Recently, out of a whim and culture shock, I started to write my
first Hebrew blog with all my limited, broken, beginner's Hebrew. I feel the necessity to write more about China and Chinese people, by displaying the real, day-to-day life of a Chinese student in Israel and by clarifying all the misunderstandings and stereotypes that the Israelis may have towards China and Chinese people. In Israel, sometimes I feel like going back to the US in its 1970s and 1980s when not many Chinese people were there studying and working. The Americans might at first find all those Asian faces (classmates, colleagues, neighbors) very exotic and interesting. Later they came to know more about them and developed all kinds of stereotypes. After that they got to know more Chinese and Chinese culture and some of the stereotypes gradually disappeared, due to the increase of knowledge and mutual understanding. In Israel, in my own humble opinion, the Israelis know even less about China than their American fellows and are currently lingering on the first stage: "exotic and interesting Chinese faces".
Lots of Chinese construction workers and house maids work in Israel. Well, maybe more house maids from Philippines. The first time I watched the 2007 Israeli movie "Noodle" with all the other students in my class, I felt this invisible pain inside my chest. Chinese house maids, illegal immigrants, deported back to China, almost illiterate child, and so on. Chinese are marginalized in this society; they are poor, weak, disorganized, and lack the basic surviving abilities (such as speaking a certain amount of Hebrew or cite the local laws to protect themselves). They live in ghettos and are not united.
Surely there're a handsome number of Chinese students studying in Israel. But generally they are shy and most of them are here to learn the language (this is absurd, I mean, if you are here to learn the language, then isn't it the most important thing for you to communicate with the locals)? Unfortunately, most of the time I saw the Chinese students on campus hanging out with other Chinese like a mysterious coven. Sadly, most Chinese students are like that in any other countries. They are here to learn the language but they aren't really integrated into the culture.
Being Chinese and studying abroad, I fully understand the economic reason why they don't get assimilated into the so-called mainstream culture. Most of the Chinese students come from middle class family and it's really expensive for them to even survive in a foreign, Western, developed country. In Jerusalem everything is expensive, especially on this isolated hill top, Mount Scopus. Unless you want to walk every day from one hill top to the other hill top and buy things on Mt. of Olives (East Jerusalem), you need to think twice before spending every shekel. And needless to say, not all the local students would like to interact with Chinese students (or any international student).
I always remind myself of my purpose of studying abroad: to know more about other cultures and embrace other values. Don't carry our "Chinatown" to where we are traveling to or studying at, the "Chinatown" of everything Chinese: Chinese culture, Chinese food, Chinese way of thinking, Chinese way of behaving, and speaking Chinese 24/7.
OK, so I guess I should wrap this post up with a brief summary: promoting one culture and facilitating mutual understanding is a very slow process that may last generations. National propaganda and public relations (isn't PR an euphemism to say "propaganda"?) are needed. Meanwhile, people exchange and grassroots ambassadors are of the same importance. I would like to be a grassroots ambassador to speak for my country and my culture. I feel obliged to do so.
