Postscript: Caring for a King-Size Tongan

King Topou IV of Tonga was one of Mary Jones’ first assignments as Orange County’s new chief of protocol. And it proved to be a weighty order.

Before King Topou and Queen Mata’ Aho visited here in January, Jones first had to find out just where Tonga is. “I knew it was in the South Pacific, but I didn’t know where,” Jones said.

She arranged for Supervisor Thomas Riley to make the king an honorary citizen of Orange County and also arranged for a tour of Disneyland. Then she learned the king weighed approximately 400 pounds.

“I had to take that into consideration in planning his itinerary,” she said. “I wouldn’t plan on a lot of walking.”

Since the Orange County office of protocol opened in January, it also has served Crown Prince Harald of Norway and Ethiopian artist Afewerk Tekle, Jones said. Although the office is “still in the setting-up stage,” she said, she also has arranged a tour of Buena Park High School for a New Zealand high school principal and given miniature flags of Orange County to visiting Chinese forensic professors.

Books on Protocol

The office, which holds just two desks, is enclosed by a partition decorated with a wall hanging from Ecuador, posters of China and other brightly colored international odds and ends. Two dogeared books on protocol sit on a bookshelf.

On the other side of the partition, phones ring constantly in the Orange County public information office. The phones in the office of protocol are silent. But, at any minute, royalty could call.

Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder spearheaded the drive to set up the office last year after she was approached by a volunteer group interested in welcoming visitors during the Olympic Games. She said that Orange County, with a population of 2 million and with many companies involved in international business, had only Disneyland to provide hospitality for foreign diplomats.

Many foreign visitors in the past have regarded Orange County as part of the greater Los Angeles area, Wieder said. “We’re bigger than some countries, so I think it’s about time we had some identification.”

A fund-raiser in November, attended by Orange County business people, provided the $32,000 needed to operate the office for a year and pay its one full-time, salaried employee, said John Gerkin, president of the office’s advisory committee. The county provides the office space.

On Loan From Disneyland

Jones is on loan from Disneyland, where she is the manager of community affairs. She has had no formal training in protocol but has had 10 years of experience at the park, supervising park visits by dignitaries such as Princess Margaret and King Hussein.

When preparing for visitors, Jones said, she usually researches such things as their country’s dietary customs and how people are seated and greeted there. In some countries, she said, “You don’t touch people. You don’t extend your hand out to people.”

Jones said she eventually hopes to establish a corps of several hundred volunteers to do such things as translate and provide entertainment. The office has received about 50 calls from residents interested in volunteering, she said. With a long list of volunteers, the office might be able to match people by interest or profession, she said.

Some volunteers might offer their homes, she said. “When you’re in a strange country, you cannot get to know the country by being in business. You sure can by being in people’s homes.”