by Alex Kerr
There are many gods in Tenmangu. First of all, there is the household altar above the studio room. In the center sits a figure of Michizane, and to the left and right of him are paper charms, talismans from shrines and temples, and rosary beads. Above the entryway there sits a small, blackened, wooden statue of Daikoku (god of prosperity). The statue is only about twelve centimeters high, but it radiates power as though it were carved by the sculptor Enku. Of all the things that were in the house when I first moved in, this is the only one I’ve kept, and I think of it as the true guardian of Tenmangu. On the central pillar is pasted a charm from Kuwayama Shrine, and a likeness of Marishi-ten (god of contests) seated on a chariot of swiftly moving wild boars. In the living room, a tanzaku plaque by Onisaburo Deguchi hangs on the pillar of the tokonoma. In the innermost room is a Thai Buddha, and next to that a small altar to Shiva. This may seem an extreme sort of superstition, but I am only following the typical Japanese religious pattern: not wanting to be bound to a single religion, I subscribe to them all – Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu. Gods and Buddhas float ceaselessly in the air of Tenmangu, and their warm breathing fills the house.
Living in the countryside brings with it a number of inconveniences. Foremost among these are the insects. From the time of ‘Squirming Insects’ around the middle of March, legions of mosquitoes, moths, bees, ants, centipedes, spiders and helmet bugs sally forth. Doing battle with them is quite a chore. When Diane lived here, she had a thirteen-stringed koto which she kept on one side of the living room. Once, late at night, the sound of the instrument suddenly broke the silence. Strumming chords floated gently across the room – chiri chiri chiri zuru zuru zuru – but Diane and I were under the mosquito netting, alone in the house as far as we knew. Taking a candle, we went over to the koto, but there was nothing to be seen. Even as we watched, ghostly fingers continued to play and chiri chiri chiri zuru zuru zuru cascaded through the house, while Diane and I clung to each other in terror. Finally, I could bear it no longer and turned on all the lamps in the house, to find that a large moth had got itself trapped under the strings of the koto.
Ghost concerts I could live with, but mosquitoes were another matter. Mosquito netting is strange stuff: while not actually having any holes, it always seems to let some mosquitoes in. In the end, as a result of the mosquito problem, I finally put up glass doors against the garden, installed air-conditioning and effectively divided inside from outside. However, one hundred and fifty years have passed since Tenmangu was moved to its present spot, and as the result of a succession of typhoons and earthquakes, all the pillars lean and there is not a single right angle in the entire house. Insects manage to find a way through the gaps, and I don’t think Tenmangu will ever be completely liberated from them.
Another problem is the length of the commute to Kyoto and Osaka. In truth it is not really all that long: twenty-five minutes to Kyoto by train, and one-and-a-quarter hours to Osaka by car. But for city dwellers, the distance to the countryside feels wider than the Sahara, and it is not easy to get the courage to cross this desert. I once got a call from an art collector in Amsterdam. ‘I’m going to Japan next month. I’d love to visit Tenmangu,’ he said. A month later, when he arrived in Tokyo, he called again, ‘I’m going to Kyoto tomorrow. I’ll see you the day after.’ The next day, a call came from Kyoto, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.’ Then, on the morning of the appointed day, he called to say, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t go to Kameoka. It’s just too far.’
At the turn of the century, the Comte de Montesquiou ruled the Parisian social world with an iron hand; nobody ever turned down an invitation to one of the Comte’s soirées. But one day Montesquiou moved from the east side of the Bois de Boulogne to a larger palace on the west side. It meant only a two-kilometer drive through the park, but from the day the Comte moved, high society tossed him aside without a qualm, and Montesquiou lived out the remainder of his days in isolation.
Certainly visitors to Tenmangu are not numerous. It’s bad for the art business, but I don’t feel particularly lonely. On the contrary, the distance from Kyoto and Osaka screens me from casual visitors, so that most of my guests are good friends. As a result, having guests over to my house is always pleasantly relaxed and enjoyable.
Over the past eighteen years, Tenmangu has seen a stream of Japanese friends who have lived here with me or taken care of the house. They all shared one thing, which was not an interest in art, nor a love of nature, as you might think. Their aim was to escape from Japanese society. There are very few places in Japan where you can escape from the constraints of this society. It is nearly impossible to ‘drop out’ and live a hippie life in the countryside: the stranglehold of complex rules and relations is at its most severe in the rice-growing countryside. On the other hand, in the big cities life is so expensive that it is all one can do to just pay the rent. In Tokyo, people who want to work in an environment that is free of Japanese social constraints typically try to get a job with a foreign company; but working in one of these offices is a rat race that brings its own strains and hardships. So the relaxed life at Tenmangu seems like a peaceful haven for such people, at least until the next step, which usually involves leaving Japan.
A Japanese friend once said to me, ‘I always associated old Japanese houses with an image of poverty. When I saw Tenmangu I realized for the first time that one could live well in an old house.’ The key to the destruction of the city of Kyoto lies in this comment. In the eyes of the city administration, rows of old wooden houses look ‘poor’; they are an embarrassment, and should be removed quickly. This is not only true of Kyoto – the same feeling lurks deep in the hearts of people all over Japan. If this were not so, the rampant destruction that has occurred here would have sparked a strong public outcry; but until recently there has been hardly a peep of protest.
Kameoka has already been completely transformed, for the wave of ‘uglification’ that threatens all of Japan is advancing here as well. Every year a few of the rice paddies surrounding Tenmangu are torn up to become parking lots or golf driving ranges. Fortunately, the grounds of Tenmangu are spacious and the mountain behind the garden is shrine property, so for a while, at least, we should be safe.
There is a framed calligraphy in the foyer of Tenmangu which reads ‘Nest of Peace and Happiness’. It was written by an Edo-period literati and harks back to the house of one of the Sung scholars who revived Confucianist philosophy in the twelfth century. Though he did not have much money, he surrounded himself with books and scrolls in his small cottage. He invited friends over to his ‘nest’, and there they laid the grounds for a revolution in thinking. For me, the true charm of Tenmangu lies in its air of relaxation. My friends and I may be plotting revolution, but due perhaps to the quiet surroundings, or to the ‘black glistening’ of its four-hundred-year-old pillars, whoever enters Tenmangu quickly succumbs to its relaxed atmosphere. The visiting businessman, the type who always rises punctually for breakfast meetings, inevitably oversleeps at Tenmangu, or forgets to fax or call his office. It is quite common for a guest who planned to stay only a single night to lose track of time and stay for several days.
The visitor to Tenmangu soon finds himself becoming inexplicably drowsy. It is not because I have put something in the wine, but because the pace of life has suddenly slowed down. While talking or listening to music, my guest gradually begins to slouch to one side. From a chair, he moves over to the soft silk cushions on the kang, and lies down. Soon he is unable to prop up his head any longer, his face sinks down onto the pillow and he slips off to sleep. The ‘nest’ has worked its magic again.
CHAPTER 8
Trammell Crow
The Bubble Years
At the end of 1983, I visited Dallas, Texas, for Christmas. I was invited there by Trammell S. Crow, an old Yale classmate. Trammell S., with his long hair, bright orange jumpsuit, sports car and elfin grin, was one of my wilder college friends. He had promised to meet me at the airport, but when I arrived I coul
dn’t find him. Then I realized with a shock that the clean-cut businessman in a blue suit holding out his hand to greet me was Trammell S.; I only recognized him by his grin. When I asked what had happened to him, he told me that he had gone to work for his father, Trammell Crow.
As our car approached downtown Dallas, Trammell S. pointed at the skyline ahead, and said, ‘That forty-story skyscraper on the right is ours, and that fifty-story building under construction is also. And the hotel we’re passing – Dad let me design some of it myself.’ I realized then that I really knew nothing about his father. Trammell S. began to tell me something about him.
Trammell Crow was a Texan, born in Dallas, and until the age of thirty-five he was an ordinary bank employee. However, one day he had a sudden inspiration to buy an old warehouse. He remodeled it, found tenants to rent it, and then bought up two or three warehouses nearby. He remodeled them, and rented them out also. He continued for forty years, expanding from warehouses into trade marts, office buildings, apartments, hotels and every other imaginable form of real estate. Eventually, the Trammell Crow Company became the largest real estate developer in the world.
The next day, Trammell S. took me to his father’s office. Expecting to see dull, corporate Americana, I felt for a moment that we had mistakenly stepped into a museum: as far as the eye could see was a treasure house of Asian art. Khmer sculpture stood in the corridors, and Chinese jade carvings sat casually next to computers and on top of filing cabinets. ‘Dad loves Asian art,’ Trammell S. said. ‘He likes using his collection to decorate the office, so his employees can enjoy it too. I’ll introduce you to him.’
Trammell Crow sat at a long table covered with blueprints, in conference with his architects concerning the design of a new city. ‘Dad, I want you to meet a friend,’ said Trammell S, but his father did not even lift his head. ‘He studied with me at Yale.’ Still no interest. ‘He majored in Chinese and Japanese Studies.’
At this, Trammell Crow jumped up and said excitedly, ‘Chinese and Japanese? Wonderful!’ He grabbed a jade carving from the shelf nearest at hand and asked me, ‘What do you think of this?’ ‘It has the squared barrel shape of an ancient Chinese Song jade, but I don’t think it could be so old,’ I answered. ‘The style of the characters was popular at the end of the nineteenth century, so I would guess it’s probably a nineteenth-century scholar’s reconstruction.’
‘What?’ Trammell shouted. ‘The folks at Sotheby’s guaranteed that this was a genuine ancient artifact!’ I tried to mumble an apology, but he brushed it aside. ‘How would you like to work for me?’ he suddenly asked. ‘We’ve recently opened a business in Shanghai, and I could use a manager there.’ Taken aback by the sudden change of topic, all I could say was, ‘I’m very flattered, and there is nothing I would rather do than live in China for a while. But I’ve spent my whole life studying nothing but culture and art, and I have absolutely no knowledge of business. I’m sure I would make a mess of it, so I really can’t accept.’ Trammell replied, ‘No business experience? Fine. At any rate, let’s make you an employee. Starting today.’ And he turned to his secretary and said, ‘Send Mr Kerr a thousand dollars every month as a consulting fee.’
‘Thank you very much, but what’s this fee for?’ I asked. ‘Don’t worry. You go back to Japan, and think about it. Then you write me a letter and let me know what you’re going to do for me.’ And with an abrupt ‘Good-bye’, he turned back to his desk and the waiting plans. The entire exchange took only ten minutes.
I went back to Japan, and sure enough a payment of $1000 arrived in my bank account each month; but I was at a loss as to what I could do for Trammell Crow. Since my specialty was art, all I could think of was art collecting. So I wrote him a letter proposing that if I acted as his agent at the Kyoto auctions, he could develop a collection of Japanese art very affordably. Trammell liked the idea, and soon I was buying an enormous volume of screens and scrolls for him. To pay for them, he wired me sums of money far greater than I had ever dealt with before. I soon reached the limits of my old informal mode of operations: taxes had to paid, screen-repair expenses ballooned, employees had to be hired and the accounting became complicated. I had no choice but to establish a company, so in the fall of 1984 Chiiori Ltd was born. I took the name from my house in Shikoku, but Chiiori Ltd’s focus was far removed from the romance of Iya: it was all about taxes, accounting and the filing of official documents.
Trammell seemed satisfied with the artworks I was choosing for him, and would occasionally invite me to Dallas. I later learned that he was regarded as a maverick in American business. According to one famous anecdote, when he was asked during a speech to the Harvard Business School what the secret of his success was, he simply answered, ‘Love.’
Before meeting Trammell, all my efforts to understand Japan were filtered through the medium of classical literature and traditional arts such as Kabuki. In my opinion, business was a sideline from which there was little to be learned. But one day, Trammell said to me, ‘Alex, what you need is some lessons in reality!’, and he invited me to sit in on business meetings when I was in Dallas. One such meeting involved the representative of an Italian company from which Trammell Crow was ordering marble for the face of a new office building. Negotiations over the price were heated: first the Italian side named a unit price of thirteen, then Trammell proposed nine, and eventually the price was set at ten. The marble company representative was about to leave when Trammell stopped him, ‘You brought the price down to ten for us,’ he said, ‘but that gives you very little profit and you’ll be unable to return home feeling good about this. Let’s make it eleven. In exchange, I expect you’ll put extra effort into this for us.’ And the marble salesman went home happy.
In the summer of 1986, I received a fax from Trammell S., telling me that the Trammell Crow Company was planning on jointly developing a wholesale mart in Kobe with the Sumitomo Trust Bank, and that I was required to meet with the manager of the development section of the bank in Osaka. Digging a little-used suit out of the back of my closet, I fearfully made my way there. Except for when I founded Chiiori Ltd, I had never spoken to a bank manager before, so I was extremely nervous.
The manager of Sumitomo Trust’s development section was a man named Nishi. Looking back now, I see that Nishi was emblematic of the so-called ‘bubble’ of the 1980s. At heart an entrepreneur like Trammell rather than a staid banker, he had become involved in the Kansai area’s mega real estate developments early on, and was the mastermind behind projects such as the Nara Technopolis. Riding the wave of the real estate boom, Nishi had realized enormous success. Brimming with excitement, he explained that Sumitomo Trust had won the bidding for a contract to develop Kobe’s Rokko Island, a large plot of landfill in the middle of the harbor. It was not, of course, open bidding: the city, as is customary in Japanese construction, had made a cozy deal with Sumitomo Trust, but one of the conditions was that a wholesale fashion mart be constructed on the site. The largest mart facility in the world at that time was Trammell Crow’s Dallas Market Center, so Sumitomo Trust wanted to link up with Trammell Crow to develop the Kobe mart.
Thus began a long interchange between Sumitomo Trust and the Trammell Crow Company. The project manager assigned from Dallas was Bill Starnes, a big Texan with genial manners belying a killer business instinct. My job was to interpret, but it was very rough because the financial terminology being used was lost on me in both English and Japanese. For instance, Starnes kept talking about something called IRR (internal rate of return). This calculates the overall profit that a real estate venture is going to earn, incorporating debt repayment, annual rental income and the projected rise in land value. In America, IRR is the standard measure for all real estate developments, and so naturally Starnes put great emphasis on it. But I had no idea what he was talking about. There was nothing for it but to follow Starnes back to his hotel each evening, where he gave me a crash course in IRR and general real estate know-how. Before joining Trammell
Crow, Starnes had been a professor at Rice University, so he made a good teacher. He bought textbooks for me to read, drew up lists of vocabulary and even gave me mathematics homework to do.
There were many points of controversy between Sumitomo Trust and Trammell Crow, but the most memorable of all had to do with this IRR calculation. After some time I finally got to the point where I understood IRR, but I soon discovered that the Sumitomo bank officers I had been in such awe of had no idea what it was! ‘We don’t need IRR in Japan,’ they told Starnes. ‘Who cares about rental income? The main thing is that land prices will always go up. Japan is different from America.’ ‘In that case,’ Starnes replied, ‘you must have some other method of calculation in order to evaluate real estate projects here?’ And slowly the strange truth emerged: Sumitomo had precise criteria for establishing mortgage rates or determining collateral for loans, but they had absolutely no method of evaluating the aggregate merit of a new real estate venture. They had never needed one. For forty years since the war, land and rents in Japan had risen uninterruptedly. If one just had enough money to acquire land, everything else would go smoothly. Large banks like Sumitomo Trust, protected and coddled by a financial system which stifled both domestic and foreign competition, had had a particularly easy time of it.
In Trammell Crow’s swashbuckling youth, real estate moguls had simply made deals which felt right and had then sealed them with a handshake. But after suffering the consequences of several disastrous real estate booms and busts – the so-called ‘real estate cycle’ of America – they had called in experts to run their companies for them, and the experts had brought tools of analysis like IRR with them. Japan, however, had not made this adjustment, and there were no brilliant analysts like Bill Starnes in the Sumitomo Trust Bank. The management of large financial institutions had become soft, because they had failed to learn the next generation of real estate know-how that had become common knowledge in the rest of the world. The fact that the bank did not understand IRR should have been a danger sign to us; from that alone we could perhaps have predicted the impending crash.
