October 13, 2008 

It was hard to believe that it had been 13 months since our last Dragon’s Heart trip, but after checking the calendar, it was clear that over a year had flown by very swiftly. In September 2007, Jackie and the Dragon’s Heart team had visited a number of cities in China for ribbon cutting ceremonies, dedications, visits, and auctions. And now it was time to do it again.

This year we would be going to the Henan Province of China for our charity work. On the day of our departure, Jackie was in Beijing, so several of the team members from Hong Kong including Fibe, who writes Jackie’s diaries, Irene, who helps manage the Dragon’s Heart Foundation, several reporters and videographers, and me, the person who takes the photos and writes the Dragon’s Heart stories, drove to Shenzhen to catch a flight to Zhengzhou where we would meet up with Jackie and videographer  X Lee. One of the reporters was late and there was tremendous confusion as we tried to figure out a way not to miss our flight. Fibe ended up having to meet us at Shenzhen and then our driver sped to the airport, where we just made it in time for our flight. When we arrived at the airport in Zhengzhou, we were informed that Jackie and X Lee would be joining us much later than originally planned, so we spent several hours waiting. Unfortunately there’s nothing much going on at the small Zhenghzou airport, so we just had some coffee and chatted until it was time for Jackie’s arrival.


As the time neared for Jackie's arrival, a group of people had assembled to greet him; among them two very nervous children whose job it was to present Jackie with flowers and a red scarf. They practiced over and over to make sure they got it right. They were in the midst of rehearsing for the fifth or sixth time when a van carrying Jackie from the airplane arrived. When Jackie stepped out, the crowd of welcome wishers all charged at him at once and the kids were nearly overcome in the rush to get close to Jackie. When Jackie spotted them, he instructed everyone to step aside and make room for them. The kids then presented Jackie with a beautiful wreath of flowers and the traditional red scarf worn by Chinese schoolchildren. After saluting them and saying a few words, it was time for us to board the van which would drive us to the hotel. Jackie waved goodbye to the excited crowd and we were on our way to begin this year’s Dragon’s Heart trip.


It was about an hour’s drive from the airport to the hotel and during that time Jackie was mostly quiet. He spent a few minutes discussing business with Irene and then settled in and silently stared out the window as the landscape rolled by. When we arrived at the hotel there were hundreds of people waiting to see Jackie and after a mad dash to the elevator, we made our way up to our rooms. Jackie’s suite was very large and this is something that makes him a little crazy. Jackie’s needs are quite simple and he doesn’t like all the wasted space, but he understands that people want to honor him with the best accommodations when he comes to visit. After we unpacked our things, we joined Jackie in his room for a quick dinner and then after visiting for a while, headed off to our rooms to rest up. Tomorrow would be a busy day with an early call time and all of us were asleep moments after our heads hit the pillow.

October 14, 2008

We woke very early and my roommate Fibe and I began what has come to be a tradition on the Dragon’s Heart trips - - wrestling with the plumbing. In my travels I have learned that no two shower systems in the world are the same and the most challenging ones seem to be in China. After Fibe and I put our heads together over the confusing assembly of dials, faucets, and valves, we finally managed to figure out how to get the water to come out of the shower head and a half hour later we were all dressed and ready to go. After a quick breakfast, where we ran into some of The Disciple crowd, we went to Jackie’s suite to wait for him and shortly thereafter our crew - Jackie, Irene, X Lee, Fibe, the reporters, and I - were heading down to the van which would take us to our first destination.

First up for the day was a meeting between Jackie and some local officials and press. They welcomed him to Xinxiang and after Jackie talked for a while, we got back into the van for the ride to the Dragon’s Heart Support Center for Disabled Children.


There were hundreds of people lining the streets at the approach to the Center and when Jackie exited the van, children began throwing handfuls of confetti into the air – so much that it looked as if it were snowing! A shy young girl met Jackie and tied a red scarf around his neck to welcome him to the Center. He was then led to a small table where he was asked to autograph a book for the children. When all the photographers and reporters saw Jackie stop to sign his name, they began pushing and shoving to get close to him. Jackie’s bodyguards – two guys who had been with us on previous Dragon’s Heart trips – did their best to keep Jackie out of harm’s way, but it was very difficult. Since my job was to take photos, I was right in the thick of things and ended up getting smashed in the head and nearly knocked over by the enthusiastic people. I am not complaining; bumps and bruises are part of taking photos in these kinds of situations. But I’d never been in a position quite like this. I was pushed and squashed until I was literally incapable of movement; it took all my strength not to be thrust straight into Jackie – the person I was trying to photograph! This was one excited crowd of people.


We followed our hostess into one of the classrooms where the children enthusiastically greeted Jackie. One boy had the special honor of singing “Sincere Hero” for Jackie, who joined in when the boy appeared to be forgetting the words. Jackie always says that he can’t remember the lyrics to songs, but he remembered these and it was very touching to see the two of them singing together.



After visiting the classroom, Jackie was shown the exercise room where some of the staff demonstrated the routines that the children do to strengthen their muscles and coordination. The school leader kept up a continuous monologue to inform Jackie about all the wonderful things that are being done at the Center. Afterwards, we were led to a small staging area where the flag of China was raised and the national anthem sung. Then came a charming performance by the children at the center. These children are mentally disabled, but you would never know that if you watched them perform. They danced and sang beautifully, then demonstrated martial arts movements, much to Jackie’s delight. When the performance was over, a ping pong table was brought into the clearing and after two students played for Jackie, they invited him to join them. One of the boys was an ace table tennis player and he immediately smashed several shots right past Jackie, who is also a really good player. The crowd cheered when the boy scored, but they cheered equally as loud when Jackie did too.


Here’s a short video of Jackie playing ping pong:



After the ping pong game Jackie joined in several other activities with the children and then we went to visit the school kitchen where Jackie was invited to help make dumplings and have lunch with the students. During the lunch, Jackie spoke with a young lady who was quite personable; she was a terrific conversationalist. Jackie really enjoyed his talk with this girl and with the other children at the lunch table. And of course he also enjoyed the delicious dumplings that he’d help make!


I must take a moment to tell you about something that happened to the photos that I took during this part of our day. When we returned to the hotel in the evening of October 14th, I immediately uploaded the pictures to both my laptop and to an external backup drive. Unfortunately, I was interrupted in the middle of the upload to the backup drive and when I returned to the task later in the evening, I thought I picked up where I left off, but apparently I didn’t. Then the thing that I always fear happening did happen….the laptop completely died. At the time I was not worried because I knew I’d backed up the pictures to the external hard drive. It wasn’t until I got back to Hong Kong that I was horrified to discover that all the photos from the second half of the afternoon at the Disabled Center were gone – several hundred of them. I have been taking photos for many years and this was the first time that something like this ever happened. Since I am fanatical about backing up my photos, I couldn’t believe that I’d neglected to upload all of the pictures to both the laptop and the backup. But I did. When I finally accepted that the photos were gone forever, I remembered a really nice photographer who was taking pictures at the event that day. We’d spoken briefly and he’d given me his business card. I immediately wrote him an email and asked him if he would be willing to share a few of the photos that he’d taken of the dumpling ceremony and the lunch with the children. He replied right away, sending me a handful of photos and told me I could use them on the website. So despite losing those photos, I’m happy to say that there are still some to share with you. I have two reasons for sharing this story with you. The first is so that you know how important it is to back up every single important thing that’s on your computer since you never can predict a complete failure of a hard drive. And the second reason is that I wanted you to know how many nice people there are in the world - - this photographer who shared his photos with us is just one of them.

While I was taking photos, Fibe was busy recording some video of Jackie eating lunch with the children:


After our visit to the Center, we drove to a local television studio for a charity auction. Although the crowd wasn’t that large, they were very generous and enthusiastic and Jackie ended up raising US $365,000 for the charity. One of the auction winners was a young boy who became very emotional when he spoke to Jackie. He said that Jackie was his hero and role model and that he wanted to work hard to help others when he grew up. Since he was using his own money to buy an auction item for charity, it looks like he is off to a good start. On the way home, Jackie expressed his amazement that even with the recent economic downturn, people were willing to donate large amounts of money for the children. He was very happy with the result of this small auction.


After the auction we returned to the hotel to rest for a while before we continued our activities. Jackie asked us to come to his suite….he was too excited to sleep and just wanted to talk about the successful auction and reminisce about our first day on this Dragon’s Heart trip. While we were chatting, the television was on in the background and every single channel had Jackie on it. There were news reports of our trip to the Disabled Center, Jackie movies, Jackie commercials. Jackie joked that it was “Jackie TV – all day, every day!” It was really funny but also heartwarming to see that he local television stations had honored Jackie by playing his movies non-stop while he was visiting the area.


After we ate a quick dinner, we got back in the van and drove to a nearby venue where some local singers and dancers as well as Jackie’s Disciple finalists and the all-women singing group A Jia from Tibet would be performing. When we arrived at the small auditorium, there were hundreds of people waiting to see Jackie. We managed to make our way inside the building but the crowds were nearly impossible to get through. People were everywhere – lining the aisles, crouching near the stage, stuffed into the hallways. It was really a security nightmare and Jackie’s bodyguards were on high alert. Fibe and I managed to find a seat in the audience but we soon had to abandon them because everyone was standing up in the aisle in front of us. Instead, we made our way down to the stage area and somehow found a way to squeeze in so that we could watch what was going on. I needed to be in a clear spot to take photos, and luckily I found a good place. However, the videographer who was filming the performances was one of the rare kind who has no regard for his fellow photographers and he constantly stood right in front of those of us who were trying to take pictures. While trying to film Jackie’s solo singing performance, this same man came and stood right in front of my video camera. Luckily this is a rare occurrence; most photographers and videographers are much more respectful of each other than this man was. They may push and shove to get close to Jackie, but they always check their backs to see if they’re blocking anyone.

I’m not sure where Jackie was during the first several performances; perhaps he found a safe place backstage. After a performance of Peking Opera, Jackie came out on the stage and thrilled the audience by singing a bit of opera himself.



When he was finished, he talked to the audience for a few minutes, telling them about how he’d recorded several songs in honor and support of the Sichuan earthquake victims. He asked the crowd if they’d like to hear him sing Xiāngxìn Zìjǐ (Believe in Yourself). Of course everyone wanted to hear it, so Jackie sang a very moving and heartfelt solo of this touching song. The crowd was quite wild that night and the security personnel had a hard time keeping everyone in their seats and away from the stage. During his performance, Jackie reached out to shake hands with someone in the audience and in a flash one man leaped onto the stage and went running directly for him. But the bodyguards were just as fast and immediately tackled the intruder and wrestled him away from Jackie. This episode was indicative of the behavior of the people for much of this Dragon’s Heart trip. I’ve never seen so many aggressive fans as I saw in Henan. Luckily for Jackie, his security team was vigilant and they kept him safe throughout the trip. Of course it’s understandable that people get excited when they see Jackie, but I don’t think they realize the danger that is created when large crowds all rush ahead at the same time.

When Jackie performs on stage, he always gets really pumped up and this night was no exception. He was very excited and he talked and sang the entire way home from the venue. We returned to the hotel at around 10:00 in the evening and after relaxing for a few minutes, we went to our rooms and got ready for bed. Just as we turned the lights out, the phone rang…it was Jackie. It seemed that a group of children and teachers from the Disabled Center had come to the hotel to give Jackie a special gift. He wanted me to come and take some pictures. A few minutes later I entered his suite and was surprised to see dozens of people wandering around! Jackie came out and after visiting with the kids for a few minutes, posed for photos. Finally it was time to say goodnight (again) and rest up for another busy day tomorrow.

The students and their teachers.


Jackie with the students.


Jackie with the teachers.


Visiting with one of the children.

Text, video, and photos Copyright 2009 Katharine Schroeder / The JC Group
All Rights Reserved

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