Keeping Barb busy

Barb has been keeping busy during her visit.  On Friday we visited Dengfeng City.  We went to one of the oldest Buddhist temples in China, nestled into the mountains.  Barb thought the setting was just like the Chinese art she studied in college.  We even saw a few foreigners and so unused am I now to other Westerners that I was staring at them as much as the Chinese.  I refrained, however, from taking their pictures.

We spent the late afternoon at the famed Shaolin Temple where kung fu was developed.  It's probably the biggest tourist attraction in Henan province but the demonstration was still cool!  Ya gotta like a guy breaking a sword over his head and another throwing a pin through a ballon and a piece of glass.

Saturday was a wedding feast!  Jackie Chan is the liaison for us foreign experts and his new bride Poppy (English name) is in my graduate philosophy class.   Wonderful couple and they welcomed us like family.The hosts must lay on a sumptuous and plentiful spread so that no guest goes away hungry. Better Chinese restaurants usually have a large dining room on the first floor and a number of rooms on the second where people can eat in a relatively quiet atmosphere.  Jackie & Poppy had the entire floor for their banquet.  Naturally there were numerous toasts and much bai jo (Chinese whiskey) consumed.  Jackie doesn't like to drink but by the time he made it to our room for his third visit he was pretty unsteady.  "Five uncles!" he complained, and by tradition they wanted to ensure he was man enough to marry their relative by seeing if he could hold his whiskey.  No way the groom can refuse a toast!  We lightened him up by the special performance of a rap we had prepared. 

 The newlyweds' reaction is our best review.

Sunday Professors Guo Shangxing, Xue Yufeng, Barb, and I went to Zhuxianzhen, a small town 22 kilometers south of Kaifeng.  It has a temple dedicated to national hero Yue Fei.  The statues above commemorate the capture of the five assassins who took his life.  The town also boasts a fine old mosque.

Zhuxianzhen is famous for woodcuts.  We stopped at a shop and watched the artisans at work.  Naturally we did not leave the town empty-handed.  Back in Kaifeng we met more friends for a great feast.  Did I mention that the Chinese love to eat?
Our day was not yet done—nor were our culinary adventures.  Livia, one of my junior students, had invited us to dinner at her parents' apartment Sunday evening.
Her mother taught Barb how to make jiaozi and baozi (dumplings boiled and steamed).
She spoke no English but Livia could translate and at any rate the international language of the kitchen held sway.  Livia's mother is a terrific cook and we marveled at the spread she laid out using one burner.  No oven, no stove, just a hotplate.  Amazing!
We had a great time,  I never thought I 'd hear Barb claim that she can barely face another feast!  But Monday was another day...

Passover in Kaifeng

Passover in the middle of China! My wife and I amid a crowd of Chinese celebrating the holiday. How did this curious event come about?

A thousand years ago a Jewish community in what is today Turkey got wind of an upcoming persecution. The decision was made to flee far from danger. Off the people went, traveling east on the Silk Road all the way to China. They were welcomed by the Emperor in his capital. So it was that a small number of Jews settled in Kaifeng.

Over the years the people prospered. They encountered none of the prejudice and oppression so tragically common in the West. They embraced their new Chinese lives.

In the wake of Marco Polo’s expeditions missionary Matteo Ricci came to China, where he would spend the rest of his life. One day he received a visitor. The Chinese man had heard that there was a Westerner who was an adherent of the one true God. Completely unaware of the existence of Christianity, he was sure he was about to reestablish contact with the Jewish world.

Ricci in turn thought he might have found a lost colony of Christians. After a discussion they realized their error. Ricci sent to Kaifeng a Chinese Jesuit who confirmed the unexpected existence of a Jewish community—in China!

Curious about this oddity, the Jesuits eventually built a church near the Kaifeng synagogue. Relations between the groups were good when focused on studies of mutual interest. But any efforts at conversion were resisted and resented by the Kaifeng Jews. The only Catholic church in town still stands near the site of the old synagogue. In between stands the city’s biggest mosque. Due to the historical proximity of the three religions to one another, Kaifengers call this area Little Jerusalem

Over time the Jewish community disappeared. It wasn’t suppressed. Many Jews intermarried. Young men neglected their Jewish studies in order to prepare for the imperial examinations. They became more and more Chinese until no one could read Hebrew or say the prayers anymore. When the last rabbi died and the synagogue was destroyed in a flood, the community faded away.

In recent times the Kaifeng Jews have become a subject of curiosity and study. Israeli and American Jews come to town to find out more about this unique outpost. Descendants of the Kaifeng Jews have dedicated increased energy to reviving their dormant heritage.

In the spring Jews all over the world celebrate Passover. All over the world—even in Kaifeng, China. On the evening of April 8 my wife and I attended a Passover seder (service) here. About 50 of the descendants gathered at a local restaurant. The crowd also included guests from as far away as Beijing and Hong Kong—and two from Wooster, Ohio, USA.

Immediately preceding the Seder was an event of signal importance. One of the visitors presented the group with a baby Torah. Representatives received it with the appropriate combination of solemnity and happiness. This scroll is the Five Books of Moses, the Books of Law, the Pentateuch, studied, parsed and combed for every nuance over the centuries. The gathering was genuinely joyful and enthusiastic as the little Torah was taken around the room and everyone stood and touched the box.

The service was led by two earnest young men. While most was in Chinese, it was strange to hear the Hebrew portions spoken with such an exotic accent. The people ate matzo and drank wine as they made their way through the liturgy. A highlight came when a young girl recited the four questions that ask, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” With the focus on task so typical of the Chinese, she had memorized the long Hebrew portion perfectly in only two weeks.

After the service we had a typical Chinese meal. That means a bewildering array of dishes made a seemingly endless parade to the table. There was mutton and duck and beef and chicken. There was lotus root and aloe plant in yogurt sauce and everything else from pickled bean sprouts to sheep intestines. And there was the standard feature of any Chinese banquet—jolly toasts in which everyone must click their cups and glasses. “Kambe!” Drink it dry!

Finally we engaged in another inevitable part of any Chinese event: photographs. Everyone takes pictures of everyone and the weigoren (foreigners) are especially popular. We posed and smiled and said “Qieze.” That’s the Chinese version of “say cheese” but it’s the word for eggplant.

The Chinese Jews were and are a minuscule sliver of a population of 1.3 billion. Most Chinese are unaware of their existence. Among the few who know anything about the Jewish people there is respect. The Jews have a long history and exhibit perseverance. The Chinese can identify.

The Kaifeng Jews are determined to build a future based on a proud and rich past. To China they add a little much-needed diversity. To Barbara and me they gave one never-to-be-forgotten evening.

For pictures go to http://picasaweb.google.com/PackLitePaul/KaifengPassover# and click on slideshow in the upper left corner

Night Market

Mike introduces Barb to the Night Market

Every night downtown Kaifeng undergoes a mind-boggling change.  At exactly 7:00 PM hundreds of vendors wheel their stands into the street and transform the area into a gigantic food bazaar.  This is the famous Kaifeng Night Market.  People come from nearby Zhongzhou and points afar to enjoy the completely Chinese combination of theater and food. Needless to say, Barb was boggled and loved it.

The original fish sticks!         

Yum—roasted cicadas just the way you like them!

Barb's first meal

Barb is fascinated by the menu

Barb flew into Zhongzhou on Saturday.  Jackie, the Henan University International Programs liaison, organized a Buick and a driver for the 2 + hour round trip from Kaifeng to pick her up.  Before we re-entered the new Kai-Zhong tollway we stopped at a hotel for Barb's first real Chinese meal, her Beijing Swiss-owned hotel's Western-style breakfast buffet notwithstanding.

A menu or a stocking list for an aquarium?

Banqueting

One of the great delights of China is the banquet, a convivial meal that features a dazzling array of dishes and endless toasts.  These begin with everyone standing and touching glasses all around—and you must click every glass.  Throughout the meal people walk around the table toasting each person individually.  Teetotalers can abstain from alcohol but you've got to drink something!  Dan and Tamara Yu, Beloit College professors, are spending their sabbatical in China with their daughter, researching language in Beijing.  They came to Kaifeng to deliver a pair of lectures.  Henan University Chancellor Guan hosted a feast for them and was kind enough to invite me.  

We've pretty much exhausted the Australian wine Professor Guan brought, so he and I are drinking corn juice.

Yellow River Outing

The Chinese students do many outings with their classes. I was invited on the spring outing for the Foreign Language postgraduates (grad students in the USA) and was happy to accept, especially since it was my first visit to the Yellow River. The Huang is called the Mother River since Chinese civilization first grew up around it.
We took the local bus 8 kilometers north of Kaifeng. Because the area is suffering from a prolonged drought the river is way down with large sandbars visible over its great width—it must be two kilometers across. The blossoms are out as you can see. We lined up for a considerable number of group photos, a feature of any Chinese outing, and everyone wanted a picture with me. So this is what celebrity status feels like!
No Chinese social gathering is complete without food. We had a little barbeque where the students roasted meat, fish, and vegetables over a fire, and then a peasant meal in a Mongolian-style yurt.  I taught the students Western poker, mostly five card draw, and they taught me Chinese poker—landlord vs. peasants, of course.

Great kids, great day, great fun.

Teaching in China

No foolin'!  This piece appeared in the April 1 Perspectives from the Provost, an e-mail newsletter circulated throughout The University of Akron.

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Teaching in China provides as many lessons for the teacher as his students
By Dr. Paul Weinstein, Professor of History at Wayne College

Hello from Kaifeng, China.

As part of its affiliation with the Confucius Institute, The University of Akron is strengthening its decade-long partnership with Henan University. The university serves China's most populous and poorest province. There are two campuses, a new generic expanse of concrete on the northwest corner of the city that houses the sciences and the old one inside the medieval walls. The latter is home during this faculty improvement leave semester.

It's a mark of prestige among Chinese universities to boast some foreign professors, and Henan has had a difficult time recruiting them. The link with UA is very important to it.

I'm in the happy position of being the first foreign Ph.D. to teach here, and Henan is getting as much as it can out of me. I've got double-size classes, seeing every English major in the freshman, sophomore and junior Foreign Language Department classes (here called grades 1, 2 and 3). I'm trying to satisfy their enormous curiosity about the West with two American Popular Culture classes and four History of Western Culture sections. In addition, I've got more than 100 postgraduates (we would say "graduate") and a few faculty in my History of Western Philosophy and Theology class, which meets every other week.

The Chinese accord high respect to teachers, all the more for an exotic such as myself. While I enjoy my unique status, it is the classes that make this a truly delightful experience. Imagine students who thank you after every class for simply showing up. Who ask you for more readings! Who tell you what an honor it is to have you at their university. Who applaud at the end of class.

I'm also learning a very valuable lesson, one that I look forward to communicating to my Wayne College students. And that is, very simply, look out. They're coming.

Chinese students work hard, and I mean HARD. They typically attend about six hours of class a day, often six days a week. Yet they are cheerful and friendly and enthusiastic. They do their assignments diligently.

The Chinese are a bit behind us in areas of critical and analytical thinking. The instructional style tends to be didactic. The students spend so much time studying they don't have a lot of time for research or creative thinking. But the work ethic is unbelievable, the mutual support among class groups is palpable, and the determination to succeed for self and country is extraordinarily strong. The Chinese are putting their shoulders to the wheel and that is a lot of collective power. We're going to have to work very hard to stay ahead — or even.

The students today at The University of Akron and all across the United States should heed the words of baseball legend Satchel Paige: “Don't look over your shoulder. Someone might be gaining on you.”