place on 29 February. Evidencing the event with 40 other disbelievers were club members Mike Bishara and Vonnie Bishop and Brian and Sue McDermott, associates of The Digger from his days with the Daily Nation in Kenya. The Digger, now based in Perth with the West Australian, was back in favour after lan Botham demolished the Australian cricket team a day or two later.

@

North America

West E Europe Europe & USSR

Aust & NZ

0

n

0

0

U

China

0

0

0

0

1

W Europe E Europe & USSR

19

4

20

63

21

5

8

10

23

Japan

n

0

0

Latin America

il

92

7

Middle East

8

2

'16

North Africa

5

0

7

North America

6

7

80

Other Asia Southern Africa

z

1

1

80

0

I

Japan

4 q

0

0

64

0

56

J

0

0

12

43

12

20

80

6

14

28

12

4

J

78

10

0

1

1

0

7

0

¿

0

19

B

0

19

85

q

19

1

1

0

6

17

0

0

11

12

1

17

13

5

14

I

0

8

21

8

80

10

J

0

0

7

1

1

0

2

Source: Calculated from News Agency Survey llC

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH

1992

23

r Definitive history of the Korean war reunion of U.S. Marines shocked John Toland intowriting his latest

Al Kaff

book, /n Mortal Combat: Korea,1950-1953.

Toland had published 11 non-fiction

books and two novels, most of them dealing with World War ll, and he planned to write a third novel, this one based on

the Korean War, a conflict that he had given little attention to when it was being fought. "ln the early 1950s, our generation was tied up with Europe, and we ignored the

Korean War," said Toland during an interview from his home in Danbury, Conn.

"A few years ago, I went out to Southern California to attend a reunion of Marines, and what they told me about the Korean War shocked me. I decided that Korea was too important to be a novel. lt had to be a history. I felt duty bound to find out what happened in Korea."

To find out, Toland interviewed civilians and soldiers in South Korea on their wartime experiences, including Brig. Gen Chung ll-kwon, ROK chief of staff early in the war, and Father Philip Crosbie, survi-

vor of a death march in Nofth Korea. ln Taiwan, he talked with about 50 Chinese soldierswho had been captured by United Nations troops in Korea but refused repatriation to their Communist homeland when the war ended.

His best break came in 1989 when he travelled to China after two years of trying to get a visa. "Five of my books had been translated and published in China, and my name was known there as an historian," Toland said. "At the Chinese embassy, they always treated me nicely when I asked about a visa, but no visa came through. Finally, a Chinese professor whom I had known for several years invited me to China to lecture."

Accompanied by his wife Toshiko, whom he had met and married in Tokyo in 1960

when she was a correspondent for McGraw-Hill, Toland flew to Beijing just before the trouble in Tiananmen Square.

For his Korean War research, the timing

24

TIJE CORRESPONDENT MARCHIq9Z

was perfect. "l got in and out of China during a brief open period" when documents were made available and inter-

views granted, an access that Toland said was impossible before or after Tiananmen. "l got my best information for my book in China a week before the Tiananmen Square thing."

Among others, he interviewed Yao Xu, a high-ranking political commissar with the Chinese volunteers in Korea who had written his own book on Korea. When Toland asked him what his book con-

tained, Yao in the spirit of openness replied: "l'd rather tell you the things I

didn't put in my book."

Toland saw secret documents from the

archives of the Academy of Military Science of the People's Liberation Army. "l learned how Mao Tse-tung ran the war," the author said. "l saw messages that

researching and writing In Mortal Combaf. Published in late 1991 by William Morrow, the 624-page book is a detailed account of the ground war in Korea from the battles that were fought up and down the peninsula to the military stalemate that ended with the 1953 truce.

Writing in The Washington Post, Arnold (Skip) lsaacs, a Baltimore Sun cor-

respondent during the Vietnam War, commented: "Astrength of ln Mortal Combaf is that it doesn't front-load the story as many Korean War histories have, concentrating on the dramatic retreats and advances of the first year and sliding quickly over the two years of stalemate that followed.

Toland gives proper attention to that stage of the war too, describing both the changed war on the battlefield and the excruciatingly difficult negotiations for a

truce."

Toland, who will be 80 in June, reported that he now is working on his autobiography.

AlKaff was president of the FCC 19741975 and is now business and international editor i n the Cornel Service, lthaca, NY.

F.C.C. members represent one 0f the highest earning, per-capitå, consumer spending groups in Hong Kong.

F.C.C. members are generally decision makers who decide

\ryHAT to buy for their companies.

THE CORRESPONDENT is a controlled circulation publication, reaching all members plus their families.

Complimentary copies are mailed'to other key figures in

Mao sent directto the Volunteers in Korea,

bypassing his own military commanders in Beijing because he didn't trust anyone in his Government except Chou En-lai."

Toland spent three and a half years

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A dirty picture t was the kind of attack I had read about in newspapers and had shaken my head in amazement that such a thing could happen in a civilised nation in the 1990s. The latest incident had a unique

twist

-

Steven L. Herman

it happened in broad daylight in

He was soon joined by two accom-

Tokyo, was witnessed by dozens of people and I was the victim.

plices, one of whom grabbed me by the

Shibuya Station's Hachiko Square, with its famous dog statue, is a popular Tokyo meeting point. .Recently I met a friend

and beat me until police arrived.

there with whom I planned to see the showing of the latest Godzilla movie across

the street. We never made it.

As we walked.toward the theatre

neck while the others proceeded to punch

I

Two of the men were apprehended and demanded that charges be filed against

them. Shortly thereafter, the police investigation took a Kafkaesque turn.

Police began interrogating me, holding

I

decided I wanted to test out some new film in my camera and snapped a photo of a large sound truck parked in front of the station. A man atop the truck with a

me for six and a half hours despite my pleas to be taken to a hospital (l was in pain and woozy) and then told me ,,you

large Japanese flag was spouting rightist

have the right to remain silent" in regards to the criminal complaint being sworn against mel

and anti-American invectives. Most residents of Japan, including myself, heed little attention to such rhetoric.

the ultra-nationalist group, lsuikai, was contending that I had assaulted him

As soon I had taken the picture, an angry young man from the truck ran up to me and demanded I stop.

Despite his rude words, I politely informed him in Japanese that I was standing in a public place. He became even angrier when I told him if he had a problem with me he could go to the police box about 20 meters behind us. He repfied by grabbing me by the collar and punching me in the face.

It seems that one of the members of

a statement to police. The ultra-nationalists, allied with the Yakuza, are also feared by the public because they don,t hesitate to resort to violence against those who dare to testify against them.

The fact that I am a journalist and not Japanese should not be a factor in resulting publicity from this incident. A cameratoting tourist from Tochigi or a visiting photojournalist from Tacoma could have been subject to such treatment, both by the ultra-nationAlist thugs and the police.

Tokyo is not Pyongyang or Baghdad.

Residents and tourists alike are legally allowed to photograph anything they like in public. The same constitution which allows the sound trucks of ultra-rightists and ultra-leftists alike to broadcast their message at ear-splitting levels permits my freedom as a journalist or sightsee to

ANNIVERSARY Ăšrtf

take such photographs without being verbally or physically assaulted. lf the perpetrators of such an attack are allowed to go unpunished or if the Tokyo

despite statements to police by witnesses that I was set upon without provocation.

I had long heard from some Japanese and foreigners that the authorities were in the pocket of such rightists and that even the police feared them. The attack on me seems to reinforce these suspicions.

prosecutor's office does not dismiss the counter-charge against me it will show how little this country has changed since the time when the fascists had total control of Japan and plunged Asia into a dark

Out of the crowd which witnessed the attack, only one person, except for my friend, dared to come forward and make

Steven L. Herman is a Tokyo-based reporter for the PBS/NHK program ,'Asia Now" and CBS radio.

abyss.

0u

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26

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH|gg2

Celebrate 10 v

Ice House Street

Friday,, April 24

PEOPLE

Good-bye Hong Kong, Hello Budapest t was while sitting up to their necks in water in a Hungarian hot spring resort that correspondent members Steve Fallon and Mike Rothschild decided thattheywere going toquit Hongkong aÍter 12 years and move to Budapest -- a move as permanent as a pair of expatsfor-life can make.

"We had been thinking about where to go next for some time. Australia, the US (our original home), London, Paris - we rejected them all in a process of elimination for one reason or another," said Steve. "Then itdawned on usthat Budapest was now a viable place to settle. An exciting one too. After Hongkong, how can you go somewhere that isn't mov-

went straight to her off ice and was hired."

Until then Mike had been eeking a student living as atoy inspector. He would travel around Kowloon and the New Territories to sweatshops where he would throw wind-up dolls against the wall to see if they still worked. "l got paid $1 ,400 a month and got to know the public transport system very well."

ln 1984 Mike left Asia BankingÌobecome the first overseas employee, and later regional bureau chief, of a highly specialised, expensive and little read banking weekly called Ihe lnternational Financing Review, now owned by the Thomson Corporation, for which he has

Steve Fallon and Mike Rothschild

ing ?"

So in late February they bade farewell to one of the most eccentric homes in Hong Kong - three shacks perched amongst bamboos and trees on a hillside overlooking Cheung Sha beach on Lantau - and boarded a plane for Vienna with their Thai amah and two dogs.

Steve and Mike met in Pennsylvania in 1977when Mike was 17 and stillat school, Steve was 24, studying for Master's degree in journalism and working for a local newspaper. "The game plan was to come to Hongkong for a year," said Mike, now a financial journalist who will be setting up a bureau to cover the whole of eastern Europe. "l had always wanted to be a

foreign correspondent and

I

had this

romantic notion to live overseas. Back then my horizon stopped at ltaly; Asia meant nothing. But Steve said that it was the place of the future and said why didn't I major in Mandarin, so I did."

They arrived in Hong Kong in 1979 with back packs and a contact in a place

called Farm Road. "lt turned out to be next to Kai Tak. I was expecting paddy fields and bamboo," said Mike. Steve called around for jobs from phone booths

28

THECORRESPONDENT MARCHI992

and the couple slummed it in Chungking Mansion flophouses for a year until they could find a landlord "who didn't mind taking in a couple of gays." Meanwhile Steve got a job, "with a slave wage", at Asiaweek and Mike continued his Man-

darin studies at univeisity.

By the time Mike had finished his studies, Steve had moved to TVB where he worked in the newsroom with Ann Quon,

lan Whiteley, and Peter Cordingley.

"Looking back now," Steve said, "that was probably the most satisfying time for me professionally. Although l've always considered myself a print journalist, working with such talented people was a great

worked ever since, and will be setting up a bureau in Budapest. "lt's the bible of the banking field."

Steve, meanwhile had left TVB to edit Business Traveller, which he did for four years until the urge to do something new -- a regular occurrence - overtook him.

He used his freedom to finish his Master's thesis - teaching in the vernacular in

Mike started freelancing. First with weekly hiking and nature column in Asía 2000 and financial pieces for the Soufh China Morning Post. FCC member Jo

Asia's f irst bookshop specialising in travel and allied topics, in Hollywood Road. "lt was horrific. We'd been playing the market up to then quitê heavily and then suddenly, with shelves empty and books on their way, we were wiped out," said Steve. "We carried on, though" said Mike, "but it was on a shoestring budget for the first year."

They sold a majority interest in the shop to FCC member Mike Morrow, of

me now. What was more important, thought, watching birds or a career?

I I

Said Steve, who's going to spend the first six months writing a Lonely Planet guide lo Hungary: "l've always thought that 1997 would be the end for Hong Kong. Besides it's not the place I came to. I'm not saying

it

shouldn't have changed.

russra.

ln some ways, say in terms of western

"People need information most when its hard to get. Now it's all second-hand

stuff, very few people on the ground

cultural events, it's a lot better, and in a strange way I am quite proud of it. There are also far far fewer poor people.

which is surprising. And it's cheap and it's Europe," he said.

"Who knows, in five years Hungary may have turned into a nice boring little

Marathon man on the mend o, even a deluge of faxes, cables and letters from his myriad well wishers around the region, and beyond

N ^'

could prevent a personal tragedy for John

McBeth, Far Eastern Economic Review bureau chief in Manila and veteran of Bangkok and Seoul. On February 25 his left leg was amputated below the knee.

But his own indomitable determination, backed by the support of friends and colleagues, will see that John McB. is back

scribing what is really going on in the Philippines.

What started out as a seemingly fairly

it.

I don't suppose I'll ever be around a bunch of people who have done so much,

people at the top of their professions.

When it's good, it's heady stuff."

David Thurston

GUESS who the Hong Kong Tourist

was back in his New Zealand hometown, New Plymouth, developed into a nightmare for John. Originally he appeared

Association has chosen to pick the territory's top 23 restaurants for its food fes-

just to need an operation to bypass

a

clogged artery which was impeding blood circulation in his foot. This was carried out just after Christmas. But it did not solve the problem which turned out to be due to arterial damage higher up the leg apparently sustained in childhood. Back in hospital he went through more than a dozen subsequent operations to try to cure the problem. But in the end he had to have the leg amputated.

This would be bad enough for anyone, let alone one for whom mobility in work and sport has been a way of life. So the physical. But John has come through the

fee shops, John will be on the road in Surigao, Cagayan and Camarines de-

quite like

minor operation in December when he

worst and is now on the mend. He

in action in two to three months. While others report the news from Manila's cof-

social democracy, and we'll be off again."

But for the moment, as a Hungarian friend of their's remarked: "This place is really boiling over."

But, he added: "l shall miss a rowdy Friday night at the FCC, there's nothing

BRIEFLY...

trauma has been emotional as well as

ness, the boys inveterate travellers arou nd

the region opened Wanderlust Books,

special reports for As ian Banking. "l called her one day from Fanling station. I was wearing hiking boots and carrying binoculars and she said she wanted to see

arrived," said Steve. Mike will be the first

full-time financial journalist in Eastern Europe with a beat from Latvia to Belo-

Chinese schools - and three months in Thailand to write the definite novel of the century. I didn't. The book still lies bleeding in the computer."

But books were to become very much part of his life when he returned and in 1987 a week after the great stock crash, the worst possible time to launch a busi-

experience."

McBride gave him his first job doing

Asia 2000, before leaving.

"Budapest seems to have the dynamism that Hong Kong had when we first

is

determined to rehabilitate himself as soon as possible. Already he has been nicknamed Marathon Man by fellow patients in his ward due to the speed and endurance he shows in manipulating his wheelchair around the hospital. His next step will be to get on crutches and then go to Wellington to get an artificial limb fitted New Zealand has some leading world experts in prosthetics.

Friends and colleagues know he will soon be beating them to stories, and on the golf course - if not quite yet on the tennis court.

tival Dinner Date programme? None other than our very own resident food writer, among other things, Kevin (make mine a small beer) Sinclair. "The fact that I can't afford to go to half of these places and the

other half are too sensible to let me in doesn't seem to worry the HKTA," Kevin said.

FREEúANCE style and fashion writer

Cathryn Netherwood and husband Douglas Tomkin have said good-bye to Hong Kong and have moved to Sydney where Douglas has accepted a position teaching design.

Austrian inspiration lN association with the Austrian Trade Commission in Hong Kong, Lauda Air and the Hilton Hotel, the FCC is pleased to present a short festival of Austrian cuisine in the Club's main dinning room from March 25-27.

Philip Bowring THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992 29

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

The FCC welcomes the following new members

Worth the effort papersforthe next Board of Governors of the FCC have already been sent out to members. I urge you allto take part in this exercise. After all the Board is elected by YOU and is therefore representative of he nomination

the membership.

These past 12 months have seen enormous changes to the Club. We undeftook a costly refurbishment last year

and we have have seen a dramatic increase in professional activities. lt has also meant a considerable increase in the workload for both the Club's manage-

ment and the Board.

Anyone who decides to stand for the next Board should be committed to the continued development of the Club - both socially and professionally.

We also have a number of committees which are tesponsible for various activities such as finance, professional and F & B. These committees require a lot of attention, not only from the Board but also the members.

Again I stress, members wishing to stand should think seriously about where they can best channel their energies, thoughts, and resources.

Despite some of the criticism, this Board

has worked hard for the Club and its members. Many of us on the Board have put a great deal of time and effort into the Club which has eaten into our own busy and sometimes overloaded work schedules. But it has been worth the efforl.

lttttttlllltlt

You may have noticed some slight changes to the editorial presentation in this issue oÍ The Correspondenf. Aparl from moving the President's letter towards the back of the book we have included news from other FCC's in the region. The aim is to bring us closer together and to create closer ties with the other Club's in the region. We all share common goals and aims and I feel these could be reflected in The Correspondent.

It could also mean a boost in circulation regionally and increase our adveftising revenues.

¡tttttttrtllrt As the video room is now closed we will

soon have a full workroom once again.

At the end of March I will propose to the Board thatwe examine proposed changes

we failed to secure, from the Fringe Club, the empty office next door we may have to move part of our administration to another office somewhere in the neighbourhood. This should free some of the space down stairs and enable us to extend the work facilities and make the place more efficient. We will, of course, inform the membership every step of the

*"t'arrrrr¡rrr¡rrr Charles Smith of lhe Far Eastern Economic Review and Cynthia Hydes have organised our first ever classical music night at the FCC on April 16. This is apart of our attempt to bring some culture into the Club. Apart from classical music we also intend to exhibit art and photography from time to time in the main dirlning room. The first exhibition will be on April ',l3.

for the lower ground floor. Space has

Peter Seidlitz

become our number one concern. Since

STOP

LOOKING!

CORRESPONDENT

D Morgan Acker, Northeast Asia lndochina correspondent, Asia lnc.

Joseph Keller, freelance television cameraman.

Fomain Franklin, correspondenl, Liberation.

Cornelis Metselaar, Freelance photographer.

Christopher Pizzey, chief sub-editor, Reuters.

Simon Holberton, Hong Kong correspondenl, Financial Times.

Takae Tateishi, correspon denl, The J apan Sh ipping Exchange.

Helen Davis, production edilor, Far East Trade Press.

Russell Crawford-Arensman, assistant managing editor, Asra lnc.

Manik Hiranandani, special correspondenl, Delhi Diary Magaztne.

Louisa Ke Shuo Ran, correspondent, Kyodo News Service.

JOURNALIST Carline Ki, freelance journalist.

Jane Doughty, deputy edilor, Expressionand feature writer.

The Peak.

Karina Zabihi, freelance.

AROUND THE REGION II

fre

Seoul Foreign Correspondents'

Club on Saturday, February

22,

elected a new Board of directors.

Shim Jae-hoon of the Far Eastern defeated M ichael Breen oÍ The Washington Times by votes 33 to '17, with five abstaining and eight votes invalidated, for the post of President.

Sixty-four people were represented, either through attendance or proxy votes, out of a voting membership of 154. (The Club has 922 members).

The rest of the Board was elected unopposed by acclamation: o First Vice-President: Sato Toshiyuki of NHK television.

Eco no m i c Rev i eu¡

30

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH1992

¡

ASSOCIATE

Second Vice-President: Fìobert Willis of AFP. o Secretary-general: Diane Stormont of Reuter.

Asah i Sh imbun, Secretary-General Keiko Bang of CNN, Treasurer Lee Byung-jong

o Treasurer: Sohn Jie-Ae of The New

that the Club held 53 functions last year,

York Times.

"covering most of the spectrum of Korean politics and society."

He also reported that the Club contin-

Shim, in a brief acceptance speech, said he would work to improve food quality at the Club, strengthen ties with the domes-

tic Korean press and would push

for foreign reporters to be allowed to cover North-South talks in Pyongyang.

The Board replaced outgoing president Mark Clifford o'Í lhe Revieu¿, First Vice-President Lee Su-wan of Reuter, Second Vice-President Koh Odagawa of

of AP.

ln his year-end report, Clifford noted

ued to speak out on press freedom, "often

"

tn:

:TT': I.'T,o:";^'iTT

"

Tan Lian Choo, of the Singapore Sfraits Iimes, was elected recently President of the Bangkok FCC. Peter Sidler of Switzerland's Neue Zuercher Zeitung was elected Vice President.

Michael Whelan, circulation/marketing director (Asia Paci'fic), lnternational Herald Tribune.

Jonathan Hardy, advertising manager, Newsweek lnterna-

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Paul Vernier, managing director, O'Reilly Vernier Ltd. Patrick Poletti, assistant regional director, Aotc Ltd. Kiyoshi Watari, managing director and general manager.

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Daniel LaVelle, marketing communications manager, Hyatt Regency, Hong Kong.

Lesley Carey, manager executive services, Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp.

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THECORRESPONDENT MARCH 1992 3I

t

A PEDDLER'S JOUR}{AL

The new Europe.

You're s¡tting pretty all the way.

Mr Yamamura by name Whisky by computer n a recent trip to Tokyo I came across an interesting example of Japanese ingenuity in using modern technology to provide a unique and unexpected service.

A business colleague took me to an

Esquire club one evening for a few drinks.

It was one of those places where you have to flash a membership card in front of a peep-hole to gain admittance. lnside skimpily dressed hostesses in

bunny costumes were flitting from table to table delivering drinks and snacks or chatting with their clients at tables.

It was clearly patterned on the Playboy club theme. Since the Playboy clubs had failed dismally in Tokyo a number of years ago I thought they could have made a better choice of a model but perhaps the management was banking on the appeal of the more up-market Esquire name to attract their members.

It seemed to be working because I was told there were already fifteen branches spread about Tokyo.

Soon after getting us seating at

a table, the hostess returned carrying a tray on which were three glasses, ice,

water and a half-full (or half-empty depending on how you want to look at it) bottle of whisky. Written on the side

think that the lower profit per unit of whisky sold would make the system unattractive

to the establishment

but

that is not the case. For one thing a full bottle sitting on the table induces much more rapid and increased consumption than ordering on a drink by drink basis. Moreover well-trained

and energetic hostesses help the process along by filling the glasses the instanl they are emptied. Another key facet to this strategy is to ensure by subtle machinations that no customer departs without leaving a partially consumed bottle behind to serve as an enticement for him to return. Those that go unclaimed after a cut-off date,

usually I believe a year, revert to the management. Finally if there are still

any doubts about the added profits to be gained from this system one must

not forget the inflated prices of the snacks which are de rigueur in Japanese drinking establishments and form a significant component of their income.

One of the senior employees in our Tokyo office, a Mr Yamamura, is noted

for the number of bottles he keeps around town. ldon't think even he knows the exact number, but it would

of the bottle, in bold Japanese characters

be rarely less than ten or so at any one time. His favourite haunls are of course

was my frierid's name.

As anyone who has made the rounds

always stocked but he also tends to accumulate acquisitions made on one

of Tokyo watering holes is familiar,

night stands during his nocturnal

Japanese bars and cocktail lounges

wanderings. These will vary but as far as I can tell he always remembers where

make a common practice of selling whisky by the bottle. The bottle is labelled

with the owner's name and company affiliation, and when he moves on, it is stacked with rows of similarly labelled bottles for quick r-etrieval on his next visit.

It is a clever marketing device and sometimes wonder why the practice

I

hasn't caught on elsewhere. One might

they are.

I

recall one evening being out on

the town with a Japanese colleague from my company, in the Akasaka district of Tokyo, when we came upon one of Yamamura's places. We decided to drop in, and for reasons of economy, partake

of his bottle. Since the bartender recognized my friend he had no qualms

in passing it over to us. We hadn't been there more than an hour or so when we were suddenly startled by the sound of a familiar but most unexpected grunt.

The cat was among the chickens. We didn't need to turn around to know that old Yamamura was ambling over to join us. He had a big smile on his face because he knew we would have to buy him

the next bottle.

Anyway at the Esquire Club that evening, when the hostess put on our table that half-full bottle of whisky with my friend's name written on it, I realised something was strange. He had never been the.re before. He had been only to one of the other branches a few months

earlier where he had picked up his membership card.

It seems that the bartender keyed into a small PC behind the counter my friend's

membership number, and from a centralised data base, picked up the detailed

specifications, including the exact quantity remaining, of the bottle my f riend had left at the other branch. He prepared a duplicate, labelled it with my friend's name and had it delivered to our table. At the same time the bottle at the other place was cancelled.

I wondered how the computer would have handled the situation if we were working on Yamamura's bottle that night and he had wandered into one of the other branches.

Leighton Willgerodt,

Now, when you

fly

Lufthansa

We've also added an extra two

Business Class on our 8747'Íleel, you can enjoy more space, more

and enjoy all the pleasures of our

privacy and more comfort than

new Business Class in-f light service.

ever before.

While First Class passengers have their own private domain on the

upper-deck for greater privacy, in Business Class, we've completely redesigned our seats and reduced the configuration to a maximum of only 2-3-2 seats in a row for your utmost relaxation.

inches of legroom so you can relax

So next time you're planning a trip to the new Europe, or beyond, spread your wings on one of our daily nonslop 8747-4Q0 flights and stretch out in real comfort on Lufthansa.

Lufthansa: tñe European airline.

All changes w¡ll be fully ¡n effect lrom March 29, 1992

an Associate

Member of the FCC, is a sales executive with a US multinational chemical company.

G Lufthansa German Airlines

32

THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH1992 See your IATA travel agent or Lufthansa German Airlines, 6th Floor, 12 lce House Street, Central, Hong Kong Telephone: 846 6388

Gelebrating 6O million great cameras.

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