Chapter One - 1.3 Diary of a Yaletown Girl ~ Entering Jackie Chan

Euphoria in the love sector! I’ve been thinking about Jackie Chan. Don’t laugh, yes, Jackie. He’s probably the most unattractive Asian male actor on TV. But somehow, I can’t get him out of my mind! The funny thing is I have a few ex-boyfriends that I would consider to be celebrity look-a-like. I’ll let you know about Jackie Chan after.

First, it was MJ, who I was engaged to for a couple of years who looked like Superman (Christopher Reeves). Every time he enters a door, someone would shout, “hey, you look like superman” and he would be a little annoyed. Mind, you superman is quite handsome.

There’s also Mr. I’m the Best looking guy in Yaletown, who looks like Daniel Craig. Yes, the most unattractive of all the bond boys. Every time I see a bond movie with Daniel, I cringe.

Finally, there’s Mr. Perfect, who is a Keanu Reeves look-a-like. I didn’t realize how good looking he was until I saw him in plain day light, shirt off and all running on the seawall. Damn, that was a beautiful man. (Note to self: this is just from my memory and a bias interpretation, for all that I know, he might be more like Garry Shandling.)

Okay, back to Jackie Chan. For a couple of months now, I’ve been secretly attending Toastmaster. This particular club was unique, entertaining and not only were the members a handsome bunch, they are a really intelligent and career driven too! When I first joined, I looked across the room and saw a really sharply dressed Asian man who looked like Jackie Chan, but better looking. At first, I chuckled at it and then I found myself really attracted to this man since he exudes so much confidence. Also, you know what men in suits does too me! It turns out that this Jackie Chan was not of Chinese decent, but of Korean and he was an ex-US lawyer who had decided to go into business - corporate strategy and sales.

Jackie was an excellent speaker. Once, he delivered an inspirational speech of how his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he coped with the situation by shaving his head to raise money for cancer. I believed Jackie raised $5000 in one month. At one part of the speech, it was so heart felt where he reached a dangerous emotional point, that I almost burst out crying. Since then, I haven’t really introduced myself to Jackie or vice versa. I find this to be a little bit odd since both of us are both very friendly people.

One day, I delivered my “Potential Prince William” Speech (see previous blog in September) as a humorous story to entertain my fellow TM. When I mentioned to my audience that my potential prince William was a Korean man with a UK accent, and it was “one in a thousand”. I looked at Jackie, and he shook his head and says “no”. Of course I ignored him and finished the funny speech.

Since then, people seem to remember the speech. The next week, there was an email sent out by the Toast Master of the week and he used me as an example to have an introduction connected to a name. For instance, “Sensational Shelly, who’s looking for a free spending, UK accented Korean man. I laughed at the email and jokingly respond – how about loyal, intelligent Korean man in addition to the free spending part. Lol. Guess what? That was the introduction I got when I volunteered for the "Ah counter" position the next day at Toastmaster. I was so embarrassed and avoided any Koreans that day including Jackie.

There was another club that grew out of the toastmaster club. This one was an entrepreneur club and a few members invited me to check it out. When I showed up the next day, Jackie was the host and chair. We said “hello” and I introduced myself to the other members. The next thing I knew, there was a sea of men, asian men. There were about 30 men and only 4 women. It turned out that most of the men were from Korea and they were sent over by work. SK, a major Telecom Company had sent their employees to Canada for 3 weeks to study English. When the Korean guy next to me told me where he came from and why, I thought to myself, well, that was odd. Then, I see Jackie at the front of the room looking at me and as I looked up, he says, “Shelly, I granted you your wish, you can pick and choose from all the Korean men here. hehe Great.