No Business Card; No Respect

So Russell and I went to this event a couple of Tuesdays ago.  It was sponsored by some business club Russell belongs to called the FCC (not to be confused with the Federal Communications Commission).

Basically it's a bunch of people who work in marketing, or a related field, in Tokyo.  I had to put on a business suit for the first time in six months.  Good thing I brought one.  Anyway, Russell invited me because, besides cocktails, which of course I'm always game for, the guest speaker was going to talk about TED X.

I was very excited about the prospect of both, especially given everything I had heard about TED.

Boy was I disappointed, not to mention demoralized.  First, there were no cocktails.  At dinner they only served one glass of wine, which was decent, but only one.  Seriously?  Second, the guest speaker wasn't what I expected.

It was touted as an "inspiring discussion about Ted X" but really it was a guy talking about his challenges executing the 2nd ever TEd X.  He showed about 45 seconds of one TED talk and just when it started to seduce you, something about a professor and her brain, he cut if off.  I was hoping for a little more inspiration.  The only thing I was inspired to do was go home and drink and maybe log onto TED.com to find out what that's all about.

This only after I learned the hard way you don't show up to a business function in Tokyo without business cards - even if you're not employed.  My empty handed explanation of "trailing spouse" just didn't cut it.  I had to turn on the heavy charm which was just slightly more effectual than blondly pointing at my handwritten name tag that said "Dawn."  Doesn't everyone know what a "Dawn" is?

The only person remotely interested was this snazzily dressed Japanese man.  He was wearing an all cream ensemble except for his jaunty tan hat adorned with various pins of unknown origin.  Complimenting him on his cool hat was apparently an open invitation to share with me that the hat had been recently signed by Ken Watanabe, who is hot I confess.  Turns out he's a photographer and he just happened to have some black and white copies of the photo shoot he just did with Ken.  He proudly gave me one.  I demonstrated appropriate awe.

After our brief and somewhat one-sided conversation I met his manager, an Asian woman, wearing a red power suit who commented on how much healthier the food is in Japan.  I agree but later I thought maybe she was making a point about my American figure.  Nah.

Interestingly, the photographer's consort showed up a few minutes later wearing a beautiful cream colored kimono.  She didn't have a name tag; she didn't need one.  Maybe I should don a kimono next time.

And I don't know what was going on with the body odor but it seemed like one out of every three participants had serious fetor.  Russell thought it was him.  Later when I asked him why on earth would he think it was him, he said, "it kept following me around."

The highlight of the evening was the food.  No media chicken here.  I thought the appetizer plate (soup, and three kinds of salads with various meats, was the dinner, only to be delighted by another course of genuinely great crispy fish on top of a luscious mystery vegetable.  And I met a couple of interesting and accomplished females - alpha females.  This made me feel very unaccomplished indeed.  One is a partner for luminalearning and trains executives all over the world and the other is in charge of training and development for Amex Japan  They were gracious and humored me - the trailing spouse.  This was the first test of my willpower and self-validation issues.

The next event guest speaker is the head of marketing for some French chocolate company.  Part of the deal is he has to bring some of his product.  I might be ok with that but I may have to start wearing a mask.  Perhaps the Japanese have it right after all with the mask thing.