Immigrant life in Israel - “Hebrew Lesson” movie

Dongdong is a Chinese documentary film director who fell in love with an Israeli in China and came to live in Israel. Qin left her daughter in China and came to Israel to make a living and after cleaning Ehud’s house they fell in love and got married. These are two of the characters in a touching documentary film I saw yesterday at the Jerusalem Cinemateq.

We meet several characters meet in a Hebrew language Ulpan, where their personal stories meld with the complexities of Israeli reality. The immense effort of learning a new language is revealed through their encounter with a strange culture and unfamiliar environment. The foreigner’s gaze, at times funny, at times sad, paints daily Israeli reality with irony.

[David Ofek ; Israel, 2006  ; 123 min. (Hebrew, English, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Subtitles in Eng)]

(from the Cinemateq movie synopsis)

 

In the first lesson, the teacher starts with a familiar experience of introducing her self in Hebrew relying on simple body language to convey what she’s talking about. She slowly goes around the room asking the Hebrew students to repeat and that’s when we get to know the main characters the documentary follows. Although Russian Sasha and German Annabelle were extraordinary characters, I was mainly preoccupied with DongDong (right) and Qin (left).

After learning that both DongDong and Qin are from China, the teacher offers them to be seated together so that they can become good friends and help each other. They sit down for a talk after class and Qin opens up with "If I was your friend before you came to Israel I would have told you to never come here - there are much better countries to go to" which had an immediate affect on me. They bond very fast, and Qin invites Dongdong to see her very comfortable living with her husband, who although appearing to be a warm and caring is obviously a much older and not-as-attractive. They watch the wedding DVD together and Dongdong is thinking that she might want to make a movie about Chinese love in Israel, to show a different perspective about Chinese living in Israel. Those thoughts last only seconds of movie time until Dongdong is confronted with the unbelievable reality of the poor Chinese workers when visiting a Chinese work-place near Modiin to greet them a happy Chinese new-year. Dongdong meets cruelty and injustice which nor she or I expected to find, learning about Chinese who borrow incredible sums of money for high rates in China thinking they would really get a work permit in Israel, only to arrive in Israel and be abandoned as an illegal "foreign worker" with no passport running away from the law to hide in bare caves on the mountains. Hearing stories about employers who take advantage of the Chinese workers for a long period of time and when it comes to payday, they report them to the authorities, who - at best - send them back to China to face the black-market loan-sharks mafia.

There were two very sad moments in the film which I felt like represented the entire situation. In the first, Ehud buys Qin a return ticket to China to visit her child and family, and when she comes back Ehud waits for her at the arrivals hall. He waits and he waits, till all other passengers pass through and then he calls Qin only to learn that the border authorities are questioning Qin and having a hard time believing that she’s married to an Israeli who’s waiting for her. After a very long wait she finally comes through to meet her husband all broken in tears. I was in exactly that same spot just a few weeks ago.

In the second, the teacher asks Dongdong for her opinion and Dongdong tried to explain in broken Hebrew why she thinks titling the Chinese workers in Israeli as "foreign" isn’t right, and while doing so breaks down in emotions. Dongdong also experiences a crisis with the Israeli teacher who is perceived by Dongdong (and myself) as very aggressive, in both language and actions, and describes the Israelis as a Kaktus, boxing her hands one against the other. I think I know what she feels like… I sometimes I feel the same way towards the culture I grew up in.

I was so touched by the movie, that I looked around the Internet and finally found the Israeli director’s email and wrote to him what the movie meant to me and that I would be grateful if he would send Dongdong a message in my name. He quickly replied with a kind thanks saying that he has forwarded my message.

Go see the movie.

[The promo for the movie is available here.

Reviews : 'New immigrants reveal Israel' ; 'An introductory 'Lesson' on life in Israel' ; 'Sea of love']

 
tags: Asia-Israel connections