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The Chinese Dragon and the Lion of Judah

It seems to be somewhat faddish this year to connect with China. This no doubt has to do with the Olympics and implies that it is a trend which will pass, that our interest will move on to something else. Personally I think that our interest is here to stay, because of China's importance to the U.S. as a trade partner and because of China's open door policy. In the case of Judaism there is nothing faddish about the Chinese interest in our history, culture, and civilization. The Chinese have a genuine interest in things Jewish. While in China during the month of July 2008, I heard much about books being published in Chinese about the Jewish ability to make money. But that is only one side of the story. Chinese students are also interested in our values, our ability to sustain our national cohesion over nearly two thousand years of diaspora existence, and our coping with persecution over time. None of these interests are surprising. Family values and social ethics are ancient components of both civilizations, national consolidation and unification are ongoing efforts in both communities, and while the Holocaust is only one horrific example of persecution in Jewish history, the Chinese, whether last year in Shanghai or this year in Kunming, are quick to parallel it to their own suffering during the siege of 1937 by Japan and the resultant Nanking massacre. Anyone with a knowledge in any aspect of Jewish civilization will find a rich field of inquiry in today's China – not a fad, but a sincere and genuine interest in the details of our success as a people. It is therefore not surprising if I say that teaching in China during the month of July was an exciting and enriching experience.

Networking is generally a good thing. In this case, collabaration between the University of Tennessee Knoxville and Shanghai University led to an invitation for me to participate in a Holocaust Conference at Shanghai University in 2007. The contacts then established were warm and mutually beneficial and led to further invitations for this year – to Kaifeng, to Shanghai, and to Kunming. It was not clear that the timing would work out for me to participate in all three events, but in the end that's exactly what happened – they lined up neatly like pearls on a string, and with visa in hand after only four days turn-around time, I was all set. Let me say that each experience was distinct. They shared only my modest ability to use Chinese phrases of politeness and my need to speak a clear English in the classroom and outside.

Kaifeng

Professor Zhang and Duncan of Henan University
Professor Zhang and Duncan of Henan University

At the Holocaust conference in Shanghai last year I met Professor Zhang Qianhong, director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at Henan University in Kaifeng and some of her teachers and graduate students. They extended a most cordial invitation to me to come to Kaifeng, an ancient city on the famous Silk Road and capital of Henan Province for seven dynasties. I decided to take them up on it, as I have become as spellbound by a general Jewish interest in the Jews of Kaifeng as many Jews worldwide have. Kaifeng has no airport, which I did not realize. After clearing up some misunderstandings that resulted from this lack of knowledge on my part, it was decided that I should take a train from Shanghai to Kaifeng. How many Chinese does it take to get Professor Schmidt from Shanghai to Kaifeng? You'd be surprised, it took a few. My thanks to my trusted colleague and friend, Professor Guo Changgang, Dean of the Graduate School at Shanghai University, for his invaluable assistance during my stay in China. My seven-hour journey to Kaifeng was very comfortable on the modern high-speed train that only recently connects Kaifeng and Shanghai, and enriched by the presence of "Shirley" (many students who study English take on English names for the convenience of their guests) who acted as my companion.

Our arrival in Kaifeng was tumultuous (by western standards), with throngs of people getting off the train, down and up steep flights of stairs dragging our luggage, to be greeted by another throng of people waiting outside the gate, as well as all manner of taxis imaginable. Several of the teachers and students from last year greeted us, and we were whisked off to the hotel where I slept for the next week. Kaifeng is a big city of about 900,000 residents, and Henan University was not within walking distance. All of our travel was by taxi. The campus is in a lovely, sprawling compound, with a traditional Chinese gate at the entrance. The Institute of Jewish Studies is also located in a traditional Chinese building, although many of the other buildings were huge and modern, providing quite a contrast. This is the old campus of the university, there is also a new one, which I did not have a chance to visit. We studied every day from 8:30-11:30 AM, then ate lunch, took a break, and in the afternoon it was my turn to study, Chinese history and cultural sites. In the evening we ate dinner with some teachers and students, so that I had much one-on-one time with the 12-16 participants in the seminar. I saw first-hand how Chinese and Islamic architecture fuse in a lovely, sprawling mosque complex, I visited the ancient Guild Hall, walked down the street where the Jewish community lived and where its synagogue stood, and I was treated to a most spectacular reenactment of a slice of Kaifeng's history from the Song Dynasty, based on the story painting by Chinese artist Zhang Zeduan.


The time during this week came out of the students' summer vacation. Most would have gone home to their families, often far away in the countryside of Henan Province, but they stayed so they could study about the Jews, the Holocaust, Israel, Zionism, and ways to teach the Holocaust. Our last evening together was very emotional, as each student prepared a presentation in my honor. Professor Zhang Qianhong started off the festivities with a thank- you speech to which I responded, and then each student either sang a song in Chinese or English or Hebrew, recited a poem, or gave us a riddle. They provided refreshments, and it was a perfect ending to a very rich week of learning. I am deeply grateful to Professor Zhang and the teachers and students of the Institute of Jewish Studies in Kaifeng for this wonderful educational opportunity.

Shanghai

Professor Guo Changgang embodies the perfect host, and I will be forever in his debt for the many different types of help he provided while I was in China. I might not have ventured back to China if he hadn't been involved in the planning. It's not easy to communicate without a decent knowledge of Chinese, although there is some English spoken. Professor Guo's plans for this year focused on a scholarly conference on Globalism, Values, and Pluralism with about 20 Chinese and international scholars. The conference and subsequent workshops served as enrichment in the form of summer school for about 85 students who were rewarded with a certificate at the end. It was a great pleasure to be with old friends and to make new ones. In addition to Professor Guo, I was delighted to spend time again with "Jewel" and "Gordon," as well as "Ocean," "Shirley" and "Lilly" and some of their friends, all lovely individuals.


Before the conference started, Jewel was kind enough to accompany me to the Ohel Moshe Synagogue, built in 1906, which was under repair last year. To my surprise, the repairs were not only completed, but the complex has been turned into the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, a reminder of the 40,000 German Jews who found refuge in the Hongkou District of Shanghai during the Nazi years. Not only has the synagogue been beautifully restored, but the second floor houses an exhibition of Jewish artifacts and of Chinese-Israeli relations. Two separate buildings are home to an exhibition of the stateless refugees and to their rescuer, Viennese Consul General Ho Feng Shan. Around the corner from the synagogue are the blocks of the ghetto where the Jewish refugees lived, along with a memorial in nearby Huoshan Park. Shanghai is preparing for a big cultural festival in 2010, and along with many other Shanghai sites, the historic buildings along Huoshan Road are receiving a face lift as well. Less satisfactory was our attempt to visit the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, built by businessman Sir Jacob Sassoon in 1920 in memory of his late wife. The building houses government offices, so we were only allowed to take a picture from the gate.


I had to travel all the way to China to meet the current president of the American Academy of Religion, Professor and Associate Dean Emilie Townes of Yale University, and Jack Fitzmier, the executive director of the AAR, as well as Patricia Hunter of Baptist Churches USA. Together with Shawn Landres from Los Angeles we made up the American contingent. Other scholars hailed from Japan, Congo, Uruguay, Canada, India, Philippines, Great Britain, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Jordan. The conference days were long and intense, with many different presentations on aspects of different religions and societal constructs. I was surprised at the apparent interest in the Bahai'i, a relatively new monotheistic religion with a deep commitment to social justice and equality. Likewise surprising was the lack of attribution of biblical sources to Judaism. Apparently for some Chinese teachers Christianity began with – Abraham. I presented a paper on the constancy of Jewish values a session, acted as respondent to a session, and fielded questions from the conference participants in a workshop. And all the time there, students had many questions – about Judaism, about Israel, about American society, about Barack Obama. The workshop days also allowed for some lovely cultural experiences such as visits to Nanshi, the Old Town of Shanghai; Buddhist and Taoist temples, a very old mosque, a trip to Xitang, a water town, and a lovely moonlight cruise up and down the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Again, it was great to meet all the new friends and to reconnect with previous ones. My deepest gratitude to Professor Guo Changgang and his outstanding team of very dedicated students. You are tops!

Kunming

Not in the eye of the tiger, but the mouth of the tiger.
Not in the eye of the tiger, but the mouth of the tiger.

Professor Guo drove me to Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai for the third leg of my Chinese adventure. This was the first time that I was all alone in a land where I could neither read nor speak to get around. I was curious how this would work. After realizing that flights were posted, but that flight departures were not necessarily announced and gates changed often, I looked for a person who had a ticket with my flight number. I simply followed this person around, and it worked. The flight from Shanghai to Kunming made a stop in Changsa. I had to get off the plane with a transit card. How would I know when to get back on? When they were ready to board the transit passengers before general boarding, a man who had noticed me came over to where I was sitting in the waiting area and motioned me to get back on the plane. Because communications had been sporadic, I did not know if anyone would meet me at the airport in Kunming. With such large crowds it is very hard to find even people holding up signs, but sure enough, eventually a sign with my name popped up, and after some logistics, always on the inevitable cell phone, I was whisked off to the conference center which proved to be an interesting experience for a week. As we had no internet access and no TV channel with English-language broadcasts, we were a bit cut off from the world. One night we decided to walk to town to do email, when we got caught in a thunderstorm and torrential downpour. It was a memorable experience, and I felt very sorry for the two students who went with us and had even less clothing to change into than we did.

Holocaust conference panelists in Kunming, China.
Holocaust conference panelists in Kunming, China.
Holocaust conference participants in Kunming, China.
Holocaust conference participants in Kunming, China.

This was the Holocaust conference I attended in Shanghai in 2007. It was the fourth such conference, the others having been held in Nanjing, Kaifeng, and Shanghai, and moves around China to capture different Chinese student populations. This conference is organized by the London Centre for Jewish Culture in the name of 25 countries who contribute financially to this effort. The organizer is Gerold Gotel, a transplanted American Jew, and his English speaking resource people are experts on teaching the Holocaust from Yad Vashem, Jerusalem; U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Wannsee House, Berlin, and a British representative. And then there was me. I was contributing a lecture and workshop on "Who are the Jews?" as an introduction to the conference. Many of the Chinese scholars who work on Judaism, the Holocaust, China and Israel, and Israel in the Middle East, participated. While it can be tiring to constantly monitor one's English for clarity, it is even more tiring to listen to an entire lecture in simultaneous translation, in spite of our wonderful translator, Wang Yanxing. Many thanks for your hard work! The 90 or so student participants were teachers and graduate students from a wide array of provinces, such as Chongqing, Kaifeng, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Shanxi, Bejing, Shandong, Guizhou, Guangxi as well as Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. They were hungry for information on many different subjects and for source material on things Jewish, but also just American.

Shilin, the Karst Stone Forest, in the rain.
Shilin, the Karst Stone Forest, in the rain.

The conference schedule was brutal, with very long days. Several of us were able to see something of Kunming and environs at the end of the conference, when we hired a driver to take us to Shilin, the famous 270-million-year-old limestone karst forest. Alas, it rained buckets, so that we did not have an optimal outdoor experience. Yunnan Province borders on a number of Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Mianmar, and India, and is home to 26 of China's 56 ethnic minorities. Each ethnic minority has its own dress, culture, and culinary delicacies. In Kunming, the city of eternal spring, one can find a plethora of temples. I was only able to see one of the Buddhist temples, again in the rain, but surrounded by a fabulous aura, as the nuns, whose chanting could be heard in the entire compound, were conducting a major service. The atmosphere was quite precious. After the service all the participants were served a bowl full of food, an oneg of sorts. I also had the chance to see lovely old city gates and, not far from there, the Tang Dynasty East and the West Pagodas. During World War II, Kunming was the easternmost portal of the Burma Road, and home to one of the squadrons of the famous Flying Tigers who flew interference against the Japanese while the supply road was being built. A very sincere and heartfelt thank you to Gerry Gotel and his Chinese counterparts for their hard work in organizing this meaningful and important learning experience.


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