 Bingo! We're back. This is Think Tech. And this show, which is just initiated now, is Outside In. This is a new beginning today for Outside In. And our special guest is Pauline Chakmachyan. Pauline is a G-Wiz. She's with Visit Kyoto. She's the ambassador of Visit Kyoto. She's an international foreign policy and foreign relations entrepreneur. We mean that in the fullest sense of the French word. With several dozen projects in her portfolio. And she's starting a show. We hope she will continue called Outside In here in Think Tech. And the idea is that this is a look at Hawaii from an outside perspective. And how do we look to the world? And how can we use that lesson to make ourselves all the better? Welcome to the show. Welcome to your show, Pauline. Hello, Jay. Interesting to be a guest on one's own show, but yes. So yes, well, that's the way we get, and we always do that. So, Query, what is your training background? Give us a short biographical sketch, okay? Sure. Well, I was born in California. I lived in central London for quite some time. I visited Japan quite a lot. So I'm very familiar with that country in particular, as well as England. And I hibernate usually during the winters here in Hawaii. One of the most beautiful places on earth. Yes. And just a little bit about my background. I'm involved in a number of business-related projects, as you mentioned. And I'm also a professional public speaker on various aspects of British and Japanese history and art and culture. And I am a Visit Kyoto Ambassador. I'm one of 50 such ambassadors. What is it to be a Visit Kyoto Ambassador? It's to encourage those visitors to Japan to spend as much time possible in the old capital of Japan, which is Kyoto. You like Kyoto, don't you? I love Kyoto. So it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And it's referred to sometimes as the Thousand Year Capital, because it was the capital of Japan for over 1,000 years. You know Shinmosan Street in Kyoto? Maybe I do. Why is there something? Yes. Okazaki is the arts district, yes. And there are many streets around that area. So the No Theatre, which I used to go to a lot, that they had the Kansei School of No there. They just turned it into an opera house. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. That's one of the most recent developments in the art district there. I'm glad you've been. Thank you very much for coming. Well, I want to know now about your entrepreneurial activities in foreign policy and the like. Oh well, Zaf was being very generous in his description of me. But I deal mostly with four continents. So it's Australia, the biggest island in the smallest continent. As they say, Asia, Europe, and North America. And the projects I deal with range in terms of what they are. So sometimes they are scientific related things, sometimes it's related to property, sometimes it's related to retail. So it depends on the individual project. And most of my public speaking activities I do regular lecture tours when I'm invited to New Zealand and Australia. So I love Australia very much and we're gonna probably talk about that in a little bit as well. So yeah. Now when you go and speak, what do you speak about? Until whom do you speak? Well, one of my academic specialisms is free masonry, which is a part of 18th century British intellectual history. And a lot of people sort of grimace and kind of look at you like a half-animal when you mention what is free masonry. And I have to explain where it was kind of the Facebook of the 18th century. The Facebook of the 18th century. You heard it here on thinking. You thought it was a new thing. So it was a kind of, yes. So nothing's new. People copy ideas that have already come up with, but they just change form over time. As a lot of historians and archaeologists always mention, nothing's changed in thousands of years. It just, we eat different food and we're different clothes now. And so it was, you could call it the Facebook of the 18th century because it was a highly formalized, established social network. And then it started in Britain and there is some academic debate as to whether that was actually Scotland or England, but I'm not going to, we don't have time to get into that now. But it eventually spread throughout the world. So the first overseas lodges were founded in Gibraltar and Calcutta by the British. So they were, it was imported into these other places around the world by British military lodges for the most part. So they carried their hobby with them. So it brings a little bit of England or a little bit of Britain back home, back to these places. And then the locals in those areas, they were encouraged to become members. So eventually it spread all throughout the world. Really, really interesting subject matter, kind of made fun of even in the academic world. But there's a group of serious scholars that have been looking at this subject for the past 15 years or so. So we're making some progress in that so that people just don't burst out in the laughter. No, but I don't think it's worth, it's worth examining it because you hear that term, but nobody really knows much about the Masons. They're originally Masons, weren't they? Well, there is, there are three different theories about that, whether there was any direct connection. And then there's a transitional theory. And then in the form that we know it today, which is speculative freemasonry, in other words, the gentleman who borrowed certain traditions from the medieval guild of stonemasons in terms of wearing the apron and the gloves, that sort of thing. That that's it's more of that Facebook that I'm referring to. It's a formalized network of meeting places. And this really skyrocketed in the 18th century. Because I always explain to people, you know, everybody romanticizes certain periods of time in history. I personally like the 18th century. But a lot of people romanticize medieval times, for example. And I always say, oh, that's wonderful, because, you know, feudalism, which is the most efficient system, actually, in the world, if you discount the fact that most people were miserable apart from the upper classes, and even those people were sometimes not safe. But feudalism is an extremely efficient system, because everybody knew their place and you didn't have a confused middle class. And the Japanese had this system for a while, too, borrowed from Chang'an in China. Why do they call it in Japan? Well, it's just feudalism. Daimyo is the feudal lord. So and then you have the warriors and this sort of thing. And farmers, interestingly enough, were the third most important category, because you had the emperor and the nobility up at the top. And then the next most important people were the warriors, the samurai. And then the third most important people were farmers, because they produced food for the nation. And then you had the artisans, the people who made the pottery and the things that people utilized for practical purposes or ornamental purposes. And then the lowest of the low was the merchant, because he was considered a parasite, because he didn't produce anything of his own, but made money off the efforts of money. That's right. That's right. So it wasn't just certain nationalities in Europe at that moniker, but it happened in Japan as well. So you speak to Masons or about Masons? I discuss what they do and I find them interesting not only for the artwork that they've produced. There's beautiful Masonic artwork in terms of glassware, regalia, jewelry. And these are all very, very beautiful items that are crafted with Masonic symbolism. But what I find interesting on the social level is that they were an experiment. It was designed to promote tolerance of other people's opinions, especially in the arena of politics and religion, because these tend to be the two subjects that divide people the most. And the Masons were not a religious organization, right? Well, they're sort of, we say quasi-religious, because it depends on the system of Freemasonry, because they're unlike the conspiracy theories that are out there in the world. There isn't one governing body that is international, that controls all the Masons in the world. The Mother Grand Lodge of England, as it's referred to, or the United Grand Lodge of England. Is that where it is today? That's the headquarters for English and Welsh Freemasons. I see, okay. So each country will have their own administrative and ceremonial headquarters. For example, Ireland has their own Grand Lodge. Scotland has their own Grand Lodge. Some countries have more than one Grand Lodge. Can I join the Masons today? Of course, because you're a true Noakida, Jay, because originally the membership in England was for Christians, regardless of denomination. So it was kind of an exercise to bring Catholics and Protestants together, because ordinarily they would not have made friends with one another. And then a revision to the membership requirements were made, so that you had to believe in God. But then a true Noakida could then become a Masons, so a Jew. So Jewish people. So a Jewish person could then become a Freemason. And then as it spread throughout the world through the military lodges that I mentioned before, then you have Muslims, Hindus becoming members. So in the British system, in the Grand Lodge of England and Wales, there is a requirement for belief in a supreme being. But it is vague as to what that is. It's whatever God is to that individual person. That's good, because it came up at a time when people would cut your head off if you weren't the right religion. So they were saying any religion will do this good thing. It was shortly after all that bloody, bloody nonsense. But it's also interesting because the French broke away from, they were the first to break away from that religious requirement. So in certain French Grand Lodges, atheists can become members. So it depends on the system in each country, and some countries have more than one system, like the French. So the other thing that I think is... If I'm a Freemason in Britain, can I, am I automatically a Freemason in France? Are they reciprocal rights? Ah, they are canon. It depends on the Grand Lodge, because certain Grand Lodges in France are reciprocal or in amity, as they say, with the United Grand Lodge of England and others are not. So you have visitation rights in the ones that are in amity with UGLE, ugly, United Grand Lodge of England. And the other thing that's interesting about Freemasonry is that it not only promotes this kind of tolerance of other people's opinions over very serious subjects, because you couldn't talk about politics and religion during the Lodge meetings. So it was encouraged to cultivate that tolerance both outside and inside the presence of these people, the fellow members. So interesting, because that's part of the naval service, you know. In the war room, the classical model is you don't talk about politics or religion in the war room. Anything else is okay. And that's because you couldn't, there was a time in England, you couldn't move up the ranks in the Navy unless you were a Freemason. Interesting. Yeah, so there's a lot of Freemasonry in the military. In military history, there's a lot of it. So why do they, why do they say Freemason? Free from what? Well, it refers to the fact that sometimes people view medieval guildsmen or craftsmen as a lower class person. But actually, you didn't have the concept of the lower classes until the Industrial Revolution. Actually, an artisan or somebody capable of crafting some beautiful object or some useful object like a saddler, a pewterer, a butcher for anybody who had a skill. They were somewhere, I think they probably might be considered something in between lower and middle class. You know, the British are obsessed with class. It'd be someplace in there, but they had actually a high level of esteem in the society because people couldn't live without the things they produced. So in the sense of the stone mason, he was free to go work on a building site because the stone masons were responsible for the construction of complex structures like castles and cathedrals in Europe. But he was very important because they named the organization after him. Well, the origin of the word freemason is there are some different theories on that, but all you need to know for purposes of the gentlemen who borrowed those traditions is that they are referred to as speculative freemasons as opposed to operative freemasons. So operative freemasons are the medieval stone masons and then the speculative ones are the gentlemen. Why did you get into this, Pauline? From what I was told, my grandfather was a freemason. And when I asked what that was, because I'm always very curious, you know, one's grandmother can't explain what that is because even the wife didn't know. Are there women who are freemasons? Yes, there are, but again, once again, it depends on the system. So the French are big on that because not only do they, in certain of their grand lodges, do they accept atheists as members, but also women. Even there is one grand lodge called Grand Lodge Feminine de France, so you can tell. Feminine de France. Feminine de France, so you can guess who's members there. And so it really depends on the system, but the original requirements were belief in a supreme being, G, God in the British sense, géométrie in these other alternative French sense for some of the grand lodges in the French nation. And you had to be male and you had to be at least 21 years of age, but there are a few exceptions to that general rule. For example, if you were a Lewis or a son of a Mason, then you have a special dispensation to apply at the age of 18 instead, because there is a tradition in the family of membership. Is any of the secret, you know, I always thought there was a secret aspect to the Masons. No, I'm afraid if you just go on YouTube, people are putting recordings of ceremonies. Oh good, good, happy to hear that. So nothing's a secret because I'll tell you why. I'm an academic on the subject, I am not a freemason myself. You could be. I could apply, yes. I don't have the time, because you have to, I think if you promise to do something, it's sort of like going to church. If you say you're going to be a member of a particular organization, you should regularly contribute and you should regularly attend meetings. And I don't have time to do that because I travel a lot. So I wouldn't want to say I'm going to do something and running on my promise. We have time constraints too, you know, about this time in every show we take a break. Oh good. So we're going to take a break and we're going to come back and we're going to find out what else you're lecturing about, how it connects up with art and culture in the modern-day world and in the Commonwealth countries that you visit, and in Japan of course. We're also going to find out what you mean by outside in. Whoa, we're going to learn a lot of stuff. Aloha, this is Kelea Akina with the weekly Ehana Kako. Let's work together program on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network Mondays at 2 o'clock PM. Movers and shakers and great ideas. Join us. We'll see you then. Aloha. Hello, I'm Crystal from Clock Talk. I've got a new show here. You've got to tune in, check out my topics on sensitive provocative female issues. So Tuesday mornings, 10 o'clock, don't miss it. It's going to be fun and dangerous. Aloha. My name is John Wahee. And I actually had a small part to do with what's happening today. Served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Wahee every other Monday. Thank you. And I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Juan, that John Wahee is going to be next Monday. Anyway, so you had other things on masonry before masonry. Is that a fair way of saying it? You could say freemasonry. Freemasonry is more accurate. But let's talk about those things and then we'll move on. Yes, so the first thing was it promoted tolerance between and still does promote tolerance regarding the opinions of others. So that's a very important thing. We want to listen to somebody even though we don't agree with them necessarily. And the second thing it does is it cultivates introspection. So it encourages people to look at oneself. How can you improve yourself? And that's the third part. It encourages self-improvement as well. So in other words, regardless of what your current state of education is, try to always do something to better yourself. You know, instead of just... Sound like a core point. Yes. This is the way the tradesmen got together and elevated themselves to a higher status in the society, am I right? Well, I mean they already had that status regardless of whether or not they were members of a guild. That was just part of the way the work operated. But not everybody in a guild was a mason. It depends on are you talking about a stone mason's guild or a speculative freemason's guild. Speculative freemason. So freemason, yes, that's right because it was the gentleman as I mentioned. It's usually the offspring of the gentry and the nobility. They're sons who did the tour, they did the grand tour where they went to Greece and Italy and did sketches of all these ancient ruins. There was a kind of a trend towards antiquity at the time, much like when Napoleon crowned himself. During that era, the end of the 1700s, there was an Egyptian rage. So anything Egyptian was fashionable. So before that, anything ancient Greece. Sound like education is a big part of freemasonry also. So is there a freemason organization here in Hawaii now? Yes, it's virtually everywhere in the world except for places where it's specifically forbidden, for example Saudi Arabia, because they associate it with Sufism or the mystical branch of Islam. So they look upon the freemasonry with suspicion, not only because it's a foreign entity, but also because anything that encourages somebody to think on their own, that kind of thing. It undermines their system. But other Arab countries, other Muslim countries do have freemasons? And even in Saudi Arabia, I have heard from masons that even though it's not formally allowed, they do meet in secret. So you just need a meeting room and the people who are the members and you have your discussions. Is there a ceremony, like the Rotary Club? Yes, it's there. They ring a bell at the beginning? No, they play in organs. Slightly different but similar concept. So that's one of the easiest ways of explaining freemasonry is that it's somewhat akin to Rotary Club or Lions. But it is slightly different in that you should not be joining freemasonry with the mental intent of promoting your business. But in reality, people do. I mean, that's one of the reasons people join, although you're not supposed to have that intent. It's supposed to be this higher idealized. Sounds terrific. It sounds worth joining. But now, you know, we introduced you as a person who's international foreign policy and foreign relations entrepreneur, which is a really interesting way of characterizing. And I wonder, I mean, certainly how much of your time, how much of your intellectual product is involved in freemasonry versus other things? And what are the other things? Oh, well, I'm only talking on freemasonry when I get invited to do so by an organization. And it's mostly related to Masonic art and what they do, because a lot of the particular organization in Australia, for example, that invites me, they're largely composed of people who are interested in the arts. And they tend to be female dominant and a lot of them have husbands or male relatives who are or were freemasons. They're always curious, much like myself, what those people were up to. So I explain what they do. And as you asked me before, is anything a secret? Not really, because as I mentioned, I'm not a freemason. But everything, all the rituals are in the British Library or, you know, you can look online. There are a lot of resources online, even Mason's published research articles that you can find online now. And you're free to use the Library and Archives in Masonic libraries. Before we leave the subject, though, I do want to ask you, is it on an ascending trajectory or not? I mean, is it growing? Are there more Mason's? Are there a fewer Mason's? Where is it going? It depends on the country, interestingly enough, in countries where the freemasons have opened up a bit more. For example, in England, you can now take tours of the Grand Lodge. So it's something a tourist would do, especially if you like art deco, art and architecture, because it's a stunning building actually. It's a hidden gem. And it's in Covent Garden, which is a beautiful arts district. So in countries, interestingly, enough where they've opened up a bit and they started to explain what they're doing, the membership has gone down. And in countries where it's still a bit of a mystery, it's kind of exclusive to become a member, the membership is going up. So people used to get annoyed by the fact that they were secretive, but the mystery actually helped them. Mystery helps. Yeah, because people want to belong to something exclusive. Sure they do. Everybody thinks they're special. You know, you use it, what is a snowflake? Everybody's a snowflake now. So I want to get to the other areas just for a moment. That is international foreign policy and foreign relations and entrepreneurship in those areas. Can you talk for a minute or two about that? Yes. Well, people sometimes mistake entrepreneur for just solely referring to business or commercial endeavors. And actually from the origin of the word, it actually means anybody who takes action or starts something. So I've got, we've got a little bit of a project that's with the consular corps here in Hawaii. So as many of your viewers probably know, there is a small tightly knit consular corps of mission consuls, consul generals from certain countries in the Asia Pacific mainly, and also honorary consuls. So there is an international community in Hawaii. There aren't many of each country, and we don't have all countries represented because Hawaii is not as cosmopolitan as say the most cosmopolitan city in the world. Consulates, we don't have embassies here. Yeah. So we have mostly honorary consuls and they're quite interesting individuals. And not many people know about them. So I wanted to start something and the 200th anniversary of the corps is approaching in 2024. So we have a project that we're working on with them with a small team and Admiral's Latopers, you know, just stepped down as dean of the corps. So now we have a new lady who's the corps dean and we're working closely with them. This is an event you're going to build? It's more of a log of the or of the history. We don't know what form exactly it will take yet, but it's more along the lines of a book. So that's very interesting because a lot of people aren't aware of the international community here and they're actually the most interesting people. And that's the reason for the outside in concept. You know, it's interesting that there is an international community. It's not only the consular corps. It's the diplomatic American diplomats who have retired here and who are sometimes connected with the East West center, but in any event a lot of retired ambassadors and other diplomatic officials live here and engage here. And many of them under the rubric of Pacific Forum CSIS, which is meeting just in a week or two for its annual Board of Governors. I hope I see you there. Yes, it's on the Ides of March, is it not? Exactly right. It's on the 15th of March, yes. I have a friend who's born on that day and he hates it when you get bored of hearing the same because everybody thinks they're saying something original. He's going to be 70 soon, so he's getting very tired. So talk to me about outside in polling. What does that mean? Ah, yes. How do you see that unfolding? Ah, yes. So as I mentioned, we all know Hawaii is an extremely beautiful and special place. Otherwise, none of us would spend any time here or live here, either part of the year or all year round. However, I think much like the Freemasons focus on self-improvement, I think there could be things that we could do better if we have those discussions and maybe see how people in the outside world do things instead of always looking inside out. We might want to start looking outside in. I know and it's a new concept and you know how things like that operate. Well, I think often we look inside, inside. We don't even look outside at all. Ah, will you do sometimes? I always hear this expression that people throw around and it's you're either on the island or off the island. But mobile internationalists, such as myself, we're both, we're both on the island and off the island. So we go see what other people do and see how maybe it can be applied to Hawaii. And I've seen a huge, I have to say, I'm very impressed because I thought this place was doomed to be backwards forever. But I've seen a change in the past two or three years where people who are born and or raised in Hawaii, they've gone off to the mainland or elsewhere and they're bringing back this technical knowledge back to Hawaii. And they're, you know, they're starting up these enterprises in the primarily the tech sector. And also in the art sector, which is coming up next week, which is very exciting. And I encourage everybody to try to go to as many events as possible. It's the Honolulu biennial. So the original idea, of course, is from Venice. The Venice biennial has been going on, I think, since 1895. Tell us, what is it? What is it? How does it happen? Yeah, well, I mean, you, I think you just Google it and put Honolulu biennial and it's happening from, I think, the 8th of March to the 11th. And then it goes on for, it's two months, but the kickoff week. Is it around the Art Museum? It's the hub, the IBM building. So it's three through three ward, I think. So I would encourage people to visit the website because the events listing is on there. And you know, I'm impressed because it's the first time they're doing it. But again, from what I've noticed, and there are plenty of examples that we can go through in the shows later on, that the idea comes from elsewhere. So I think Venice is on its 57th biennial this year. So that's been going on. That's been 1895. Yeah, from another century it's been going on. So Hawaii just finally caught up. But the first ideas are the ones you copy and improve, isn't it? Yeah. And everybody's always copying from it. There's nothing wrong with Hawaii copying from others, but we'd like to encourage more of that behavior so things kind of get more sophisticated here. Do you think Hawaii has a future in art? I think it's... I mean, as an international art center is what I mean. I'm not so sure about that. So no, I don't think one can replace places like New York or Paris or in fact Tokyo for things like that. So it's too small. And the population is much smaller. I think it's got a better hope for things like... You had the conservation conference, didn't you, last year. So I think it's... For its strengths, I think it should go with that. So we had this little discussion at Booz Allen Hamilton during their Ideas Festival of what could Hawaii be known for besides the beach? Because even to this day, if I'm abroad and I meet my friends in other countries, they go, what are you doing there? Don't you just go to the beach? We have to rebrand our stuff. I mean, so Booz Allen and Hamilton, they were thinking, well, could we be known for something related to technology like ARVR, augmented reality, virtual reality. If we organized a conference, something like that, and encourage people to come, people always would probably want an excuse to come to Hawaii. But we have to be thinking about it. Yeah, we have to be talking about it and thinking about it and not being so insular and provincial. And we'll think about it on your show, won't we? Yeah, yes. You're going to bring people in. Are you going to talk about how they feel about us? You can talk about what we can learn from them and how we can take all of that, synergize all of that forward. Let's Pauline Chakmachian. She's going to be doing outside in. You'll see her in this chair instead of that chair. Starting very soon. We really appreciate you coming down, Pauline. Thank you very much, Jay. See you soon. Cheers.