Letter From America: Chinese Jews
Ronnie Bray tells you a tale that will leave you laughing from now until year's end.
Huddersfield’s ancient monuments will remember the Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant down Northumberland Street in the days when Chinese food was daring and exotic. It was a regular stop for me in the days when I could choose to either eat well or cook for myself. At the Hong Kong food palace, the food was well cooked, very tasty, and filling. The Chinese have an extraordinary talent for combining food flavours.
It was rumoured that half an hour after eating a Chinese meal, a person was hungry again, but that was not my experience. Half an hour after finishing my Chinese meals I was always filled with gratitude that such food was not only available in the town of clogs and shawls, but also that it was so affordable.
The only difficulty I encountered, but not only at the Hong Kong restaurant, was that when the food came out of the kitchen I could not remember what I had ordered. However, that never got in the way of my gustatory enjoyment. Nothing ever did.
This was at the time when malignant stories about food inspectors finding cat bones in the Chinese kitchen dustbins were rife. Today these are known as ‘urban myths.’ In my more youthful and less circumlocutory days, when almost all foreigners were made fun of by the emotionally insecure, mature people simply called them what they were – lies.
Once I was enjoying a meal at the Hong Kong with friends when our table talk turned to the dispersal of Jews. One of my friends commented that a majority of the world’s Jews lived outside of Israel, and had done so since the return of the exiles in 538 BC.
It was suggested that every country in the world had a fraction of Jewry, whether large or small. Evidence was given of the best known Jewish enclaves in other lands, such as America, Germany, France, and England.
As we were in a Chinese restaurant, the possibility of a Jewish presence in China was raised, although none of us had any idea whether Judaism was represented to any unusual degree in a country then hostile to all forms of religion. I suggested that we ask an expert, and the next time the waiter came to our table I raised the question.
"You are from China?"
"Yes, sir. I am from China."
"From Hong King?"
"No, sir. I am from Baotou. Mainland China."
"Ah. Thank you. Could I ask, do you have Chinese Jews?"
He looked blank, not inscrutable, you understand, just puzzled.
"I go ask, sir," he said, smiling, before heading back through the swing doors into the kitchen.
A few moments later he returned to our table, and, in an intimate voice, reported.
"Sir, we have orange juice, pineapple juice, lemon juice, lime juice. No Chinese juice!"
My companions ordered orange juice, I ordered pineapple juice, and we didn’t burst into laughter until we were done, paid up, left a generous tip, had on our winter coats, and were well away from the restaurant.
I swear on my appetite that I was not the one that did the cartwheel outside Bairstow’s cloth warehouse!
© 2010 – Ronnie Bray
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