"Hey Jacky!"

I remembered that I visited Egypt a number of years back for a job in Alexandria. It was one of my most memorable trip because Egypt had always been one of the country I wanted to visit. It conjured up a lot of feelings in me from all the movies I had seen when I was younger.

One of my most fond memories is while I was exploring the city with my then-colleague. We were walking around the beautiful and scenic Alexandria. It is a beautiful and fabulous city! It was also the first time I came face-to-face with a traditional ship building shipyard.

While the two of us are standing there taking photos, two little boys call out to us and posed some kung-fu stances. I was thinking, "boy, is it so unsafe and are we that pathetic to be singled out by 2 young boys to be robbed?"

As a staredown ensured between the four of us, thoughts in my mind are racing about how to evade this. All of a sudden, one of the boy broke into a jiggle and shouted "You Jackie Chan?" and displayed Jackie Chan's most famous snake fist.

My then-colleague and me broke into a laughter simultaneously and he replied "Jet Li!"

"No. No. Jackie Chan." The two boys said, still maintaining the pose.

By then, we realized what they meant. They thought that all chinese nows kung fu. The only chinese they ever come in conttact with is Jackie Chan. I found out later that they are showing Jackie Chan kungfu movies on the TV, abeit in Arabic. After a short sign language conversation with them, we posed for a picture (unfortunately lost of my hdd crash). Obviously, we have a hard time communicating.

This little event left me feeling awed and also amazed. Such was the joy of those two boys when they saw us! Although they saw us, they felt as if they had seen Jackie Chan in person. The influence of a movie star or a pop celebrity cannot be more examplified than this little event.

It is also always such a joy to have such a heartwarming experience so far away from home. It is these experiences that keeps us sane!