[Editor’s note: Doe’s own Ray Radford is traveling through Japan (cue “Wassaaaabi” commercial) and Singapore over the next couple of weeks spreading the word about Maker’s Mark - hopefully improving America’s international relations and providing his thoughts. He is writing from his Blackberry.]
Finally have sat down long enough to both reset my time zone clock and collect a few thoughts.
We have no, zero, nada, zip, understanding of the influence we have. The American subprime mess is having a ripple effect across the globe of monstrous proportions. It is damn near the lead story no matter where you look. Major story in the Asian Times talks about how the mess has caused millions of small investors in the China exchanges to be wiped out. I think the metaphor used to be “when we cough the world catches the flu”. Today the metaphor might better read, “when we flush, the rest of the world gets dirty”. My fear is that we might be on our way from respect and aspiration to being scorned and reviled. Yes I understand that it has to do with massive global greed and stupidity but it gets played out as a failure of America, not complicated financial instruments.
America brands are writ large. This morning over breakfast in a Tokyo restaurant (in the smoking section-it was great) I sat between a couple with an eastern-European accent and an South African gentleman. After breakfast all four of us lit up Marlboros - different health warning languages though. Taking my constitutional later I walked to the nearby Starbucks where I found the same three people. Apparently “Grande cappuccino mocha, latte, half-soy non-GMO foam” is now part of the global vocabulary.
Singapore is clean and very orderly. Well duh!
Watching the Masters and listening to Japanese commentators is weird beyond description. The one word I could understand was Tiger (no last name).
There is a Denny’s right across the street from me. It’s funny though (after our experience across the river that day we picked up Todd); I haven’t even the slightest desire to cross. Here I am, damn near half way around the world, in search of a little bit of Americana, and won’t go there because of what happened in one location in southern Indiana. A brand experience is still a brand experience no matter where you are
The BBC is boring and pedantic and smug.
No news about Brittany Spears, Kevin Federline, Paris Hilton, Barry Bonds, Nicole Ritchie, American Idol, Pacman Jones, (insert other names here) is REALLY REALLY good news.
That’s all for now.
