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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Drawing fire
for Buddha>>Kaneohe
When Michael Tenzin-Campbell signed up to play the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa, that's exactly how he thought of it -- he'd play the young lama.
Michael was a drama major at UH. But this time there was more than a good review on the line. The point of his acting was to keep the real lama safe from Te-Wu, the Chinese secret police.
Staying in character would be the toughest part, for Michael hated the Chinese. Feeling compassion for them did not come naturally. He was orphaned at 4 when his family fled over the Himalayas to escape the Communists who occupied Tibet, the final insult when Chinese soldiers gang-raped his aunt, a Buddhist nun. And though he'd been adopted by a visiting doctor from Santa Cruz, California, one of those rare Caucasian Buddhists, and had a great life growing up, always his loathing of the Chinese simmered. When he met Kamasami Khan at the Free Tibet kegger during UH Homecoming Week, he gave a focus to Michael's anger, a purpose, and he'd joined Khan's clandestine society precisely so he could fight the Communists. Fight and kill.
It was, he supposed, rather like what was happening in Iraq. If you wanted to fight and kill Americans, that was the place to be. Apparently there were lots of people from lots of countries who wanted to kill Americans.
Michael couldn't understand it. America acted to free the country of a monster of a leader, tried to bring economic and human rights reforms -- and was loudly hated. China invaded and occupied Tibet, tore down 6,000 monasteries and universities, stole millions of dollars in gold, gems and ancient religious artifacts, tortured monks and nuns -- and was quietly feared. Unlike America, China came at its perceived foes hard, fast and ruthless, overpowering them without mercy. Why wasn't the world protesting real evil? Ah well, the PR arm of the Free Tibet Warrior was working on that.
Meanwhile, Michael waited and trained for the day he and Khan could fight and kill Chinese soldiers in Tibet. For now, though, acting like a living
Buddha was his job.
So leaping and kicking a Te-Wu operative in the head who intended to shoot him yesterday was a big oops. On one hand, Khan said, it would give Te-Wu something to think about. On the other, they'd come even harder. For sure, they'd be at his meeting with Hawaii's religious leaders at the East-West Center this afternoon. The triggerman would be dressed as a Muslim imam.
Again Michael thought of Iraq, where U.S. Soldiers and Marines go out into the streets Baghdad to draw fire, get shot at, and learn where the guys who want to kill Americans are. Michael would be going out to draw fire from the guys who want to kill living Buddhas.
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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