REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK : The Unexpected Dogs Cheney Tour : Far East: Aquino’s snub brings an extra shopping day in Hong Kong.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s two-week tour of the Orient is barely half over and already he’s been snubbed by Corazon Aquino, eaten field rations with some talking shrubbery in Hawaii and witnessed a full-body-contact South Korean press conference.

The serious purpose of the journey--to consult with East Asian allies about U.S. military strategy in the region and to pay morale-boosting visits to American GIs--has sometimes been overshadowed by unscheduled events.

Cheney barely had touched down in Honolulu a week ago Saturday when word came from Manila that Philippines President Aquino would not grant him an audience in Manila this week.

Aquino, piqued about comments by senior U.S. officials questioning her grip on power and her apparent inability to stem corruption and cronyism in her government, said she had no time to see the Pentagon boss. She wouldn’t budge, even after President Bush told her she might learn a few things from Cheney.

Cheney said, “I don’t take it personally” and promptly scratched a day off his planned two-day visit to Manila. “I would hope that any unpleasantness is minimized,” the diplomatic defense secretary said later.

Members of his traveling party were clearly heartbroken, having been forced to spend an extra unoccupied day here in Hong Kong, the shopping capital of the planet.

Cheney’s helicopter landed on a hilltop in the middle of Oahu Island last Monday, where he was greeted by Maj. Gen. Fred Gorden, who was to demonstrate Army Ranger training among troops of his 25th Infantry Division.

The general and the SecDef, as Cheney is known to the troops, walked into an empty clearing in the tropical rain forest when suddenly there was a rustling in the bushes. Within seconds, the Secretary was surrounded by about two dozen Ranger trainees in full camouflage gear and war paint and covered from head to toe in bushes tied to their uniforms. It was an astounding sight; pictures of Cheney chatting earnestly with the foliage led all the Honolulu evening television news broadcasts.

Field rations, now known as MREs or “Meals, Ready-to-Eat,” were handed out. Cheney missed out on the “patties/pork” and the “stroganoff/beef” and wound up with franks and beans and a cup of luminescent green “bug juice.”

He squeezed the cold franks from their vacuum-packed wrapping and downed them with apparent relish. Actually, there was no relish; rather, that great equalizer--sauce, Tabasco--was provided.

Then the fun began. A young officer brought out a flip chart, field model, and began to brief the SecDef on the Ranger mission. It was all Cheney could do to keep from rolling his eyes at a spectacle he suffers all too frequently back at the Pentagon.

On the morning he left Hawaii for Seoul, Cheney met with a local foreign affairs group and gave his standard speech on the need to maintain strong defenses in a time of unpredictable global upheaval. In the question period following the talk, an elderly gentleman stood up and reminded Cheney that he’d met the future defense secretary in a bar in Sheraton, Wyo., Cheney’s home state.

“Ummm,” said Cheney.

The man said he’d been a Navy duty officer at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, and asked Cheney for a favor:

“When you get back to Washington, could you tell your boss that next year is the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and make sure he gets the date right?”

During the 1988 election campaign, Bush had a little trouble keeping his dates straight, referring to a speech he gave on Sept. 7 as marking the anniversary of the Japanese attack that brought the United States into World War II.

The South Korean press corps, newly freed from years of rigid government control, has adopted a martial arts approach to covering the news.

On arriving in Seoul last Tuesday night, Cheney participated in a brief welcoming ceremony with his host, Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang Hoon. The Korean camera crews set up about eight feet from the two leaders and then elbowed, kneed and body-blocked anyone who got in their way.

A Korean anchorman did live, full-volume commentary during Cheney’s remarks, nearly drowning out the American official.

The next day, at a joint press conference at the South Korean Defense Ministry, the reporters and photographers really got physical, moving rows of chairs forward until they were virtually on top of the desk behind which the two officials sat. Only a strategic jab with a pen from an American reporter kept a Korean photographer from climbing into her lap for a better photo angle.

The South Korean security guards assigned to the press conference could do nothing to control the melee.

Astonished at the Koreans’ aggressiveness, one American traveling with Cheney asked an American diplomat if the South Koreans always operate that way.

“Oh, that was nothing,” the experienced Seoul-based U.S. official said. “They were on their best behavior.”