Authors: Fay Jacobs
Fried & True (34 page)
September 2006
LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH
Ever since Georgia State Representative Billy McKinney lost a primary battle in 2002, I've been feeling uneasy. According to
The Washington Post
, he blamed his loss on the “J-E-W-S.”
Nice. While it's some comfort that McKinney lost, it still made me queasy. I've spent more than half my life working to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. It's been my issue both personally, for small instances of discrimination, and, in a wider sense, for our community as whole.
But until some recent news articles, I never really took anti-semitism as a personal threat or a contemporary issue. Who's head's in the sand now?
I flinched when reading about the resurgence of European anti-semitism and the massive hateful propaganda, nurtured in Arab nations, that the Jews were behind 9-11.
Hearing vicious anti-Semitic rants from Iranian officials and reading of nations which refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist is very discomforting to say the least.
And we cannot forget Mel Gibson's wild eyed rant about the Jews causing all the wars in the world. Frankly, I thought that was the Republicans' job.
It's enough to make me want to “come out” as Jewish and start paying more than lip service (like eating lox and bagels), to my religious heritage.
My parents were secular Jews. They didn't attend services but they identified greatly with ethnic Judaismâand they were of the generation that refused to buy Volkswagens and Mercedes because of the manufacturer's World War II connection to the Third Reich.
Struck with a little Jewish guilt when my sister and I were young, my folks sent us to “Sunday” school on Saturday at our local temple. One day, while I was in religious class, with my
mother and sister on their way to pick me up, my mom skidded the car on an icy street and wrecked her 1957 Thunderbird. Mom and Sis had only minor injuries, but that was the absolute end of my religious training. My mother took the accident as a sign from God that we should be doing other things on Saturdays. Kaput. Finito. Done.
Decades later, when a number of people here in town got together to form the first Jewish congregation in the entire county, it interested me a little.
So after a few visits on the High Holy Days, with Bonnie coming along, I began to feel a kinship with Seaside Jewish Community. With the exception of weddings, funerals, and a stray visit to DC's gay synagogue, this was my first religious experience in over 40 years (unless you count créme brulée).
Not surprisingly, I was a little lost amid the Hebrew prayers and songs, but not among the crowd. At least 10 congregants were friends from CAMP, I recognized several people from the Art League, and a few more from downtown businesses. The nice thing is that it didn't feel like a straight synagogue or a gay synagogue. There was a great mix.
So now, in addition to hosting our annual Chanukah party where we serve Bonnie's fabulous Matzo Ball soup and Latkes (potato pancakes), I am part of the budding Jewish community here.
And one the things that drew me to this congregation is the person who most often leads the services. Beth is our lay rabbi.
She does a terrific job and is a wonderfully wise and spiritual person. Also lots of fun, because long before I showed up in schul, we'd been socializing with Beth and her partner Fran. So actually she is our lay lesbian rabbi. She's a lay rabbi because she knows her stuff but hasn't been through the official rabbinical training. I do believe however, that she is an ordained lesbian.
It's been nice going to the occasional Saturday morning service and adding a bit of organized religion to my life. Somehow it feels different than all my previous forays into a
synagogue. It feels integrated, with my family of choice, my gay life and my spiritual life (or at least heritage and culture) all coming together and recognized by this welcoming congregation. Adding that touch of spirituality seems appropriate to me for the very first time in my life. A touch.
And then it happened. My mate, who always enjoyed the study of religion and was herself a committed Christian until she was lobbed from her church for being gay, began to take an interest.
To be sure, Bonnie has always loved Jewish food, Jewish jokes and Jewish women. But I was a little surprised when she told me she wanted to explore converting to the Jewish faith. “Making matzo ball soup isn't enough?” I asked. No, she really wanted to study.
“A couple of pounds of pastrami won't satisfy your craving?”
Nope. She decided she liked the philosophy behind the religion and felt very comfortable with our little Jewish congregation.
So my mate started taking Hebrew lessons from Beth and practicing her alphabet and prayers by playing recorded lessons on her iPod.
I am very, very proud of her for making this choice and taking on all the hard work and introspection required to see it through.
However, I think the ability to make the requisite sounds for Hebrew and Yiddish words is genetic. Telling somebody they have a lot of Chutzpah (Yiddish for gumption) and pronouncing the CH with the properly liquid “CHuh” sound is easy for Jewish people. Non-Jews have to really work at it. It's the difference between calling a complainer a kvetch or a k-vetch.
So, I'm sitting reading and Bonnie is in the next room going over her last lesson and reading aloud. It's hard to tell if she's clearing her throat or reciting a prayer. When she gets to a particularly juicy “Chuh” in the text I wonder if she might need the Heimlich maneuver.
And so it goes. We've gotten to the point where Bonnie is explaining the meaning of the Jewish holidays to me and I'm becoming a more observant Jew by marriage. A member of the religious left as it were.
And there's no sense kvetching about it. I'm answering to a higher power: Bonnie, when she's on a mission.
And even if I did kvetch and complain, I'd just be preaching to the converted.
Shalom.
September 2006
LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH
We planned a trip to China.
Insane as it sounds, on two occasions, people asked if we were going there to adopt a baby. Hah! That ship sailed a long time ago. We can hardly manage dogs.
But we went on a thoroughly enlightening and extraordinary tour. In fact, it was life-changing because it altered my thinking. Now, hearing about China on the news, I have different pictures in my mind, different feelings. I'm more hopeful about the future, actually. And I think the future is Asia.
Some quick impressions:
History
. Seeing 2000 year old structures, sculptures and artifacts is humbling. Gee, Paul Revere did not invent silver. From the Forbidden City (and its stunning buildings to house Emperors, Administrators, Concubines, Eunuchs and all) to the Terra-Cotta Warriors (8,000 life-size statues of men and horses, which archeologists found guarding an emperor's tomb) we gaped and gasped.
As for The Great Wall, from afar it's majestic, powerful, and dramatic. I must admit, when we got to where it was accessible for climbing (ergo a tourist hotspot) I felt I could have been at an Epcot's Great Wall replica. Amid masses of camera-carrying tourists, vendor's hawked “I Climbed the Wall” T-shirts. But the climb turned out to be really strenuous and the Wall, a fortification stretching over 4,000 miles, is something I never thought I'd see. The first of the walls (every dynasty had their own or added to one) was built in 20 years, using human labor alone. Why should adding a lane on the highway take two years?
I always thought Chinese artists were bad at drawing mountains, making them too pointy. But no, along the Li River, the scenery really looks like that, with weirdly peaked limestone hills.
Chinese food
. Okay, with the exception of one or two great meals, Chinese food is better here. We really weren't offered anything too scary, but lunches and dinners at the tourist-approved restaurants and hotels were mostly bland and boring. I perfected my chopstick technique but have lost my taste for any food requiring their use. Perhaps this weekend I'll get to Rehoboth's gourmet Chinese restaurant, Confucius, which has exquisite, non-bland Chinese food.
But I did eat Peking Duck in Beijing (which used to be called Peking) and not many people can say that. One of our best meals was on a tour where we took a bicycle rickshaw (pity the poor peddler) into the Hutong, or old town Beijing, and a local family cooked us lunch. That was terrific and we got to see their home and courtyard, which combined history (tiny rooms, coal heat, concrete walls) and modernity (TV, computer and fridge). We loved their dogâa Pekinese, of course.
Daily life
. As our guide said, it's no longer Red China, but Pink China, with rampant Capitalism. A Beijing or Shanghai street has everything from Gucci and Burberry to government owned Friendship stores selling jade, T-shirts and reasonably priced clothing. There are big grocery chains, department stores and open merchandise markets where vendors, holding scarves, hats and fans, run after foreigners and yell “One dolla, One dolla!” If you are just getting back on a bus, they start yelling, “Two for one dolla!”
Stores in most cities are the width of double car garages with the entire front open by way of a garage doorâand a dizzying cacophony of signs. Young people are fashion conscious, wear chic, hot eyewear and ride bikes and scooters in all weather. Tiny taxis and delivery vehicles are often trikes. But cars are becoming more prevalent (Buick is king, go figure) and the roads are impossibly jammed. One of our tour companions noted that traffic signals seem to be merely a suggestion. Fortunately, in the big cities (19 million people) there are walking tunnels under the big thoroughfares. In the small
towns (
only 5 million
) crossing the street is like being on
Survivor-China
. Restaurants and cafes abound, but you can still see women on the street selling steaming sweet potatoes from a grill on the back of a bicycle.
And the construction projects! Skyscrapers, stadiums, shopping centers, and apartments are going up everywhere. As Beijing readies for the 2008 Olympics, the government is rebuilding, repaving and replanting almost the whole cityâgiving rise to horrendous smog.
With all the building, people joke that their national bird is the crane. They also laugh that their national flag is laundry, because on almost every hi-rise balcony, laundry hangs from bamboo poles. Many people have dryers but they hate using them.
The people.
Friendly, warm, polite, short and thin. I felt like a blimp. Our guides provided a fascinating travelogue and stories galore. Henry (his American name) had a great sense of humor and delighted in telling us tales of other tour groups. At one point he was laughing about an incident where two teens misbehaved and, quoting Henry, “they stuck asses out window!” Our crew taught Henry the American word âmooning.” I'm sure that will be helpful for him to know when, following this stint in tourism, he goes for his MBA.
The tour bus usually picked us up by 9 a.m. so Bonnie and I sometimes took early morning walks to see what surrounded each hotel. Often, we were the only Caucasians on the crowded streets and we attracted attention. Once, a bike whipped around a corner and splashed muddy water all over Bonnie's shorts. People gasped, but when they saw Bonnie laugh, they laughed and came running with hankies.
On our morning jaunts and early tours, we saw large groups of people gathered in parks doing Tai Chi or other group exercises. In fact, all day long, everywhere we looked, seniors played mah jong or other board games, or practiced musical instruments and with small choirs. Workers retire fairly early to make room for younger employees. And many grandparents
watch THE grandchildâper the population reduction policy mandating only one child per family. There is the potential for one very spoiled child, as four grandparents and two parents constantly hover.
The politics.
The only time I felt we were in a police state was our first day, at Tiananmen Square. We saw the big square, surrounded by government buildings, but we could not go onto the square as they had visiting dignitaries. Armed soldiers stood guard and it was a little creepy. Henry, and our Beijing guide Mai, told us we could ask them anything we wanted, but ON the bus.
Pulling away from the area, we asked Mai how many people died in the 1989 uprising. She said we probably knew more than she didâbut let us know she was a student at the time and sided with the protestors. Henry told us that people from small cities who want to work in Beijing or Shanghai, need a special I.D. card. He had to join the Communist Party to get oneâbut we could sense he was not happy about that.
But the people seem proud and patriotic, and believe they are moving toward a more open society.
Following this serious discussion, Henry lightened the mood by asking how many people we thought could fit in Tiananmen Square. “Do not be offended,” he said, “but answer is 1 Million Chinese, half million Americansâ¦just kidding,” he assured us.”
“When's lunch?” chimed somebody. We were a happy group.
We also talked about all the building. If the government wants to put up a new building, like Nike, they just do. Face it, they don't waste time with environmental impact statements or public hearings. And displacing people? They move people to a new place far out of town, or pay them to move. Hmmm. With the new eminent domain laws pushed by our current administration, this is sounding very familiar.
At one point, Henry mentioned that by the end of Mao's revolution, the word comrade was not used anymore. “Now,
you call somebody comrade it means gay,” he said. “That is okay now.” He inferred that things were more open for gays in the cities now, but we saw no evidence of comrades. Except, of course, in the Beijing Minority Song and Dance Troupe we saw one night.
Our vacation itself was a good example of the political climate. All tour companies visiting China cover pretty much the same groundâand must include stops at government owned or sponsored factories. We toured rug, pearl, silk, cloisonné and jade factories, at which, adopting a pack mentality, our group frenetically and gleefully bought souvenirs and gifts. But, it did seem like compulsory shopping, although far be it for me to complain about such a thing.
Bathroom facilities
. Peeing was as strenuous as climbing the Great Wall. It's that most of the bathroom stalls contain squattersânot holes in the ground like Girl Scout camp, but porcelain troughs with a button you step on to flush. These require you to plant your feet firmly on either side, pull your pant cuffs up and trousers down and balance like a Chinese acrobat to relieve yourselfâall the while doing a tap dance to keep your clothing dry. I limited liquids to near dehydration. As a dyke who's last day in a dress was my sister's wedding in 1987, if I go to Asia again it will be (God help me) in miniskirts.
But it did change my thinking. I never thought I'd give a Boeing 757 bathroom a five-star rating. Relief!
Shanghai
. The best for last. This beautiful, ultra modern city is the jewel of China. Lucky, lucky us, our Rehoboth friend Lyena was in Shanghai (her hometown) on a business trip when our tour was there. She took us out for an evening we will never forget. From an exquisite dinner to the lights of Nanjing Road (more neon than Vegas!) to the Bund (a section of European style buildings from the 1930s) where you could see across the river to the lights of Shanghai's tallest buildings, our private tour rocked!
Gorgeous sights, gorgeous architecture. Yes, said Lyena,
lots of Chinese people have the money for these fabulous new apartments and the prices rival Manhattan or Rehoboth's beach block. I had to laugh. For all the tea in China (and there's a lot!) I couldn't understand how people could pay 3 million dollars for an apartment, but wave their drying underpants from the balconies.
Well, It's a different culture; a different world, although we have much in common. Asia is on the ascent. Trust me, our youngsters should learn Mandarin.