While traveling in China and Japan this past month with Jennifer, I took about 900 photos with the little Olympus Digital camera that John gave me. There was a little shop around the corner from the Cui’s in Shanghai that I tried out for printing 4 X 6 prints of the digital images. It is really amazing how good they are. I am so impressed that I don’t think that I will go back to film except for rare things. It is kind of a landmark for the world really. This is one of those apocalyptic moments where the obelisk is humming in the desert and the monkeys are waving clubs in the air. Something out of a Kubric movie would do it justice. The world is changing and no matter how traditional in basic philosophy I try to be nothing is going to hold back sweeping changes.

I remember reading a story about the Swiss watch industry back in the 1970′s or it may have been even earlier. That is something I will have to check. Anyway, the point of the story was about the decision of the Swiss watch makers to decline an offer to use the NEW quartz movement technology. They decided that this was not something that they were interested in doing because it took away their talent as movement makers and the whole idea was foreign to what they passionately did, namely design and manufacture fine mechanical watch movements. The result in the end was a total disintegration of the Swiss watch industry in favor of cheaper and cheaper quartz watch movements. By the turn of the century now the only Swiss movements being made are for very expensive gentry watches and almost a specialty item now. I don’t know what the percentages of money are currently but it has to be well over 90% of all money spent for watches worldwide is now for quartz movements. The Swiss watch industry is still there but nothing like it was before the introduction of the quartz watch movement. The Swiss watchmakers could have ridden the wave and maintained there dominance in the industry but for their prejudices which ended them up on the sidelines. This story is one that I will never forget. Will it change the way I make my own decisions about the world. Probably not but it is good information that in a rational and insightful moment may leak through to the brain. The future is upon us and we can succeed or be relegated to the dung heap of the dinosaurs if we can’t change fast enough with the times.

This brings me back to the digital images that I took. It has been several years now that this technology has been around but silly me, I have held to the belief that Film was god forever. Wrong again. Its a new world as the images I took with the little digital camera point out. Maybe its not too late to avoid the dung heap. More later.

Back in the Saddle again

Well here I am back to work and nothing really has changed. One thing is over for the time being is the JACHO survey here at UCLA. The report was a very good one and everyone in management is very pleased to express it mildly. Maybe this will justify their changes in structure with the Hunter group. The brick layers just know how to lay bricks. Should we expect anything other than that?

This past week since arriving back from China has been difficult physically. The time difference and the lack of sleep for 24 hours when traveling put the whammy on me. I am only now just getting back to feeling a little normal. Even so I woke up at 4:00 this morning and it is Saturday. I don’t have to leave for work for another hour or so. Isn’t that thrilling.

After our week in Japan, Jennifer and I were anxious to get to Shanghai and on to visit her family. Our detour to Japan was really an amazing one that both of us will treasure. We took a short JAL flight from Osaka to Shanghai the first week of May with the plan of staying with Jennifer’s parents to celebrate their upcoming Golden Wedding anniversary on the 14th of May. Little did we know at the time but our stay in Shanghai would be punctuated by excursions southwards to the cities of Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Shaoxing. We were to visit the historical home of Chinang Kaishek and the home town of China’s most famous modern writer, Lu Xun. Finally, were visited a tea farm in the highlands above Hangzhou that made my trip. Stay tuned. During the next two weeks Jennifer I and ate more Chinese banquets than we could in a year here in Los Angeles. But most of all it was the people that were enjoyed the most. All this and more.

Shanghai

Our base of operations in China is out of Shanghai. Jennifer’s brother and her parents all live in this great historically rich city. What I love most about Shanghai is that it changes my conceptions about the world more than any city that I have ever visited. Our conceptions of China are totally rearranged after one visit here. If you get out in the world and open your eyes things change. Maybe its not the outside things that change but how we see view the world. China is an amazing country and will be a world leader in this century. There is not a doubt in my mind that China is on the way up! Take a look and maybe you will see what I have seen.