Fili’s world
A different look at Asia, China and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taipei After Dark - Andrew Harris 1969 Sexpose Travelogue The Taiwanese "The World Is So Big" TV show visits Israel Expat English language Blogs in Taiwan continued Touring Taichung : Big Laughing Buddha, Art Street and Jing MingChina
The Chinese Israel bashing in response to China bashing on Israeli media Rare stamp : China’s “The entire nation is red” but Taiwan is white Israel at the Beijing Olympics : What do the Chinese think of Jews? Our medallists : Taiwan’s Chen Wei-ling and Israel’s Shahar Zubari
The front door at my parents’ house has a sign in 3 languages – Hebrew, English and Chinese and most people who came in and noticed it wondered who it was for. Apart from one excited Japanese girl who went door-to-door asking donations for her world peace organization, no body was ever able to read that. Till this week…
The Friday night family dinner at my parents house had two special guests this week as my two Chinese friends from the Hebrew University have been kind enough to accept my invitation to join my family for a somewhat traditional Jewish meal. They are both here to study Hebrew in the international school at the Hebrew University and ever since they arrived here two weeks ago it’s been my pleasure to meet with them and show them around a bit. After talking to them this week and learning of their curiosity towards Israeli and Jewish life I figured that they’d also be interested in experiencing some of the Jewish customs of the pre-Saturday night so we set off to go to the Jewish temple (synagogue), a place which I haven’t visited for years now, and then go to my parents’ house for our family dinner.
My family was quite excited. They’ve been enduring my Asian obsession for a while, so for them the prospect of meeting people from Asia for the first time and being able to share their family atmosphere was a big thing. I was asked what special food to buy and what dishes to make, yet all-in-all we had our pretty average “Vegetarian” dinner which consisted of things you can’t really go very wrong with – 2 kinds of soup, 2 kinds of fish, with some classic side dishes like rice, salads, Kish, and stir-fried vegetables-Tofo.
I could tell that my family was thrilled and I imagine that my Chinese friends had a good time. There was singing in both Hebrew and Chinese, lots of cross-cultural curiosity and also some plain discussions and fooling around. Since I’ve been sitting in those family dinners for years, not always enjoying myself, this was a very special and meaningful occasion for me as I got to re-live what I feel is special about both the Chinese and Jewish cultures. It was a truly wonderful experience.
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Christy
| November 6th, 2006 at 8:57 am #
Hi FiLi,
That sounds like a lovely evening!
I have been so interested to read about your fondness for Asian culture–I’m an American, of combined Japanese and Chinese heritage, who converted to Judaism almost 25 years ago before marrying my husband (who is also American, of Eastern European Jewish heritage). Our kids definitely look Asian, and they also strongly identify with being Jewish.
Although my profession is the practice of Chinese medicine , I don’t speak or write much Chinese–in fact, I have studied more Hebrew than Chinese! But reading your blog is inspiring me…
warm regards,
Christy Lee-Engel
Seattle
fiLi
| November 7th, 2006 at 10:30 am #
That’s a wonderful personal story, and naturally - I’m very curious.
There aren’t that many “mixed” Asian-Jewish couples that I know of, but hearing about those warms my heart every time (I bet you got gorgeous kids, eh? :D).
A Chinese dinner in Jerusalem | fiLi’s world
| March 4th, 2007 at 4:36 pm #
[...] At the beginning of the previous semester, through people I know in China, I got to meet the two Chinese students who received the Israeli scholarship for Chinese students to study Hebrew in Jerusalem. Last week, after they recovered the disappointment from the Egyptian government which didn’t allow them entry into Egypt, we threw a little dinner get-together with a few Israeli friends who study with the East-Asia department and the two Chinese girls for a late Chinese New Years celebration. The choice for the restaurant was "Mandarin", up on the corner of Jaffa and Shlomtzion st., a restaurant that’s considered the only decent non-Kosher Chinese cuisine in Jerusalem. [...]