Thursday, August 23, 2012

Hong Kong, HongKou, and Kaifeng, oh my!

Jews of Kaifeng
Last October I wrote about Xiaoming, who was recently told that her great-great-grandfather was Jewish.  She started working on how to research that and find out if the claim is true, and then decided to go to graduate school in Hong Kong.  While she is in China, she's looking for local background information about Chinese Jews, and she's doing a whirlwind tour.  In February she went to a shabbat service and attended a lecture on why the Chinese are so interested in Jewish people.  In March she visited several Jewish sites in Hong Kong.  Earlier this month she visited HongKou, Shanghai's former World War II Jewish ghetto.  And now she is off to Kaifeng to research the historical Jewish community there.  She promised to blog in real time, and I'm hoping to see a post soon.

I am really impressed with how Xiaoming is throwing herself into her search for information.  I don't know how likely it is that she'll find anything specifically about her family, but I'm sure she will learn a lot about the history of Jews in China, which will still help her with her research.

I wish I could make that kind of research trip!  How far have you traveled for your research?

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