The King of Herbs

TAISHET, Russia — It's late afternoon, at least by the watches on board that still believe we are in Moscow. The real time is much later, as we've now traveled 2,000 miles to the east and the sun ended its brief mid-winter appearance several hours ago. But on the train at least, there are still a couple hours until dinner, and I am perched on my bed, reading a book.

Vasily, seated on Sergei's lower bunk, interrupts my reading with an offer.

"Jon! Jon! Come look!" he says.

In his hands are several photographs. I sit down next to him as he leaves through the three by five inch images. The first is of a young woman, obvious Russian with dyed-magenta hair and a long, thin nose, approximately the same age as Vasily.

Through hand gestures, his scattered English from grade school and frequent consultation of my Russian-English phrasebook, Vasily manages to explain why he is on the train. He's getting married next month, but before doing so, he's taking a trip home to Khabarovosk, on the Pacific Ocean. His fiancée is staying at home and working, so he is traveling alone.

His trip makes mine resemble an afternoon drive through the countryside. Vasily's home town is just a few hours north of Vladivostok, the last stop on the Trans-Siberian and nearly eight days from Moscow. And he didn't start in the capital, rather Vasily works ("in business") and lives in Astrakhan, a small city on the Caspian Sea. That means it will take 10 days point to point - or almost three weeks round-trip to see the folks. I hope they're appreciative.

Russians are supposed to be too poor and too busy for families, but Vasily will be married before his 23rd birthday. He works a good job (although I'm not really sure what he does) and wants children soon.

He obviously cares for his fiancée, showing his affection by looking at her picture frequently. They speak on the phone at least once a day, using a brand-new cell phone Vasily attaches to one of his belt loops. Vasily figures out ways to bring her into our limited conversations, frequently asking about my current relationship status, former loves and whether I find Russian women attractive. With Olga in the cabin, I decide it's not the best time to talk about the "babushka theory," wherein Russian woman are extremely attractive for their teens and twenties, and then seemingly overnight morph into wrinkled, overweight grandmothers with scarves around their necks. Instead I tell him that Russian women are beautiful.

Family matters aside, Vasily strikes me as a very normal person. He loves hip-hop, and is constantly asking to borrow my iPod to listen to the stray 50 Cent, Jay-Z and T.I. songs scattered among my German electronic music. On the train he wears blue jeans and a couple different sweaters with a white T-shirt underneath. He appears to have spent some time battling acne, and there are still a few pox marks on his cheek.

Vasily is the Slavic equivalent of the name Basil, which means "royal" in Greek. In antiquity Basil was the king of herbs, with a strong flavor prized in Mediterranean cooking. Basil is powerful, but it is also fragile. Dried basil is mostly flavorless, and the herb is usually added at the last second to preserve flavor. I wonder if I am encountering Vasily just as he begins to dry out. Will his marriage, children and the responsibility that comes with it destroy his excitable nature? Perhaps Vasily will have a "babushka moment" of his own, and transform into a crotchety old man with little notice. That would be unfortunate, as dour Russia can be a bit on low people who just want to hang out and listen to 50 Cent.

On the Way to the Land of Snows

BARABISE, Nepal — Driving north from Kathmandu, the road to Tibet is a series of sharp turns around blind corners, ascents of steep hills with subtropical vegetation and breathtaking views of quaint Nepali villages. Four hours north of the capital the paved road abruptly stops, disintegrating into a mess of pebbles, stones and small rocks. About 100 meters into this section there is a yellow sign on the left sign of the road. "Welcome," it says, "to the Last Resort."

The Last Resort is the playground of the Westerner on vacation. Here, 8,000 feet above sea level, is excellent river rafting on deep, fast streams, luxury tents with thick mattresses and oil lanterns, a full bar with a selection of several dozen cocktails and a restaurant that makes a mean macaroni and cheese. I came for the bungee jump, the second highest in the world. My travel companion Jeremy paid $90 in Kathmandu to walk off a 500 foot high bridge and plunge very close to a raging river. He did this willingly, placing his life in the hands of a Swiss-made rope.

I came just to watch. The bungee bridge connects the road to the resort, and also provides access to the couple dozen villagers who live on the other side of the deep canyon. Between jumps the villagers carry heavy baskets of hay or herd goats across the bent beams of steel. Then another Swede spends four seconds in free fall.

Calling it The Last Resort is accurate, because it is one of the last businesses before the Chinese border. After The Last Resort the road rises even further, and by the border it's left the subtropical Nepalese climate and entered the frigid Himalaya.

The resort is popular with tour group coming and going to Tibet, as its huge bridge makes for the most entertaining pit stop in a fairly monotonous seven hour drive from the border to Kathmandu. This is how I met a party of seven Chinese men who stopped at the Last Resort for lunch.

I heard their Mandarin as they worked their way past me on the road side of the bridge. I was there waiting for Jeremy to bungee. After he went I crossed the bridge and found the party at the resort's outdoor restaurant, playing cards and sipping herbal beverages they brought from the Motherland. I introduced myself, in Chinese, and they invited me to sit down.

They were from Guangzhou, the huge city of trade near Hong Kong. They worked in different companies, but were on a trip to Nepal that mixed business and pleasure. There were a couple business meetings, dinner with contacts, but mostly the trip had been about seeing Nepalis dance and good food in Kathmandu.

I tried to figure out the card game they were playing, which involved dealing 24 cards and then throwing them down in an aggressive manner (the harder the better). Twos seemed to be good, but not as good as threes, although sometimes a player would save the threes only to lose the game. They bet with Chinese money, and a couple hundred renminbi changed hands each round - a fair chunk of change for the Chinese.

"He doesn't get it," one man said to another, gesturing over to me. I didn't, so one man took me aside for some additional conversation. He showed me pictures of his wife and son, who recently performed in a talented competition in Macau. He played the drums, and in the pictures the boy of seven or eight looked thrilled on the set of the television program.

Later today the men would travel to the border town of Zhangmu, where they would reenter China. There they planned to visit a couple friends from Guangzhou who now worked in the Tibetan government. They were Chinese, and the man said they were helping to develop an undeveloped region.

"Wen Jiabo and the Chinese government care about Tibet. They have given aid to build schools, hospitals and roads there. I'm proud of my government."

This was close enough to the border that Chinese politics found their into innocent conversation. A couple hours later I got back in the bus, heading south, away from China.

If I Was in This Club

BOSTON - I sometimes copy-edit at bilingual Chinese-English publication here. Like all newspapers and magazines, we tend to get a fair amount of junk sent to the paper from hapless public relations people around the country. Today's delivery was one of the best. Our newspaper became the proud owner of "China Picture Book: CEOs Making Money and Having Fun in China."

Haven't heard of it? Neither had I.

If you're interested, you can order the book here. I would recommend it, unless you're looking that perfect gag gift for someone soon to depart to China. The book is the worst combination of empty management manuals, glossy travel guide and public relations department creation.

A choice excerpt:

"In China, a CEO is treated like a king! Police escorts, personal meals with the mayor, gifts at every gathering... and the business ain’t bad, either!"

Super cool! When Joe Mancuso (picture at the bottom of this paragraph) does the writing, I do the buying! The book is so over the top it's ridiculous. The main "story" deals with Mancuso, as he tours China with a group of fellow Chief Executive Officers who are members of something called the "CEO Club," which he founded. He visits all the major tourist spots of China. There are goofy photo-ops of him and his friends parading on the Great Wall, sauntering on the Bund in Shanghai and looking goofy during minority dance celebrations.



China has 54 officially recognized minorities. It seems Mr. Mancuso has waltzed with at least 43 of them.

I feel sorry for everyone involved in this pitiful enterprise. To the clients of Mancuso, who really were just brought along on a glorified tour of the country. They had plenty of "ceremonies" and "escorts" and "receptions," but little actual business. It looks fun, but for the money that these people must have paid (and considering they are allegedly in charge of the medium-sized companies back in the States) it seems like a waste of time.

The Chinese don't come off better. The book portrays them as rather stupid, for so lavishly laying out the red carpet for these quasi-celebrities. The English text of the book is constantly outlining how easy it is to do business in China, because the locals are just dying for white people to come and do business with them.

The apotheosis of this is a page that written entirely in English. The book is supposed to be a guide for Americans who wanted to do business in China, but in an effort to cover all markets, it's presents in both language. (For rather unclear reasons, it reads in English from front cover to back cover, but in Chinese the other way around.) The page of just English text -- which helpfully points out that it isn't in Chinese -- tells the BIG SECRET OF DOING BUSINESS IN CHINA. This secret turns out to be... all Chinese think American investors work for Fortune 500 companies!

Boy, the Chinese are so stupid. They fête and fête white people who are actually small potatoes. The truth, I'm afraid, is more complex. First of all, major investors know who the Fortune 500 companies are, and don't leave their handlings with small-time dealers like the CEO Club. These remaining companies are still valuable for certain provinces and communities, and they are a big deal there. But it isn't going to drive government policy or anything. The potential business they bring is important enough that its better for the hosts to err on the edge of formality.

Their Web site promises "a firsthand look at American CEOs visiting, networking, and learning how business is done in China... and insight into Asian culture, historical landmarks, and information on all major Chinese cities." There's some truth to that. What the buyer of the "China Picture Book" gets is an inside look into how American business are bumbling their way through one of the biggest potential markets in world history.