|
THE
night was young. Outside, the wind was nippy. Inside,
it was cold. But not as cold as a winter’s chill.
I opened
the evening with a glass of champagne.
“The
right way to start the night,” said Tito Hermoso of
BusinessWorld and C! Magazine.
Tito and
I were maybe among 400 motoring journalists from around
the world packed in the banquet hall this evening, some
coming from as far as Brazil and South Africa—all guests
of Toyota Motor Corp. (TMC).
This was
the farewell dinner hosted by TMC hotshots at Tokyo’s
regal and historic Imperial Hotel. Regal because it is
kingly, its foundations massively built. Historic
because it was the only structure standing when a
powerful earthquake almost leveled to the ground the
Japanese capital many decades ago.
We were
dressed in black, necktie and all, except the cerebral
Andre Palma who came in brown slacks but with a terrific
tie borrowed from BusinessMirror motoring editor Popong
Andolong.
After
the champagne, red wine came next. It has been a
routine I’ve had the pleasure of doing the last five
Tokyo Motor Shows that I was a
Toyota
guest since 1999.
“A great
follow-up to a politically correct start-up,” said Tito,
a drinks connoisseur.
After a
glass of red wine, the ceremonies began.
It was
6:58 p.m., eight minutes after I had downed my glasses
of champagne and wine.
After a
female model sashayed up the stage on board the I-Real,
Toyota’s futuristic individual vehicle, the master of
ceremonies was quick as lightning in introducing the
main speaker, Katsuaki Watanabe, the president of TMC.
Watanabe
was just as quick. After welcoming the guests and
thanking them for honoring TMC’s invite in the swiftest
possible manner, his speech was over.
Watanabe
was the only speaker of the night.
No
frills. No pomp. No nothing.
It was
7:12.
Dinner
was ready.
Oh,
well, it was buffet.
“I’ll
check on the roast beef first,” said Tito. “Elvis
[Butch Gamboa] says it looks great.”
“I’ll go
for the sushi as my opener,” said Danny “Sir John” Isla.
It was a
veritable feast, with an international menu laid out
lavishly wall-to-wall.
The
stand-up dinner went on simultaneously with the
country-by-country schedule of interviews with
Watanabe. It was by alphabetical order, and since the
Philippines’ turn would not come until maybe past
8 o’clock, there was enough time for chow.
I began
with the roast beef—seven tiny slices cut about
1-1/2-inch x 1-1/2-inch, intricately placed in a saucer
by the in-your-face chef, shitake mushroom on the side.
They were sliced the size of a subdivided Hershey’s
chocolate bar. Ah, Elvis was right. It was the jackpot
of the night.
I had
wanted a second serving, but was overrun by events—or
the sight of too many dishes to choose from, if not the
thought of cholesterol and all? After having my fill of
sushi (the best in the world), I had to rush to catch
the five-minute interview with Watanabe—the night’s main
menu. It was an ambush-type interview as we were all
standing, huddled around, shoulder to shoulder.
I fired
the first question.
Since it
was stated in his bio-data distributed to the media that
he was a musician, I asked him, “What musical instrument
do you play, Mr. Watanabe?”
After
the translator relayed to him my query, Watanabe had no
verbal reply. Instead, he pointed to his throat.
Silence
gripped the scene. Watanabe was smiling impishly at me
as he pinched his throat with his index finger and
thumb. Then someone from the Malaysian delegation said,
“Throat!”
“Ah,
flute,” Tito whispered in my ear.
Finally,
the translator said, “Mr. Watanabe’s instrument is his
voice. He sings.”
What’s
his favorite music?
“Japanese songs,” came the reply.
Born in
February 1942, the pencil-thin, tummy-less Watanabe, who
became TMC president in 2005 after joining
Toyota
in 1964 upon graduation from Tokyo’s Keio University
with a degree in economics, said in his bio-data: “An
amateur musician, he sings in a men’s chorus, and he
also likes to play golf and tennis. Watanabe and his
wife, Chiharu, have three daughters.”
If asked
what thrilled me most during that farewell party, I’d
say it was not the champagne, and neither the wine nor
cognac after the burp-filled dinner.
It was,
for all intents and purposes, the distance between me
and Watanabe-san, which could have been about 18 inches
only.
To be
that close to possibly the most powerful automotive man
that roams the earth today, who is Mr. Automobile
himself at this very moment, why, that amounts to having
had beer with John Lennon, if not Sir Paul McCartney,
either at The Cavern in Liverpool or The Cavern in
Roppongi.
Awesome.
Pee
Stop.
During
the same event, I had a lengthy and meaningful chat with
Takeshi Uchiyamada, father of the Prius. More on him
later. |
