Dunash

Wonderful locavore restaurant in Stockholm

2011-01-04T17:28:00.005-05:00

There's an amazing locavore restaurant in Stockholm called Mistral that is highly worth a visit. They're also happy to adjust the listed menu for vegetarians and other special dietary requirements.

The 5 course tasting meal turned into an 8 course plus crusty fresh whole wheat bread and creamy butter extravaganza. Almost everything is from a local farm, and since not much grows in Sweden these days most of their ingredients have been preserved since the summer.

We had:

bonus starter: raw and cook beets with yogurt and chocolate dust

first course: hollowed onions with potato creme and pickled chanterelles

second course: 25 different raw marinated baked or vegetables, creamy egg yolk and yogurt

third course: cabbage pickled in its own juices and cabbage picked in whey and then caramelized, with rhubarb marmalade and lingonberry dust

fourth course: caramelized celery root with pickled garlic, pear slices, and coffee bean

bonus pre-dessert: apple cream with zucchini topping

fifth course: tomato with chocolate with rhubarb marmalade, creme angles and vanilla tomato paste

bonus post-dessert: chocolate mousse with dried chocolate mousse, with lovage herb infusion
and herbal blend tea to cap it off.

Delicious!

Rick Levin for NEC Director

2010-12-16T09:46:00.002-05:00

Several news sites are reporting that Yale President Rick Levin is one of the three finalists to replace Larry Summers as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council.

Despite being two baby boomer Jewish economists who have run two of America's top universities, Levin and Summers could not be more different. Summers while many accounts a difficult manager is also one of the top economists in the world. (He ranks at a super-human 17, surrounded by numerous Nobel Laurates).

Levin, by contrast, is a spectacular manager, having personally trained the presidents of Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Duke, Wellesley and the former president of Penn. (In a further comparison to Summers' ill perceived comments about women in science, four of these Levin acolytes are women.) That said, Levin doesn't even rank in the top 10% of economists, in part since he has served almost the past 20 years in administration, first as dean of Yale's Graduate School and then as University President.

Since the NEC is not a large government department or agency, and since Levin's skills are more as a manager than as an economist, perhaps he would be better suited for another position in the administration, should one open up. Unlike former President Bush, who for the first 6 years of his presidency diminished the importance of his Treasury Secretaries, President Obama has put Secretary Geithner front and center with his full support. Given the sprawling nature of that department, maybe it would be a better place for Levin.

As for NEC chair, how about Alan Krueger? Then again, he's already at his two-year public service leave limit from Princeton, and so he'd have to give up his tenure. That in itself is a topic for another time.

Guest post at Mah Rabu on 10th of Tevet

2010-12-14T10:05:00.001-05:00

Read it here.

Ten more thoughts on India

2010-11-09T07:02:00.008-05:00

Ten more observations about India, having just returned from my trip there.

1. I went down to the southern most tip of India, where I was able to simultaneously swim in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and Bay of Bengal. There was a shrine there in memory of Mohandas Ghandi. The shrine had a picture of Ghandi, with what I'm relatively sure is a Christian halo around his head, which I've only otherwise seen for saints. Similarly, the language in the English version of the text near him made more "virgin" references then I'm used to in Hindu sources. It's fascinating that India's Christian population also has a significant following for Ghandi, despite him not being a Christian.

2. We stayed in the Leela in Kovalam Beach, which was gorgeous, though at times a bit inept. India is still barely electronic in their administrative functions, and so in the shuffles of papers things get lost. Despite telling the hotel when we checked in last Sunday that we were checking out on Thursday, they seemed to think that we were checking out Wednesday and began demand we vacate the room because they were full. Eventually the conference staff intervened on our behalf, but it was amazing that they would consider kicking out paying guests because of a snafu on their part.

3. Luckily, we didn't have to stay in one of the other conference hotels, the Uday Samudra, where we heard the rooms were not great, and everyone got sick from the food.

4. After the conference, we drove a few hours up north. Indian driving is something I have never seen before. Down here, it's not mass chaos, like Cairo, but it is crazy. First of all, you have vehicles sharing the road of vastly different cruising speeds (from bicycles to mopeds to three-wheeled auto-rickshaws, to cars, buses, and trucks). On mostly two lane roads, faster vehicles have to have some means of passing slower ones. What happens is that the middle of the road becomes a passing lane, used by traffic in both directions. If that weren't terrifying enough, if a medium speed vehicle is passing in the center and a high speed vehicle (like our driver's car) wants to pass, he goes fully into the oncoming traffic lane. Somehow the system seemed to work. While India has very high car crash rates, I happened to see none when I was there.

5. Farther north, we spent a night on a houseboat, exploring the backwaters of that area. It was wonderful - relaxing, comfortable, with great food. Apparently there are 500 houseboats in that area, each few owned by a different person. The boats contract with the tour companies which then contract with the drivers and the hotels. It seems to be a good system, though our hotel (Greenshore Apartments - see below) did not charge us a commission, which is very nice of them.

6. The tuxedo, mentioned in my previous post, came exactly as specified - without a doubt best fitting two pieces of clothing that I own. I highly recommend Duron Tailors. Bring many pictures of what you want, and ideally a driver or friend who speaks Malayalam (though their English is passable).

7. If you are looking for an inexpensive, comfortable place to stay on the beach, Greenshore Apartments is a great option. It has kind, helpful staff and charming British owners.

8. The religious harmony in India was absolutely incredible. We saw nothing but Christian, Muslims, and Hindus living side by side in accommodating peace (dietary requirements respected - it took our Hindu driver to explain why the tailors were closed for 3 hours Friday afternoon - the owners are Muslim). Our of Greenshore's 4 staff members one is of each religion and they get their respective Sabbaths off

9. Trivandrum Airport (TRV) does not understand internet boarding passes (the kind you get when you check in online and then print them from your computer). They kept asking for our "original" boarding passes and then finally sent us all the way back to check-in (past immigration) to get them. Hand luggage also all has to be tagged, so we would have been in trouble even if they accepted the boarding passes. This level of anachronistic incompetence at an international airport is incredible. Maybe Qatar Airways shouldn't laud their online check-in system if the local airports can't handle it.

10. Finally, the Sunday morning flight from TRV-DOH (Doha), as to be expected, is almost all men commuting for work. (Remember that the work week starts on Sunday in Muslim countries.)

That's all! Anyone traveling to Kerala please get in touch with me for more travel tips.

What happened to the Dems who voted against health care?

2010-11-03T13:48:00.002-04:00

There were 34 Democratic members of the House of Representatives who voted against comprehensive health care reform last March. Politico has a story on it, but here are the details (from my own analysis):

Number who stood for reelection to the House: 30/34
Of those 30, number who won: 13 (38%)
Of the 2 who ran for higher office, number who won: 0
Of the 2 who retired, number whose seats the Democrats retained: 0

Great night for those who opposed health care reform!

I fully expect Nate Silver's blog to come out with a comprehensive analysis, looking at those Democrats who voted for it from Republican majority districts and how way they did. But, suffice to say, voting against health care reform to appease one's conservative constituents did not appear to buy sufficient good will.

First nine hours in India

2010-11-01T02:46:00.003-04:00

I landed in Trivandrum, India at 3:45 AM local time (6:15 PM EDT - yes - this is my first time ever in a half time zone). Total journey from the Upper West Side to my hotel in India was about 24 hours, by way of JFK and Doha.

Several observations about my trip so far:

1. Qatar Airways is fantastic, especially because they have plentiful delicious vegetarian food. In coach. (None of this chicken-or-beef nonsense I once experienced in first-class Continental.)

2. Doha Airport has surprisingly reasonably duty free single-malt Scotch prices, despite its majority culture prohibiting alcohol.

3. Indians have near 100% compliance with mustaches. It is rare to see a man without one or with any other style of facial hair.

4. Indian men tend to wear western clothing, whereas Indian women tend to wear traditional clothing.

5. India has the best, most considerate vegetarian food in the world. Every one of the dozens of dishes at the breakfast buffet was labeled as to whether it was vegetarian (by Indian standards - so eggs and fish are not, but dairy is).

6. I went into town to get a tuxedo made. The hotel provided me (at my expense - about $30 for the first two hours and then $10 for each additional hour) with a driver, who not only could navigate the crazy driving in India (passing in the opposing lane or worse between the two lanes, the bikes/walkers/auto-rickshaws - which are tiny cars with only one wheel in the front instead of two), and had cold bottled water, but came into every store with me and translated what I wanted into Malayalam (yes that's a palindrome in English transliteration) if needed.

7. Speaking of which, Malayalam and Hindi use different alphabets, so most signs here are written in three languages (English being the third).

8. If you ever go to get clothes made in India, bring many many pictures of exactly what you want. Don't assume they will know what a tuxedo is or what it is supposed to look like or why there is a satin stripe over the seam in the pants.

9. I went to two places - Duron and BodyFit. Duron was much better - they spoke better English, knew what I wanted, asked detailed questions of things I didn't think of, arranged me for to come back for a fitting two days later and then would have it done in four days, and even sent me with fabric samples so I knew what kind of satin to buy.

10. With regard to fabric, when you want clothes made you have to go to the textiles store nearby and buy your fabric (the tailor tells you how much he needs of what). I had never done this before, and learned two things. One, to make a tuxedo jacket and pants for someone my size (5'6") requires 3.5 meters of wool and 1.25 meters of satin (the tailor provided the synthetic lining for the jacket). The high quality materials ended up costing the same amount as the labor from the tailor! Fascinating. All in, including the three trips with the driver, the cost will be under $250, which is incredible for a custom made tailed tuxedo using high quality fabrics.

More to come later.

Weekend in Warsaw

2010-08-02T03:43:00.010-04:00

I just returned from a weekend in Warsaw (which includes a massive clock tower - see above). It was an absolutely fascinating experience. Aside from a few days in Berlin (including East Berlin) several years ago, it's the first time I've spent in any formerly communist country. (I'm also not counting Shanghai here, which is a wholly different situation.)

The owner of the vacation apartment we rented (he insisted on being paid in cash upfront; the apartment was clean and had a functional kitchenette, but was otherwise relatively bare and in a building otherwise in relatively poor disrepair), who spent a year living in Sweden, commented to me that he liked Warsaw better, because Sweden was too clean and orderly and Warsaw was grittier. I agree with his descriptions, but disagree with his preference.

As some examples, on our first day when walking into the subway, we walked by a women with a black eye, limping as if someone had just beaten her up. (I'd hope that she was going home after receiving the appropriate care and concern from the authorities and heath officials...). On a more mundane note, nothing was particularly clean or new, and some parts of the central station looked like the shop that was previously there had been just ripped out of the wall.

That said, the public transit system was actually excellent, with buses, subways, and trolley. Getting to and from the airport was very easy (take the 175 or 188 bus and then switch to the subway or trolley) and a great planning site. You can also get a day pass for 9 zl (~$3) good for 24 hours once validated (perfect for after Shabbat and Sunday), though no one ever checked our tickets on a bus or trolley.

Customer service, on the other hand, was not so great. For example, after checking out we put our bags in a locker for the day before heading to the airport. Upon returning to them, we had a very hard time getting the machine to accept a 1 zl coin and unlock our luggage. If we hadn't gotten it to work (through some combination of backspin on the coin and sheer luck), I'm not sure what we would have done. The one worker at the information station upstairs spoke no English, and there was no one else around. Our best bet may have been to break into the locker and hope no one noticed.
One of our goals in Warsaw was to see evidence of the Warsaw Ghetto and Jewish uprising there in 1943 that every Jewish child learns about in Hebrew school. We able to find a section of the ghetto's original wall (see above, between Seina and Zlota Streets, enter at 55 Seinna) as well as numerous monuments in Hebrew, Polish, and English.

We also thought that we would go to the Uprising Museum, which was supposed to be excellent and have lots of English. When we got there, the line was literally "out the door and around the corner." One of the guards said that it (August 1) was the anniversary of the beginning of the uprising, and so is a very popular day to come to the museum. (There was a large ceremony going on outside.)

This seemed odd to me, since I had learned that Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) was celebrated in the spring because of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So how could this uprising have begun in August, long after the Ghetto Uprising had been crushed?

It seems that this museum was actually for the Warsaw Uprising, which took place in 1944. (Wikipedia shows you both links.) This was after the vast majority of Polish Jews had been murdered, and represented a much larger, coordinated, Polish military effort against the occupying Nazi army. It seems that, in anticipation of the advancing Soviet army from the east, Polish leaders tried to defeat the Nazis first, in an attempt to reclaim their independence, in part in the face of future Soviet hegemony.

Stalin, however, after encouraging the Poles to revolt, double crossed them and halted his army, allowing the battered Nazis to defeat the uprising, diminishing hopes of true Polish independence. To make matters worse, Stalin later persecuted those who had organized the uprising, likely to remove potential threats to his own totalitarian regime. In fact, this museum is only a few years old, as it would have been impossible to build it in Communist Poland.

As for the Jewish community, we went to Friday night services and Shabbat dinner. It's an Orthodox shul, with all of the gender inequality that comes with that. Furthermore, the vast majority of the people there seemed to be heloni (secular) Israeli tourists, and so I found the overall davening experience somewhat lacking, though, it reminded me how very much missing davening with a minyan on Friday nights this past summer. Shabbat dinner was much smaller and lovely, and is worth attending if you're looking for somewhere to spend Shabbat in that region.

A few interesting notes about the synagogue: Becoming a member of the community seems very arduous. I've never heard of an American shul doing such a litmus test on potential members. Maybe it's because in the US members are the primary source of funding, whereas here the nominal fee is small compared to funds from the Warsaw and Polish governments and other sources.

The Rabbi is fascinating. He speaks fluent Polish as well as native English. and has both Conservative and Orthodox smicha. Perhaps most fascinating, and spooky, was that he was invited to be on the plane with late Polish President in April but did not fly, because it was Shabbat, saving his life. The interview he gave after the tragedy is worth reading.

All in all, a fascinating city, and definitely merits a visit.

Weekend in Stresa

2010-07-16T03:43:00.007-04:00

I highly recommend spending a weekend in Stresa, Italy. It's near Milan, on the shores of Lake Maggiore.

The cheapest way to get to Stresa is probably to fly on EasyJet to Milan's Malpensa airport (MXP). Of course you have to deal with the EasyJet nightmare (toll number for customer service, no order for boarding, only one carry on bag (including a computer bag or purse), and the smallest leg room I've ever seen) but the price is right.

From MXP there is a bus straight to Stresa. You'll need to call ahead the day before by 11 am to book your ticket (and they're closed Sundays so for Mondays you have to call on Saturday). Returning to the airport, the concierge in your hotel likely will call for you.

Alternatively, you can take the bus to nearby Gallarate Station and take a train right into Stresa (Fodor's has the details). This is what we did on our return trip because we didn't book the bus far enough in advance. Whole trip takes probably takes 75 minutes, including walking from the hotel to the train station. You can buy the train tickets in the station and the bus tickets aboard the bus.

Finally you can always take a cab, which we did on Friday to make it by Shabbat. It will cost 110 euro or so, and take about 45 minutes.

Stresa city hall

In Stresa, we stayed at a wonderful hotel (Albergo Luina) and ate at two fabulous restaurants (Loco Stresa and La Rosa dei Venti). See links for my reviews on TripAdvisor.

Finally, we spent a day on Isola Bella, which was beautiful. You can buy boat tickets to just that island at the dock in Stresa. Individually small boat drivers will try to hard-sell you a ticket. It ended up being roughly the same as buying from the main window, and saved us waiting in the line. Just make sure you only pay to go the isles you actually want to go to (instead of getting a more extensive pass that you don't need).

Isola Bella's terraced gardens are a great spot for a picnic lunch. There is a large supermarket in Stresa that has reasonable prices on bread, cheese, fruits, spreads, nuts, and more. In some cases the exact same items were 50% more in the tourist trap shops a few blocks away. That said, there were some small grocery stores that had larger selections then the supermarket (such as fresh figs), so it's worth checking those out too. Just look for the ones where customers are native Italian speakers and you're less likely to get ripped off.

A note about fruit grocers (this does not apply to supermarkets): do not handle your fruit. Tell an employee what you want and they will get it for you. If you don't like the individual fruit they pick, tell them and they'll change it or let you change it. But don't just start feeling your way through all of the plums the way you would in most other countries.

A note on water: Italians seem to only drink bottled water. Most restaurants won't even serve you tap water. Nevertheless, we drank the tap water throughout our visit and had no problems.

A note on tipping: Italians seem not to tip in taxis or restaurants. (If you use a credit card, you'll get it back without extra lines for a tip and the final total). You can leave a few euros in case if the service was particularly excellent, but it's not expected.

Let me know if in the comments if you have any questions about Stresa.

Har HaBayit

2010-04-25T09:59:00.006-04:00

Today, I had an aliyah (an ascent, from the Hebrew root 0-l-h, to ascend). Jews normally use this word to mean one of two things: saying the blessing over a section of Torah reading, or immigrating to Israel. I'm using it, for the first time, in the original sense, which is to ascend onto Har HaBayit (literally the Mountain of the House, normally called the Temple Mount in English) in Jerusalem.

If you thought the (Kotel) Western Wall was complicated, try Har HaBayit. It is venerated by Jews (as the location of the 1st and 2nd Temples), Christians (as near the Last Supper, Crucifixion and the Resurrection), and Muslims (as where Mohammad ascended to heaven). To this day, Jews from all over the world pray facing Har HaBayit, and many Muslims regularly pray in the Mosque there, as the holiest site after Mecca and Medina.

Its history is even more complicated, with Muslims building a mosque (Al Aksa) and a shrine (the Dome of the Rock) there and Crusaders digging under it in search of the lost Ark of the Covenant. After the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, the site along with the entire Old City passed under Jordanian control. It was only with Israel's victory in the Six Day War in 1967 that control falling into Jewish hands, after a 2000 year lapse.

The current state of affairs is very touchy at best. Jews (including outwardly religious Jews) are allowed up Har HaBayit, but are not allowed to pray. One man was even arrested last December for allegedly doing so. There are other stories about rabbis being allowed to pray in special circumstances, but holding any kind of regular Jewish services up there is completely impossible. It is still too fresh in everyone's mind when Ariel Sharon (before becoming Prime Minister) callously ascended to Har HaBayit with his entire security detail, providing one of the sparks for the 2nd Intifada.

So how does a religious Jew go about an aliyah? First of all, he or she must be as ritually pure as one can be in a post-Temple world. For men this is easy - go to the mikvah that morning before you go up, I used one at Ohel Shimon Yeshiva, near Rachel Imenu and Hizkiyahu HaMelech. If you go make sure to bring seven shekels in exact change.

For women, it gets more complicated. In short, women should not be in niddah (menstruating), or have engaged in (heterosexual) intercourse in the previous 72 hours. (This requirement should probably also apply to men with respect to homosexual intercourse.) Then women should also go to a mikvah (which can be somewhat difficult for unmarried women in Jerusalem).

The entrance is next to the south entrace to the Kotel plaza, near Zion gate. It opens around 7:30 AM, except for Fridays and Muslim holidays. The security allegedly checks for any Jewish ritual objects (bibles, prayer books, tallit, tefillin) and from what others have told me from their experience makes you leave them there. They did not ask me for any identification.

Ha HaBayit itself is gigantic. Much, much larger than I ever could have imagined. It is also very quiet and peaceful, which only adds to the enormous reverence of the space.

I wasn't quite sure where I was allowed to go as a religious Jew. The concern is that one should not enter the area that was once the Holy of Holies in the Temple, or be near the Ark of the Covenant. However, since Har HaBayit was significantly expanded in the Second Temple period, the South section (where the entrance is, near Al Aksa Mosque) is certainly safe for Jews who follow the purity precautions mentioned above.

Eventually, I saw three observant Jews on a tour. I followed them, figuring that they would know where not to go. Up until this point, I had been wearing a baseball cap over my kippah, and had tucked in my tzizit, so that the police wouldn't profile me as a potential agitator. Once I was with other religious Jews, though, (who were already being followed around by the police), I figured I could express my religion.

We ended up walking all of the way around Har HaBayit, only avoiding the raised platform that the Dome of the Rock is on. (This is apparently what it looks like inside.) Despite the regulations, these men quietly said Pslams, which were traditionally recited by pilgrims as they approached the Temple. Since the guards could not hear them, they certainly did not bother any Muslims praying on Har HaBayit.

We exited Har HaBayit on the Western side, though what was called "Chain Gate". This let us out right onto Rehov HaShelshelet (the Chain Street), in the Arab shuk. I had been here several times on my way to the Kotel, but normally would turn right 20 feet before this point to go down the stairs to the Kotel. I never knew what was beyond that point, and also never realized that the bottom of the shuk was the same level at Har HaBayit. Nor did I realize that, since the shuk slopes down when coming from Jaffa Gate, that Jaffa Gate is actually higher than Har HaBayit. I had only seen Har HaBayit from the Kotel and from Robinson's Arch, where one is looking up 50+ feet at it.

As soon as we exited, the three man began dancing and singing "Yibaneh HaMikdash" (He will build the Temple), a popular song that I knew well and had danced and sung to many times on Jewish holidays as part of the normal liturgy. I stopped to think. This was a much more direct application of this than I was use to, and was now directly contrary to Islam, since actually rebuilding the Temple would require tearing down (or at least moving) the Dome of the Rock. I ended up joining the men dancing and singing briefly, since I think that my metaphorical understanding of that song was still true, and that if I would happily sing it back in the United States, how could I not in the Old City in Jerusalem?

Throughout the day, though, I have been struggling with the notion of the Temple. It is ubiquitous in Jewish liturgy, a significant portion of the weekly Torah readings, and a major focus of everyday study of ancient Jewish laws and customs. Furthermore, as a meat-eater (though one who constantly attempts to limit his meat intake), I have no fundamental problem with ritual animal sacrifice (since I all of the meat I eat has been ritually slaughtered). Furthermore, I would hope that animals that are to be ritually offered to God in a Temple are actually better treated than the animals that I eat now.

That said, I don't think I can truly wrap my head around demolishing one of the holiest spots in Islam to rebuild our Temple. That would put us clearly in the camp of the Romans (who destroyed the 2nd Temple) and the Taliban (who destroyed numerous priceless Buddhist holy sites in Afghanistan).

So what do we do? Change the liturgy? That would be a colossal sea change for observant Judaism, which in many ways is still ritually living in a world that assumes that our nearly 2000 year post-Temple period is temporary. To accept that the Temple will never be rebuilt would truly be the end of Judaism as we know it, almost on par with the destruction of the Temple. Our holidays would change. Our connection to Israel would change. I don't think we're ready for that, or will ever be.

So, I leave Har HaBayit conflicted. In Bethlehem last Friday, I said that Israel would never relinquish the Old City. It would give up the entire Galilee first. After visiting Har HaBayit I'm more sure of that than ever. Where to go from here though, I don't know.

Bethlelem

2010-04-25T09:00:00.005-04:00

Last Friday, I went to Bethlehem for the afternoon.

Bethlehem is Area A, which means that it is mostly under Palestinian control and so is closed to Israelis without military permission. (A helpful mnemonic is "A is for Arafat.") As an American, though, I was free to enter.

Getting there from my apartment in Baka in Jerusalem is actually exceptionally easy. One can catch the Arab bus #124 from the stop on Derech Hevron, just south of Yehuda Street. Make sure to flag down the bus to ensure it stops. (And, throughout this whole trip, I was advised not to wear outward signs of being Jewish, including a kippa or untucked tzitzit. A baseball cap was fine, though I of course looked like a tourist.)

The bus then drops off at the pedestrian checkpoint. Entering Bethlehem is easy for an American: just show your passport and Israeli visa (e.g. the stamp you got at the airport, either in your passport or on an attached piece of paper). You don't even have to go through a metal detector. On the other side of the checkpoint, you can get a taxi to the Nativity Church and other tourist sites. Locals pay 10 shekels (~$3) - tourists might have to pay 15 but shouldn't pay more. Whole trip door to door took 30 minutes.

The Nativity Church is across from a large Mosque, and adjacent to the Bethlehem Peace Center. I was there around midday on a Friday, and so much of the square was turned into a giant outdoor (men's) mosque, with a loudspeaker broadcasting what I was told was the midday prayer. It was a fascinating site to behold, since observant Jews don't use electricity on the Sabbath and so can't experience any kind of amplified outdoor space like this.

The Nativity Church was the site of a siege during the 2nd Intifada, with Palestinian militants attempting to take refuge there. I remember reading about the events as it happened, but it was good to refresh my memory.

The picture below shows both a mosque and a church right next to each other, showing the dual heritage in Bethlehem.

I spent most of the afternoon with a friend of a friend of mine, talking about his perspective on current events in the region. This contact was a Palestinian Christian, who had spent a good part of his youth in Saudi Arabia, as his father had a job there. Since he wasn't Muslim, he was not allowed to attend the regular schools, and instead had to attend an American school. (As a silver lining, he now speaks near-perfect American English. So good that I was always a bit surprised when he would speak native Palestinian Arabic.)

His family was kicked out of Saudi Arabia along with the rest of the Christians. I can only imagine what it must have been like as a Palestinian to be kicked out your temporary home, back to the West Bank.

He made numerous fascinating comments during our conversation. I will paraphrase several of the most salient points he made, based on my memory:

"Palestinians today are 60/40 happy/unhappy economically, but 40/60 happy/unhappy psychologically."

"Things are good now, but they were much better in '99-early '00. I remember being able to ride my bike to Tel Aviv to the beach in early 2000 before the intifada."

"Things could snap and get really bad again."

"Now I would need a work permit to enter Jerusalem. Though, most years, around Christmas and Easter, Palestinian Christians are given temporary permits."

"To fly anywhere, we have to cross into Jordon and use the airport in Aman. We can't go to Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv. It's not really a problem though, because most Palestinians have Jordanian citizenship or passports in one form or another."

"I only visit my parents to the north every few months, since I have to cross checkpoints between Palestinian villages, and it takes forever."

"With former President Bush, at least we knew where he stood. We have no idea where President Obama stands. One minute he's for halting building all settlements, the next excluding the Jerusalem, the next he's just proposing it."

"I once spoke to a settler who was saying that Palestinians are all taught in school how to build bombs and that we're supposed to continue the Holocaust. I explained to her that that's simply not true of my education, and that I learned about the Holocaust in history class like everyone else in the world."

"The Palestinians voted for Hamas because Fatah was very corrupt, and Hamas said it was against their religion to be corrupt."

"Fayyad would be great if he could speak for all of the Palestinians, the way that Arafat could. Abbas only speaks for Fatah, which gives him limited influence."

"1948 was an ethnic cleansing. And it is still going on in Jerusalem."

"Israel isn't going anywhere. We should go back to the '67 borders, and have a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, including all of the Old City in Jerusalem."

"There are many Christians here. Most people think Arab Christians are only in Lebanon, but we have lots here. We even brew our own beer in Taybeh. And it's really good."

My host insisted on treating me to my beer and Baba Ghanoush, given the Palestinian tradition of hospitality.

Going home took a bit longer, since the checkpoint is much more strict. There are bag scanners and metal detectors, but unlike in airport security, there is a kiosk door that only lets in one person at a time. The metal detectors are also much stronger, since my belt and shoes each set them off, despite that neither does in American airports. The line for checking documents also bunch up, with the same person doing both ways.

Regardless of the hassle, the return trip probably took 40-45 minutes.

I'll be heading back to Bethlehem next week to meet with an organization that does non violent protest. Should be interesting.

Israel at 62

2010-04-20T04:09:00.004-04:00

Today is Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day) in Israel. While it shares many similarities with Independence Day in the US (July 4), including warm weather, BBQs, flags, fireworks, and a general day off, it has many differences.

Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) - is the day before Independence Day, and actually includes the country remembering its lost (as opposed to the US where the vast majority of citizens simply treat it as a vacation day). In the US, even now, many of US in certain socioeconomic spheres know only a handful of people who served in the military. Here, the vast majority of people served in the military, and those who didn't and don't even live here know dozens of people who did.

Israeli Independence Day is also different because it has a religious component. For most Jews, today's morning service were expanded, making them more like other post-Torah holidays, such as Hanukah. The idea is that in 1948 God really did intervene and save a ragtag, underarmed band of Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors, from the surrounding Arab armies. This was a miracle on the level of the Maccabee's victory in 165 BCE, and should be celebrated as such.

Despite this celebration, Israel is still a land of contradictions. Many parts are fervently secular (with Jews who have never set foot in a synagogue) yet others are fervently religious, almost theocratic. Its people are warm and hospitable yet often impatient and loud. It is full of Hebrew, the language of the commandments, prophets, rabbis, and commentators, yet also full of natively spoken English. It is democratic, yet it differentiates among fundamental characteristics of its citizens, with different laws applying to citizens based on their religion

It is also a land that needs to think past tomorrow. Israel has been scarred by Palestinian terrorism for decades and is obfuscated by their intransigence at negotiations, most specifically in 2000 at Camp David. A large portion of the society wants a second disengagement, this time from the West Bank, yet it is all too aware that its last two wars (in Lebanon and Gaza) have have fought to protect its civilians from enemies that have filled the vacuum left by its withdrawals.

And then there is the anti-Obama rhetoric. President Obama is so reviled here that he should consider running for Prime Minister. The fact that the blank check that former President Bush extended is no longer good has incensed Israels. General Petraeus' comment that “The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests....Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples in the [Middle East] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world” became construed as "Obama blames American deaths in Iraq on the Jews."

Many of these individuals were not particularly large fans of the President to begin with, either because of the color of his skin or because they have been Giuliani Republicans for years. Nevertheless, is entirely overlooked here that Obama has not proposed cutting a cent of foreign aid, or removing the exemption that allows American citizens to serve in the Israeli Army and not lose their citizenship for joining a foreign military, or reducing any of the intelligence sharing, or diminishing in any way the trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.

The President is pushing the Israelis to start acting like adults. Is the blanket building freeze a blunt instrument? Yes. Are there reasonable situations where some of the settlements in the West Bank (the Gush, Maale Adumin, Ariel) will likely remain part of Israel? Yes. Will Jerusalem almost certainly remain a unified city? Yes. Is Israeli being asked to do more than any other country in recent history that won territory in defensive wars? Yes. But, should Israel begin to do whatever it can to create a viable, contiguous block of Palestinian territory in the West Bank, including adjusting its financial incentives and subsidies? Yes.

Israel cannot continue the current situation. Consider what happens if it does: The Palestinians areas in the West Bank will continue to be more and more densely populated. The international community will continue to turn away from Israel and not give it the benefit of the doubt. And this great Jewish state, vital for the worldwide existence of the Jewish people, will be left with more settlers to forcefully relocate and an even more radicalized, frustrated Palestinian population.

This only gets harder from here. Israel is nearly a senior citizen. It's time to think seriously about creating a legacy that will last, and not just provide for tomorrow's breakfast.

Women of the Wall

2010-04-15T08:11:00.006-04:00

Today, for the second time, I proudly prayed with Women of the Wall, from behind a mechitza (a semi-transparent wall that separates men and women in Orthodox synagogues).

Women of the Wall pray at the Kotel (Western Wall), the holiest accessible prayer site for Jews once a month on Rosh Hodesh, the first day of the new month, and one of the most joyous non-Shabbat/holiday services. These women wear traditional Jewish ritual items, such as a tallit (prayer shawl with specially tied fringes). Over the past few decades, they have been harassed, taunted, arrested, interrogated, and sued, all only for peaceably assembling and expressing their religion. Recently, larger and larger groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews have gathered to attempt to disrupt their prayer.

(The other time I was there was a few weeks ago during one of the intermediate days of the holiday of Passover, and since it was a one-off meeting, no one seemed to notice what was going on or bother to protest. This is a case-in-point that the actual prayer is almost completely non disruptive and therefore not actually a threat to anyone.)

The space in front of the Kotel is organized with adjacent men's and women's sections with a mechitza between the sections perpendicular to the Kotel itself, and a mechitza parallel to the Kotel at the back of each section. I was with about a dozen men behind the mechitza at the back of the women's section, as close as possible to the about 70 women in front of the mechitza at the back of the women's section. There were also a handful of men across the mechitza in the men's section.

Today, there were multiple police officers on the outside of both mechitzot, near where each group of men stood. This police officers did their job perfectly, turning away any men attempting to harass the women, such as by throwing chairs (which happened one month ago).

At one point, one ultra-Orthodox older man on the men's section began screaming at a police office, about how they did not respect Jewish law and tradition. A younger ultra-Orthodox man came over and persuaded him to stop yelling, asking him to come with them toward a larger group. It was then that I noticed what was happening on the men's side. Before this point there was the general commotion of a weekday morning with Torah reading at the Kotel (generally Mondays and Thursdays) which normally includes Bar Mitzvahs of both Israelis and those that come from abroad. But at this point, something different was happening.

In our morning service, we were up to Hallel. This is special part of services added on the happiest days of the year: on holidays (Passover, Sukkot, Shavuot, Chanukah) and on Rosh Hodesh. It consists of the most jubilant parts of the book of Psalms. As we began this, the ultra-Orthodox men (there were probably now more than 50 of them) began also reciting from the book of Pslams. They however, were not singing Hallel. There were wailing the saddest parts of the book, normally reserved for times of intense mourning and hardship. It was as if they were begging God to forgive them for being near this spectacle.

As they began to sing louder, so did we. I could hear the women singing in front of me, and joined them as loudly as I could. I've never been that afraid while praying before. I kept saying to myself, "Look forward toward the Kotel and keep praying. You are here to worship God on Rosh Hodesh. What you are doing is normal and regular, albeit in an exceptionally special place."

This incredible contrast, between the our joyous Pslams of Hallel and the ultra-Orthodox men's wailing Pslams of mourning, reminded me of the verse in Deuteronomy 30:19:

הַעִידֹתִי בָכֶם הַיּוֹם אֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת הָאָרֶץ הַחַיִּים וְהַמָּוֶת נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַבְּרָכָה וְהַקְּלָלָה וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ

"Today, before heaven and earth, my witnesses for you, I give you live and death, blessing and curse; choose life that you and your offspring will live."

Unlike the ultra-Orthodox men there this morning, we chose life. We chose to sing and praise God on 1st of the month in the way that our ancestors have for many generations. I have asked myself why I, as man, needed to be there today. My answer was simple: How could I not be there? How could I justify to my children and grandchildren that when women went to the Kotel to pray and were harassed I did not go in solidarity with them? How could I justify it to my God?

After the services at the Kotel, one of the older women approached me and said that today was the first time when she could hear male voices behind her singing along with them, and how wonderful that was. I thanked her, but said that the honor of being there with them was all mine.

"No electronic devices"

2009-11-10T21:46:00.002-05:00

On my flight tonight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia (on an Airbus 319), I noticed something new. Next to the "fasten seatbelt" sign, instead of a "no smoking sign" (which has be obsolete for some time), there is now a "no electronic devices sign," which goes off after 10,000 feet, and goes on again during landing.

I've seen two articles online over the past few years about this (by the same author). Ultimately, it's not really a big deal, but it's nice that the indicator light is getter some use instead of none.

Tsukiji fish market

2009-10-30T08:37:00.004-04:00

Before heading home from Japan, I finally made it to the Tsukiji fish market - one of the largest wholesale fish markets in the world.

It was an amazing experience. Every kind of sea food as far as the eye can see. There was also an enormous tuna auction, where after each fish was sold, a guy with long metal hooks would get a good grip on the fish and then hoist it up onto a tram. (I arrived basically too late to see the auction, but attached myself to a group of retired Israeli tourists who pushed their way in.)

There were also lots of other kinds of fruits and veggies sold, including Japanese eggplant!

On Language

2009-10-21T05:41:00.000-04:00

This trip to Japan was the first time I had spent a significant amount of time in a country where I did not speak even a bit of the local langauge (unlike previous trips to the UK, Australia New Zealand, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, or Israel). Even in Egypt I could pick up little bits of Arabic with my knowledge of Hebrew.

That said, I was sometimes reminded of what my elementary school principal once said about himself, which is that "I have a good ear for languages." On this trip I finally realized what he meant: he was good at figuring out context.

(I had a nearly deaf friend in college who also was just so smart that she could almost always figure out exactly what was going on in a conversation because she could infer from context.)

One example was in the airport, where my Air Canada boarding pass didn't list my UsAirways frequent flyer number. I went to the counter and asked, and the person turned to his colleague and said a few sentences in Japanese. Hearing the words "USAirways" and "Star Alliance" I immediately knew what he was asking, and so said "Hi" (Yes), starling the individual who thought I did not speak Japanese. Well, to a good extent he was right.

(Title borrowed from William Safire, zicrono livroho)

Baseball!

2009-10-21T05:33:00.002-04:00

For my birthday, my colleagues and I went to a Japanese baseball game. I was struck by a few things, including:

1) The size of the stadium. We went to one of the two major stadiums in Tokyo, and forget the lack of fancy new frills (a la Bob Herbert's recent column), the stadium was tiny. It felt more like the Durhman Bulls or Redding Phillies than like like even an old school American major league stadium (like the Vet, Yankees Stadium or Three Rivers).

2) Everyone had little umbrellas (since the team was the Tokyo Swallows), and so would stand and wave them on cue whenever anything exciting happened

3) The ice cream cone I got was so frozen solid it was almost completely inedible

4) The following sign, which is something like "beware of foul balls." Apparently, the Japanese are so engrossed in either the game or their electronic devices that they need to be constantly reminded of this.

5) The fact that it otherwise looked exactly like an American baseball game

Octopus

2009-10-16T01:35:00.002-04:00

Yes, in Japan, you can buy octopus in the convenience store. Yuck.

Two Jewish notes

2009-10-16T01:16:00.002-04:00

Two quick stories about Jewish communities out here that I don't think I've mentioned yet:

1) In China (PRC), it is actually illegal for the Chabad in Shanghai to have any interaction with Chinese citizens, because of the government ban on proselytization. This law does not apply to foreigners (whose religious needs organizations are allowed to serve), so anyone holding a passport of another country (or permanent residence) is okay. But, unlike in Japan, where you can have a conversion class, such a formal outreach to anyone interested would not be a good idea in China.

2) I am generally amazed by hiluni (secular) Israelis, especially the way that Judaism for them is traditional Orthodox or nothing. A group of Israeli architects visited the new Jewish community building here in Tokyo. When entering the space designated for services (where they had to be reminded to put on head coverings out of respect), they repeatly asked where the women were supposed to sit. Their host continually replied that men and women sit together, and so there was no separate women's section.

Later, when seeing the gorgeous tiled bathrooms, they remarked that the building must have been built on a budget, because the sinks don't have automatic hand sensors. Their host explained that, no, there were no budgetary concerns here, but, rather, the automatic hand sensors would cause a problem on Shabbat. This perplexed the Israelis, who seem to not be able to wrap their heads around a shul that sat men and women together, yet cared about automatic hand sensors on Shabbat.

Apprently, in their world, once you don't discriminate based on gender for ritual participation, you might as well throw out all of the laws of Shabbat and kashrut!

Umbrellas in Japan

2009-10-14T05:01:00.002-04:00

I've noticed that the Japanese tend to have very large umbrellas. So large that people have almost run into me on the street because the have their umbrellas angled forward and so can't see where they're going. (There's also a trend toward clear, transparent umbrellas, which would mitigate this problem.)

But what do you do with your umbrella when you go inside? Well, in some office buildings, you can lock it up (for free):

Alternatively, you can use one of these fantastic contraptions. Basically, you put your umbrella in from the top, and then jerk it back toward you.

The result is an umbrella that is tightly wrapped in a narrow plastic bag. This prevents your wet umbrella from knocking up against anything and getting it wet, and keeps the dripping water inside the bag and not on the floor.

Go Phillies!

2009-10-14T01:36:00.002-04:00

Excellent article in the New York Times about the Phillies, going into the NLCS.

Here's the best quote:

The fact remains that they still have Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino, the switch-hitting speedsters who ignite their offense at the top of the lineup. They still have Chase Utley and [Ryan] Howard, the left-handed sluggers. They still have [Jayson] Werth, who has become increasingly dangerous, and now they also have Raul Ibanez, who was one of four Phillies to hit at least 30 home runs. Over all, the Phillies led the N.L. in runs, in homers, in slugging percentage, and perhaps in intimidation, too.

Game 1 begins 8:07 PM EDT on Thursday. Let's go Phils!

All quiet in the Land of the Rising Sun

2009-10-12T05:45:00.005-04:00

As I've mentioned in previous posts, this time of year, Japan is 13 hours ahead of the New York.

So, around 2 or 3 PM JST, everything starts to quiet down. I stop receiving personal email. My Google reader feed dries up. My friends on GChat start to become idle. Even Facebook slows to a crawl.

By now (nearly 7 PM), the loneliness has truly set in. For extroverts like me, electronic communication is an incredible thing. Suddenly, I can easily stay in regular contact with dozens of people all around the world, sporadically catch up with hundreds more, and keep tabs on thousands.

But, this only works when waking hours overlap. Since the vast majority of my friends are on the East Coast, my extended social circle is a function of what it is there, not here.

Luckily, as happens every day, the 6 AM early risers in the US will be up shortly to keep me company. And so, another slow afternoon comes to a close.

Krugman: Fed should not raise rates

2009-10-12T03:48:00.003-04:00

Excellent post over at Paul Krugman's blog about why the Fed shouldn't raise rates anytime soon, despite concerns about inflation

Let me start with a rounded version of the Rudebusch version of the Taylor rule:
Fed funds target = 2 + 1.5 x inflation - 2 x excess unemployment

where inflation is...currently 1.6...and excess unemployment is the different between the...NAIRU (currently 4.8) and the actual unemployment rate (currently 9.8).

Right now, this rule says that the Fed funds rate should be -5.6%. So we’re hard up against the zero bound.

Suppose that core inflation stays at 1.6%....Then we can back out the unemployment rate at which the target would cross zero, suggesting that tightening should begin: it’s an excess unemployment rate of 2.2, implying an actual rate of 7 percent....

What would it take to get to that range of unemployment? Okun’s Law suggests that it takes 2 points of GDP growth in excess of potential to reduce unemployment by 1 point. Potential growth is probably around 2.5. So say we have 5 percent growth for the next 2 years — which would be hailed as a stunning boom. Even so, unemployment should fall only 2.5 points, to 7.3. In other words, even with a really strong recovery (which almost nobody expects), the Fed should keep rates on hold for at least two years.
Bear in mind that I’m using entirely standard, conventional analysis here. It’s the people saying that the Fed should start tightening in the near future who are inventing some kind of new, unspecified framework to justify their views.

It's amazing how useful simple linear macro approximations can be.

Best Pizza in Tokyo

2009-10-11T09:41:00.003-04:00

After eight weeks of searching, I have finally found the best pizza in Tokyo: Partenope.

Recommended to me by both the president and the Sicily-born rabbi of the Jewish Community of Tokyo (which is nearby), Partenope serves a spectacular Margarita pizza - mozzarella cheese with a bit of tang, tomato sauce with the right amount of sweetness, a crust that is crisp but not hard and caramelized but not burnt.

In my last week here in Tokyo, I must go back at least once. Maybe twice.

Semibiyake (charcoal grill)

2009-10-11T07:55:00.003-04:00

Last week, my colleagues and I had a team at a semibiyake (charcoal grill) restaurant. Basically, the tables had two square holes in them (maybe 1' by 1' by 2'), into which the waiter put a smoldering charcoal grill. We were then able to order a range of items, and baste and grill them our self. The fish-eating vegetarian senior manager and I had one grill, which we used for mushrooms, eggplant, and sardines (see below):

as well as deep fried garlic in sesame oil (which was amazing, though I couldn't wait and so ate many of the cloves before they were fulled caramelized).

On the other grill, my colleagues grilled many kinds of meat, as well as LIVE SEAFOOD. By this, I mean prawn-like creatures and others that were still blowing bubbles from their mouths, and whose tentacles were moving. Disgusting.

(Though, I'm not sure totally un-Jewish. Clearly Judaism forbids eating flesh torn from live mammals and birds. But what about fish? Could I have taken a live sardine, thrown it on the grill, and then eaten it?)

The New Yorker on Holbrooke and Afghanistan

2009-10-09T00:51:00.002-04:00

I highly recommend reading the New Yorker's recent profile of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and his work in Afghanistan.

Headlines

2009-10-08T08:40:00.004-04:00

As my time here draws to a close, I wanted to share some of the ridiculous signs that I've seen out here.

Now, I am not out to make fun of anyone's English (whatever it is, it's better than my Japanese), so I have excluded signs that are simply misspelled or grammatically incorrect. Rather, these are signs that simply make me wonder what was going through the head of the person who designed it.

Click on it to zoom in - the sign says "Please refrain from gargling here"

The sign says "Attention! Under construction to [sic] keep off" Except I don't see any construction anywhere...

Clearly a major problem with scribbling. If you were a scribbler, would you listen to a sign that said not to?

"One step forward, please!"

And finally, one form China. This was in PuDong, overlooking the Bund.

Trains in Japan

2009-10-06T21:03:00.002-04:00

Japan has an incredible train system, from the fastest Shinkansen, all the way down to the regular subway.

Indeed, Japan has so many train lines that is often very difficult to figure out which one to take:

Also, the board on a platform tells you where to line up for a specific line. (In the picture below, the circle in the second row, 5 characters from the left, shows that you should line up at the "circles" for that train.)

Which correspond to the follow circles on the ground:

And where everyone lines up in a nice, ordered fashion! This is a far cry from the blob on an Amtrak platform, where no one has any clue where the train's doors will be when it stops.

Finally, interiors of subways are much more advanced than in the US, with cushioned seats, and handles from the ceiling (thing the things next the monkey bars when you were in elementary school).

Profile of Anna Deavere Smith

2009-10-04T20:16:00.002-04:00

The New York Times has a profile of one of my favorite artists - Anna Deavere Smith - whose breadth is so broad that she can both play the NSA advisor on the West Wing, and also write and produce and star in a one-woman show about the Crown Heights Riots (Fires in the Mirror).

TSA on Sukkot

2009-10-04T08:31:00.001-04:00

The Transportation Security Administration just put out the following alert:

The travel period for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot begins approximately on Wednesday, September 30, 2009, and ends approximately on Tuesday, October 13, 2009.

Observant Jewish travelers may carry four plants – a palm branch, myrtle twigs, willow twigs, and a citron – in airports and through security checkpoints. These plants are religious articles and may be carried either separately or as a bundle. Jewish travelers may be observed in prayer, shaking the bundle of plants in six directions.

The workforce should note that TSA’s screening procedures do not prohibit the carrying of such agricultural items through the airport or security checkpoints, or on airplanes. These plants are not on TSA’s Prohibited Items List. And, as always, TSA is committed to treating all passengers, including passengers who may be observing Sukkot, with respect and dignity during the screening process.

Amazing.

(HT: RJG)

The Imperial Palace in Tokyo

2009-10-04T07:01:00.004-04:00

Moadim L'Simcha / Happy Sukkot.

Today, I walked over the Imperial Palace, and through the East Gardens. Gorgeous - I highly recommend anyone in Tokyo go. (Running around it also seems to be very popular.)

I did not take any pictures since it was Yom Tov, and so here are some pictures from others of what I saw:

Source

Source

Shabbat in Shanghai

2009-10-04T06:55:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to post some pictures of the Chabad in Shanghai where I davened Shaharit one weekday morning and spent Shabbat while I was there.

Lovely community. The building is much smaller than the new building in Tokyo that I posted about a while back (where I've spent an enormous amount of time this past few weeks with the chagim). Also, the community is very different, with far more students studying abroad than in Japan (where I've met almost none).

If you go, stay at the Sheraton. It's a relatively easy 20-25 minute walk, though the entrance is a bit hard to find (it's across the street on the left at the main intersection, and then toward the back of a complex).

Shanghai Museum

2009-10-04T06:47:00.002-04:00

If you're in Shanghai, you must check out the Shanghai Museum, which is right in People's Square. It closes at 5, but they stop letting anyone in at 4. (I almost didn't get in.)

Here are some pictures of the great stuff there:

2009-10-01T09:19:00.002-04:00

From my hotel room, on the 57th floor of the Meridian hotel in Shanghai, I had great view. (Starwood Platinum status is worth something.) This is people's square, with the Shanghai Museum in the middle.

More of Shanghai.

This is looking toward the river, and then Pudong. (The Bund would be off of the right side of this picture.)

Finally, here's a video that pans around Shanghai, just to give you a sense of how massive it is. I've never seen this many skyscrapers in one place.

Vegetarian Lunch in Shaghai

2009-10-01T08:56:00.003-04:00

Last week, I met up with a friend from college, who took me to an amazing vegetarian restaurant in the French Concession area of Shanghai.

The restaurant, Wu Guan Tang, at 349 Xinhua Rd, near Dingxi Rd (unlike Japan, China has normal street names and sequentially numbered buildings) advertised itself as "No MSG, Not Fried, No Carbonation, No Artifical Meat." I knew I was in for a treat. Everything was a bit sweeter than Chinese food I've had before, which apparently makes it more Shanghainese.

This one is curried rice with avocado.

Two different kinds of mushrooms.

This one was very spicy.

Finally, this was mock crab, which was sweet potato and carrot, stuffed into a hollowed out red pepper.

We also got two other dishes, and tea. The whole cost of the lunch, which could have easily fed 3 people? 180 yuan, which is around $14 a person. Amazing.

Shanghai: The Bund

2009-09-30T06:04:00.004-04:00

On my first night in Shanghai, I headed to the Bund, which is the row of hundred-year-old buildings on the west side of the Huangpu River in Puxi, opposite Pudong. I took pictures on both sides of the river (there's a subway stop on the #2 line on each side). The buildings are lit up at night, which makes for a rather gorgeous sight.

HSBC (HongKong and Shanghai Banking Company)

The Customs House:

The Shanghai Gold Exchange:

Additional buildings

The future of mortgage securitization

2009-09-29T10:22:00.002-04:00

Excellent piece by economist Arnold Kling on the history and future of mortgage securitization:

(More China posts to come in the next few days.)

The Maglev

2009-09-28T09:33:00.004-04:00

In China, I took the Shanghai Maglev train, which goes 30 km east from Pu Dong Airport into the city, and connects to the number 2 subway line.

It looks like a regular train/airport rail link:

However, since it is basically a tourist attraction, the train actually has display at both ends of each car that tell you how fast it is going. My train reached a maximum speed of 431 km/h (which is about 270 mph). The total trip took 8 minutes, giving it an average speed of about 225 km/h. (On my return trip, after dark, the train only maxed out at 300 km/h).

This is definitely the fastest I've ever traveled on land, given that commerical aircraft takeoff velocity are in the range of 250-300 km/h. (Even the Condorde, which I've never flown on, takes off around 360 km/h.)

And, a round trip ticket costs about 80 yuan, which is around $12-$13 dollars. Amazing

Japan and China: Initial Observations

2009-09-27T01:30:00.003-04:00

I've just arrived back in Tokyo from my week-long vacation/work offsite in Kyoto and Shaghai.

As Yom Kippur begins in a few hours here, it will take me the next few days to post pictures and reflections about my experiences in China. In the meantime, here are some initial observations. Also, I will continue to use the "Japan" tag for these posts, even though they are primarily about China, so that it will be easier in the future to identify all posts from this extended trip. This is not an imperial statement on my part. That said, I also don't mean to imply any moral equivalence, since there are obvious objective differences between the level of civil freedom (i.e. press, elections, religion, imprisonment) in the two countries.

I'm amazed at how happy I am to be back in Japan, and not just because it's been my home for the past 6 weeks. Japan and China really are two different worlds. Japan is the most ordered country I've ever been in, where no one jwalks, ever. (There's a joke that if a traffic light broke in Japan, no one would ever cross the street.) In Shanghai, while not on the scale of a truely lesser economically developed country (like in Cairo), everyone jwalks, jbikes, and even jmopeds (which is terrifying). When crossing streets, I would frequently have to wait for a Shanghai native to cross so that I could follow him or her.

Also, one of the main reasons that I did not blog while in China is that blogger.com is blocked (as is youtube and Facebook). I could still, however, access them on my Blackberry, which is amusing given that I was using a Chinese mobile company's data plan. Regardless, it is amazing to me that the Chinese government continues to officially block these websites, despite dubious benefits to the regime's security, and such obvious workarounds.

Anyway, I should get ready for Yom Kippur. A G'mar Hatima Tova to everyone - may you all be inscribed in the book of life.

Kyoto: Day 2

2009-09-22T19:36:00.006-04:00

UDPATE: Now that I'm not desperately trying to finish this post in Kansai airport (near Osaka/Kyoto) before my flight boards, I've added a bit more text.

No idea who these people were, but those kimonos are lovely. I did see what I think was an American bachelorette party walking around in kimonos.

Sanjusangen-do. (The following two are pictures of pictures, since I wasn't allowed to take my own photos inside.) The statues are cypress coated in gold. Amazing. A must see.

There were 1000 of the following statures (where are each 6 feet tall). Imagine a high school or college choir of 100 on risers, and then multiply by 10.

Gion. I did not, unfortunately, see any Geisha (who, by the way, are not traditionally prostitutes).

Yasaka Jinja - one of the few temples open at night.

Ginkaku-ji - the pavilion is under construction, and it took probably an hour on a bus to get there from Kyoto Station. Not really worth it.

Heian Jingu

Kiyomizu-dera

Kyoto: Day 1

2009-09-21T07:13:00.004-04:00

Here are some highlights from my day in Kyoto.

This is the famous Kinkaku-ji or Temple of the Gold Pavilion. It is covered in gold leaf. Getting there was a bit of a schlep. (It took a half hour bus ride from Kyoto Station, which was VERY crowded given that it's a national holiday. I guess Japanese tourists in Japan are just, well, Japanese.)

Here's another picture from closer up:

Next, I walked about 15 minutes to Ryoan-ji, which has an interested rock garden. There are 15 rocks, but you can only see 14 of them at a time, no matter which way you face (based on how spread out they are and what the viewing area is). I was honestly a bit underwhelmed, but maybe it was because it was crowded and so I was not really able to meditate on them. Regardless, once you go the Golden Temple, which is worth the trip, you might as well go here too.

In Kyoto Station on the way to my next destination, I saw the following. I have no idea what was going on, but these costumes are amazing.

My last stop of the day was Nijo-jo Castle, which is an enourmous doubled moated fortress for the Kyoto shogun. It was amazing, and completely worth seeing.

Above is the inner moat. Below is Honmaru castle, inside the inner moat, which I could not go into.

I was able to go into Ninomaru Palace, which was amazing, but was unable to take any pictures. One thing I will note was that many of the floor boards sqeak (and are called "nightingale boards"), having been intentionally engineered to do so to prevent nighttime intruders.

The above is a picture of the underside of one, showing that there is a space between the board and the beam. The diagram below, from the pamphlet handed out there, describes it better.

Finally, one more picture from the castle grounds:

Shinkansen

2009-09-21T06:45:00.005-04:00

This morning, I took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) Nozomi from Tokyo to Osaka. It's the fastest intercity train in the world, with a top speed of 300 km/hr (186 mph). (I'm excluding the airport connection train in Shanghai, which I'll take on Wednesday, as while it is faster, it doesn't go between major cities).

The distance between Tokyo and Osaka is a bit over 300 miles, roughly comparable to Philadelphia to Boston, New York to Buffalo, Chicago to St. Louis, or a little less than Los Angeles to San Francisco. The Nozomi takes less than two and half hours. That's amazing. By contrast, the Acela Express train (which theoretically tops out at 150 mph but normally cruises closer to 75 mph) takes fives hours to go from Philly to Boston.

Inside, it looks and feels like a normal train. (I also took the regular express train between Osaka and Kyoto tokay, and I could not feel a difference.) In classic Japanese fasion, the tray table even manages to contain a ridiculous amount of information.

Also, by the way, the conductor can tell you exactly when the train will pass Mt. Fuji. (About 45 minutes after leaving Tokyo.) This would of course be impossible with the multi-hour delays that the Acela Express normally has.

Rosh Hashana in Tokyo

2009-09-21T05:26:00.002-04:00

Shana Tova everyone.

I just spent a wonderful Rosh Hashana here in Tokyo. The Tokyo community has been nothing but warm, friendly, and welcoming to me throughout the past month here. It was truly reminiscent of the enveloping, never ending chag of davening, eating, and shmoozing in a large commuunity that I've experience both in college and in New York.

It really is amazing that I can travel half way around the world, and find basically a conservative shul that is very similar to the one I grew up in (frummer in some ways - no microphone, duchaning, less frum in others - most heavily attended service was Friday night, and enormous drop off between first and second day despite it being a Sunday)

The food was again out of this world, with 120 people at Friday night dinner (I won't list all of the items, but everything was great from the onion soup that came with two 18 inch thin garlic bread sticks to the Waldorf salad to the nutty cinnamon bobca).

By the way, it is amazing to me the way that on chag and Shabbat, Jews basically eat a sumo diet - a huge meal, follwed by sleep, followed by fasting (whether during davening until a late lunch or throughout the day), followed by another huge meal, followed by more sleep. We're not so good at grazing throughout the day. As Tzom Gedaliah draws to a close here in Japan, I've been trying to think about what a sumo wrestler would do (eat a lot quickly and then go to sleep), so I can do the opposite.

Internal Discussions

2009-09-17T04:21:00.004-04:00

As I've mentioned in previous posts, most of my Japanese clients do not speak English well enough to conduct a meeting in it. As a result, at small meetings, we often have a bilingual translator at the table.

However, in numerous meetings, one of the relatively senior clients has wanted to have an "internal discussion" with his team, during the meeting. This meant that he and his colleagues in the room were going to speak and Japanese, and the translator should not translate.

The generous view of this was that, because of something new in the meeting, and and his team needed to confer for a few minutes to clarify something or make sure they were all on the same page, and, to expedite it, he didn't want the translator to waste everyone's time translating to English. This internal discussion had to happen right then and there so that the meeting could continue.

The less generous view is that it's just plain rude. What would he have done if everyone in the meeting spoke Japanese? One would have hope he would done what they do on the "West Wing," which is excuse themselves for a moment and confer in the hallway. But to do while we're sitting there is like the rather inconsiderate staff Verizon Authorized Retailer in the base of my building who would speak to each other in a foreign language in the middle of selling you something.

This behavior is consistent with stories I've heard about gaijin (foreigners) who understand Japanese being kicked out of meetings because they understood what was being said during "internal discussions". Lovely. Yet another way that we're made to feel welcome here in Japan.

The American Embassy: Shabbos Abroad

2009-09-16T20:45:00.003-04:00

I went to the American Embassy this morning to have extra pages added to my passport (since after six and a half years of travel, and one really big Chinese visa, I seem to have nearly run out of blank pages).

The Embassy will do this for free, and when I dropped it off this morning said that I could come back tomorrow at 2 and pick it up. That's not bad.

Two things I learned though:

1) Make an appointment on their website before you go. Free, very easy, and puts you at the front of the line
2) Bring a newspaper or novel or work or some other hard copy of something to read. Because the Embassy makes you check every electronic device in your possession before you go in, and you can't get them back until your way out. It's like Shabbos inside there.

Health care and swim club problem

2009-09-15T10:39:00.004-04:00

Last month, I referenced David Goldhill's excellent piece in the Atlantic, describing the absurd combination of perverse incentives that have led to our health care system, where consumers pay more and more with little information as to how or why.

He describes the absurdity with the following analogy:

Health insurance is the primary payment mechanism not just for expenses that are unexpected and large, but for nearly all health-care expenses. We’ve become so used to health insurance that we don’t realize how absurd that is. We can’t imagine paying for gas with our auto-insurance policy, or for our electric bills with our homeowners insurance, but we all assume that our regular checkups and dental cleanings will be covered at least partially by insurance.

His solution is, in part:

In place of these programs and the premiums we now contribute to them, and along with catastrophic insurance, the government should create a new form of health savings account—a vehicle that has existed, though in imperfect form, since 2003. Every American should be required to maintain an HSA, and contribute a minimum percentage of post-tax income, subject to a floor and a cap in total dollar contributions. The income percentage required should rise over a working life, as wages and wealth typically do. All noncatastrophic care should eventually be funded out of HSAs.

I couldn't put my finger on why this bit bothered me, until I remembered a question I asked my mother when I little. We used to join a swim club every summer so we could go to the pool. I asked (apparently a consultant from birth): "If we paid each time we went, how many times would we have to go to get to what we pay for membership?" My mother replied, "A lot. But, then we'd think about whether we really needed to go each time, and would often wind up not going. This way, we can go for a swim whenever we want."

Under Goldhill's plan, when I sprained my ankle last month, I would have likely thought twice about going in and paying $600 out of pocket getting x-rays to be sure it wasn't broken before I came out to Japan. I would have relied on my doctor-father's free no-equipment diagnosis, and toughed it out. (It wasn't broken and got better in a few weeks.)

Here in lies the problem. If all American pay for routine care out of pocket (like haircuts and car washes), some of them will wait until the they really need it, and some will wait until it's too late. We want Americans to go to the doctor when they feel sick, and not have to make a calculation about whether the price is worth it to them.

Goldhill's right that, utlimately, Americans collectively wind up paying for all the care they get (as my premiums and co-pays with my co-workers in aggregate basically paid for my x-rays). And greater up front price disclosure so I can go to the doctor with the lowest x-ray prices who has a good online rating would be great. But I'd much rather pay for insurance up front and take the risk I'd over pay than have to debate with myself about whether I really need to go see a doctor or not.

Physics and Economics

2009-09-15T05:17:00.003-04:00

I sat next to a physicist from Israel a few weeks ago at Shabbat dinner. I mentioned that I studied physics as an undergraduate but was likely pursuing a PhD in Economics. She lamented this change in focus (despite the fact that I left physics a few years ago to go into consulting).

I should have remember the following quotation, which my senior project adviser in physics recently quoted to me (as he had also chosen between physics and economics):

During his senior year of college, [Larry] Summers was considering graduate school in both theoretical physics and economics. For weeks, he anguished over whether to pursue his passion (physics) or the family business (in addition to his economist parents, Summers has two uncles--Paul Samuelson and Kenneth Arrow-- who won Nobel prizes in the field). After he finally decided on the latter, he explained his thinking to Rollins: "What does a bad theoretical physicist do for a living? He walks into an office, sits at a desk, and stares at a plain white sheet of paper." "But," Summers added, "there's a lot of work in the world for a bad economist."

I'm also of course reminded of the great Jed Barlet quotation about why he didn't go to law school (another choice that I've made):

President Josiah Bartlet: [later] [The White House Counsel] looks down his nose at me 'cause I'm not a lawyer.
Leo McGarry: Yes.
President Josiah Bartlet: I didn't go to law school. I got a PhD in economics instead.
Leo McGarry: Your parents were very proud.
President Josiah Bartlet: Yeah, and all that happened was I won a Nobel Prize and got elected President so I guess that decision didn't really pay off.
Leo McGarry: Yeah.
President Josiah Bartlet: Should I run back and get my Nobel Prize?
Leo McGarry: I think he knows you've got one.

"The West Wing: Bad Moon Rising (#2.19)" (2001)

Fiction of course, but amusing fiction nonetheless.

Health care around the world

2009-09-14T20:12:00.001-04:00

Excellent book review in today's Times about T.R. Reid's "The Healing of America".

Here's the best section:

When Mr. Reid presents his shoulder to his own orthopedist in Colorado, the doctor is quick to recommend a shoulder replacement. It will cost his insurer tens of thousands of dollars (assuming it agrees to pay), with unknown co-payments for him. Risks include all those of major surgery; benefits include a restored golf swing.
The same shoulder gets substantially different reactions elsewhere in the world.
In France, a general practitioner sends him to an orthopedist (out-of-pocket consultation fee: $10) who recommends physical therapy, suggests an easily available second opinion if Mr. Reid really wants that surgery, and notes that the cost of the operation will be entirely covered by insurance (waiting time about a month).
In Germany, the operation is his for the asking the following week, for an out-of-pocket cost of about $30.
In London, a cheerful general practitioner tells Mr. Reid to learn to live with his shoulder. No joint replacement is done in Britain without disability far more serious than his to justify the expense and the risks, and if his golf game is that important, he can go private and foot the bill himself.
In Japan, the foremost orthopedist in the country (waiting time for an appointment, less than a day) offers a range of possible treatments, from steroid injections to surgery, all covered by insurance. (“Think about it, and call me.”)
In an Ayurvedic hospital in India, a regimen of meditation, rice, lentils and massage paid for entirely out of pocket, $42.85 per night, led to “obvious improvement in my frozen joint,” Mr. Reid writes, adding, “To this day, I don’t know why it happened.”

Amazing.

Ideal Jewish Community

2009-09-13T23:10:00.002-04:00

I wrote this for a more specific context, but thought that it was worth sharing here:

1) Spectacular fully egalitarian (both gender and sexual orientation) davening with no page number announcement, critical masses singing, and excellent, well screened, coached, and prepared daveners and leyners
2) Every Shabbat and holiday evening, morning, and afternoon davening
3) Large Kiddushes, and occasional communal meals
4) Inter-generational community (both kids and senior citizens), without comprising on #1
5) Several rabbinic presences, available for halakhic questions, teaching, pastoral and life cycle involvement, and occasional sermons/divrei Torah, but none of the pomp and posterity of a “shul rabbi”
6) Representative, volunteer leadership
7) Independence from traditional Reform / Reconstructionist / Conservative / Orthodox movement structure
8) Streamlined, low overhead budget

If not now, when?

R. Andy Sacks on Rosh Hashana

2009-09-13T23:07:00.004-04:00

Rabbi Sacks, currently the head of Masorti in Israel, and one time rabbi of my parents shul (in the 1980s), posted an amazing list of dreams for a better Israel.

Five New Trends in Monetary Economics

2009-09-13T20:08:00.002-04:00

Harvard's Jeff Frankel has an excellent piece on his blog about current trends in international monetary economics. His list is:

The G20's replacing the G7
Countries are moving away from either fixed or floating exchange rates toward more intermediate regimes
Countries (i.e. China) are getting more credit for accumulating reserves, even if they have to use "unfair manipulation" to do it
Export price targeting will replace inflation targeting for central banks
The dollar being the world's reserve currency is being replaced by a multiple currency system

Definitely read the whole piece.

Sumo diet

2009-09-13T09:01:00.002-04:00

According to this website, here are the five main things that sumo wrestlers do to gain weight (these were also mentioned in the info they gave out at the tournament):

1. Skip breakfast. By depriving their bodies of food after eight hours of sleep, their metabolic rates stay low.

2. Exercise on an empty stomach. If their bodies have no food, their metabolic thermostats are turned down even lower to conserve fuel.

3. Take a nap after eating. The Sumo secret for gaining weight is that, after eating, they sleep for at least four hours.

4. Eat late in the day. Going to bed with full stomachs means that their bodies must respond to the huge flood of nutrients with a rush of insulin, forcing their bodies to store some of it in the cells as fat instead of in the muscles and organs as nutrients.

5. Always eat with others in a social atmosphere. According to leading researchers, a meal eaten with others can be at least 44 percent larger and with 30 percent more calories and fat.

So, the healthy practice would be to do the opposite of all of these, meaning eat three balanced meals at regular hours, eat something before you excersice, don't take long naps after you eat (except on Shabbos!), and eat some meals alone. Sounds like great advice.

Sumo!

2009-09-13T06:55:00.009-04:00

Today I went to the first of the 15-day September sumo tournament. (There are six every year - three in Tokyo and three elsewhere in the country.)

It was an absolutely amazing experience. I got to watch many matches in rapid succession, from up close and far away, and including the enormous amount Shinto ritual that is still embedded in it. Additionally, as someone who did (traditional) wrestling in middle school and high school for 5 years, I love the concept of an intense individual sport that's based on aerobic endurance and complicated moves and counter-moves.

A few quick tips for those of you who want to see sumo if you're in Japan, and then some pictures and videos:

1) Buy your tickets early. It helps to have a Japanese speaking friend help you. You can't buy them online, but you can in most convenient stores. Also, even if the store says they're sold out, they might not be, and so you should try a different chain.
2) Go early, or at least midday. The most junior matches started at 8:30 AM, and the final 15 with the best wrestlers was from 4-6 PM. I got there at 2:30 PM, before it was too crowded, and so was able to see plenty of matches.
3) Building on #2, if you go early, you can go right up and sit in the first or second row. No one asked to see my ticket or asked me to move. Sumo is amazing up close.
4) Finally, there is an English commentary option. You can rent a radio for 100 yen (~$1), with a refundable 2000 yen deposit.

Now, a word about how sumo works. The two competitors, wearing only loin-cloths are in a circle. Which ever player either touches the ground with any part of his body except the bottoms of his feet, or steps outside the circle loses. Grabbing loin-cloths is allowed, as is (it appeared) smacking with an open hand. That's the game. Each match is single elimination for that day. Most wrestlers get to compete again each day (and so the commentators would often report each wrestler's stats from the last tournament, such as 9 and 6, before each match).

Before each skill category, the wrestlers all enter in their fancy aprons. Very neat to see. The guy in the center is one of the officials. I saw a few different ones, each with a very fancy kimono.

Here's a close-up of another official .

When not competing, the wrestlers wore kimonos, the quality of which correspond to their skill category. This guy doesn't look to happy though, as he may not have done well in his match. (He spoke zero English, and so I could not ascertain whether he won or not.)

So, this is what a wrestler looked like right before a match. I'm not sure the purpose of the funky arrow things in from of him, but each wrestler always made a big deal of spreading them out (half left and half right) before crouching to begin a match.

This is what the top over the ring looked like. Very neat.

Before each match, there was a whole series of rituals. The wrestlers would stamp (to get rid of evil spirits), and throw salt on the ring (for purification). There was also some kind of ritual involving swishing holy water, spitting it out, and then wiping ones' face with a holy towel.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for. An actual match. Check this out:

One more match, from close up:

Just a few other pictures:

This is Bulgarian wrestler, who was very good. There are now a reasonable number of foreigners in official sumo. Most are Mongolian, Korean, or Hawaiian, but an increasing number come from Eastern Europe, like Bulgaria and Georgia.

The highest ranked wrestlers had their own entrance dance, and even more special clothes to wear.

There was lots of clean up after each match, both to rake the dirt, and spread around the copious amounts of salt that were thrown.

Jewish Community of Japan New Building Opening

2009-09-10T10:05:00.003-04:00

I just got home from the grand opening of the brand new building of the Jewish Community of Japan. (The last few Shabbats I've been eating and davening in their temporary offsite space.)

First of all, it was a totally amazing event. Their sanctuary was in full High Holiday mode, with portable walls removed (does every shul have portable walls? Do other houses of worship have this phenomenon?), and folding chairs set up.

I estimate there were 400 people there, including the Israel Ambassador, the German Ambassador (who stuck out like a sore thumb, looking an an old school northern European or old boy American diplomat), the Secretary General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (who flew in from Moscow), the head of the Holocaust Memorial in Hiroshima (who read in the most wonderful Japanese-accented Hebrew), and the architect of the building, Fumihiko Maki (who has taught at Harvard, and designed one of the new buildings at the World Trade Center).

We davened maariv as a large community, and I was struck by just how passive everyone was. This is probably because many of the individuals who were there are either not traditionally practicing Jews, or non-Jews who are friends of the Jewish community in one way or the other. Given that I've been davening at Hadar this past few years, I've forgotten what it's like to be in a group of 400 people in a shul and be one of the only ones saying "beri kho" during Kaddish.

The food during the reception was amazing. In no particular order:

yakitori (chicken skewers)
shnitzel
breaded salmon balls
garlic bread with egg salad
cucumbers with tuna salad
garlic bread with smoked salmon
garlic bread with white fish
cocktail spoons of tuna
veggies and humus
fruit

I can't wait for Shabbat dinner tomorrow night!

Finally, a word about the building itself. It has:

a sanctuary
a banquet hall
a library
class rooms
a gift shop
a deck (that would be great for a sukkah)
an enclosed roof (that would also be great for a sukkah)
an underground parking garage
and, a mikvah (though there didn't seem to be any water in it, so I'll probably have to wait until later in Tishrae for my annual pre-Rosh Hashana dunking)

A few pictures:

Food and Health Care

2009-09-10T02:08:00.004-04:00

Michael Pollan has an excellent piece in today's Times about the fact that making insurance companies cover a larger swath of the population at a flatter rate structure will suddenly incentivize them to make us eat better, since they'll have to pay for it out of their end if we don't. Makes sense to me.

Also, if you haven't watched the President's speech to Congress, I recommend you do so.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Krugman on the future of economics

2009-09-09T10:51:00.002-04:00

In case you haven't read it yet, I recommend you check out Paul Krugman's piece in this past weekend's Times Magazine on the state of the economics field as a whole in light of recent events.

Here are my thoughts, reprinted from an email to some physics classmates of mine from college:

I kind of see (in line with Krugman) economics having an identity crisis on continuum from physics to engineering to meteorology.

Meaning, the freshwater guys are like physicist in that they prefer purest approaches. The New Keynesians are more like engineers, where they do the best they can with assumptions and simplifications and so can do amazing things in the real world (like getting humans to the moon and back). Finally, the behaviorialist and their emerging colleagues are more like meteorologists, who can never really say what the weather's going to be next month with any real degree of certainty.

The question is then how do we make serious economic policy, just as how to we make serious weather and climate policy, such as where to store snow plows and salt, when to cancel school, and where to reinforces levees and dams. It seems that reasonable degree of conservatism would be helpful in both the economic and weather-related policy making world, given the current levels of uncertainty in even the best methods.

The other amazing thing about the more classical economists is not just that they believe that monetary policy is worthless, but that some even believe that the fiscal multiplier is near 0 (meaning that private demand reduces in exact response to fiscal stimuli). This seems absurd to me in the real world, given time lags and confidence boosters associated with a stimulus.

Finally, one note that Krugram didn't mention, is that Princeton has actually just hired a few freshwater economists. We'll see how that goes.

Kamakura

2009-09-06T07:11:00.004-04:00

Headed to Kamakura today (an hour so away from Tokyo by train).

Here are some picture highlights.

Engaku Temple, in Kita (North) Kamakure. Amazing complex of 18 buildings.

More of Engaku Temple

The very refreshing iced green tea I had at the cafe at the top of Engaku Temple, overlooking the valley and surrounding mountains.

Some flowers at Tokei Temple. Tokei temple was an amazing place where for hundreds of years women who wanted to divorce their husbands could flee for asylum. After a few years, they would be officially declared divorced.

Part of the cemetary in Tokei Temple.

The crowded downtown shopping area in Kamakura.

Yes, a rickshaw. The drivers (mules?) wore a fancy two-toed sock/shoe kind of thing (that looks like a camel's foot). Maybe it's better for traction.

Hokodu Temple. Enourmous, with lily ponds and wooden bridges. Services (?) were going on when I was there, with a kimono-clad woman striking an enourmous bell, and meditation chants in the background.

The Great Buddha in nearby Hase. It's 37 feet tall, and made out of interlocking bronze pieces. You can even go inside of it (it's hollow)!

Finally, the view from the top of Hase-dera Temple.

Some of these were taken with my 8 mega pixel digital camera, while others were with my Blackberry, after my camera battery died. (All have been reduced to the same resolution.) See if you can tell which is which.

Life Insurance Backed Securities (LIBS)?

2009-09-06T06:37:00.003-04:00

Today's New York Times has a fascinating article on a new kind of structured product that is hitting the market, which is backed by life insurance policies that the holder has cashed out of.

First, let me briefly try to explain what a structured product is. (If you know this already, please skip ahead.) Simplest example: Mortgage Backed Security (MBS). So a bank makes a bunch of mortgages. The mortgage holders hopefully make regular payments, and, if not, the bank loses some money, depending on how much they can sell the foreclosed house for, and the administrative and legal costs of doing that.

Now, in an MBS, the bank sells the mortgages to a special corporation set up for for this purpose, which funds the transaction by selling debt and equity to investors. These investors' dividends and coupons are funded by the payments from the mortgage holders. If the mortgage holders default, then there is a hierarchy based on the seniority of the investors' debt and equity as to who loses money first (and has been getting a higher coupon because in exchange for holding this risk appropriate).

The MBS marketed failed for fundamentally three reasons:

1) Lenders and brokers weren't going to be holding onto the mortgages, and so had minimal incentives to lend to credit worthy customers
2) Investors that bought the higher rated debt backed by these mortgages had no really understanding of the fundamentals of these mortgages or the sophistication of the structure
3) A massive drop in the housing market would would (and did) wipe out investors who thought they were well protected

Okay, now, to the issue at hand. I'm old and need cash and want to cash out my life insurance policy. Instead of borrowing against it, I decide to sell it a bank, in exchange for a lump sum. The bank them pays my premiums, and, upon my death, gets my payout.

So, now we have the makings of a structured product. An investor puts up a bunch of money, which goes to both to the lump sum of the policy-holder, and to cover the ongoing premiums, and then gets a regular coupon from the ongoing, staggered deaths of the policyholders in the pool.

Here's the ways that this is different from an MBS:

1) It's fundamentally a secondary market product from the consumer's perspective. He or she has to want to sell their policy to create the market. In a MBS, he or she simply has to want to buy a house (and then the bank sells off the mortgage). It's a subtle difference, but it means that this requires two consumer touch points (purchase of policy and cash out of policy, whereas an MBS only required one).

2) Ideally, the underlying collateral of this product should not be cyclical (meaning correlated to the business cycle), unlike housing, which makes it very attractive to investors.

3) The idea of real tail event analogous to the housing market crash would be some kind of fountain of youth discovery, which is not so likely. So, ideally, while life expectencies should slowly rise, life insurance prices should adjust.

Now, here are the three problems from the MBS case that this new product will still have:

1) It still has volume based incentives over performance based incentives. The banks structuring this deal have absolutely no incentive to find the policyholders who have lower remaining life expentencies. They simply want to get as many policies as possible and then get the product out the door, skimming off their fee as always.

2) It's still fiendishly hard to model. Now, the good news is that the insurance industry is much better at this than the mortgage industry, since with life insurance it's a question of "when" you'll die, whereas with a mortgage it's a question of "if" you'll default.

3) That said, investors (e.g. pension funds) are still going to buy this product because it has a high rating from the rating agencies (i.e. AAA), without really doing the due diligence into the risks and their correlation with the rest of its portfolio. This kind superficial strategy did them in last time, and not enough may have learned their lesson.

So, will we see what happens with this product. Should be very exciting to watch, especially as the baby boomers retire.

Ameriki oveid ani

2009-09-05T10:06:00.002-04:00

This past Shabbat, the Tokyo Jewish Community Center was not serving any meals, as they are in transition to their new building. So, I decided to check out the Chabad house (the mainstream one, not the messianic one), which is a bit less than a 3 mile walk from my apartment.

Now, Tokyo does not have an eruv, meaning that, not only cannot not use my cell phone / GPS-enabled Blackberry, but I cannot even carry a map or a piece of paper with the address on it. My only option is to memorize the directions, and hope I can follow them, and then hope I can retrace my steps, in a country where I can't even read the few street signs that exist.

For this kind of endeavor, Google Maps and street view is invaluable. It not only helps you to plot a route, but it actually allows you "walk" the route, with an arrow guiding you down Google Street View, allowing you to mentally record landmarks near turns, and what your destination looks like.

Walking to dinner, I was perhaps the most alert that I have ever been. I knew that I needed to take in and retain all of my surroundings, all the while keeping the picture of my map in my head and charting my progress along my route.

Arrival for Shabbat dinner was not too difficult, as I knew the Chabad house was near a certain supermarket chain, and once I got close enough I could find the supermarket. Beyond that, I asked a Japanese woman where "Jews" or "Rabbi Mendi" was, and she told me how to go to the last few blocks.

Going home was supposed to be easier, since if I got lost, I could just ask for directions to my regular subway stop which is a few minutes from my apartment. I was a bit more cavalier, and so overshot a turn, and wound up in an area I recognized as I had visited 2 weeks ago, but was no where near my apartment.

Several more kind Japanese people got me to the Shibuya stop, only a few stops from mine. Now, throughout the walk I had noticed the lovely Japanese women, many of whom are quite striking. There's a part of every man that wants, just once, for one of them to turn and hit on you, for a change. However, in the Shibuya area (which did not look particularly seedy at all), two lovely women, one right after the other, smiled, said hello, and twirled some keys around their finger. I immediately realized that I was being solicited by prostitutes, a first for me, and certainly was no where near as skeezy as I imagined it would be. Nevertheless, in both cases I shock my head and kept walking.

Shortly after this, I heard someone say "Oh my God!" behind me, which was the first English I had overheard on my entire walk. I turned, and a lovely girl said, "A Jew! I'm Jewish and I haven't met any Jews." While I haven't been wearing a kippa at the client during the week, I was wearing my white Shabbat kippa. (Also, despite the way this seems, she was not as far I know a prostitute.) It turns out she's a half-Japanese, half-Jew from north London (she was very impressed that I had heard of Golder's Green and Finchley). She asked about Jewish institutions in Tokyo, and I politely made a few suggestions.

Eventually, after getting lost a few more times, I did make it home, albeit 2.5 hours after I left the Chabad house (on what should have been an hour walk). For lunch the next day, I made it there and back with only minor deviations, as I was able to realize rather quickly when I made a wrong turn.

The moral of this story is that it is actually an amazing experience to get lost in a foreign city without money, ID, cell phone, or map, and actually be able to find your way home by politely asking for directions. I highly recommend it.

(By the way, the title of this blog means "I was a wandering American," and is a pun on the classic Passover seder line that comes from this past Shabbat's parshat (portion), "Arami oveid avi" or "My father was a wandering Aramean" - see Deuteronomy 26:5)

Client Cafeterias

2009-09-03T00:24:00.003-04:00

Anyone who has worked on a project with me has learned that I am not a huge fan of client cafeterias. At best (in Boston or New York), they have a moderate selection of adequate food. At worst (Kingsport, TN or Pittsburgh), they have bland, overcooked food, speckled with pork, and dodgy fish.

Here in Japan, the client cafeteria reeks of fish that is past it's prime. While they are good about noting whether a dish contains beef/chicken/pork/squid (with English and pictures), that happens to be most dishes.

So, today, I decided to venture outside of the client for lunch. I happened to find a spectacular South Asian place, where I had a wonderful naan and vegetable curry. There is something about Indian food that is hot, spicy, and tasty, which I rarely find in Japanese food of the same price point that I can eat. So, it was wonderful to have my first satisfying workday lunch of the trip.

Craig's List

2009-09-02T07:29:00.001-04:00

Excellent article in Wired magazine about Craigslist.

English in a Japanese Bank

2009-09-02T01:06:00.003-04:00

Most of the mid-level guys do not speak English. Some can understand spoken English, but very few will speak more than a word or two in English.
That said, most of them can read and respond to emails in English.
Most of the executives are not Japanese (they are mostly British, American, or Indian), and so speak only English and need translators for meetings,
It seems that it would be impossible to work here without speaking either Japanese or English.
Japanese business word of the day: "bum-pu", pronounced as if there were an umlaut over both u's (round your lips, and think of the liquid u in "stupid" or "uber"), and which means distribution.

Japan Plans $21 Billion Solar Space Post to Power 294,000 Homes

2009-09-01T22:47:00.001-04:00

Amazing

Hat tip: MAM

Texas almost certainly excecuted an innocent man

2009-09-01T21:22:00.002-04:00

One of things I've been doing in Japan is reading long magazine articles, such as the one I linked to below about Memorial Hospital in New Orleans.

The New Yorker has a spectacular piece about what capital punishment opponents have been looking for: a case where a state (of course it was Texas), beyond a reasonable doubt, executed an innocent man.

The most damning (no pun intended) part is the description of the clemency and pardon process. In this case, the expert's report that proved innocence beyond a reasonable doubt was available to them, and not even read!

The Innocence Project obtained, through the Freedom of Information Act, all the records from the governor’s office....The documents show that they received the report, but neither office has any record of anyone acknowledging it, taking note of its significance, responding to it, or calling any attention to it within the government....The only reasonable conclusion is that the governor’s office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles ignored scientific evidence.

It's well worth reading the whole piece.

Some observations about food in Japan

2009-09-01T08:59:00.004-04:00

First and foremost, the Jewish Community of Japan has put together a list of everything that I do not eat in Japan (pork, beef, chicken, shellfish), and everything that I do (salmon, tuna, mackerel, yellow tail). It is in English, transliterated Japanese, and actual Japanese, including instructions. Amazing.
Some guy named Jon has great a Google map of hundreds of restaurants and bars in Tokyo, color coded by cuisine type, and with his recommendations noted. Plus, each entry has a short summary, and links to a longer blog post that he wrote about the restaurant when he ate there.
I made myself an omelet last night (with peppers, onions, and tomatoes). The eggs in Japan (and I bought the cheapest ones they had in the store) are gorgeous. They have the most golden orange yokes that I have ever seen.
At summer camp, when I was growing up, the Australian counselors used to rave about some cookie called Tim Tams. Eventually, one of their friends sent them a box, but they refused to share them with any campers. I finally got to try them a few years ago when I was in Australia, but haven't had them since. Well, they sell them in Japan. They're kind of like an Orea with thicker, softer chocolate filling, and then frosted with chocolate all the way around. Yum.
The Japanese smoke a lot. Especially in restaurants. It's like being back in 1995 in the United States, when you'd have to get a table far away from a smoker. I actually had to switch tables tonight between courses. (Though, it provided me an opportunity to strike up a conversation with the American seated next to me, who said that the offender had gone through a whole pack already, and that he was going to warn me when I sat down.)
Every restaurant seems to have fake displays of its food for patrons to see. This is even the case when the signs are in English and Japanese, and when the food is already prepared for you to see before you order it. Still, some of this fake food looks real:

Japanese Schindler

2009-09-01T05:11:00.002-04:00

Last Shabbat, I learned about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Counsul-General in Lithuania during the Holocaust, who saved the lives of somewhere between 6000 and 10000 Jews.

Basically, here is what happened:

[Polish refugees] discovered that two Dutch colonial islands, Curacao and Dutch Guiana, (now known as Suriname) situated in the Caribbean, did not require formal entrance visas. Furthermore, the honorary Dutch consul, Jan Zwartendijk, told them he had gotten permission to stamp their passports with entrance permits.
There remained one major obstacle. To get to these islands, the refugees needed to pass through the Soviet Union. The Soviet consul, who was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, agreed to let them pass on one condition: In addition to the Dutch entrance permit, they would also have to obtain a transit visa from the Japanese, as they would have to pass through Japan on their way to the Dutch islands.

Sugihara's role was that he issued thousands and thousands of transit visas, ignoring his annual quotas (which he was often filling daily). Through his efforts, against the orders of his superiors, many of these Jews were able to escape.

There's even a database where you can search for survivors.

No more Reading Rainbow

2009-09-01T00:32:00.003-04:00

Butterfly in the sky / I can go twice as high / take a look / it's in a book / Reading Rainbow.

Evening singing that to myself now makes me smile. Some of my happiest moments at as a child were watching this show. Amazing stories about exciting books. LeVar Burton in all of his warmth and joy about learning. Kids getting to give their own opinion, unvarnished or scripted by adults.

Well, it's over. PBS is shifting funding toward programs that teach how to read, instead of teaching why. Some blame the Bush administration.

I'm reminded of the great quotation from Mr. Holland's Opus:

Vice Principal Wolters: I care about these kids just as much as you do. And if I'm forced to choose between Mozart and reading and writing and long division, I choose long division.

Glenn Holland: Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want, Gene. Sooner or later, these kids aren't going to have anything to read or write about.

Election in Japan

2009-08-31T22:59:00.003-04:00

As many of you know, there was a national election last Sunday in Japan. In it, the center-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ, not to be confused with the BJP in India or the SPD in Germany) won an overwhelming majority (308 out of 480) of the seats in the House of Representatives. (Japan's system is much more like Canada and the UK, where the lower house has most of the legislative power and also produces the prime minister, than it is like the UK where the upper house (senate) has a significant amount of power, and the president is elected separately.)

As the center-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had ruled the country for all but 11 months of the past 50 years, this new balance of power will have a signficant impact on the Japanese government.

Karl van Wolferen, a noted Japan scholar, says that:

To say that the task that Hatoyama Yukio and his fellow leaders of the Minshuto [DPJ] have set themselves is daunting would be putting it very, very mildly....correcting the severe imbalance in the relationship between Japan's elected politicians and career bureaucrats is their priority....They want to have cabinet meetings with well-informed ministers who may deliberate on policy and bring up new business, rather than putting their hanko (Japanese name-stamps substituting for signatures) on documents prepared the previous day at the regular meetings of the administrative vice ministers....They want to eliminate the enormous waste and misappropriations of the nicknamed ‘second budget’, which in some years is almost as large as the national budget, but which is administered by the Trust Fund Bureau of the Ministry of Finance and is allocated at the discretion of the bureaucrats.

Read the whole piece here. (Hat Tip: New Republic's "The Plank" blog)

Restaurants in Japan

2009-08-30T04:26:00.007-04:00

Today I met up with a friend of mine from college (we sang in the same group) who lives in Tokyo. (he's Japanese, but went to Middle School in the US). With him, I ventured into a more traditional Japanese restaurant for lunch, and got to experience "belt sushi" for the first time.

Basically, in the restaurant, there is moving conveyor belt with little plates of sushi (by sushi I mostly mean nigiri, meaning rice and fish, as opposed to maki, which is rolled up in seaweed, as we traditionally think of sushi in the US.)

It looked like this:
Now, here's the best part. The color and design of the plate each indicated the cost of each item (click on the picture above to enlarge and see in more detail).

But wait, there's more. Each plate had a magnet on the bottom:

Such that when you were finished, a waiter could scan a stack of plates (he didn't have to do each one individually):

And then print your bill from a second small device on his belt. Amazing!

Oh, and did I mention that the sushi was excellent?

Potential euthanasia at Memorial Hospital

2009-08-29T09:04:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while, the New York Times Magazine has cover story that is so gripping that I read it start to finish.

This week's piece, about decisions that doctors and nurses likely made to end the lives of very sick patients who were not going to be evacuated during Hurricane Katrina, is one of those pieces. I highly recommend you read it.

(Here's another example, about a father coping with his son's drug addiction.)

Japanese Jewish Weddings

2009-08-29T07:12:00.002-04:00

Shavuah Tov everyone.

I learned something fascinating over Shabbat. Apparently, there is a growing trend in Japan to have theme weddings. I'm not talking about "Black tie option" vs. "Black tie encouraged". I'm talking about full blown Disney World themes (e.g. pirates, dinosaurs).

So, of course, there is a rabbi in Japan who has realized that this is a gold mine. Think about it: Japanese weddings that are Jewish themed! This is not about conversion or anything particular spiritual - simply a theme wedding, where the theme is us! (Kind of sounds like the premise of a Twilight Zone episode, where I'm the same, but everyone else is Japanese but dressed like Chabad.)

Now, of course, aside from how weird this is, marrying non-Jews is not such an acceptable thing for a rabbi to do. The question is how this will play in the greater international rabbinic community is still open. It'll be fascinating to see how it turns out.

In the meantime, just think, another way to make your wedding even more expensive: Pay someone extra to make it a "Jewish" themed wedding!

Origami on Shabbat?

2009-08-27T10:45:00.003-04:00

Can I could do Origami on Shabbat? Since I've been in Japan, I have rekindled perhaps my oldest connection to Japanese culture (before Mario and Final Fantasy) - Japanese paper folding.

Within seconds, I found an answer:

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zatzal, prohibits making toys - like a boat, or hat - by folding paper, since it is like making a utensil. However, if the paper was folded into a toy before Shabbat, it is permitted to use it on Shabbat.

And there you have it.

Senator Edward Kennedy, Zicrono Livrocho

2009-08-26T20:05:00.003-04:00

I mourn the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy. It was rather surreal to read about it yesterday, but have nearly everyone I know in the US be asleep and so unable to commiserate with me.

I think the following clip from the Vice President speaks for itself.

Japan drives on the left

2009-08-26T19:57:00.002-04:00

Like the UK, Australia, and New Zealand (and not like the US). Fascinating, since Japan was never a British colony, and so is unlike many of the other places that drive on the left (and so have all of the accompanying consequences for subways, trains, stairs and escalators).

According to an amazing website on international driving:

Although the origin of this habit goes back to the Edo period (1603-1867) when Samurai ruled the country, it wasn’t until 1872 that this unwritten rule became more or less official. That was the year when Japan’s first railway was introduced, built with technical aid from the British. Gradually, a massive network of railways and tram tracks was built, and of course all trains and trams drove on the left-hand side. Still, it took another half century till in 1924 left-side driving was clearly written in a law.

The website also lists why and how countries have switched from driving on the left to driving on the right (most of the countries that remain on the left are island, and so don't have to worry about driving into right driving countries). The best anecdote is:

Pakistan also considered changing to the right in the 1960s, but ultimately decided not to do it. The main argument against the shift was that camel trains often drove through the night while their drivers were dozing. The difficulty in teaching old camels new tricks was decisive in forcing Pakistan to reject the change.

Amazing.

Japanese Banks and Overhead, cont.

2009-08-26T05:19:00.002-04:00

I wanted to mail a letter today. (I needed to send some forms to my rental agency.) I did what any corporate worker would do: I asked the smiling individuals sitting at the reception on my floor if they could put a letter in the outgoing mailbox for me, or at least point me in the right direction.

After several confusing minutes, since they do not speak much English (aren't my intentions clear if I'm awkwardly standing there holding a stamped, addressed envelope?), they told me to go to the mail room 10 floors below. They then made a phone call, and told me that I had to speak to the administrative assistant who is coordinating logistics for my project team.

I returned to my computer to read the following email from that administrative assistant:

"The 10F reception complained to me that some of you asked them to send regular mail.
As I told you (only to [some of you]?), the receptionists take care of only guest reservation as they don't know any other things."

Apparently, I had forgotten about this email that I received last week:

"You asked the reception to get one more key for your room, but the receptionists don't know about the keys, they just do only meeting booking."

So now, not only is there an absurd number of people sitting in the lobby of a floor of a bank which occupies the entire building, they are incapable of doing anything except room bookings

(We also asked them if someone could empty the garbage can in our room, and their first reaction was that we could empty it ourselves down the hall.)

Ridiculous.

Academic Earth

2009-08-24T18:49:00.009-04:00

So, it's late Sunday afternoon in Japan. I'm exhausted from a day of sightseeing around the city. I'm saving the novels I brought for two-day chags (Jewish holidays). I'm saving my West Wing DVDs for airplane flights. Hulu won't work outside the US. All of my satellite TV channels are in Japanese. And, it's not time for dinner yet.

This is when I discovered Academic Earth. Richard Ludlow, a bright young Yale grad, realized that many universities were video taping their best lectures and courses and putting them online for free for the public. But, to find them, you'd have to know which universities were doing this, and even then would only get a random smattering of courses. There was no way to find all of the ones on a particular topic.

Academic Earth serves as an aggregator of all of this content. Plus, it lets you rate each one, so that overtime you'll be able to see which Game Theory or Political Philosophy lecture is the best. You can even download the syllabus and exams in some cases.

I just watched Barry Nalebuff's "Why Not?" lecture on entrepeneurship, and am starting Benjamin Polack's Game Theory course. Both are worth watching.

Japanese banks and overhead

2009-08-24T18:49:00.006-04:00

Japanese banks seem to have an enormous amount of extraneous support staff. The floor I'm on often has 3 to 4 receptionists (none of whom I have ever seen on the phone), plus 3 to 4 people in the break room kitchen. Certainly 1 or even 2 are necessary to take room bookings and orient people who are new to the floor, but why do you need 3 or 4?

As for the kitchen, getting me a glass of water yesterday took 2 people (one from reception to go into the kitchen to get it from one of the people who works there), and she seemed very surprised when I was happy to wait there and wouldn't let her bring it our team room down the hall.

These seems to be to be a ripe head count reduction consulting opportunity. At my firm's office in New York, a team of 2 handles answering the phone, booking rooms, greeting visitors, and checking in every employee so they know who is in the office that day. At another firm, the guy at the front desk was also the travel agent, on top of all of the other tasks.

While it is a pleasure to see several smiling faces every time I enter the floor, if I were a shareholder, I'd start asking questions...

Publishing in an academic journal

2009-08-23T19:53:00.002-04:00

In case you're thinking about academia (I am), you probably should read this horrific account of trying to publish a comment.

Can't watch videos online

2009-08-23T07:30:00.002-04:00

So, it appears that that, given that I have a Japanese IP address, I am unable to watch videos through any of the (normal) legal channels that I would use in the US. I knew that hulu.com did not work outside of the US, but it seems that the networks (nbc.com, cbs.com, fox.com) also don't work.

Anyone have any (legal) suggestions, given that I'm using a work computer?

Back to America: Health Care

2009-08-23T04:50:00.002-04:00

A commerical, if you will, within our regularly scheduled Japanese programming.

I just read two excellent pieces on health care reform in the US:

Roger Ebert on Health Care Reform
5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

Both are worth reading.

Also, if you haven't read it yet, you should also check out How American Health Care Killed My Father.

On date lines

2009-08-22T20:02:00.004-04:00

Okay, I promised a post on the international date line.

First, some background on time zones. As one travels around the Earth going east, the sun begins to rise later and later. That shift should be one hour for every 15 degrees (or 1000 miles at the equator), which gives us the 5 hour time difference between New York and London, or 14 hours between New York and Japan (which is currently 13 because the US observes Daylight Saving Time and Japan does not).

Okay, now, imagine you were to continuing flying east such that you traveled all the way around the Earth. Sunrise would be approximately the same time it was when you left, but, this is key, you would have gained a day! (If were you to fly west, you would have instead lost a day.)

To avoid mass confusion, we need a date line such that if you were to fly east to Japan (gaining 13 hours) or west (losing 11 hours but gaining a day), you'd be in the locally appropriate date. Arbitrarily, this dateline is roughly at 180 degree longitude, or exactly opposite Greenwich, England. This happens to be a part of the Earth where no one lives (avoiding the problems of locals crossing the dateline during their normal activities).

However, this causes a problem for Judaism. What day we're on is hugely important for perhaps the most fundamental Jewish observance: Shabbat, as well as for countless others. Greenwich, England has absolutely no significance for Jews, and so neither does the secular International Date Line.

If we were to have a "halakhic" date line, it would probably be 180 degrees from the city to which we all direct our daily prayers: Jerusalem. This line is also the lines that marks switch from praying eastward (as I have done my whole life) to praying westward (which is still very disorienting). (I'm ignoring here the issue about great circles vs. Rhumb Lines. Suffice to say that I pray along a Rhumb Line, as does everyone else I know.)

So where would this Jewish date line be? Luckily for me, Japan would still be on the other side of it. Israel is about 30 degrees east of Greenwich, so this date line would be at 150 degrees west. Not many people live on this line, except it would create two problems. One is the Hawaii is now on the opposite side as the rest of United States. The other is that is bisects Alaska. Certainly the US could legally rejigger the line so all of its country is on the east side (as it currently does anyway). Whether that would hold any halakhic weight is a subject for another time.

First Shabbat, and other observations

2009-08-22T09:41:00.002-04:00

Shavuah Tov to everyone (though it is bizarre to write that when it is still Shabbat for the 99.9% of the people reading this blog. I'll say more about that and the secular and halakhic datelines in a later post).

A few notes from Shabbat:

I spent most of Shabbat with the Jewish Communty (http://www.jccjapan.or.jp), which is a thoroughly wonderful organization. What more could I ask for than egalitarian davening, home cooked Shabbat meals, and a JTS educated rabbi (who is Italian!). Davening was surprisingly small (and, interestingly, mostly men), but otherwise consistent with any Conservative shul in the US. One final note, which is that they are moving into a brand new building in a few weeks, and will be having an event with many dignitaries, including the Canadian ambassador, who is Jewish. (I will of course likely still be in the office, as it will be a Thursday night)
One of the most interesting quotes I heard at Shabbat was "Japan is the most successful communist country," or a corollary "China is the most capitalist communist country, and Japan is the most communist capitalist country." Interesting...
I have now eaten at two different Trattorios, both within a 10 minute walk of my apartment, and both excellent. Wonderful (since I am much bigger fan of Italian food than Japanese food, and I am much better at discerning what is vegetarian), though I find it interesting considering I have yet to see or meet anyone from Italy in either restaurant.
In my Shabbat walks this afternoon, I noticed that Tokyo has overpasses instead of crosswalks in several places. This allows them to have longer stretches without traffic lights, especially in places where there are not cross streets. This would be a worth addition to many cities in the US.
No first week in Japan would be complete without a mention of a peculiarities: face masks. I've been told that the Japanese have a custom that if one is sick, one should wear a face mask. This seems less because the sick individual might catch something else and get sicker (since these are often young, otherwise healthy looking people), but more a common courtesy to spare everyone else. I'd be interested to see data as to whether this works or not.

Vending machines

2009-08-20T04:07:00.003-04:00

Vending machines in Japan are amazing. First, picture a standard American vending machine, with each time of item held in a metal spiral that twists to release your item (or sometimes doesn't, as George found out with his Twix bar in the car dealership Seinfeld episode).

In Japan, there is a plastic box that mechanically moves over to your item, picks it up, and then moves down to the bottom corner for you to get your item. It's almost like a vending machine crossed with one of those claw arcade games at the shore.

I don't really want another candy bar, but I might go back just to see it in action again.

Shanghai and Yom Kippur: Travel Craziness

2009-08-19T09:52:00.003-04:00

Okay, here's the scenario. My firm is having a regional meeting in Shanghai the Friday before Yom Kippur (which begins on a Sunday night this year). My manager wants me back at the client Tuesday morning, which means that have to come back to Tokyo for Yom Kippur (since the earliest flight on Tuesday won't get me back until early afternoon).

So here are my options. Shabbat ends at 6:23 PM in Shanghai. The last direct flight from Shanghai to Tokyo leaves at 5:05 PM, so that's not an option. The first direct flight the next morning leaves at 9:05 AM and gets me to Tokyo at 12:55 PM local time. In a best case scenario, I could clear immigration and customs in 30 minutes, and then get to where I'm staying in the city in another 2 hours. Pre-fast at the JCC starts at 3:45, and Kol Nidrae at 5:00, so that is cutting it enourmously close. Any extra circling in the air and I'm stuck.

Here's the other option: There's a 9:20 PM flight from Shanghai to Seoul, and then an 8:20 AM flight to Tokyo which gets me in at 10:45 AM.

Am I totally crazy that I'm even considering this? Spending 8 hours in South Korea for a little bit of a buffer on erev Yom Kippur?

Tokyo: Initial business observations

2009-08-19T07:21:00.007-04:00

A few more observations:

There aren't really street signs in Japan for small streets. I have no idea how anyone finds anything. In Manhattan, you could give me any address on the grid (324 W 91 St.) and I can find it. Here, without my trusty GPS, I'd be lost. (This reminds of a trick an 80 year old cousin of mine taught me: if you want to know how to get back somewhere, add it as a favorite on your GPS-enabled Google Maps. Then, you can always have Google Maps give you directions to get back there. He uses it when he parks a car in a large garage. I use it to get back to my hotel.)
In Japan, the equivalent of Mr. or Ms. is adding san to the end of your name. So, Mr. Green would be Green-san. There are two peculiarities to this. The first is that this form is used in both the third person and in writing, by adults. It's equivalent to someone saying they were working on a project with Mr. Green, and even writing "as Mr. Green argued" in a slide. The second is that this honor is only for Japanese people. One of the clients is Korean, and so he just gets referred to be his last name.
In two of the higher level meetings I was in today, one of the women (who I think also works as a receptionist) brought in tea and cold water for each participant, and actually served us at the conference table. I've never seen that before in a meetin
Japanese businessmen really do give out business cards with both hands (imagine your fingernails touching, knuckles facing out, and your thumbs parallel and touching).
It's amazing to be on a project team where I'm the only American. The senior manager is from Austria, married to a man from Japan, and lives in Singapore. The full time engagement manager is from Turkey but lives in Australia. The other consultant is from Singapore. The last two went to Penn and Columbia respectively, so they have spent some time in the US. That said, it is totally jarring to really how utterly American I am, in speech, mannerism, metaphor, and action.

Tokyo: Arrival and initial observations

2009-08-18T10:16:00.005-04:00

Hello friends. I have decided to start using this blog to post about my adventures in Japan. For those of you who do not know, I am beginning a 2 month consulting project here for a large bank. This project was confirmed last Tuesday morning, so, less than a week later, I have arrived in my apartment in Japan, with Jewish connections galore and ready to start work tomorrow.

A few quick observations:

My guidebook mentioned that Japan is one of the most ethnically homogeneous places, and they weren't kidding. 99% of people I've seen on the street are Japanese. I've never been to a global, cosmopolitan city (think New York, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Sydney, Wellington, Cairo, Tel Aviv) that looks so homogeneous.
The subway system is immaculately clean, runs on time, and is full of people at 11 PM on a weeknight. It even has handles coming from the ceiling to hold on to (think what you playground had when you were little.)
My 23 sq meters (~240 sq ft) temporary furnished apartment is 100% functional and has everything I need (including a washer/dryer!), except perhaps a place to host Shabbat dinner...Hopefully my longer-term apartment (which I move into on Thursday), which is 32 sq m will have room for a table.
My welcome team dinner consisted of a many course meal (I lost count) of totally amazing vegetables, including sweet melon tofu tomato soup, cold pea soup, enormous grapes, and more.
Google Maps with GPS works on my Blackberry. Without this, I would never have been able to get from my apartment to the restaurant. I have no idea what I will do on Shabbat...
No one carries a blackberry. Apparently (according to my manager), Japanese cell phones have long offered email access, so Blackberries never really caught on the way that they did in the US.

That's all for now. I'll post more soon

Ambassador Huntsman (again)

2009-05-18T13:01:00.003-04:00

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has just accepted President Obama's nomination to be Ambassador to the People's Republic of China. This is an obvious choice for Huntsman. Here's his alternative:

Govern Utah during a recession (never good, given that he'll have to cut something or raise taxes or both)
Run for President in 2012, likely against another Mormon (Romney), who was governor of a more populous state (Massachusetts vs. Utah), during a boom (vs. a recession), who was a more successful business man (founder of Bain Capital vs. major player in family company), whose other public accomplishments are better regarded by the general population (head of the 2002 Olympics vs. Ambassador to Singapore and Deputy Trade Rep)
Even if he wins, he'd have to take on a likely very popular president Obama

Instead, Huntsman gets:

To not govern during the rest of this recession
To sit out the 2012 primary and general elections
To improve his foreign policy credentials, though one of the most important diplomatic posts in the world

Finally, the President gets to remove a moderate voice from the GOP conversation, increasing the possibility that the party will tilt more to the right, nominate a conservative member in 2012, and give him a landslide victory.

Spectacular Italian Restaurant: Pisticci

2009-02-15T21:35:00.001-05:00

Amazing Italian restauran t in the Harlem/Morningside Heights area (near Broadway and 123rd street). Reasonably priced, and everything on the menu is tasty and excellent. Lots of vegetarian options. And, they're completely carbon neutral.

I highly recommend it if you're in the area.

Pickles

2008-10-13T13:54:00.001-04:00

If anyone is going to the Lower East Side (say to buy a lulav and etrog this week), check out the Pickle Guys. You won't be sorry.

Blue Hill Restaurant

2008-10-13T13:39:00.002-04:00

Blue Hill Restaurant is a local/organic/environmentally responsible paradise. Everything is fresh and spectacularly prepared. including:

Three kinds of pickled cauliflower
Dried kale
Arugula and tomato salts
Haddock, beets, and horseradish cream
Smoked tomato and almond soup
Poached yolk and eggplant
Bass with cauliflower and pesto
Honey ice cream with caramelized condensed milk cream
Chocolate bread pudding with vanilla ice cream

Amazing.

Time for a return to defined benefit plans

2008-10-10T14:10:00.004-04:00

Lost in this past bearish week (US stocks are down ~20% since Monday morning) is a recent debate about retirement plans: defined benefits vs. defined contributions.

Defined benefits is the old system. After a certain number of years of work, one's company will guarantee a certain amount of money each month during retirement. These disbursements are funded from current worker's paychecks, and managed either by the company itself or by a contractor. Social Security is, in effect, a giant government defined benefits plan.

Defined contributions is the new system. We can take a certain amount of money out of our paycheck each month, tax free, and invest it as we choose, letting it grow tax free until we retire and then draw funds out as we need it. This has been attractive for three reasons:

1. It creates a direct link between the money I'm putting aside versus the money I'm getting out, bypassing any potential pyramid schemes (as Social Security has been the past few decades, with more people paying into it and than getting money out of it).

2. It allows each individual to set his or her own risk tolerance and direct investment accordingly.

3. Finally, and most importantly, it shifts the risk from the employer to the employee. This is primary reason that employees have switched to these plans.

The problem with defined contribution plans has reared its head this week: panic. The massive sell off on Wall Street is in part a function of millions of individuals deciding that their retirement accounts have dropped low enough and must be liquidated before they decline further. This, of course, pushes stock prices even lower.

A defined benefits plan would not fall victim to such a panic routine, since defined benefit plans have much better and more accurate projections of future liquidity needed (i.e. payouts), and also (should) have access to both private and government insurance and hedging mechanism to protect themselves against downturns. Companies should certainly shift their allocations in times such as these. But they are far less likely than individuals to simply dump their holdings into a falling market.

Defined contributions plans were supposed to be the herald of a new ownership society. Instead, they are a mechanism for irrational risk taking and collective panic.

Cabinet Selector

2008-10-06T09:31:00.005-04:00

Here it is: the ultimate technocrat toy I've been waiting for: a cabinet picker!

Here are my picks (notes where I dissented from the majority of pickers):

Obama/Biden:
Ag: Stenholm
AG: Holder
Com: Furman - huge campaign advisor; liberal leanings
Def: Danzig - Gates too polarizing, Reed's seat may go Rep, which would hurt chances of 60 seats
Ed: Napolitano
E: Moinz
HHS: Sebelius
HS: Kelley
HUD: Franklin
Interior: Inlsee
Labor: Granholm - term limited and can't run for pres/vice, with no senate seat likely to open up
State: Richardson
Trans: Rendell - Obama has talked a lot about putting more emphasis on Trans, and Rendell would add diversity (Jew)
Treas: Geithner
VA: Duckworth
EPA: McGinty
OMB: Orszag - From CBO, with Furman already used above
Trade: Brainard

McCain/Palin:
Ag: Sanford
AG: Giuliani- he's the reason why McCain won California and became the nominee
Com: Whitman
Def: Lieberman -makes it easy for Republicans to pick up Joe's seat - and he deserves a big prize if McCain wins
Ed: Keegan
E: Wilson
HHS: Huckabee - anti-obesity enthusiast - would give him a national profile
HS: Keating
HUD: Ken Blackwell - previous HUD experience
Interior: Allard
Labor: Engler
State: Woolsey - Lieberman not going to be State - he's not a negotiator; Negroponte too close to Bush administration
Trans: Peters
Treas: Paulson
VA: Sias
EPA: Shayes
OMB: Holtz - Eakin
Trade: Schwab

Thoughts on the VP Debate

2008-10-02T23:09:00.003-04:00

1. Joe Biden hit a home run. He is a consummate gentleman. Someone (maybe his debate partner, MI Gov. Jennifer Granholm) said to him, "Joe, shut up and smile," which he did perfectly. He was always on point, with loads of facts at his fingertips. Furthermore, he was never condescending toward Palin. And, most importantly, he did not make a single gaffe.

2. Gwen Ifill should have dropped out of moderating the debate. As soon it became known that Ifill had a book coming out next year with Obama's name in the title, she should have stepped aside. The fact that she did not meant that Ifill was on eggshells the entire debate, unwilling to press Palin when she dodged a question (which happened almost every question). Another moderator should have repeated questions that either Palin or Biden would not answer.

3. Sarah Palin may not know who Achilles was, since she did nothing to convince me otherwise by making no effort to answer a question about what her Achilles Heel is.

4. And finally, the real loser of this debate was John McCain. Joe Biden made point after point about how McCain has voted on the wrong side of an issue, and Palin made almost no effort to refute them. If this were a high school debate, Palin would have lost in a landslide, since, at the end of the day, it is the unrefuted arguments that count.

Excellent local restaurant in Charlotte, NC

2008-09-23T22:16:00.003-04:00

If you're in Charlotte, I recommend eating at Ratcliffe on the Green. It's a "farm to feed" restaurant, with most of its produce, fish, poultry, and meat coming from about two dozen local farms, and a menu that changes weekly.

Everything was excellent - from the buttermilk biscuits and a taste sweet pumpkin apple soup to start, to the goat cheese, pear, walnut, and greens salad to the wild rainbow trout with tomato-basil risotto. The ostrich (so I've been told) was also very good.

Ratcliffe also does lunch, if one if in the downtown Charlotte area during the day.

The Republican Party and Community Organizing

2008-09-04T09:10:00.001-04:00

Last night at the Republican National Convention, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin mocked and belittled IL Senator Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer. This was dispicable. Do Republican even know what community organizing is? Here's a definition from a good friend of mine who is a professional community organizer:

"Community organizers, as many of you know, have loads of
responsibilities. The biggest one is helping people educate and
empower themselves to have agency in their lives and fight for their
own interests and for a better world."

It's incredible that the Republican pary would take such offense at the this. What did the founding fathers do when they met in their homes in Boston and New York and Philadelphia and Virginia? Community organizing! How have women gained the right to vote? Community organizing! How did the marches and protests in the civil rights movement happen? Community organizing! G-d forbid people actually meet among themselves and think about what problems they have and how best they can work together to make a difference. And G-d forbid they ask someone with experience bringing people together and experience petitioning government to help them be more effective.

On a more specific note, you should read the middle section of Obama's first book (Dreams from my Father) about his experiences in Chicago as a community organizer if you haven't already. It's an amazing story of a young man who spent time talking to people on the South Side of Chicago. Not as a politician, but just as a guy interested in helping them fight for themselves. It's experience that I think makes Obama exceptionally qualified to be President of the United States. There are plenty of people like the residents of Wasilla, AK in the US. But there are also plenty of people like the residents of the South Side of the Chicago, and they need our help more than ever.

Obama's experience as a community organizer gives him an incredible perspective, and it's something to be applauded. It's a big reason to vote for him.

The speech Joe Lieberman should have given

2008-09-03T11:57:00.005-04:00

"Tonight is a difficult night for me. For the first time in my life, I am speaking at the Republican National Convention. As a lifelong Democrat who had the priviledge of running for Vice President on the Democratic national ticket in 2000, I never thought I'd be so publicly supporting a Republican candidate for president. But, today, here I am, and here's why.

"I've worked with John McCain for twenty years in the United States Senate. He and I have agreed on many issues and collaborated on legislation many times. In the past few years, however, on terrorism and on keeping America safe, he and I have seen more eye-to-eye than I have with many of my Democratic colleagues, especially Senator Obama. I support our President's effort to make us safe, from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond, and John McCain and I stand together on that front.

"Many of my Democratic colleagues do not see the progress we have made in Iraq in these past few years, and many continue to oppose a surge that John and I supported that has achieved results. Another of my colleagues, Senator Biden, even wanted to break up Iraq into multiple countries. Unlike these colleagues, John McCain has held firm in his support for our efforts for peace in freedom in Iraq, and he will continue them as president.

"I also agree with John on other issues, from his efforts to reform immigration, campaign finance, and curb global warming. John has shown true bipartisan leadership on major issues facing our country, and for that I stand with him. I urge you to stand with him as well."

Time for Joe to go

2008-08-28T12:48:00.002-04:00

Okay Senator Reid, enough is enough. As much as it pains me to say it, it's time for you to strip Senator Joe Lieberman of his seniority and his chairmanship.

First and foremost, let's clear up a misconception. If Lieberman caucuses with the Republicans in the Senate, won't the senate be split 50-50 the way it was in 2001, with Vice President Cheney give the Republicans control? No.

Each two-year congress passes an organizing resolution at the start of its term. Most organizing resolutions (including the one passed in 2007) contain no mechanism for the senate to switch control, even if the majority party actually becomes the minority party. This actually happened in the 83rd congress in 1953-1954. Though the Democrats at times had a majority, LBJ remained minority leader. (Read more about it here.)

The only way that the senate leadership and committee chairmanships can actually change control is if such a mechanism is actually written into the organizing resolution, as it was in 2001, which was subsequently used when then VT. Sen Jim Jeffords switched parties. For the same to happen this year, the new Republican majority would have to pass a new organizing resolution, which of course could be filibustered by the 50 Democratic senators. This may have PR consequences, but it likely will be only for the final few months of this congress' term.

Now - why have I finally given up on Lieberman? I actually like him - I like who he is - I like the fact that there's an observant Jew in congress - I like his positions on most issues. I remember the moment in 2000 when Al Gore picked him - I was never prouder to be an American Jew. Furthermore, I lived in Connecticut for 4 years after that, and thought that Lieberman was all in all an excellent advocate for the state.

Furthermore, in 2006, I had a relatively strong aversion to Ned Lamont. Primarily, I think Lamont's opposition to the war in Iraq came far too late. Unlike Senators Jack Reed and Russ Feingold, or then State Sen. Barack Obama, Lamont waited until it was politically easy to oppose the war. I have a hard time giving him much credit with that. So, had I voted in CT that year, I would have voted for Lieberman in the primary, and likely still voted for him in the general election.

However, now is different. Refusing to endorse a presidential candidate is one thing (a la Sen. Chuck Hagel). Endorsing a candidate from the other party whom you agree with is one thing (a la former Sen. Linc Chaffee). But attacking your own party's candidate is another (a la former Sen. Zell Miller). We'll see what Lieberman's speech is like next week. But if he specifically attacks Senator Obama as unfit to lead this country, Reid should boot him out.

Joementum can carry him somewhere he's wanted.

Best tailor in Manhattan

2008-08-27T18:07:00.002-04:00

If anyone needs a tailor, go to Silhouettes & Profiles.

The tailors there (supervised by Irene) do an excellent job in a short amount of time at a reasonable price. Furthermore, Irene strives to produce excellent work. I tried on a pair of pants she had worked on, and she saw that the seam wasn't straight (from a past tailor). She offered to fix it in 10 minutes at no charge (after closing hours).

Finally, when my total bill came to $63, but neither of us had change for a $20, she said to call it $60. First vendor I've even been to who rounded more than $0.04 in my favor.

So, for your suits and dresses, go see Irene at Silhouettes & Profiles.

Obama/Biden and Hillary Clinton

2008-08-25T14:58:00.001-04:00

Continuing my previous post about Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton's stock has also gone up.

Ignore that fact that Clinton was not picked to be Obama's running mate; this was never going to happen. Clinton's stock has gone up Obama has gone with the Cheney model: a vice president who won't be eyeing running for president in eight years.

Biden will be 73 in 2016, too old to run for a first term (remember the political cartoons in '96 about Dole choosing which set of teeth to wear that day?). Clinton, on the other hand, will be 68, which, in most cases is young enough to run, especially for a woman (given that women on average live longer than men). A Tim Kaine or Evan Bayh pick would have made it very difficult for Clinton to run in 2016. Joe Biden means that the 2016 race could be Clinton's for the taking.

Obama/Biden and Bill Richardson

2008-08-24T00:29:00.003-04:00

There's another ex-presidential candidate whose stock just went up: NM Gov. Bill Richardson. There has been an open question since Richardson endorsed IL Sen. Barack Obama (which caused former/perenial Clinton strategist James Carville to call him Judas, since Richardson had served in two capacities in then-President Bill Clinton's cabinet): what did Richardson want?

Richardson is savvy enough to know that there was no chance that Obama would put him on the ticket. Having an African American nominee is incredible. Having him pick a Hispanic VP candidate is too much. Richardson knew that the best he could hope for would be Secretary of State.

Richardson's main rival for that position was none other than DE Sen. Joe Biden. So, Richardson must have breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday morning when Obama took Biden out of running for State. In some ways, this is a better allocation than the other way around. Richardson may have spent a decade in the house, but he's more of a negotiator and an executive than a legislative mastermind. Furthermore, Richardson did not prove to be the best campaigner or debater last year. Biden, on the other hand, knows the legislative process better than almost all active politicians.

This must all be very exciting for Richardson, as he just became the front runner to be the first Hispanic Secretary of State and the highest ranking Hispanic in American history.

Lower the drinking age

2008-08-21T10:03:00.003-04:00

In today's Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman argues that the drinking age should stay at 21.

Chapman is wrong. Chapman fails to understand what a draconian drinking age does to binge drinking for 16-20 year olds. Underage drinkers, unable to buy alcohol in a safe commerical setting (with a sober bar tenders who cannot serve them if they are visibly impaired), instead consume in private, unsafe settings.

Furthermore, especially on college campuses, binge drinkers are loathe to seek medical attention, since they rightly fear disciplinary action. This compounds the situation above, where underage drinkers are incentivized to drink quickly and privately, and then not seek medicial attention if needed. Surely public safety is not best being serve.

Chapman makes the argument that a higher drinking age lowers drunk driving deaths. This is not the best way to prevent drunk driving. Drunk driving requires not just a drunk individual, but also a car. The answer to drunk driving is therefore to have more police patrols late at night, and more draconian punishments for drunk driving (long time license suspensions, car confiscation, jail time), rather than less alcohol. If society is serious about preventing drunk driving, then a DUI should be treated as a very serious crime with very serious consequences.

One final idea: Perhaps those between the ages of 18 and 21 should be able to drink legally under certain circumstances. Perhaps one must have a high school degree or GED to drink legally. Or, one must have to pass an alcohol awareness course. Regardless, our current law should be changed.