60 years of Israeli independence celebrated at the Tainan County Holocaust museum

The Tainan County Bao An Holocaust Museum had a ceremony to celebrate Israel’s 60 years of independence. I went there twice before to help them out with their request to learn how to sing some songs in Hebrew.

Arriving there I met a large group of volunteering students from the nearby university who were in charge or greeting the incoming guests.

Inside, preparations were at their final stages at the kitchen to acommodate lunch for the very large number of guests.

The food was looking… interesting…

I got to meet the Israeli representative in Taiwan who came up from Taipei accompanied with his MoD body-guard and a very nice Taiwanese translator woman. I also chitchatted with the Japanese who is running the Hiroshima Holocaust museum and spoke fluent Hebrew, as well as a few other distinguished guests. There was one other Israeli who came especially for the event all the way from Israel and whose story I couldn’t quite figure out – him being a very devoted Christian.

After the guests started arriving we all went on to have a ceremonial lunch.

With yet more interesting food…

Was that local food? I doubt it…

After bellies were full we went up to the church floor for the main ceremony. Surreal is an understatement for that whole ceremony. There was naturally a very strong religious aroma to the whole service and that’s okay but I have to stay I still feel very uncomfortable when I hear things about Jews being the children of God and how all nations, in this case – Taiwanese, should learn from them and love them. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the love, really I do, it’s just that I don’t think this kind of attention or affiliation does me or Israelis any good, not to mention I don’t believe this to be true. But, hopefully, my instincts on this are wrong.

Okay, here we go. Let’s start with the national Israeli anthem… :P

Then came a choir from Taiwan’s longest running highschool based in Tainan.

Then came a group that played together an instrument I haven’t seen before. Can you figure out what they’re doing? (wait till after the flute)

If you didn’t, here’s a closer look…

Then came a group of elderly Taiwanese ladies who came all the way from Taipei to sing to us…

There were also a few speakers talking about various issues around the subject of Israeli-Taiwan-Jews-Christians-Holocaust. All that I could maybe handle, but a large group of eager Taiwanese waving little Israeli flags just seemed a bit too much…

The event was summed up with an exchange of gifts and endless group photo shoots.

Unreal.

(Update 2008/06 – More photos of the event are now available)