As a journalist turned hotelier, it may seem like Adrian Zecha’s work is defined by physical places and published stories. But those who know him can see that he also works in the intangible, often indescribable realm of creating atmospheres and evoking emotions. It’s that certain something which we cannot capture, create, or communicate. It has its own life force; transferred from one person to another. It transforms a place into a home away from home. As he sat in Azumaya, surrounded with plants that Nishinosono picked as a homage to his birthplace in Indonesia, he shared some groundwork he laid for the creation of Azumi.
Interview with Adrian Zecha
I was sent to Japan by Time Magazine, which is where I basically learned life. During that time, I really understood that Japan is my favorite country, other than my own. This is where I grew up. I was here for two years, from ’56 to ’58.
I graduated from Columbia University at the age of 20, and did my master’s degree in 1953. I had been living in the US for five years since I was 15 years old. I thought I’ll join Time Magazine. In 1956, when I was 23, I spent almost a year in Cuba. For a kid born in Indonesia – which was part of the Netherlands and Holland before independence — it was an education.
I’ve never forgotten the Japanese, original version of hospitality in the ryokans from my time living here. I kept saying this to my colleagues in Japan. Your ryokans have been around for a long time; it is an institution which has been around for a couple of hundred years. But I saw that what gave them life over the past three hundred years was fading. The younger generation of Japan doesn’t have the same affection for what I consider to be an incredible form of hospitality presentation. They don’t relate to that lifestyle anymore. More importantly, they probably don’t need it.
When I first came here, most families had one favorite ryokan, which they used as something that reinforces their life. When things get too much, they book the ryokan. They spend time there. What do they do? Essentially nothing – they may take two or three baths. They don’t even have lunch there. They have to get that outside. But, there’s dinner. It is also family-owned, though it doesn’t mean that all the members of the family must work there. With due respect to new formats, those lifestyles have changed, whether it’s Japan, Indonesia, the US or France.
Is it possible to save the essence of it? In the hotel business, the simple essence of our business comes down to service, but the service has two elements to it; one is what is done and the other is how it’s done. It’s not about efficiency. There’s warmth. Can you still realize this family-based service in the modern era? I don’t know. I think so. But that’s basically why we’re here today, in Setoda.
It is not whether your breakfast comes on time, or whether the staff serves it with a smile on their face early in the morning. It’s much more complex than that. It’s the sense of service, the basic essence of hospitality. The word itself tells you what it is. That’s not the issue. The issue is a feeling, it’s difficult to describe. It’s a feeling. You sense it when you talk to people, when they describe what they want to do, or what they are doing.
Good service is either there or not. How do you teach it? I don’t know. Because how do you deliver a cup of tea?
There’s one way to know if it’s there though. It’s whether the guests come back. Not once, but forever. It’s physical.
When I decided to get involved in the hotel business, I did not make that decision intellectually. I’m a journalist. I’ve always been a journalist and publisher. I was not involved in hotels until I was 39. The opportunity came when I had retired from the publishing business.
By the way, my first company was called Asia Magazine. Why did I start Asia Magazine? I had been working with Time Magazine for six and a half years and they sent me to Cuba, to India, to Japan, and Thailand. After the end of the Second World War, many Asian countries slowly became independent. The colonial era died, or started to die. It took years, but between 1945 and 1949, in those four years, that’s when all of Asia became independent. The new Asia.
The educated elite of the new Asia were culturally the hybrid. They were Asian, but many were culturally western, because they were educated in western universities. Even during the colonial era. They were their own culture. If you mentioned Beethoven, or Shakespeare to a Thai, which by the way, is the only Asian country that has never been colonized, they would know who they were, but if you ask about Thai music or literature, they would not know as much. Even Thailand was westernized. I asked myself, “What is needed?”
And that’s how I decided to start a cultural magazine — a cultural Asian magazine which taught Asians about Asia. I quit Time Magazine. On October 1 of 1960, I sent in my resignation. I was absolutely determined that I was going to form an Asian magazine for Asians, so I did.
About Azumi Setoda
The whole development of planet Earth is through the sea.
I can’t really tell you what the connection is, except after the fact if you find a reason to connect, you can. If there’s a fire and you send three people there from the same newspaper, you will get three different stories. One says, “Oh, the homeless people are this and that,” the others say, “Oh, it will cost $200,000 for the new building.” They are looking at the same thing, but the way the event strikes them is different, and so the resulting story is different.
Expressing how you feel in words is very difficult. Explaining why I like something or you like something is very difficult because feeling is feeling and it’s not easy to articulate. Words don’t convey how you feel or why you reacted to something in a precise way. It’s very difficult to convey what you just saw happen when it leaves you with a feeling, many feelings actually.
Words are elusive.
Azumi Setoda was formerly the 140-year-old residence of the Horiuchi family, who ran a salt manufacturing and shipping business. In renovating this building, I worked with Shiro Miura, an architect of the sukiya style, to focus on the simple beauty that blends with the Setouchi climate in a modern interpretation, while paying attention to the wood, stone, garden, and lacquer elements used in the original building.
Imagining the scene where the Horiuchi family used to welcome important guests, I will explore and embody at Azumi the warm form of hospitality that impressed me so much.
