[ OUR OPINION ]
Ordering dim sum
and noodles soothes
Chinatown ailments
THE ISSUE Unfounded concerns about the spread of SARS cut deep through the district's usually bustling businesses.
GROUNDLESS fears of contracting SARS in Chinatown put dim sum and noodles on Linda Lingle's lunch menu earlier this week as the governor sought to assure people that dining and shopping in the district present no danger.
High anxiety about severe acute respiratory syndrome, first reported in China, has spread rumors faster and further than the disease itself. E-mail, gossip and water cooler chat nationwide are fueling unsubstantiated stories about workers or customers at this Asian store or that chop suey house coming down with the illness.
Businesses in Honolulu's Chinatown are reeling. Restaurants report huge drop-offs in customers, forcing them to close their doors early and cut workers' hours. Other stores also have been affected.
There's no need to avoid the district. Although thousands of people around the world have been sickened, none of the five suspected cases in Hawaii have been confirmed and health authorities in the state appear to be monitoring the situation adequately.
Like other government officials -- such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, who dined on scallops in front of cameras in his city's Chinatown district -- Lingle put her money and her mouth on the line. The governor fearlessly led her Cabinet through a feeding frenzy at six Chinatown restaurants to display that there's no reason to worry. She also picked up the tab. Good show, governor.
The rest of us should head there, too. It's not often that we can ignore our diets and dine on dim sum and Peking duck to help out others.
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In big-wave contest,
it’s ‘Viva la Jaws’
THE ISSUE A Hawaii surfer has won the prize for riding the world's largest wave, beating French surfers in the competition.
NOT only did the French challenge the United States in the halls of the United Nations, they had the audacity to crash the ordinarily cozy party of surfers by claiming the world's largest wave of the past year. Large, yes, but the wave that made its appearance a month ago on the Atlantic coast was a picture of gentility. The judges of the Billabong XXL big-wave contest gave it a thumbs-down, recognizing instead the ferocity of the swell that crashed Nov. 26 at Maui's Peahi Reef, or Jaws, which also happened to be the biggest.
"I was hit so many times, I thought to myself, 'I'm going to die here,'" Cheyne Horan of Australia told an Australian reporter after being tumbled ashore by the 60-foot Jaws wave. "My body went numb and limp. I was seeing stars and felt as though I was on the other side, like I had died."
That's what happens when a surfer encounters an intimidating wave with the steepness of the Eiffel Tower. Horan, 18-year-old Makua Rothman of Haleiwa and Noah Johnson of Hilo earned their selection as finalists in the competition by riding such a wave.
By contrast, unheard-of French surfers Fred Basse and Sebastian St. Jean claimed superiority by comfortably riding, yes, a large wave, but with more the slope of Haleakala. Its mammoth size was uncharacteristic of the waters along southwestern France. A low-pressure system east of Newfoundland had drifted east, reaching the shores of Europe on March 10 and creating the "perfect storm." It was described as "the most beautiful" by one French surfer but explosive by no one.
The claim of superiority produced a new rash of anti-French sentiment coinciding with the U.S.-France clash in the U.N. "The French have a lot of good things," one person posted on a Surfer magazine chat board, "but military backbone and big waves aren't included." Most surfers and the industry treated the competition more diplomatically.
In the end, Rothman won the top prize of $66,000 for riding the largest and what he described as "the most powerful wave in the world." As for the Frenchmen, well, let them eat truffles.
