In summer 2004, Carrie Ross Welch arranged dinner at the Courtyard Restaurant, a place right in the shadow of the Forbidden City’s outer wall. The purpose? To introduce me to the CNN Beijing Bureau Chief.
“He was exiled here, I think in 1972, when he came to China from the Philippines, and while they were sorting it out, his passport expired, and I think it was something like 12 years before he was able to go back home. But he has adopted China as his country,” she said. I think that was the only brief.
That might be the last time I’ve thought of Jaime FlorCruz as the “CNN Beijing Bureau Chief”. After all, that was only one of the high profile jobs he’s held.
Before I met him, he had been a student activist, an exilee, a farmer, a worker on a Yellow Sea fishing boat, a Newsweek stringer, Time Magazine Bureau chief and who knows what else.
But he has always been Jimi, and always will be. That’s far more important than any one of those roles.
During my brief time in China, barely a cup of tea compared to Jimi’s decades there, he was guide, friend, wiseman, colleague and sometimes comic relief when things became too much.
There’s no way to describe the importance of Jimi in a place where nothing is as it seems, and everyone claims to be an expert.
Jimi never claimed to be an expert. He just is one.
The central government calls him when they need advice on media matters. The private sector calls him when they need advice on China matters. Other members of the international media in China look to him as godfather.
There isn’t one story to sum up Jimi. I could tell the one about when Sun Yat-Sen’s great grandaughter came into our office and bowed all the way to the floor before Jimi begging to be invited to the Fortune Global Forum. I barely missed that visit, but remembered Jimi relaying the story with incredulity, feeling embarrassed that she had felt the need to prostrate herself before him.
Or the many instances when he cooled me down before meetings and told me how to handle a situation productively Or our impromptu trip to Chongquing, where among other things, we stood on a warm evening in the city square watching people ballroom dance, perform martial arts, sing and otherwise entertain themselves.
Or the times when he would race from our office over to the bureau to give expert commentary on the anti-Japan protests or the death of Zhao Ziyang (the premier during the Tiananmen Square incident, who was the lone voice urging forebearance), and many other stories. Often only to be blacked out by the censors in China — but offering the rest of the world a glimpse into events where there was no more qualified voice than his as interpreter.
Or the many times when I didn’t understand what was happening and why, after which he would patiently explain what I needed to know. Or when he relayed his memory of the falun gong protests, which he covered at the time for Time. Or his visits to New York when we had the chance to catch up in a completely different context.
During the six months that he ran the Fortune Global Forum office in Beijing, I think we packed in a decade worth of stories, and a lifetime of memories.
Most of that was work for him, I’m sure. A memory I treasure most was a Sunday when he invited me to lunch with the other Filipino student activists who had been exiled in China with him for so long, so long ago. I saw someone who had adopted and loved the country he now called home, but still carried a deep love for where he came from. I think I saw a glimpse of Jimi.
Oh, he was also the CNN Beijing Bureau Chief. And an excellent one at that.
Thank you Jimi. I refuse to believe you are retiring. You will always be Jimi. I hope you are able to have many happy days in the home of your birth during the years ahead.