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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Dogged pursuit
>> Kapalama Heights
Kamasami Khan's company, Warrior Landscaping, frequently did work for Kamehameha Schools, and though it was now pushing midnight the guard at the bottom of the hill saw his windshield sticker and waved the familiar red Ram 1500 through. For Khan, Warrior Landscaping fit right in. Who'd suspect a glorified yard guy of organizing an insurgency against the Chinese occupiers of Tibet. Or of rescuing the young lama from the death plots of Te-Wu, the Chinese secret police, earlier in the evening.
Up the hill they drove, past the elementary school playground, past the intermediate school, past Kekuhaupio Gym, higher and higher, Khan explaining to the part-Hawaiian lama the significance of the school founded on the will of a Hawaiian princess for the education of Hawaiian children.
"This princess ..." the young lama said.
"Pauahi," Khan replied.
"... she was a very wise and compassionate woman."
"Yes, but there are those who are trying to erase the will of the princess and take the school away from Hawaiians."
"By any chance," the lama said, a wink in his voice, "would they be Chinese Communists?"
Khan laughed heartily. "Very good, your holiness. No, it's just a few people, but they're doing a full-court press." He saw the lama frown.
"Basketball term. It's a game, we'll play some later. OK, here we are."
They parked, walked up to the chapel, gazed down at the dazzling array of Honolulu city lights from Diamond Head to the Ewa plain.
"Remarkable," the lama whispered. "All of those moving lights, so many people going so fast even at this hour."
"It's called the pursuit of happiness, baby brother," Joe Kharma said. "The American way."
"The pursuit of happiness? For me, I am happy to pursue buddhahood."
"Wait, I thought you were a Buddha already," Joe said, confused.
"Always room, as Rimpoche Rimshot teaches, for improvement."
"I wanted you to see the big picture, your holiness," Khan said. "Yes, I know that your vision is immense, eternal, this world, other worlds. But what you see here is what the Communists want for Tibet. Secular materialism, every aspect of a beautiful, peaceful place sucked into the furnace of commerce and industry -- this is the pursuit of profit and power.
Although, admittedly, America has rather different ideas about freedom."
"Friend Khan, that's why I've returned. To inspire our people -- and now I believe the people of Hawaii as well -- but especially our Tibetan people to be even more faithful and devoted to the teaching of Buddha Shakyamuni, for that is how we will end suffering and again find peace in our homeland."
Khan rolled his eyes. "All due respect, your holiness, you're gonna need some help. And that's where we come in."
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com
