Here Comes Another One

I am sitting in my bed right now, trying to reflect as quickly as I can the day that just passed, before the enthusiasm fades away, as it always does.

Oh, man, how I love traveling sometimes. I’ll just give you the highlights – I arrived to the city of Kaifeng at 6:30 in the morning, tired and cold after a long train from Qingdao. It used to be the capital of the Northern Song dynasty, and if I know my Chinese history – and I don’t, but you’d have to take my word, or go to wikipedia – the first city in the world to cross the one million inhabitants. It was at that time and to that bustling metropolis that a group of Jewish Indian immigrants allegedly made their way, and got the emperor's permission to settle. Today it is a run-down (literally, as floods from the Yellow River covered the city a few times), gray city in the middle of China, maybe a tourist spot to some extent, but not much more. It’s nothing like the two cities I have been so far, and anything like the ones in the movies – no skyscrapers (the buried cities don’t allow that); no English; no foreigners (50, estimated one that I met, which in a way makes my humble arrival an event not only in the Jewish community scale); walkable distances; a million bikes and autorickshaws; and a chicken here and there. Judging by the clean alleys and clothes, it is no poor city, just humble and simple. An American I met told me he pays 500 Yuan (75 US) monthly for a two bed-room apartment in a great spot, and still hears being told that it is too much. I know people who pay four times that amount for a room in Beijing. The language is weird, not so much the dialect as the intonations – the locals replace the first and third tones. For one who has been studying the tones so tenaciously (I gave them the greatest attention from starters, as I gathered them to be my weakest point, due to my utterly unmusical ears) this amounts to sacrilegious.

Speaking of faith, guess who I found here. You might say I have couchsurfed the good-old way – walking from alley to Hutong loaded with my cargo, telling people “take me to your Jews”. And they did. I suddenly found myself in a Chinese house, which was everything Chinese other than the pictures in Hebrew on the walls, and a few menorahs. 200 Jews still live in Kaifeng, told me the nice young host, Guo Yan, who as opposed to her husband could speak Mandarin. Her cousin is in Jerusalem, studies Hebrew. She herself is there to receive the coming visitors and Jews (me being the first one to come to study Chinese), and hopes to establish some small museum for Kaifeng Jews. Interesting stuff.

The day continued with a short visit to the musk (I had to pee. “we never had any problems with the Muslims”, refuted my host my wikipedia-based question, adding something like “they don’t care”); finding my "guest house" (it stands up to this definition only to the extent of it being a house, me being a guest, and some small amount of money changing hands. It does have my first electric mattress though); going with Guo to check about studies in Henan University (doesn’t look to good, too expensive for a probably low lever. finding a job as a teacher might be better); visiting Library Shalom, the university’s Jewish history room (“Our department is in the top 3 Jewish departments in China”, laughed the guy sitting there alone reading, “all in all it’s us, Shanghai and Beijing. Top 3!”); meeting a couple of other foreigners, and going all together eating. Walking through the dark streets back home, munching on some local cookie, I couldn't help but feeling grateful.