Rosh Hashana and The Golden Week

At the end of class a week ago Tuesday (September 23), my students asked me if I was having class on Sunday. I hadn't heard about it before, but it seems that's the price we pay for Golden Week. National Day on October 1, celebrating the Communist Party coming to power on October 1, 1949, has become National (Golden) Week this decade, an opportunity for hundreds of millions of Chinese to travel to historic sites, visit family and spend money. I don't think that's what Mao had in mind, but Deng Xiaoping is smiling.
At any rate, since the holiday doesn't officially start until Wednesday (and all the students leave town well before that), those of us with Monday or Tuesday classes hold a makeup session on Sunday. About half my students came but it was a pleasant class. I also got to spend part of the morning with four Nanjing high school students who wanted to discuss careers in journalism with me. They are even more shy than my grad students but I'm planning to see them at least a few more times. It's the kind of outreach the Fulbright program encourages and it's fun for me.
We'd been thinking about going back to Shanghai for Rosh Hashana since Chabad holds services there. (Judaism is not one of the authorized religions in China but Rosh Hashana is OK since it's a New Year's festival of sorts.) But Marcus's Hebrew tutor Enav told us he'd be conducting a small service here in Nanjing at the Judaic Studies Center. It was another unique China experience.
About a dozen of us gathered around the conference table--Chinese master's and doctoral students in Judaic Studies, a junior faculty member, an old China hand whose connection to China goes back to the days of Kissinger and Nixon, Marcus, Nina and I--and joined Enav in blessing wine (he brought a bottle from Israel), bread (which Enav baked) and plates of fish, fruits and vegetables Enav had prepared. String beans, pomegranates, pumpkin, apples, honey. We talked about the significance of the holiday, said our blessings and ate. A special Rosh Hashana.
We spent the rest of Golden Week following Deng's wishes by joining half the country in Beijing. We've all seen the new China on tv but it's certainly different from the country I taught and traveled in during the mid 80s and the China Nina and I saw on our three-week trip here in 1992. Beijing is a stunning, futuristic city. It also had a palpable feel of political control we haven't sensed in Nanjing. Police, security checks, security cameras. People who are careful about what they say. Tiananmen Square may be filled with crowds but it's clear the Party is keeping a close watch on their make up.
We got to spend some time with our Fulbright friends in Beijing. The Balla family lives outside a hutong (a traditional neighborhood with single story houses that open onto narrow unpaved streets)in northwest Beijing and we met them near Tiananmen just after we arrived (but not until we got our first taste of Beijing duck). The crush of people in the subway and on the street was overwhelming so we headed to the night market where we sampled everything from jiaozhe to scorpions. We did the usual tourism--Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace--the next day, then headed to their hutong and a great family-style restaurant.
On Friday, we visited the Great Wall at Mutianyu--almost tranquil (except for the hawkers) compared with the other sites. Ok, so I bought a "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt and Marcus bought a funny paper hat. Then back to town to join the Ballas at a Uighur/Muslim restaurant with terrific chicken kebabs and a curry, anise, paprika dish that translates as "big plate of chicken."
We paid our respects to The Chairman on Saturday--two hours of pushing and shoving in an endless line so we could spend about 30 seconds filing by his eerie but well-preserved corpse. And more jostling to see the Forbidden City. One thing that hasn't changed in my decades away is the Chinese passion for taking pictures of each other virtually blocking out historic sites in the background.
We got back to Nanjing late Saturday. It's nice to be home. It's even nicer that our adopted home in China feels that way.