I was born in NYC. Until I was 9 I had never had any but cursory contact with non-Jews. I really knew next to nothing about their thoughts or culture. Then we moved to NJ and things totally changed. Very few Jews; lots of non-Jews. I was beaten up regularly for having killed Jesus, etc. etc. Never told anyone since I figured, Why bother; my parents will just freak out.

I still have a broken tooth from one of those interfaith meetings. It is my reminder that I have to learn to take care of myself. I ( we) can never depend on others.

At age 20 I went to Israel where I studied Babylonian Talmud. That is the number one contribution of the Jews to civilization, IMHO. It teaches you how to think. It is the most amazing self-development key that I have ever encountered.

There are English translations but you really have to study it in Hebrew and Aramaic ( the language of the Jews when they were expelled from Israel by the Romans in 70AD). There are many, many brilliant commentaries. The whole Talmud is basically questions, answers, questions, answers by the brightest minds of the Jewish world over many centuries up until the present.

That is what the raisins and honey are all about. Not to study the Bible; to study the Talmud.

The Talmud is where all the mental and intellectual prowess of Jews derives from.

And, thanks for this wonderful blog!!

1) Both cultures traditionally placed an enormous amount of emphasis on learning, to the point that some Jews would often devote practically their entire lives to study of the Talmud, just as many young Chinese would devote their entire lives to study of the Confucian classics and passing the Imperial examination.

2) Both have a pretty massively widespread diaspora. You can find Jews and Chinese in the most absurdly diverse places.

3) Both cultures are really, really old. Really old. And proud of it.

4) Deserved or undeserved, both have a reputation for clannishness. There’s us, and there’s them.

5) Rather more unfortunately, they both seem to have the same negative stereotypes. Stingy money-grubbers, cheaters, only care about themselves, come in and take all the money from the poor, persecuted majority.

6) Sort of incidental similarity, but both had a rather horrific experience living under Axis occupation in World War II.

Is it just me? Maybe. In any case, a rather large difference, of course, is the Jews being outnumbered by Han Chinese 100 to 1.

Bleh. At some point in the future you’ll either be back in Taiwan or I’ll be in Japan. In either case, all will be made right. Hope you enjoyed your trip to this fair and happy land of motor scooters and betel nut chewers.

And as a history student, particularly a World War II buff, I must protest against the insinuation that Japan was free from anti-semitism in the bad old days of the ’30s and ’40s. There’s an interesting book called War Without Mercy which offers a comparative examination of Western Allied and Japanese views and propaganda depictions of one another. Due to the alliance with Germany, you could find more and more anti-semitism filtering into Japanese propaganda as time went by, with Britain and the United States depicted more and more often in the typical Nazi propaganda style of ‘international finance Jewry.’

The main difference, of course, was that few Japanese really had their hearts in it. It’s hard to work up a burning, fiery passion of hatred of an ethnic group you have hardly the slightest history of interaction with. The Jews of the Shanghai Ghetto had more and more restrictions placed on them, but despite pressure from the Nazis the Japanese never handed them over to be shipped to Auschwitz.

Based on the discussion of education in this book, my wife and I were asked to write another, ユダヤ人が語った親バカ教育のレシピ (Index Communications 2006). This includes several interviews we did with a Nobel laureate, a MacArthur Pirze winner, and other prominent people about how they were brought up. We didn’t all watch TV while reading, but there are many other similarites across the board, despite wide disparities in income, domestic situation, etc. The Korean translation of 親バカ is due to appear in a couple of weeks; the translation of ユダヤ人の頭のなか appeared there last year, though with a title, cover and some other modifications I did not approve of.

Unfortunately, it’s typical of Asian publishers to sensationalize books about Jews without the authors’ knowledge. In the case of the first Korean book, it was done AFTER a Korean friend of mine had already reviewed and approved the manuscript. The reason is greed, rather than racial animus; by appealing more to the audience’s expectations (Jews = secrets of getting rich, in this case), they figure it will sell more. The publisher even expected I’d be cool with that, because of potentially more royalties. Something similar is at work in the unbalanced coverage of Japan in US media — US editors won’t accept stories unless they’re about some wacky fad or the Japanese economy going down the toilet (though stories about knife-wielding nuts in Akihabara do break through). I was lucky that my Japanese publisher was more on the level (though I’d have definitely sued if they hadn’t been).

I agree with what you say about literacy, and am both admiring and envious — I’ve been living in Tokyo for 2 years now and am far, far from it. Thanks again.

(/BillHicks)

Reading is such a great way to be able to choose the material you see in a foreign language. You can take your own pace and not have to rely on others to speak about the cool stuff you are interested in.

Otherwise this post was far too intellectual for me.

Great post as always!

I like that you’re emphasizing reading here, too. Sometimes I think people get stuck up on SRS and sentencing (trees) without paying much attention to just reading like mad (forest). I’ve never met an intelligent person (in any language) that wasn’t a reader of some sort. If you aspire to be an intelligent person in another language (as I hope that most learners do), there’s no reason to believe that it would be any different.

Thanks again man.