 This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. Community Matters here. Hi, I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Stink Tech Asia. We're talking about it here on a given Tuesday. And today we're going to talk about the 2020 summer Tokyo Olympics coming soon with Russell Hanla. He is the U.S. senior official for APEC, Hawaii. Welcome to the show, Russell. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Jay, for inviting me again. And I know this is a good subject for me. Myself being born and raised in Tokyo, Japan in 1959, and I'm a member in 1964. Yeah, Konichiwa. Yeah. Welcome. Anyways, I wanted to let you know in 1964 when they had the Tokyo Olympics, I was a kindergarten and I remember my mother took me to the Olympics seeing the marathon race. So we're all standing by the Koshu Kaido. It's a long strip national freeway that goes to... Do you remember this at the age of six? Five years old, six years old. And actually it was located right by where the Aji Monoto Stadium is right now. The spice company. Yes. And prior to that, before Aji Monoto Stadium was built, it used to be a U.S. military housing under the U.S. Air Force and it used to be called Kanthamura. And we had like elementary school, like Chofu Elementary School, middle school, and Chofu High School. And I myself went to the kindergarten and elementary school, I went up to middle school until Chofu High School closed and I went to U.S. Well, Japan in 1964 was really different than it is today. Japan was, you know, that was less than 20 years after the end of World War II. So you know, it was still a period of recovery, it was still a period of significant American presence in Japan, more than now. It was a period of growth and the 1964 Olympics was very important for all of that, wasn't it? Oh, definitely. If you look at their national pride, and I think, you know, after the World War II in 1945 to all the way to the 50s and when they came to the 60s, they'd be more stabilized and people had more of a, the Japanese citizen in general are having more of a national pride. And their companies, you know, the automobile industry is starting to pick up like their Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, and the electronic firms from Mitsubishi, Sony, to Matsushita, National, Panasonic, to Sharp, to all these different... It was just starting. You know, a lot of that was just starting. Yeah, they're all starting exporting and they're doing the manufacturing. They didn't even have the Walkman yet. Exactly. Yeah, right. It changed just the radio, that's all. And in yen was 360 yen to a dollar, the currency exchange rate between dollar and yen. And back then... It was a good old days. Yeah, and they're building their infrastructure for transportation, their construction industry was starting to boom because they came up even with the railroad industry, they're just coming up with their bullet train, the high speed, the Shinkansen in 1964. So that opened like two weeks prior to the Olympics. So they were kind of showcasing their Japanese bullet train and their technology. Yeah, so it was very important to showcase their products, to showcase their progress to the world. You know, who made that happen? How did the Olympics get set in Tokyo in 1964? I think probably there is a committee, there's an international Olympic committee that votes on it. I believe Tokyo was one of them, like in 2020, the Olympic committee, but in 2013, and it was between Madrid, Spain, and Turkey, and Japan was competing. And they decided unanimously, there's 100 members in the International Olympic Committee, they all have to vote. And they said that Tokyo's more stable economically because Turkey, there was because of the problem with the terrorist group and the ISIS and all that. In Spain at that time, they had problems with the European Union and the Austerite program, so they weren't financially able to sponsor all that. In Japan, I think what they did was, I remember when the Brazil Olympic two years ago, in 2016, a year ago last summer, I believe, and that's when Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister, went there and he was showcasing the Mario and how they wanted to transform the torch. And myself, we had a project here in Hawaii. We were going to work with the Tokyo Olympic Committee and our previous governor as well, and our governor, David Egan, went there with the Hawaii tourism authority. There was a dialogue and discussion saying that Hawaii can host the baton of going from Brazil to Tokyo in a real genero. And I think as we set up all the Taiko group and we had Kenny Endo and we had all the Taiko groups from Hawaii to set it up in Aloha Stadium, they were going to televise that, we were going to congratulate Tokyo passing on the baton and Hawaii can be the intermediator. But I guess the discussion didn't really have that dialogue because we were running out of time as well. But I wanted to tie down in with the Pan-Pacific parade or the festival at the time being so we can showcase how Asia-Pacific is all about and we're cooperating, you know, we're working together as well. Well, let's take a look at that in the con. We are going to discuss in detail in this show about the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2020, which is only four years away. Tick, tick, tick, tick. It's like that three years away. They get that right. It's three years away. It's around the corner. You can do the math on the number of days now. So what is Japan like these days? You know, how's the economy? Has there been, you know, a resurgence in the economy? How's the bell curve on age, you know, being worried about not enough young people and all that? How's that doing? And how is Japan's influence in all the things that we have been reading about in Asia? All these controversies and diplomatic maneuvers by this administration and, you know, China and North Korea and all that. Right, right. Where does Japan fit right now in Asia? Well, I can talk to you from a macro and a micro aspect of it, economic-wise in how they stand. But from a micro perspective, if you look into the socioeconomic norm of how Japan is doing in terms of import, export, in terms of their gross domestic sell and how they want to portray in terms of assets and liability, I think they're doing quite well, you know, because if you look at all the assets that they invest in worldwide, for example, Japan's investing in the United States like our savings bond, our treasury bills, they have roughly over all the financial notes, including roughly over $1.3 trillion. Besides personal businesses that they set up their factories and all the real estate holdings they have here, so they do that to other countries from European countries. So, you know, in terms of allocating their assets in terms of international currency, adjustment factor, they're doing quite well. And if you look at the domestic demand of there, I think they're picking up their tourism as well. They're getting up for the 2020, and they're promoting that, which means welcoming the aloha of tourism, you see like tremendous amount of tourists coming from China, you've seen a lot of them coming from Taiwan, not from Vietnam, because the shopping is great. If you look at, talk to the Chinese people from mainland China, they like their electronic products here, they like their pharmaceutical medicine, because the medicine they buy in Japan through the drug stores in Japan, the yakkyoku, the medicine is more stronger, it's potent, so it works for their chemistry in their body. And the ones over there, they might be generic, and the ones in China. So, the wealthy Chinese that come in, they're at the drug stores, they're buying out of medicine, they like electronics, they like to go to the electronic city, and the akihabara, and they buy like toilets, they like, yeah, they like that. You know big, big electronic store, old department store, electronic, like eight storeys high of electronics, it's like a heaven on earth place. In terms of innovative new product, consumer products, it's all out there. But think about Japan, my experience is limited, but think about Japan, it's very easy to be there. It's clean, it's friendly, you can get what you want, the food's good, transportation is good. The whole thing is a cushy experience to be in Japan, isn't that true? To travel to Japan is a joy. Oh yeah, they said it's probably the number one best place to travel right now, being safe, and they accommodate you, your services, you know, any little thing, they're kind of detailed. Like you go to buy in a department store, in this gift shop, you buy like a hundred yen, a dollar item, they put a ribbon on it, and nice packaging, and just for, you know, just for even little things, and make you feel like, exactly. Make your customer feel good and all that. And I think they say it's the safest place to travel right now. Safety, another big thing, yeah, yeah. So Japan really has, you know, tremendous cultural advantages for the traveler. And so this makes it a worthy destination for the Olympics. Yeah, I think in terms not only for, you know, if you want to go there by 2020, it's best, you know, it's good to have your reservation, and they have the RMB as well. Right now, it's three years. Yeah, so a lot of the people are, you know, opening their homes now, and they're doing the RMB, and they want to welcome the foreigners to go there. It's just like the U.S., the Airbnb is really going places. Exactly, so I think, you know, the foreigners that travel there, they love it. And the food is great. And the thing when I like it, when I go there, you know, being born and raised in Japan as we're in Tokyo, you know, I like to go to the back alley of the train station, and go in a hole in a wan noodle place. Noodles, right. Exactly, like my gyoza, and chow hum, and my ramen there. I guess they take me with them also. And the waters taste so good. You know, you drink their tap water. It's clean, and somehow every time I go there, I like to drink their tap water, because it tastes so good. You don't take the beer? I drink my beer. Okay, just checking in. So we have a special Olympics coming up. And this is an Olympics that's going to be different. And I guess people in Japan are excited about that. But I think a lot of other people outside of Japan are excited about having the next Summer Olympics in Tokyo. What's going to be different about the competition and the sports involved? I think they came up with roughly five new venues and new sports. Like I mentioned earlier, there's roughly 12,000 athletes coming from 207 different countries. So far. So far. And there's going to be 33 different events. So roughly there's going to be over like 340 sporting events and from 33 different caligaries. And they just include five different caligaries, which is surfing, skateboard. Surfing. Baseball. Softball. And cliff-hanging. Cliffs-hanging and Olympic sport. Exactly. And for us, we can benefit tremendous in surfing and skateboard. As well, we have our baseball here as well. Like surfing, I brought this up with George Spaghetti of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. He loved it because he's been a former surfers. I tell you, you guys are going to start promoting a lot of sports tourism with Asia. So maybe we can bring the Asian Pacific Games here. And now I want to bring them kind of looking into the skateboarding. And we don't... Because you know, there's a lot of kids here. The Kiki's one. And they have the dream of want to be out there and make it and hopefully get it going. Imagine. Born and raised in Hawaii, go to the Olympics and do surfing and skateboarding. Exactly. And the thing, if we can kind of come up with a world-class or identical skateboard ramp or how are they going to do it in the competition in Tokyo, I'd like to get a... You know, work with the U.S. Olympic Committee here or with the Tokyo Olympic Committee and see if we can get a plan or symptomatic of the blueprints and maybe get some of the privatization or even work with the city or the state. So how can we do that? What do you see? What are you envision for the connection between Hawaii Sports, Hawaii Athletes and the Tokyo Olympics in 2020? What's the best case analysis? What can we achieve? I think we can promote a lot of the tourists or make it like a training ground. So not only for this one-time event, there's future Olympic events. Like year 2020, after that's going to be 2024, which is going to be in Paris, France. And the thing about another four years after that is 2028, which is going to be in Los Angeles, California. So it's going to come... It's all set for years and years. It's already been the Olympic, the International Olympic Committee decided already so we voted on it already. So you're thinking if we can get our foot in the door for 2020 in Tokyo, that will help us in 2024 and 2028 and so forth. So it's an opportunity that we'll keep on giving back to Hawaii so we can capitalize on this opportunity now. Exactly. So we've got to build on our sports tourism infrastructure here as well and make people more aware. And we want a lot of these young entrepreneurs to come out with ideas and businesses so they can benefit as well. Yeah, yeah. And sports promoters as well. And we can host a lot of these international tournaments and contests here. Yeah, sure. There's business there. Exactly. At HTA, at the Convention Center. And I've been going around talking to a lot of these sporting kind of local motion as well, but some of these skateboard kind of stores that they sell and they're all around. And I said these guys national franchise and say they're willing to sponsor if we have something like this here. And that means sending you over. It means paying your expenses. Exactly. And promoting the contest here and putting some prize money on top. Okay, Russell, we're going to take a short break because I need to practice my skateboarding just for a minute. And when we come back, I'm going to ask you how I can get involved. Personally, let's assume during this one minute break I get to be good at the skateboard. How do I get involved? That's Russell Hanra. He is the U.S. senior official for APEC Hawaii. And he is involved in trying to connect up Hawaii with the Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo. This is ThinkDeck Hawaii raising public awareness. Ted Rawson here, folks. You're a host on Where the Drone Leads our weekly show at noon on Thursdays here on ThinkDeck. And we talk about drones. Anything to do about drones. Drones, remotely piloted aircraft. Unmanned aircraft systems. 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Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha. We're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. I just got back from my skateboarding experience right there. I feel a lot better now. That's Russell Hanma. He is the U.S. Senior Official for APEC Hawaii and he's involved in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. If you want to join the conversation or ask Russell a question, if you also aspire to be in the Olympics in 2020, call our hotline 808-374-2014. Okay, you can talk to Russell yourself. Okay, Russell, so let's assume that I have learned how to skateboard that chance. You might have learned how to skateboard and I'm really good. How do I get involved in all this? What do I do to get on the pipeline to be in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics? You know, just like surfing you got the professionals out there with getting the rankings and you've got to win so many tournaments and so skateboard there is like the Red Bull or some of these X games that sponsors use. In the future, in there you're going to have some kind of name recognition, I'm sure, but you can come as a dark horse as an amateur and based on if you learned how to do the proper moves and the ramp movements and everything my personal I remember in the 1980s when I was in New York City I think I mentioned the last time when I was doing the import export show that I promoted the Action East which was a skateboard and surfing company. It was a generic company and we made our video promotion with the Thrasher magazine as well so you can get your name recognition and anybody can formulate that and come up with a brand name product or skateboard design and try to be an entrepreneur yourself, not only just as a skateboarder as a business people who's interested in the skateboard or surfing industry you can get involved What about the trials? I mean, I can win local tournaments I can be known in a local community, that's not going to get me there I got to go to the trials, right? I have to compete How does that work? Actually, I don't have the details of exactly how the ranking worked, but I'm sure that must have the National Association for professional So you go on the Olympics website which I'm sure exists today Exactly, that would be interesting because you got to go through the tryouts and I would like to see what the evaluation how they're going to format the skateboard riders to make the Team USA Just like a surfing too, you got your ranking but I'm sure there's going to be John Johnson who's been winning some of the Triple Crown and you know I guess the point is that people who might be inclined to compete in the new ones skateboarding is baseball softball coming back and cliffhanging I know a lot of people that hang cliffs all day long here on Bishop Street sometimes in the media, they're just hanging all the time by their fingernails they're hanging, but I mean real cliffhanging You got to be trained for that I think a lot of the Europeans are really good at that I'm sure they might be in the gold metal intentions there So you've got to find out what it takes to qualify, you've got to practice you've got to get involved in the trials you've got to go to the website and find the procedures but it's not settled yet In other words, you could do this right now even if you haven't done it before Right, because it is a new venue it is a new sporting event so it's just that they're going to be looking for new players or new athletes who want to be part of the Team USA So I think in our case for Team USA we have our Olympic headquarters in Colorado Springs U.S. Olympic Committee and they work closely with the International Olympic Committee That might be where the trials are They must have an evaluation they're going through the new venue from how they're going to do the skateboarding ramping design There's got to be a standard design for a lot of countries We also have talent in say cycling and track and field Olympics in many ways Exactly, there's an MX bicycle bike canoeing as well sailing So have we been active in the Olympics up to this point Russell or is this a time when Hawaii and the athletes of Hawaii ought to consider joining up We have tremendous athletes representing Stanley Clay we have theater soccer athletes that come out made a team especially in Judo as well But we should do more Miyazato from the volleyball there's a lot of But I think just to make it under Olympic team is something very special Stop right there in this world class Exactly, especially for USA because we're the dominance If you look at our medal counts we've always been in the number one slot That actually goes to a point that the Olympics has always been the case since the early 20th century the Olympics are a method of diplomacy They are a citizen diplomacy athletic diplomacy if you will no exception now So what effect do you think this is a hard question Russell What effect does this have on sort of the world state of diplomacy or lack of diplomacy that we have going How important is this in your view as a US senior official How important is this for American relations in not only Japan but in Asia I think it is a non-political amateur status before they start letting the professionals play like our basketball and our dream team From the United States we are real represented and we've got to show that we are world leaders here that we have fair play we keep our rules and regulations we are law-abiding society and we are loving caring we take care of our friends and our neighbors and I think in those kind of diplomacy the sports and the sportsmanship plays a major role Why does it remind me of Nixon and Ping Pong when he opened China there was all this Ping Pong being played and it was used as a diplomatic device right so the same with the Olympics right I myself was an athlete you know how it was I was a national champion in tennis in 1977-78 I was a national high school champion I became the Far East champion after that I was able to play semi-pro for a little bit and I got to meet Beyond Borg and Jimmy Connors this is the first time in 1978 when there was the first international sporting event for tennis and Suntory was sponsoring so they called it Suntory Cup and we had four world-class players it was Beyond Borg Jimmy Connors Manuel Orantes from Spain and Giorgio Vila was Argentina and they play a four-man Ron Robin tournament and myself you know since I was a national champion in Japan as well so I spoke English by language they made me a translator to mingle with the players and get their autographs and the thing about that I'm a tennis player myself so they said grab a racket so I was able to play an exhibition set with Beyond Borg and Jimmy Connors I was a young kid at a high school and I was at least they gave me one game I was able to return a few of them you still play tennis? I try to but I haven't been on the court for a while well you have three years here actually to practice up maybe you can get in on this thing too you can do diplomacy on the tennis court in Tokyo in 2020 so my last question for you Russell is what can Hawaii do with state and as city and county jurisdictions what can Hawaii do to make this really work for Hawaii to make it a special opportunity to realize some special advantages in light of this Olympics coming on soon I think in terms of sports tourism or not only that but I know that state through the legislature I think it was last year they tried to pass a bill on the Hawaii Sports Commission and basically it's like a consul and they work with the Hawaii tourism authority with the industry here and try to market sporting events and one of them was like the pro bowl here the Honolulu marathon we have our triathlon kind of bill fishing you know there's all these supporting things look at the weather we can do sports all year round and that makes it we have a big advantage so we're going to take advantage of it so the question I put to you is we have to spend some money for this should we spend some money what kind of things should we do what kind of infrastructure what kind of venues should we create I think you know in terms of not only the government we want the private sector to go out there and try to support this as well with marketing, advertisement Hawaii hotel association Hawaii tourism authority the visitors burrow the sporting industry here as well with the retailers and the shopping malls I think in people that love sports in general Hawaii is a very sports loving place for sure look at the university so I mean when do we start okay and how do we start what steps do we put out first what venue do we build first what kind of money do we spend first should we wait until say 2019 or should we start we're going to do it now I like to see a layout of it surfing is already kind of in the works already because we're going to pick and choose what kind of sporting venue that's advantageous for Hawaii as you know the ocean marine sports is obviously advantageous here and we want to do the skating board ramp kind of thing where we can have a world class Olympic skating so people can come here and practice and if we have an identical ramp design like they're going to use in Olympics in Tokyo and prior to that they can have pre contests in Hawaii and bring out these world class skateboarders here and we can gloom the young kids here that they can watch and learn so we can have a long lasting effect we can have an ongoing benefit if we set up right for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics then we can put ourselves on the map for later we can become an athletic center in the Pacific from Asia from the mainland from anywhere and be sort of a global gathering place for these kinds of sports exactly so you know I would like to see hurry up and get the aloha stadium going again I know that there's a new master plan coming up with and trying to promote not only the stadium because I know the stadium had that problem with the configuration we want to convert it to baseball and I want to promote baseball here with Hawaii winter sports again baseball here getting out of the rookies come here from not only from major league baseball from Japan league but maybe include Taiwan professional league Korea professional league Japan as well and South America get the Mexican leagues and some of the Latin American country players to come here and compete in this winter baseball league here who should be doing this should the state, the city should you know sports teams and sports organizations who should do this who should put their step out first first time we had like generosity from Wayne Kiritu who was a business developer and a leader here Wayne Kiritu and our famous legendary Len Sakata he's been one of the founders for Major League Baseball being the former World Series player with the Neuron Orioles there and with a coach for the San Francisco the Giants and you know second in the minor league so many exactly the kids get the benefit and the people around the kids and the families and the community pride is stand up Hawaii it's internationalism it's globalism think tech loves globalism it's exposing these kids and these athletes to life in Japan athletics on a global scale what a fabulous experience thank you Russell I'm so glad you're going to be involved in this and I hope that everything goes well and you should come back and tell us from time to time how it's going because as you said we have to move on it now that's Russell Hanra he's the US senior official for APEC Hawaii and he is involved in the and cares deeply about the 2020 Olympics in Japan I have only three more things to say to you Russell okay the first is the first is uh Ohio Gazzimas morning oh that's wrong good morning hello and thank you thank you very much I knew that one and temporarily sayonara see you again