World Affairs Council for October. Ira Kasoff Former State Dept. now APCO and LA.

The topic of Dr, Ira Kasoff's  blog post is "HK demonstrations Taiwan Connections"  October 2, 2014 World Affairs Council, Northern California, San Francisco   Ira Kasoff  delivers remarks  updating people on the status of the Chinese Government's position vis a vis HK and Taiwan and the USA  . I see him at the WAFC in SF on the evening of October 2, between 4-6:00 PM  

Dr,Ira Kasoff, former Assistant Secretary to the  US Secretary of Commerce, State Department  is now a senior counselor and member of APCO"s International  Advisory Council.   His experience in Asia spans more than three decades.  He has had 7 commercial service assignments in addition to private sector and academic experience.  He was principle commercial officer at the US Consulate General in Shanghai, commercial counselor at the American Embassy in Tokyo and senior commercial office at the US Consulate General in HK .  Earlier in his career he worked for the National Committee on US China Relations and as the Beijing representative for the Guqua World Trade Corporation The resume says that he specialized in Japanese and Chinese history at Princeton, in his Phd, with his BA at Harvard University.  He is author of a book on Chinese intellectual history published originally by Cambridge University Press which has been translated into Chinese and is published by the Shanghai Classics Publishing House.

When I remind Ira, after his talk, of the football games at the Consulate in 1986-7, he smiles recognition, and proudly says, "I created those games.  That is the period when I worked for Stan Brooks." I tell him I heard that Ellen was the advisor for the Expo for the USA (which has to have a corporate sponsor, and cannot be government sponsored) but had not seen her.  After the lecture when he exits, he  is catching a cab UBER to the airport for LA, where he says he now lives, as he exits the WAFC. .  

I review my record of our meeting in 1986-7 in Shanghai in my unpublished mss:

"When I first arrived in Shanghai, my introduction to the expats organization was through an invitation to be in a tennis tournament.  I showed up for practice, but only Christianna de Bonneville, the French Consulate General's wife was playing!  The day we first played, Christianna wins: 6-4.  She shares her thermos of black coffee with me, after play.  She shares,  "My children are small and in school," which frees me to practice each morning at the tennis club with my Chinese trainer.  I never play on Sundays.  That is the day that my family can gather together..."   She tells me that she does not see many of the women in the expat tennis group as serious players.  She, somewhat like Glenda Brown, the Australian Consul General's wife,  is not too enthusiastic about the expat community's demands on her.   In the tournament, Christianna beats me again!  However, Ellen Elisoph the principle attorney for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind in Shanghai and reputedly the best women player in Shanghai surpasses her.  She and I, thanks to her husband Ira, will become tennis partners on occasion and for the final womens tournament in Shanghai. We win, due to her strategy and I learn from her about all court strategy.  .  Ellen is the ultimate strategist; she analyzes Christianna's strokes while she plays against me, and then Ellen soundly applies her game plan, "I'll lob high and keep the ball away from her, and yes, she/we win, decisively!

Ellen Eliasoph has everyone's respect in the foreign community, though due to the weight of her responsiblity she hardly has time for the social set, gossip or bridge games of the business community wives; in the course of the year, she completed a book on laws in China, published in HK.  She has written many articles on law and trade in China.  Her firm, Paul Weiss Rifkind is a source, for me, of New Yorker magazines, the magazine I most miss in China. 

Ira Kasoff, Ellen's husband, commercial consul at the American Consulate is a Phd in philosophy and religion, who graduated Princeton University .  When I provide a seminar for the Princeton in Asia program and show a picture of Ira playing football on the Consulate grounds, the director of PA, Barney Williamson, recognizes him.    Both Ira and Ellen move on to Tokyo."  

During this period, I conducted some poetry workshops for Claire Brooks, the Consul General's wife, who directed the small American School, on the grounds of the villa. The villa remains the American Consulate, but the residence has been moved out, for security reasons.   Here is the excerpt from my mss:

"Another very memorable occasion proves to be the Spring Arts Festival at the American School in Shanghai.  Claire Brooks, the American Consul General's wife, directs the school and has done an admirable job developing its resources and facilities.  The school is located in an out bouilding in the backyard of the villa which contain the offices and home residence of the Consul General, Stan Brooks and his wife.  Their son, David, is a law assistant to Norman Givant in the firm of Coudert Brothers and has spent most of his life in the Far East. Mr. Brooks is a career diplomat from Wyoming; his next posting, having been in Asia for 30 years, will be Seoul, Korea.  The Shanghai community anticipates its loss of Claire Brook's leadership in the school at year's end."

 I enjoy my days with each of the teachers, and children, who are sophisticated, having lived in so many places in an international life with their parents.  It is an enjoyable contribution and extension of Poets in the Schools in which I participated in New York in America.

Another excerpt:  "Claire Brooks ' healthy interest in the arts has created this Arts Festival.  She invites me to do a program for all the grades, adapted from my experiences in the Poets in the Schools program in New York City.  Most of the children here are daughters and sons of diplomats with a few with parents from the business community. Their experience is a sophisticated one, in that they have lived, travelled and gone to school in several countries, but it is also the case that several students have American citizenship and American parents but have never lived in  the United States.   This certainly conditions and transforms their sense of identity.  Mark Lloyd Neighbors, whose father, Lloyd Neighbors, is from Texas, and is the cultural educational attache here, writes a poem in response to the familiar poem, HOW TO EAT A POEM, by Eve Merriam, which reveals a wider range of experience: 

The Black Forest Cake

I am a black forest cake.
Take a bite and quish! 
I taste "Yummy"!
I smell chocolotely. 
My cream will slip down your tongue'
  like an avalanche.
When you taste me, 
you will want much, much more!  
---Mark Lloyd Neighbors

In another exercise about "something great and something small", Francoise Sarrazin, daughter of the Canadian Consul General, and his wife, Suzanne, produces: 

The Elephant and the Mouse

When the mouse squeaks, 
the elephant begins to screech,
When the elephant trumpets,
he tells the mouse,
"You can be squashed.  Watch out! "

The holiday which brings the ex-pat community together is, of course, Christmas.  The American Consulate General and his wife host a gala open house at the American Consulate villa in the French Concession, issuing invitations to all registered Americans within the jurisdiction of the Consulate.  Mary Spoede leads the carolling, which is very welcome in a country  whose traditions are so different from the West. 

Chocolate fondue and strawberries, and many desserts are served, as 300 Americans mingle.  Last year, the Brooks, according to David, did not hold this party; they spent Christmas skiing in Wyoming.  Stan Brooks introduces the Musical Conservatory and Claire reads selected children's poems from the American School.    

Theresa Gerlach occupies a corner of the room, viewing one of the many Christmas celebrations of her forty years in Shanghai, having come here with the Red Cross.   (see chapter on TG)  Fudan teachers , Language Institute teachers, and technical university teachers are here, along with the predominant members of the business community.  " 

( from the manuscript, CHINA FROM HORSEBACK.   the Year 1986-87, written and intended to be published in 1989, the year of Tianamen, so all was cancelled, - the agent, the publication; Harrison Salisbury and Orville Schell's reviews and recommendations....alas, time moved on and someone even stole my title! )