One Olympic torchbearer in San Francisco yesterday with ties to Hawai'i was award-winning American journalist, scholar and longtime social and political activist Helen Zia.

"It's been exhilarating," said Zia, via cell phone as she was riding the bus with her fellow torchbearers following the Olympic torch relay. "We didn't know our route until we ran it. We really didn't know where it was going to be. So, a lot of it has really been not knowing what was going to happen."

The torch played hide-and-seek with thousands of demonstrators and spectators crowding San Francisco's waterfront yesterday before being spirited away without even a formal goodbye on its symbolic stop in the United States.

After its parade was rerouted and shortened to prevent disruptions by massive crowds of anti-China protesters, the planned closing ceremony at the waterfront was canceled and moved to San Francisco International Airport.

The last-minute changes to the route and the site of the closing ceremony were made amid security concerns following chaotic protests in London and Paris of China's human rights record in Tibet and elsewhere.

San Francisco was chosen to host the relay in part because of its large Chinese-American population. Twenty percent of San Francisco's 744,000 people are of Chinese ethnicity, and there were thousands of China supporters along the planned six-mile route.

Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original route nearly in half. Then, at the opening ceremony, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a waterfront warehouse.

A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight. Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to two runners away from protesters and media.

Zia, 55, was one of about 80 people selected to run the torch in relays.

'INCREDIBLY INTENSE'

Although she lives in the Bay Area, she has spoken in Hawai'i and visits the Islands several times a year, said her brother, Hoyt Zia, the former publisher of Hawaii Business magazine and currently senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Hawaiian Airlines.

The torch relay "has been incredibly intense," Helen Zia said. "There have been both a lot of protests and a lot of people along the way supporting us, too."

She said torchbearers were raising the torch for the ideals of the Olympics. Part of freedom is the expression of diverse opinion, she said. But Zia admitted that the process was pushed to the limits at times yesterday.

"My greatest concern is that people misunderstand why I, or any of the other torchbearers, are doing this," she said. "It is not a matter of the oppression of the people of Tibet or anywhere else, versus the protesters. I think it's being presented that way, and I think a lot of people see it that way.

"Most of us here are running for our own different causes — for the homeless, for the impoverished, and against war. For me, I'm running for the principles of peace and for social justice.

"This is why we're all on this torchbearers' bus together today."

Among her many writings, Zia is the author of the acclaimed "Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People." She also co-wrote, along with Wen Ho Lee, "My Country Versus Me," the story of how the Los Alamos scientist was falsely accused of being a spy for the People's Republic of China.

Zia, who has fought for marriage equality in America, lives with her partner, Lia Shigemura, who is from Hawai'i. The two were among the 4,000 same-sex couples that were married in San Francisco during a brief period beginning Feb. 12, 2004. The California Supreme Court outlawed the controversial practice a month later.

ISOLATION NOT ANSWER

Hoyt Zia said his sister will be visiting Hawai'i in about two weeks. He said she was chosen as a torchbearer because she is "one of the most prominent Chinese-Americans in the Bay Area, if not the country."

"I've always been in awe of her and always very proud of her," he said.

In an open forum essay titled, "Why I will carry the Olympic Torch," that was published in the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday, Helen Zia said calls for a boycott of the Olympics would only serve to further isolate America and China from each other.

"There is another vision: that a peaceful and better world is possible through friendly engagement and mutual understanding, not violent confrontation and polarization," she wrote.

As a longtime advocate of social justice, she is aware of the many human rights failings of the Chinese government, she said. However, she said during trips to China, and especially during the time she spent in Shanghai as a Fulbright scholar, she became impressed with the people of China.

She observed wide-ranging diversity and openness of viewpoints among the people, and she met hundreds of people who were outspoken and even critical of the government. Ultimately, she believes, the world will be safer if China, the United States, and other nations address the human rights in the community of nations, and not in isolation, she said.

The torch is scheduled to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then to a dozen other countries before arriving in China on May 4. The Olympics begin Aug. 8.