China

Global Citizen

/ IlanaB / 5 Comments

Lots of things have been happening in Israel and around the world, but to be honest, the only thing I paid attention to this week was my Chinese drama.

Meteor Garden 2018

I’ve been in the Korean drama world for about 4 years and I dabble in Taiwanese dramas. Once in a long while, if the Korean drama netizens are talking about a Chinese drama, I’ll watch that. But the whole drama world went bananas for this remake (I’ve seen fan sites in English, Chinese, Russian, Thai, and Spanish). The source material is a 1992 manga (serialized graphic novel) from Japan and several remakes have been done, most famously in Taiwan and Korea. This is the kind of drama that launches careers.

manga styleMe as a manga character

Living in Israel, I feel much more like a citizen of the world than I did in the US. But I started to wonder if that was really true. I’m an immigrant, my mom is an immigrant, a majority of the family friends when I was growing up are immigrants (from China, Croatia, UK, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, just off the top of my head) or are at least well-traveled.

I remembered that one of my favorite childhood shows was Star Blazers. At the time, I didn’t know that it was originally a Japanese cartoon that had been dubbed. I was riveted every day and I just thought the long, lean, big-eyed, beautiful people were just part of the style of the cartoon and didn’t think much of the fact that it didn’t look like Super Friends or Scooby Doo.

Star Blazers intro – “Our Star Blazers!”

Long before I moved to Israel, I was aware of Asia; over the years, I’ve had an interest in Tai Chi, Thai food, and Chinese medicine. So when my Greek friend in Israel introduced me to Korean dramas, the cultural anthropologist that I secretly wanted to be took over and my interest in drama spilled into trying to understand the mysteries of Asian culture.

Is it because I live in Israel, hear multiple languages in the street and meet people of different ethnic backgrounds, and feel like I am at the crossroads of civilizations between Europe and Asia that I have recently found myself drawn to explore more and more about Asia?

Or would my love of subtitled movies, natural cultural curiosity, and the easy internet access to subtitled dramas have led me down this road eventually even if I lived in the US?

world map china center Best of Map Shop Hema Maps Buy Maps line Mapworld Australia
A different view of the world

I think it’s because I live in Israel. This is a small country with many immigrants and a citizenry that values traveling and seeing the world. In Israel, my American-ness makes me foreign, and somehow more of a global citizen. In the US, I was foreign, but spent so much time and effort in being American, I didn’t value my foreignness and so by default rejected global citizenry. All the potential was there, but it was only in Israel where I could be myself – a person in the cultural margins – that I could plant my roots and grow in different cultural directions.

My deep roots are in the US and Israel, I have cultural sprouts in Russia and Ukraine, and I’m growing branches in Korea, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong. Yes, I’m a global citizen indeed.

Jerusalem Lovefest, I mean, Parade

/ IlanaB / 1 Comment

After last week’s UNESCO vote, the Jerusalem Parade is extremely well-timed.  There will be a new vote on the UNESCO resolution, but it feels like rumblings rather than outright condemnations of an obviously biased document.

During Sukkot, Jerusalem is filled with both Jewish and Christian tourists from all around the world.  The streets are filled with families, restaurants have sukkahs (booths) outside, and there is a festival atmosphere throughout the city during the whole week.

For many years, I thought the parade was primarily a Christian thing, but it turns out that the first parade was in 1955 during Passover.  Then after 1980 when the Christian Embassy was founded in Jerusalem the parade evolved into what we have today.  The parade begins with Israeli groups – banks, insurance companies, army units, corporate groups, and others – and then the Christian groups from around the world join in.

The Christian groups are often singing songs in Hebrew to show their support.  Not being Hebrew-speakers they tend to choose the ones with simple and repetitive lyrics, but strong messages.  “Am Israel, Am Israel, Am Israel, Chai!” (The people of Israel live!) “Havenu Shalom Aleichem” (We wish you peace) “Ya’aseh Shalom, Shalom Aleinu v’Al Kol Israel” (May He bring peace, peace to us and all Israel).

Here are a few pictures from the parade.  I chose them based on the ones that turned out rather than any other criteria.

The Chinese took the phrase “Go Big or Go Home” to heart and had the biggest flags and banners and also brought along the Ark of the Covenant with trumpeting angels.

img_20161020_163341

Hungary had its own group, but the Gipsy nation came on its own.

All the northern countries were represented, but these were two signs I caught.

All around the world is not an exaggeration:  Fiji, New Zealand, Bolivia, Thailand, Taiwan, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, France, Germany, UK, Ireland, US, Canada, and more and more and more.

My wish for this holiday season is that all these people would call their UN representatives and let UNESCO know that they came to Israel to strengthen their Jewish and Christian connections to the land.

*Note:  Christians are not allowed to proselytize in Israel.  They are not permitted to hand out any religious material at all.  So this event is a surprisingly non-political, non-religious event that is very simply an expression of support and love for Israel the country, not its government or policies.