Chinese in Israel… -2-

(This post is part 2 to an article posted here)

It's not only that Israel has more Chinese characters around and more Asian people in the streets, it's also that China and Taiwan are more widely known and discussed around Israel. "The Marker", Israel's best newspaper's economics section, reports on the Chinese and Taiwnaese economics daily. References to China's growing international power and Taiwan's hi-tech are everywhere. People are fully aware that every piece of clothing they wear and most of their cheap belongings are marked with "Made in China", especially those bought from leading Israeli brands and that cheap electronics usually mean "Made in Taiwan".

Moreover, people are also more politically aware of China. I will never forget the lecture at a backpacker's Israeli chain "Lametayel" I went to about China before I headed out on the Asia trip. I was very curious about China, even back then, but no body I talked to knew anything about it besides that fact that it's huge and that they're communists. The lecturer opened up with a "There's two things you need to know about China – One, it's a difficult place to travel in. Two… it's a VERY difficult place to travel in [bla bla bla]…but from my experience it's worth it". That guy scared the sh#t out of us listeners with his horror tales of language and culture barriers, of hardships and misunderstandings, and of feeling completely alone and different. When I went out from the lecture, I heard some of the people say that maybe they will rethink going there, but for me – it just made me realize how little everybody knew about that place and that I want to know more.

Nowadays, only a year after, almost everybody around me has strong opinions about "The Chinese issue". As it often is with my Israeli friends, it's enough for them that they've heard someone talk about China/Taiwan or that they've read a news article about it – to make them feel very involved with the issue. I don't resent that, but rather I'm fascinated by it, and by how people can talk to me about China and Taiwan for hours with only very limited knowledge about them, showing great passion.

As I was relaxing on a Friday afternoon in Jerusalem's downtown, I was very surprised to see a demonstration with an Israeli guy standing out with a huge speaker-mic shouting passionately about something in English. What made me stop and watch, was that my sensors for Asian looking people have spotted that a few Asians were demonstrating there and that most of the people were wearing T-shirts with Chinese symbols. I've tried following what the speaker was saying, and it took me a while to understand that it was a protest against China organized by the Falun Dafa, an organization I've never heard of before. They were making very extreme accusations against the Chinese government, and asking people to sign somesort of petition. Big Hebrew signs stated : "The Chinese government threatens to start a nuclear war", "China is the number one export country for non-conventional weapons to Iran and the Arab nations", "3000 killed by China's Communists party's history of murder and violence" and on and on. I have to say that, whether you like China or not, the way they were trying to convince people and their arguments seemed very questionable and "fishy", almost missionary.

Either way, seeing a demonstration about China at the center of Jerusalem was something I wasn't expecting. I sat there for over an hour to see how passing Israelis and Asians reacted to this and it was quite remarkable to witness that so many people took interest and not in a light hearted way. It was a bit strange that when I went over and asked them a few questions they didn't seem to know very much, but it was clear that they felt very upset about the issue they knew little of. The day before that,

Thursday night, I saw an intriguing documentary in YesDoco about the North Korean refugees in China and the political struggle to help those refugees. The documentary was made to make a very strong statement about China and North Korea.

I don't know if China is 'evil' or not. As a person who's been for a while in Taiwan, I hold certain views about the Taiwanese-Chinese politics, yet I always feel as though I don't know enough and that I want to know more. It's a completely different world out there in Asia, a world that an Israeli knows little about, and I think it's good that awareness is slowly increasing – either by noticing more Asians around, seeing more Chinese characters, reading more China/Taiwan related articles or even getting a glimpse at their politics through a local demonstration.