| 1999 JACKIE CHAN ALOHA TOUR | |||||||||||||||||
| FAN CLUBS ACTIVITIES | OTHER HAPPENINGS | ||||||||||||||||
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A group of Jackie Chan USA Fan Club members descended on Honolulu February 18 to participate in the ceremonies honoring film star Jackie Chan as both actor and humanitarian Our group was composed mostly of friends from Oregon, Nevada and Texas. We joined with members living in Hawaii as well as with some 200 Japanese fans who had flown in from Japan. Among the actual ceremonies we attended were a reception at a shopping mall where Jackie was honored by the Governor of Hawaii for his humanitarian activities, a luncheon and fashion show where he was feted and performed (by singing). He was presented with a special canoe paddle by the officials of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce and the 50th Annual Narcissus Festival. The awarding of the paddle is a custom which goes back to the great King Kamehameha. We also had a special luau at Paradise Cove on the leeward side of the island with Jackie and his entourage. Although it rained and was windy, the weather didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the participants as we sat intense in our tents. The eating areas and the stage were all covered by canopies and we all wearing hooded rain gear looked like a monastery of monks although we didn't act the part. 
Jackie and I 
JC is a quick study. 
marvellous chorus line. |
This journey was especially interesting to me as I had not been in the Islands since world war 2. I served for several years on the USS maryland (BB 46), the "Mary Maru" as the crew called her. I wasn't aboard when she was sunk at Pearl Harbor but was at Pearl aboard her when she was being repaired after being torpedoed in the Palaus. I was also in the Battle of the Surigao Straits in the Philippines and the Leyte invasion where we were kamikazed. I was rated as Ship's Aerographer or weatherman for a couple of years. On the way to the luau we past in sight of Pearl, but I never went back there as that was long ago. Since the war I have met many new Japanese friends including my good Rev. Hikeda, a Buddhist priest in California and on the opposite naval side in the Leyte and Surigao straits action. The "Mary Maru" was one of the six older battleships who took part in the last great running sea battle. 
On my present trip to Oahu I settled for a smaller 'ship', a fast catamaran. It was a thrill to speed out into the Pacific past Diamond Head. Unlike Coleridge's Ancient Mariner I was not the "first to burst into that silent sea" though the "fair wind blew and the furrow followed free." Our captain was like a tatooed Queequeg though white and we met with no whale of that same color. 
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