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Feb. 29, 2008
Stranger in a strange land
Food and family mark a very welcoming Rosh Hashanah meal.
BORHAN JIANG
Anyone who has ever stayed alone in a foreign land knows that holidays are always the hardest. While all the locals spend time with their family and loved ones, poor foreigners have no one to be with. After all, how many Taiwanese Chinese Canadians are there in Israel?
Luckily, this girl I had a crush on – Yael – invited me to spend Rosh Hashanah with her family. It really took some guts for me to go to her house and enjoy the dinner. After all, this was such intimate event and we had only gone on three dates.
Yael has a huge family and they were all there for the occasion, one grandmother, her grandmother's sisters, sisters' husbands, uncles, cousins ... so on and so on – and, most importantly, Yael's parents. Talk about pressure!
During the service and meal, her family could not stop asking questions. They were really anxious to know where I am from, what I do for living, when I am going to marry Yael and if our kids are going to be Jewish. (OK. I made those last parts up but I am sure that's what her grandma wanted to know.)
Because of my complex background, it took hours for me to explain my identity. I had to begin by describing the great retreat of the nationalist party from China to Taiwan and explain and lecture about the identity crisis of the Taiwanese, the colonization of Japan and modern democracy's achievements. I felt that I was applying for master's program in Asian history instead having a Jewish New Year's dinner.
At the table, there was a little boy named Yoni, who got all the attention from everyone – especially my dear Yael. Yoni is Yael's younger cousin. He is about one year old and sure is a lady's man – Yael and her older sister, Hadar, couldn't stop holding him and playing with him. It was a really beautiful moment looking at Yael playing with Yoni. I know she will be a great mother. (Although she is beautiful and I really enjoy her company, I find Yael can be quite bossy and demanding at times. Sometimes, I wonder if all Israeli girls are like that.)
Before we ate, the New Year's rituals were performed and many foods were laid out, each with their own meaning. I was really amazed with the food on the table. There were four types of rice dishes alone. They were cooked with spices and meat, instead of just being plain white Chinese rice. I was deeply impressed. I swallowed the food like a whale and I believe the chefs (the women in the house) were really happy because their foreign guest enjoyed it very much. I also learned that these types of foods are Sephardi, from Iraq or other Middle Eastern countries, and if I were in an Askenazi family, I would have to eat some kind of weird, boneless fish. I don't think I could ever become an Ashkenazi Jew, only a Sephardi Jew.
After the dinner, everyone decide to open the Taiwanese tea package and Canadian cookies I brought. Being Chinese, I will never show up to a dinner empty-handed. Just when I thought everyone would hate the taste of the tea, the result was just the opposite. The Shor family loves Chinese teas. The sweetness of the Canadian maple cookies and the bitterness of the tea made a great combo. I must be a genius or just plain lucky.
Other than good food, the night was full of interesting questions and comments. Yael's mom asked me if Yael looked like she gained weight. I said the only correct answer: "Not at all! In fact, she looks just as good as ever and I think all Israeli women are thin."
Yael's family was really nice. I think the women in the house were particularly fond of me, especially her grandma. The men in the family were pretty chill with me, too. Yael's father seemed a little bit uptight but we share some common interests – computer games such as flight simulators, for example.
When we talked about computers, Yael's older sister was bothering her dad about buying her a laptop. It was really fun to look at an Israeli father-daughter interaction, exactly the same as any father and daughter around the world. God forbid if I will ever have daughters. I'll probably buy my nesichah (princess) everything she wants.
The night was a wonderful experience, everyone gathering together, eating and talking, reminded me of my family's New Year's Eve, which we stopped doing after my grandfather passed away and we immigrated to Canada. I almost forgot how important being with my whole family is. It is really good to be in a big family again. I was treated not as a guest but as a member of the family. Yael's uncle, Sahar, called his friend, who is in the trade business and tried to find me a job right away, her cousin became obsessed with taking me out for sushi and her grandmother told me that, "You are part of a family now." Perhaps they were just being polite but, still, it was touching. In that moment, I felt as much of an Israeli as anyone at the table.
Borhan Jiang is a Vancouver freelance writer. He spent several months in Israel volunteering on Marva.
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