One unforgettable Jewish Christmas
For Yaron and Rebeca
Exile can be a harsh thing. Throughout history, many great writers have talked about it in great and painful detail, or written their masterpieces in exile. I am not a great writer but a miserable one, but somehow that does not preclude me from shamelessly fancying myself to be in the company of Joyce, Dante and Su Dongpo, due to the fact that I left my country fifteen years ago. I hasten to concede that that is a bit much to fancy, even in anyone’s most shameless and private dreams, and someone with a particularly biting wit would probably tell me that I should rather be included in the set of exiled, obnoxious would-be writers with whom I more rightfully share obscurity and delusions of grandeur. But unfortunately I do not have any particularly witty friend by my side as I write this, so I will just help myself to some more make-believe ink and paper and rant on.
Now before I proceed, I should also say that my exile is by no means as dramatic and unforgiving as the ones I have mentioned. I left my home years ago of my own volition, and not because of any war or persecution, nor by doing any thing that could be construed as a grand gesture. In fact I arrived in China wide-eyed and full of the clichéd –but not any less true– hopes and dreams. I was more a 49er, not a refugee.
Another thing that puts me in a whole other (bush) league is the fact that after a while, once I settled and found a better paying job, I was able to start going back to my hometown every year, or even twice a year. So yes, my talking about exile may seem exaggerated. But it’s not. Not to me, anyway. We all react to a same situation in a different way, and for me it has been harsh at times. If what can be considered my petty longings can escalate the way they do in some significant dates, I can only imagine those who have really suffered real, irrevocable exile.
My parents’ stories and the smell of the kitchen. That image can contain all the longing in the world. The Chinese writer Lin Yutang asks, “What is patriotism, but the nostalgia of the food you ate as a child at your mother’s table?” I couldn’t agree more.
So once I have explained the conditions of my exile light and my somewhat strong sensibilities, I will say that the first two Christmases I spent in China were not melancholy at all; mainly because I was still in that phase of wonder and discovery, and everything was good even if I was so far away during such a significant time. Friends who know I am not particularly religious may find this Christmas thing odd, but there is no mystery to it; it is the time of year I remember most fondly from my childhood because of the general atmosphere of gaiety and togetherness, long before I learned what religion was or how it was related to those days of laughter and gifts and wonderful aromas, and of course even longer before I decided to make my own inquiries. But with those, we can do without.
My first Christmas ever in China was spent in the small town of Dongyang, at Zhongtian Middle School, the place where I lived and taught English. Of course, no one celebrates that date here –or should I say more accurately, no one at that particular time and place did– but, seeing how their teacher was so far away from home, my fellow teachers bought a quite lovely 2-foot Christmas tree which they then put in the very spacious music room, and about two dozen students were chosen from the one thousand who volunteered, to decorate the room in order to give me a proper celebration. It was a heartwarming affair, as may be imagined, what with mispronounced Christmas carols and the inexplicable collective choreographed dancing of a thing called the Rabbit Song, which that year was something like a Chinese Macarena.
The next year was also good because by that time I had moved to a bigger city, with a large community of foreigners which was quite tight, so that every weekend people from all continents –and especially, quite a few fellow Latin Americans– would get together; so Christmas was a big affair with a lot of Western-style merrymaking. But the bad thing came on the third year.
By the third year you are a bit more settled, and the constant wonder and sense of discovery is wearing off. You have a life. And that year, for some particular alignment of the stars, my Christmas was bound to be a very lonely one.
No one was going to be there.
Most of the people I knew had arrived more or less at the same time as I, and three years later had good jobs, weren’t broke anymore and could afford to go back home, so most of them had decided to do so. In my case, I had just returned from my hometown a couple of months ago and hadn’t planned on going back, so I was looking at spending Christmas time all by myself. Of course I could call up Chinese friends, but it was a weekday and they could only go out for a brief dinner. I was feeling altogether miserable, and I said as much to Yaron.
Now Yaron and Rebeca were a blessing in my life. They are a Jewish couple whom I frequently visited and loved for many reasons. They were always on the hunt for cool places to live in, and for a while they rented a small, dilapidated but wonderfully placed house just in front of Hangzhou’s West Lake, one of the most beautiful spots in China. I never knew how they could find such opportunities but I was always was happy to join them for endlessly funny and witty conversations.
I later met them at yet another fantastic house they rented, in a posh compound which had a large swimming pool. We would go there to avoid the unforgivingly humid South China summer, then go back into the house to see Yaron show off his skills in traditional Jewish dances, hear Rebeca talk about teaching, eat a ridiculously tasty lamb leg from a nearby Northeast-style restaurant, and watch Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.
Yaron was some kind of kindred conversationalist spirit with a delightfully wide range of interests. We would go out to a little Japanese place we greatly enjoyed –though it was subsequently torn down to make way for a dreadful fast-food chain which I shall not mention– and talk for hours about technology, the Old Testament, online music, corrupt bankers, funny accents and what have you; with nary a pause nor a break between topics. I believe having a conversation soul-mate –who can seamlessly mix with anything from the weakest tea to the hardest liquor– is one of the great joys of life.
It was in one of these extended lunch times where we had been discussing the chance of creating a weekly group for discussing Chinese culture, that I told him I felt depressed because of the prospect of spending a lonely Christmas. He immediately called Rebeca and another Jewish couple, and when the calls ended –they were all in Hebrew– he told me to spend Christmas Eve at their place.
I was deeply grateful, and thought that at least I could be with Westerners for Christmas, even if this particular brand of Westerners absolutely did not celebrate it. But I was in for a surprise.
This was no “let’s order some pizza and keep this poor fellow company” dinner. Yaron and Rebeca, together with the other Jewish couple –and I cannot stress their Jewishness enough– went all out to give me one of the most memorable Christmas dinners of my life. They did stop short of setting up a tree in their living room, but they spent the whole afternoon cooking traditional Hanukkah recipes, which is every bit as time consuming as the Christmas cooking sessions I used to have with my parents and sister.
Dad and I used to go early into the kitchen and made it mostly ours for the day. We prepared a big fat turkey and a meat stew to go along with it, with infinite care and copious amounts of wine and laughter, while my mom and sister lingered about being thoroughly amused.
This and more came back to me as the evening went on and they told me about the challah bread they had made, and about the sauce that goes with the latkas and about how you should actually call them livivot. We ate like there was no tomorrow, as one does, and they toasted me and Christmas, and there was a lump in my throat and tears that I tried hard to keep from falling on all that fine kosher meal.
Ten years have passed since that Jewish Christmas, which I keep as a treasure in my memory. Yaron and Rebeca went back to Israel and I lost my conversation partner. We would probably talk a great deal more about kids these days, but I’m sure we could squeeze in a few Monty Python quotes and some comments about the difference between Scottish and Galician bagpipes.
Have a happy Hanukkah.
