Chang Apana died in 1933 at the age of 64.

Everyone knows  Charlie Chan — the Chinese sleuth, who in the movies, was portrayed by white actors in yellow face, bestowing nuggets of fortune cookie proverbs, while solving murders. Over four dozen features were produced featuring Chan. But, little is known of the real life influence for the Chan character. He was in fact, one bad ass Honolulu Police Detective named Chang Apana, a hapa Chinese/Hawaiian who patrolled the then seedy streets of Honolulu at the turn of the 20th Century.

But, let’s discuss the inspiration of Chan first. In 1920, Earl Derr Biggers, a Boston mystery writer, was vacationing in Waikiki at Gray’s By-the-Sea. He contemplated setting the scene of a future novel in tropical Honolulu. Four years later, while looking through Honolulu newspapers for story ideas, he found several articles about a Honolulu Police Department (HPD) detective named Chang Apana. Apana was frequently in the news because of his sensational arrests and unorthodox style of crime fighting. Rather than carry a gun, Apana only carried his signature bull whip, which he used frequently and with great skill.

Apana was Honolulu’s most feared crime fighter for a 30 year span. From 1898 to 1932, he made hundreds of arrests on Oahu and busted several drug, mostly opium,  and gambling circles. Apana sometimes made 40 arrests in one day without a firearm, according to police records. The detective was small in stature, at only 5 feet. His excellent bullwhip skills came from his younger days as a paniolo, or Hawaiian cowboy.

Honolulu, as a port town, was full of crime and pretty seedy back in those days, with merchants, sailors, and prostitutes populating the streets of downtown. In fact, in between Chinatown and A’ala, where the original Dole Cannery building still stands, there was a huge barrio populated with hundreds of prostitutes, mostly of the geisha variety.

Apana’s ability to blend in, as well as his reputation as a total bad ass, built him up as a force to be dealt with. He was  fast-walking, a chain smoker and wore a Panama hat (not fedora) with his trusty whip on his side. The sleuth spoke fluent Cantonese, Hawaiian and pidgin English. However, apparently he was only literate in Hawaiian.

According to news reports, Apana was born in Waipio (western part of Oahu) to a Chinese immigrant family. When he was three, the entire family decided to move back to China. But, like many immigrant Asian families in the early 20th Century,  Apana returned to Oahu when he was 10, either because his family was too poor to raise him or he was sent to work in the new country to send money back. He was raised by his uncle and became skilled at tending horses (his paniolo days).

Officer Apana with fellow HPD officers

He died in 1933, one year after retiring from the force, and was buried at Manoa Chinese Cemetery. Apana had 10 children and married 3 times. To this day, Apana is still considered HPD’s most prolific officer that there is actually a Chang Apana Museum at HPD’s main department building near downtown Honolulu. Officer Eddie Croom, the museum’s curator, says “Regardless of his size, (Apana) got into many skirmishes. He was stabbed and faced guys who were bigger, but he always seemed to get them in the end.”

There is a prevailing theory that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg got the idea of the bull whip for Indiana Jones via reading stories about Apana. It could very well be possible, since apparently the two would always vacation in Hawaii when each other’s movies would come out.

Regardless, Chang Apana was one helluvah of a bad ass. In recent years, there’s been talk around Hollywood to revive the Charlie Chan character. For a brief moment, the Weinsteins were going to do an adaptation with Lucy Liu as Chan’s granddaughter. I say, why not forgo Chan entirely and go to the source, Chang Apana? If nurtured in the right hands, a Chang Apana movie could totally kick ass. Sadly, he lives on as an oscure footnote who inspired a controversial character. Hopefully, this disservice will be corrected one day.