Somewhat early yesterday morning my Mom and I went to a real Hong Kong tailor to have some suits custom made. It was a very quick and professional experance, we picked fabrics, a design, and I got a fitting in about 20 minutes. We then tried to see the Hong Kong Big Buddah, but the cable car was down for repairs and the line for the bus was three hours long. We decided to check out the local Jewish Community Center. The JCC here puts Livingston to shame; that have a 100 year old syngague, kosher market, kosher restaurant, and several signed Chagall prints. We took a break before getting more Cantonese food for dinner.
\nThe next day we returned to the tailor to get a final fitting for the suits. The tailor and his assistants made up a model suit to use for the fitting that they will then build my real suit from. This was also a quick process, even if you include the time talking to the guy. We then saw the rather well done Hong Kong Maritime Museum and lived the museum by taking a ferry to Kowloon Island. On accident we discovered Michelin raised Din Tai Feng as we looked for late lunch. Even at 2:00pm we had to wait a bit to get in, but the excellent Taiwanese food was well worth it, particularly for the price. Finally we took a cab up to see the peak, the highest point in Hong Kong, to see the rather impressive views. For dinner my Mom and I got sushi form a proper sushi conveyer belt. While it was tasty it could be dangerous if you don't watch what you eat.
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Like yesterday, today I basically walked around Luang Prabang seeing what I could see, an activity that took up basically my day. It started with the National Museum of Luang Prabang on the site of the former royal palace. As strange as it might seem from my pictures, Luang Prabang was once the capital of Laos, an independent, albeit weak, city state, and the capital of the powerful Kingdom of Lan Xang Hom Khao or the Kingdom of "Million Elephants and White Parasols". The Royal Palace was actually a very livable building, the King still had a gold throne in a room covered in mirrored mosaics depicting Lao life (that I couldn’t take a picture of) true, but most of the building while very comfortable was a place I could actually see raising a family. I then walked around and visited several different temples, or wats (hence the pun). While some were more impressive than others all were pretty cool. What is nice is that most were functional religious sites. They had real monks who did real rituals for real worshippers. While this is something most Americans take for granted, China in particular is famous for having tourist trap temples with fake (not ordained) monks preaching to people who don’t believe any of the theology but want to look cool. The smart people in Luang Prabang, tourists and locals, wear slip on sandals because Lao tradition dictates that you can’t wear shoes anywhere respectful, like wats or people’s homes. I spent a good bit of my day tying and uniting my shoes. I also didn’t relize how hard it is to walk barefoot until I had to do a lot. I basically hobbled around the temples thanks to my flat feet. Finally I crossed the bamboo bridge by my hotel (since Luang Prabang actually has two bamboo bridges). While there is really nothing on the other side of much interest crossing the bridge itself was a cool experience. I think across the bridge is where the actual Lao people live, the little bit I saw looked like a developing nation not a weird tourist destination. Consequently, the bridge is actually used by real Lao people during the six months a year it is standing (the current are too strong in the rainy season to support the bridge). While the Lao residents cross for free the tourists pay to support the bridge, though the toll is about 5,000 Lao Kip or about 0.61USD at time of writing. I also got to try more of the Lao food, curry for lunch and beef larb for dinner. I really like the curry, it was that kind of coconuty Thai curry taste but a bit more watery. Larb is a beef based meat salad, though it can be made with other meats or fish, which is considered the unofficial official national dish of Laos. Basically it is heavily spiced hamburger with bean sprouts and mint. I kind of like it but I don’t think it is a dish I would eat regularly. The Lao people apparently agree with me on because, according to the Official Lao Airlines Magazine, is eaten on mostly special occasions. If I was a body builder or a hard core believer in the Atkins diet I would love larb, it is basically all meat with just enough vegetables to stay healthy. The restraunts here continue to amaze me. They all serve basically the same massive Western/pan-Asian/Lao menu; in one of two locations, the main drag or by the Mekong River; with one of two price points, more expensive main drag and cheaper Mekong River; and one of two opening hours, main drag actually open hours or Mekong Lao almost never open. I like the ones by the River a bit more since I can watch the sun set over the Mekong with my dinner, which is nice.
I forgot, today is Christmas and the anniversary of my Torah portion (Vayeshev). The most Christmas here is some decorations at the super touristy places, and a “Marry Christmas” from a person I met in Vietnam, a Luxemburgish guy who I had a conversation with because my hat, and a friend from ECNU. There must be another Jew in this city but I would be surprised if there is more than that. While Chabad has gone far Luang Prabang, Laos is still a bit out of their reach. Just for the record, the year I am studying abroad in China is the first year in some time I haven’t had Chinese food on Christmas. Todat is Simchat Torah, the Jewish holiday celebrating the ending and the restart of the Torah. If you were with me at Chabad of Pudong you could quickly tell that Simchat Torah is a very happy holiday. It started with a simple kiddush (a very basic series of Jewish blessings over wine) followed by a sushi and Israeli food dinner that proably could have served twice as meny people then were at the already packed Chabad Center. The sushi was largly salmon based and was suprisingly good for Kosher sushi made by Chinese people (or the Rabbi's wife, I am not sure). There was aldo the "L'Chaim Bar" stocked with a lot of high quality imported liquer like Gray Goose, Black Gouse, Wild Turky, and Havana Club. After dinner, the Rabbi led us in a toast and we started dancing with the Torah. Chabad's theological oddnesses really came out douring the dancing becaue men and women had to remain seperated for this portion of the night and only the men's side got Gray Goose (the Rabbi is wise) and the one Torah, little girls could cross to the men's side though to dance with their Dads' or on the back of the random dude they were put on. Seven dances and seven more toasts later the Rabbi's wife brought out chocolate crinkle cookies and the crowd started to make our way back home.
Tonight into tomorrow is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and a triditional day of fasting. I just want to wish anyone fasting an easy fast.
Today I took the 4 line to the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum (上海犹太难民纪念馆) at the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue (摩西会堂) in what was once Shanghai's "Little Vienna," aka their Jewish District. The building was built in 1907 to serve as the home for Shanghai's Ashkanzi and Russian-Jewish communities. It was moved in 1927 before falling into disrepear douring the Mao Era. In 2007 the Hongkou District People's Government restored the building and opened the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. The actual ritual life of the Syngague was notably absent from the Museums narrative, but they did mention that Rabbi Mier Ashkanzi from a previous blog post ran the spirtual life of the Jewish community out of Ohel Moshe and the sancuary of Ohel Moshe does still have at least one Kosher Torah. Really other than this Museum and a small monument in a local park there is not much left of the Jewish community; trust me, I looked. The area is now the quiet home of many elderly Chinese families.
The narrative the Museum was telling was very interesitng. It is more of a kind of Holocaust museum than a straight Jewish museum. To make an analogy to pop culture, if the Holocaust is the main plot of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire than the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum is the John Snow parts. In both cases, the main narative effects the side narrative, but the side narrative is still a distinct thing. The basic story they are trying to tell is less "the Nazis committed horific crimes against humanity directed at the Jewish people" and more of "the Jewish and Chinese peoples stood side by side in the struggles against the Japanese and Fascism." While the Nazis do make apparences in the narrative as the driving force behind the Jews leaving Europe for Shanghai, the Empire of Japan was cast as the main villian. The Jews and the Chinese both came out of the Museum looking pretty good. The Chinese were dipicted as generious and charitable towards their new Jewish neighbors while the Jews were shown helping the Chinese by providing advanced technical skills to the service of Shanghai. Dr. Jacob Rosenfield, a Jewish doctor in the Chinese Red Army douring the "War of Japanese Aggression," was shown turning the Red Army Medical Corps. from a group of unprofessional and uneducated medics to a crack team of battlefield doctors while many former Jewish refugees spoke of the kindness of the Chinese towards them. The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum also includes memorial wall and statue; the wall is nice but is arranged in Hebrew while all the names are in English. The Museum has a café that I don't believe was open when I went, bit had to have been open once because they have a picture of Bibi and his wife sipping coffee there. Finally they have the flags of all the visitors to the Museum which interstingly enough includes the flags of Lebenon, Iran, The United Arab Emerits, and Qatar, all countries that don't recgonize the State of Israel. My theory is that ether the visitors were from the section of the populations of those countries who want relations with Israel and the Jewish people to improve or the Museum bought a bag of small flags and put them up without any thought as to what countries the flags represented. I found the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum a very different take on a Jewish museum and is worth the 50RMB (or in my case 20RMB for some reason) to get in and the one, one and a halfish hours it takes to complete, but before you go you should research the history yourself as the Museum does have gaps and assumes you are already o the same page with some things L'Shana Tova, happy Rosh Hashana the celebration of the Jewish New Year 5777. Apparently there is a recognized translation of Rosh Hashana in Chinese, 犹太新年, or in English just Jewish New Year. While this translation works I feel that the name loses something in translation. Today my friends and I went back to Carrefour and I attempted to get everything I needed for Rosh Hashana. Getting apples, honey, and my new furit that I think is dragon fruit was easy. I was not a big fan of the new fruit, I found it looked cool but was a bit mealy. So it goes with new frut. My main dish, Peking duck (北京烤鸭)was also easy, since they made and pre-packaged everything for me, and suprisingly good, if a bit boney. I was also able to find a sweet braded bread to used as a challah, although it looked like a regular challah it was not in the triditional Rosh Hashanah circular challah. Dispite my best attempts, Carrefour did not sell any Kosher or Israeli wines to do a blessing over. While finding Manischewitz or Mogen David would have been funny I was not really expecting it. I though though with Israel being relativly close and having such a strong wine culture that an international grocery store like Carrefour would have at least one Israeli wine. I instead chose to do a blessing over my bottle of Great Wall wine, g-d will have to forgive me I guess.
While the Shanghai Peace Hotel (上海和平饭店) looks down right quaint now compared to the other buildings on the Bund, one of Shanghai's main drags, the Shanghai Peace Hotel still has an interesting history all its own. The Peace Hotel was built in what was then the Shanghai International Settlement, now the Bund, during the 1920s by Sir Victor Sassoon, a British supported Baghdadi Jew, as Sassoon House. With bases in Bombay, Hong Kong, and Shanghai the Sassoons were dubbed the "Rothschilds of the East" making a large part of their fortune in the then legal Opium Trade following the Opium Wars. While it may seem funny now looking a the modern skyline of Shanghai, the Peace Hotel was the largest building in the city. The Peace Hotel became a symbol of Shanghai, even though this symbolic status has been chipped away in recent years as the Peace Hotel was outclassed by larger and large buildings. Today, the Peace Hotel continues to operate as a hotel serving guests forma around China and the World, although now it is operating under the name the Fairmont Peace Hotel. |
AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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