Everyone loves Jacky Chan

While we were in Fes we decided to do a private day excursion to Meknes, Volubilis, and Moulay Idriss.  Meknes is another imperial city with more history than sights.  The Roman ruins of Volubilis had some decent mosaics, and Moulay Idriss is a holy town and an important pilgrimage site for Muslims.  The sights were pleasant but in no means mind-blowing.  The best part about the trip was talking to the driver/guide himself. 

He was quite learned and was eager to share Morocco’s history and current social, religious, and political situation.  He had no problem discussing how tyrannical and ruthless Sultan Moulay Ismail (1672-1727), the leader at the helm of Meknes heyday, was.  He relayed a story of how the sultan murdered the slave who saved him from drowning because he did not want to be indebted to a slave.   He talked endearingly of the current king and has high hopes for Morocco’s future and the future of his daughter because of this king’s new leadership and direction.  We also talked a lot about the current world situation, especially with US/Arabic country relations.  He hates how his country has through association and propaganda been linked to Muslim extremists.  The discussion was lengthy yet provocative and stimulating.  It’s nice to get a view that’s different and far less radical than that of Fox News.

He was also very curious about us.  He wanted to know how we ended up in Canada, and about the Chinese immigrant experience there.  He was also keen to learn about the Taiwan/China/Hong Kong political situation.  However, what got him the most excited in our cumulative 4 hours of driving, was Jacky Chan movies.  He knew all of them, and he says he’s watched many of them multiple times.  If you walk through the medinas and check out the bootlegged DVD’s, tons of them are Jacky Chan movies.  He says Moroccans love him “because of his action and his comedy”.  He went on to discuss movies like Drunken Master, and how he remembers the first Jacky Chan movie he saw dubbed in French when he was young called Le Chinois (I don’t know which one that was).  He got especially animated when he talked about the hilarious yet tough, fat sidekick (Sammo Hung).  Who would have known, that all the way in Morocco, Jacky Chan would have a legion of fans.

The above picture is my tribute to Jacky Chan in Morocco.  I thought it’d be funny to do an air punch in front of the gate of Bab el-Mansour in Meknes.  This gate is supposed to be the grandest in Morocco, but I think due to infrequent upkeep it looks really faded and not grand at all.  I thought I’d spice up the picture by jumping and punching, when instead I awkwardly tripped when jumping forward (my jeans are too tight and low and I couldn’t get full extension when leaping forward!) and rolled on the ground.  This was hugely hilarious to the throngs of teenagers waiting at the bus stop, and they then came to take pics with us after with their cell phone cameras.  They asked me if I was Japanese, I nodded yes haha