Last night was the first night of Passover, the two day Jewish holiday commemorating Exodus and Moses's flight from Egypt with the Jewish people. Since Passover is usually a larger affair, Chabad of Pudong usually decides to hold their annual Seder in the Kerry Hotel, Pudong. Getting there wasn't too hard, the hotel's mall and the subway hooked up so it wasn't that hard to find. Some of the nicer Chinese hotels, like the Kerry, end up a bit labyrinthine with malls connecting to restaurants connecting to business centers connecting to ballrooms. I did eventually find the correct ballroom, right on time but still too early. It is actually quite a small world, I met some of my both my American and Chinese neighbors, one guy form Morristown, NJ and another guy who lived in the building across from mine at ECNU (he will only be in Shanghai for a few weeks though). While Chabad does a full Seder they are actually quite efficient with it and there were enough twists to keep it interesting. Since the crowd was so international anyone who spoke a language that wasn't English, Hebrew, or Chinese (the three languages we read the Four Questions in) could read the first of the Four Questions (Why is this night different form all other nights?) in their native tongue; while there were the standard languages of Italian, German, and French we also had people read the First Question in Kurdish, Belorussian, Japanese, and Afrikaans. The food was pretty good and fully Kosher since the Rabbi Koshered one of the Kerry's kitchens and his wife supervised the cooking process. It was the classic chicken, soup, and salmon mix but familiar done well is sometimes nice. I still don't know why Israeli Kosher wines don't sell better in China. The Rabbi has a thing for a Zion Winery of Mishur Adumim, Israel (not to be confused for the Zion Wines of Zion National Park, Utah) which tastes like it could have been made by Great Wall Wines (my preferred Chinese brand of wine). The biggest issue I had was getting back to ECNU. I thought I was good, me and the other guy who was staying at ECNU decided to split a cab. Unforntually, we seemed to have found the one cabbie in all of Shanghai who didn't speak or read standard Mandarin. I ended up giving him my phone with a map just displaying the way to East China Normal. It worked out in the end, even if I ended up back on campus a bit later than I wanted too.
2 Comments
Sharon
4/11/2017 11:04:34 pm
that looks beyond nice! Beautiful - but, did they have any chopped liver?
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Jared Paul Miller
4/12/2017 12:27:31 am
No sadly, they didn't.
Reply
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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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