T A B L E_T A L K Can't leave home without it? Discuss your "travel essentials" in Table Talk's Wanderlust section. R E C E N T L Y Road Warrior By Dawn MacKeen Are airlines delivering sexist service in first class? (12/08/97) Mondo Weirdo By Lori Makabe When bed bugs attack! (12/05/97) Surreal Gourmet By Bob Blumer Herbed olive oil holiday gifts (12/05/97) Maya Color Photographs by Jeffrey Becom Jeffrey Becom's passionate pix (12/04/97) The man who loved books in Turkey By Lisa Michaels An encounter with a book-starved shopkeeper in Turkey provides a new perspective on literary packing (12/03/97) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Wanderlust archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		____________A JEW IN CHINA DISCOVERS THE ____________TRAVAILS OF LIFE IN A LAND WHERE ____________WESTERNER EQUALS CHRISTIAN. BY JOSHUA COHEN | I crossed the border into Canton, China, to do a year-long stint teaching English at a college in Hunan at the beginning of September 1991, just three days before Yom Kippur. I had grown up in an observant Jewish home -- keeping kosher and not working on Saturdays, among other things -- so I was determined to observe the Yom Kippur fast, although there wasn't a synagogue within 200 miles. Miss Liu, the college escort, a bespectacled young woman just a shade under 5 feet tall, met me at the train station. She told me it would take at least another three days to buy a train ticket to Hunan, so she hailed a cab and deposited me in a room at a hotel for foreigners. Each morning at 8 sharp we met for breakfast in the hotel's posh restaurant on the second floor, where slender waitresses in thigh-slit cheongsams pushed carts full of chickens' feet and spareribs, litchi nuts and sheep intestine oatmeal among the grand, grease-spotted tables. After breakfast we would take a cab to the train station and spend the rest of the morning arguing with hostile ticket bureaucrats who were determined we should never reach Hunan. Then we would walk out for a snack at a streetside noodle stall, do some sightseeing, buy some fruit, break for lunch, do a little more sightseeing, stop for a snack, run some errands, eat an overwhelming dinner at a fancy restaurant, buy some mooncakes for the upcoming mooncake festival, have tea, then part company in the hotel lobby. Of course, we bought plenty of walking-around food during the day to tide us through those between times. On Yom Kippur morning, though, when Miss Liu arrived at the hotel dining room at 8:05, I told her I wouldn't be eating anything that day. "Are you ill?" she cried. "Do you need to see a doctor?" No, I answered calmly, it's just a religious observance. I tried to explain Yom Kippur briefly. She furrowed her brow. "You don't like the food?" she asked after I had finished explaining the meaning of the word "atonement." "We can go to another restaurant; I'm sure we can find one that serves Western food." No, I explained, it was a holiday, a Jewish holiday -- I wanted to eat, but I was not allowed to. Miss Liu spoke excellent English, but this concept was utterly beyond her. The Chinese are the only people on earth more obsessed with food than the Jews. There is no such thing as a fast day in Chinese culture; a holiday means eating more. A fasting holiday is about as comprehensible to the Chinese as a St. Patrick's Day parade in London. Miss Liu became frantic -- she had been charged with bringing the foreign teacher safely back to the college; if any trouble should befall me, she would be in terrible trouble. "Please tell me the problem," she begged. "You must eat something." I mumbled a vague speech about God, sin and repentance, but finally I realized I couldn't make her understand. There are Jews in the United States who don't understand the purpose of the Yom Kippur fast. To be honest, I wasn't even sure I understood the full purpose of the fast. Miss Liu's eyes teared up, and I considered my options: I could make her cry, or I could eat. "Moderation," Judaism advises. "Flexibility," China admonishes. "Never make a woman cry," my father avers. I went downstairs and broke the fast early for the first time since my Bar Mitzvah. "Chinese food is very delicious," Miss Liu remarked knowingly as I picked uncomfortably at tiny dishes of dumplings and sesame chicken. What else could I do? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - N E X T+P A G E+| No Jesus, please, we're Chinese