I have a pal who teaches in high school, and a while back he told me of a Chinese student with the name 'Shapiro Lee.' He had inquired of the boy's father as to how he picked that interesting name for his son.
The father explained that Jewish folk were good at business...and he thought it would help his son in that endeavor.
But, no....the family was not of the Jewish religion.
But...Jewish Chinese?
Chinese folks who practice Judaism????
1. In the novel "The Journeyer," a tale of the travels of Marco Polo, Gary Jennings describes a meeting between Polo and Kublai Khan's Royal Firemaster, in charge of fireworks. The minister turns out to be a Jew...
Did Jennings simply imagine Chinese folks who were Jewish....or were there actually same?
The NYTimes included this in Jennings' obituary:
"Mr. Jennings took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything from Marco Polo's journeys for his novel ''The Journeyer'' (1984), to 19th-century circus life in the novel ''Spangle'' (1987), for which he traveled with nine different circuses. In ''Raptor'' (1992), he described a Goth's adventures during the days of the Roman Empire." Gary Jennings Is Dead at 70; Author of the Best Seller 'Aztec'
Let's pick up with this exchange from the novel:
"Aha!" I crowed. "Now I suppose you are going to tell me that your name is not really Mordecai!"
"I was not going to tell you anything. Except about my work with the beautiful but dangerous fires. What would you wish to know, Marco Polo?"
"How did you get a name like Shi Ix-me?"
"That has nothing to do with my work. However …" He shrugged. "When the Jews first came here [to China], they were allotted seven Han surnames to apportion among them. Shi is one of the seven, and was originally Yitzhak. In the Ivrit [the Hebrew language], my full name is Shemuel ibn-Yitzhak."
I asked, "When did you come to Kithai?" expecting him to say that he had arrived only shortly before me.
"I was born here, in the city of Kai-feng, where my forebears settled some hundreds of years ago."
"I do not believe it."
He snorted, as Mordecai had done so often at my comments. "Read the Old Testament of your Bible. Chapter forty-nine of Isaiah, where the prophet foresees a regathering of all the Jews. ‘Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold these from the north, and from the sea, and these from the land of Sinim.' This land of Kithai is still in Ivrit called Sina. So there were Jews here in Isaiah's time, and that was more than one thousand eight hundred years ago."
"Why would Jews have come here?"
"Probably because they were unwelcome somewhere else," he said wryly. "Or perhaps they took the Han to be one of their own lost tribes, wandered away from Israel."
"Oh, come now, Master Shi. The Han are pork eaters, and always have been."
I had never heard that there were Chinese Jews....but Jennings "took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything..."
I'll check it out in this thread, see if Jennings is accurate or not.
The father explained that Jewish folk were good at business...and he thought it would help his son in that endeavor.
But, no....the family was not of the Jewish religion.
But...Jewish Chinese?
Chinese folks who practice Judaism????
1. In the novel "The Journeyer," a tale of the travels of Marco Polo, Gary Jennings describes a meeting between Polo and Kublai Khan's Royal Firemaster, in charge of fireworks. The minister turns out to be a Jew...
Did Jennings simply imagine Chinese folks who were Jewish....or were there actually same?
The NYTimes included this in Jennings' obituary:
"Mr. Jennings took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything from Marco Polo's journeys for his novel ''The Journeyer'' (1984), to 19th-century circus life in the novel ''Spangle'' (1987), for which he traveled with nine different circuses. In ''Raptor'' (1992), he described a Goth's adventures during the days of the Roman Empire." Gary Jennings Is Dead at 70; Author of the Best Seller 'Aztec'
Let's pick up with this exchange from the novel:
"Aha!" I crowed. "Now I suppose you are going to tell me that your name is not really Mordecai!"
"I was not going to tell you anything. Except about my work with the beautiful but dangerous fires. What would you wish to know, Marco Polo?"
"How did you get a name like Shi Ix-me?"
"That has nothing to do with my work. However …" He shrugged. "When the Jews first came here [to China], they were allotted seven Han surnames to apportion among them. Shi is one of the seven, and was originally Yitzhak. In the Ivrit [the Hebrew language], my full name is Shemuel ibn-Yitzhak."
I asked, "When did you come to Kithai?" expecting him to say that he had arrived only shortly before me.
"I was born here, in the city of Kai-feng, where my forebears settled some hundreds of years ago."
"I do not believe it."
He snorted, as Mordecai had done so often at my comments. "Read the Old Testament of your Bible. Chapter forty-nine of Isaiah, where the prophet foresees a regathering of all the Jews. ‘Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold these from the north, and from the sea, and these from the land of Sinim.' This land of Kithai is still in Ivrit called Sina. So there were Jews here in Isaiah's time, and that was more than one thousand eight hundred years ago."
"Why would Jews have come here?"
"Probably because they were unwelcome somewhere else," he said wryly. "Or perhaps they took the Han to be one of their own lost tribes, wandered away from Israel."
"Oh, come now, Master Shi. The Han are pork eaters, and always have been."
I had never heard that there were Chinese Jews....but Jennings "took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything..."
I'll check it out in this thread, see if Jennings is accurate or not.