Pearl Harbor Movie Controversy Builds (in National News) Judy Chu Wins Assembly Seat (in California News) Will Sunshine Work With the Two Koreas? (in Business) Penn Masala: Cutie crooners bring Indian style to a-capella singing (in A&E)

Part I: My International Incident

• Click here for Part II
• Click here for Part III

I didn’t want to start an international incident, but what do you expect from an amok with a knife? But first, let me explain why I’m in Hong Kong, SAR. The appendage stands for “Special Administrative Region,” which means it’s China and it’s not. It depends on how much money you have.

I’ve been put to a special test for Asian American Heritage Month. It didn’t start out that way. It was quite innocent, really. Pacific News Service, the news organization for which I’ve hosted and produced the television program, NCM-TV: New California Media — The New America Now, has sent me to Asia to do stories in HK. (You can see the shows starting next Friday, May 25 on KCSM-TV at 7:30 p.m. and again at midnight, and on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.)

It was going to be fun. Hong Kong, high-rises, flat noodle chow mein, The World of Suzy Wong. Have you ever been? Have you ever tasted? To get a sense of it all, just go to Chinatown in San Francisco, say anywhere off Grant, and stand on any street corner and look up. Imagine everything you see multiplied by a factor of 7 million. That’s Hong Kong.

Use a 14 million-factor if you’re in Oakland’s Chinatown.

100 million if you’re in Chinatown-Houston, Texas.

300 million if you’re in Chinatown-Des Moines, Iowa. There’s got to be one of those. If not, and you happen to be in Iowa, just look at a corn silo and imagine each yellow kernel as an Asian in a $6,000 a month condo. That’s Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is all about overload. In Chinese.

And that was my test.

I’m not Chinese. I can point at a dim sum tray. And I know the difference between lo mein and romaine. But I’m not Chinese. Am I Asian? Asian-looking, but definitely not Asian. Yes, there’s pure Asian blood. But not nearly enough Asian. Too much Mission District. Does that make me Asian American? Yes, but as I’ve written in the past, that phrase is just an umbrella term for the census. Or in a more intimate perspective, the term provides politicos a decent set of love handles to hold onto as they perform that supreme act that is sometimes nice and sometimes not.

So what’s left? Am I American? Definitely. Sometimes. For passport purposes, all the time. And for one not-so shining moment in Hong Kong, 100 percent of the time.

I am here among other things to cover the Global Economic Conference sponsored by Fortune Magazine. CEO’s from around the world have paid $5,000 dollars to be part of a three day affair that includes luminaries from companies like Sybase. Bet you didn’t know CEO John Chen’s company provides the software that runs China’s income tax system.

And there’s Qualcomm, QCOM in Nasdaq speak, just one of the big winners recently in the China sweepstakes. Qualcomm owns the patent to CDMA (code division multiple access). It’s one of the mobile technologies used in the United States, but not yet in China, which uses GSM (global standard for mobile). This week, China announced that it would build-up CDMA infrastructure. To American companies it’s worth over $1.5 billion.

Moral: Don’t let the spy plane talk muddle your senses, China’s all about money these days. No one can afford to be its enemy. There’s too much money to be made in China to blow it up. Over Taiwan? Don’t be nuts. Then again, George Bush did trade away Sammy Sosa.

At the conference, the main attraction are speeches by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Throw in the Premier of Thailand, and along with the captains of industry, you have the other side of an official governmental summit. You have the real top guns talking bottom line stuff. The only relevant ideology? Cold hard cash.

So at an event like this security is tight. They put the media riff-raff in another building so as not to soil the event. All access to the event is controlled. By remote cameras, reporters are allowed to eavesdrop like spies.

And now for my amok moment. I was queued up to enter the hall where Bill Clinton would give his speech. Even an ex-president in disgrace merits an extensive media search. At the Hong Kong Convention Center, the metal detector folks had the full complement of police officers and security officials, where the request was made to unload any cans or water bottles at the checkpoint. I could imagine that at say, a Raider game. But at a business luncheon in a convention center?

I was dutiful. And as I was about to pass through the x-ray gate, I reached into my pocket and offered up my handy dandy 1-inch pocketknife, bought from my local Sears. It’s a small sharp pointed blade with a serrated edge, a key chain model that comes with an LED light to figure out what hole to stick your key in, not which victim you’d like to puncture.

But I should have known. Knife. Asian male. Amok?

It all spelled bad news. Especially in Asia.

A pair of security guards took me off to the side for questioning. As one began to examine my knife, the other began his probe. “You bring knife to see Mr. Clinton?” said one plainclothes Hong Kong officer. “Why you bring knife to see Mr.Clinton?”

I explained it was just a key-chain knife I carry to open boxes, slice food. In fact, I used it in the morning to cut some mangoes I bought at a grocery store.

“Mangoes?” said the police officer.

This required a higher level of official to ponder. The junior one engaged a senior one on his walkie-talkie in Chinese.

In the meantime, as I turned casually, to my left and in path was a replica of Chow Yun-Fat. I turned to my right, and there was another Fat clone. Just making sure I didn’t make a mad dash to freedom.

Soon there were eight of them. One of me. And a 1-inch pocket knife. The officers took me up a non-working escalator to an isolated part of the convention center, presumably for more questioning. Welcome to Hong Kong. (To be continued.)

• Click here for Part II
• Click here for Part III