Judaism Al Regel Achat

In general, I wish I had written more about my experiences in China and Taiwan. I knew I would feel this way as the days went by, but I didn’t write because I was tired, so mind-numbingly tired, or because I thought there was nothing in particular about that day to record. On my last day at Li Ze, the very last day, the day when I unofficially snuck back to clear out my desk, I knew I wanted to record that day. But that was also the night of Jamie’s and my farewell dinner with the Lins, so maybe I was tired when I got back. In any case, as I was packing up my desk, the principal came over to say goodbye (so maybe this was my official last day, after all). He was interested in my being Jewish and had some questions for me. I think he heard I was Jewish from some of the other teachers and administrators in the school, which made me wonder what else they said about me. I wish I had written everything down afterwards because it was really fascinating to see what thoughts he had about Jews. I was really interested in the conversation, even as a large portion of my mind was wishing he would go away and let me scoot out of there. I hate being late. Anyway, it seemed that he had an extensive amount of very particular knowledge of Judaism, though somewhat mistaken, as if he had watched a two-hour special on us on the Discovery Channel. “The Jew resides in the sun-kissed plains of Israel…their rites of passage revolve around the mitzvoth, To-rah, and dancing the ‘ho-rah’ at the Weeping Wall…” You get the idea. He seemed bent on the idea that we all carry around a valuable object at all times, so that we can barter our way to safety at a moment’s notice. Hmm, I thought, wondering if the horns would come up soon after this. So I told him about pogroms and how Jews had to sometimes bribe people to protect them—maybe he got the idea of a valuable object from there? He did not know the word “pogrom” so I said it was OK, it’s not actually an English word, it just means an event where Jews are being attacked en masse. He turned to Cynthia to ask what “pogrom” meant. “Program?” she asked. No, no, I said, and wrote the word on one of my thousands of handy slips of paper (thanks to a lesson plan or two that involved Memory). They both looked at the word with frowns on their faces. It’s not English, I said again. Maybe I should never have brought that word up. I just like things to be authentic. I think I even ended up writing “ghetto” on the paper. They understood the concepts, even if “pogrom” remained a bit murky. The principal was really sold on the valuable objects idea, though. They must have shown pictures of bearded rabbis slung with fist-sized rubies around their necks on that special. “Look at me,” I said, spreading my arms wide. “I don’t have any valuable objects on me.” My jade bracelet weighed heavily on my mind, but the principal did not point it out. Maybe it was too Chinese to be authentically Jewish. ;) He agreed that my claim was true. I believe one of his pillars of belief regarding Jews toppled at that point. I was so disappointingly un-bedecked with jewelry.

I’m pretty sure that he spoke of the Jewish acumen in math, particularly regarding money and business. I think he said that Jews are smart, studious, and diligent. This all makes my insides squirm sickeningly. I hate the association with Jews and business. I know—and knew at the time—that what he though about business proficiency and what Europeans historically though was not at all they same. But I still feel like a dirty, beak-nosed Shylock whenever somebody says something like that. And then I think that whoever said it will soon hate me and mine, regardless of how much they may have originally admired us. Such admiration is dangerous. I also feel like I’m pinned to the wall like a butterfly, a neat “Jew” sticker affixed below my feet. This is a Jew. It is good at making money. It likes to read. Subspecies: American Jew. See Hollywood and Wall Street. Lastly, I hate this association because I know that I am personally going to disappoint my conversation partner. I am not diligent. I am not good at math. I am certainly not good at making money. Only a few Jews reach the shores of China and Taiwan—and they had to get this weak, bumbling throwback?! I feel individually lessened by this comparison to the Platonic Form of the Jew, and I cringe at the thought of ruining the Chinese concept of Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and Israel on behalf of all Jews throughout the world. I want to run back to New York and send a better representative in my place. I generally downplay that whole “smart Jew” idea and point out that everyone in America thinks every Chinese person is brilliant, a veritable walking calculator. I do this hoping the person I’m speaking with will realize how absurd this is, maybe even point out a few idiots they know as counter-examples. I think I mentioned the American awe of Chinese studiousness to the principal. Pretty sure I said there are all types of Americans and all types of Jews (and all types of Chinese?). I think different religious practices also came up. It was a long conversation, but a standing one. Cynthia worked quietly behind her desk (also standing—no connection, but maybe listening in?), putting it back to rights after a busy day. A couple students milled about my desk, helping clear stuff and making goodbye cards. The principal and I both stood, like you do when you bump into someone on a street corner and stay there for half an hour just jabbering on, the seconds ticking away in your head, but wanting to get everything out and across. This was a cool conversation, and I was sure there wouldn’t be another opportunity to 1) enjoy a good conversation with my principal* and 2) set the record straight. Now I’d like to email him and ask if he has any more questions. I’d like to re-open our dialogue.

Somehow we got onto Zionism. I really don’t remember if he raised the topic or if I did. I think he was a bit mixed up with Judaism as a religion, nationality, and race—but who isn’t? So we tried to sort that out a bit. This would be where the “all types of Jews” comment really fits in. Did I bring up the different kippot? Please say no. I think I did. Oh god, I think I actually wrote “yarmulke” on that slip of paper, figuring that even if it was the most unlikely word for anyone to be able to pronounce, it was the form that they were most likely to encounter if they started researching Jews. “The Jew wears the yarmulke at all times. It is blessed by a rabbi and donned at the Coming of Age ceremonies when a son is twelve and a daughter thirteen.” It was very important to me to impress on them the fact that Zionism began before the Holocaust. I did not know how to say “Holocaust” in Chinese, so we kept referring to it as “that event, you know, where that bad man killed a lot of people.” I think we both said “Hitler.” So that probably makes “Hitler” and “Coca-Cola” the most international icons out there. I’m not sure why I kept harping on the whole Herzl, World Zionist Conference thing. The principal knew about this, though. I think he even knew about the Uganda idea and the later switch to Israel/Palestine because Israel is so significant to the Jews. But I kept going over and over it. He nodded and agreed. But I wanted it to be clear: Israel was not a hand-out. It’s not a consolation prize or a goody-bag treat. It’s not one large refugee camp for the world’s most miserable victims. The Jews debated this issue. We wrote and researched, convinced, earned, and fought for this land. We did die, too, but not as a prerequisite. This land is not contingent upon Jewish suffering. But it is a safe haven, and I think I mentioned that, too. Here is one place where we know we cannot be attacked (wholesale) or cast out, where we can defend and safeguard ourselves. I thought I wrote “Zionism” on the paper, but I also thought I wrote only two words on that paper, so my memory is definitely flawed somewhere along the line.

We must have gone over more things. Old versus New Testament? Talmud? Standard Jewish professions? Standard marriage ages and expectations? (I don’t think this one was included—it probably just lurks somewhere within my seething and bubbling subconscious.) Jews versus Muslims (versus Christians?)? Old Jewish communities in China and Japan?

In case you’re wondering, I made it back to Guantianxia just in time to meet up with the Lins. Broke a few traffic laws on the way. Jamie and Teagan were late—haha! And so was Faith! So I (I, I, I­) was the responsible one. Woohoo! But where did we go? Ah—I think we went to the Fresh restaurant that has that coconut-based seafood soup that Jamie dies over. And my actual host family was there, too, which was a little AWKWARD, but then I went to their home for dinner later and it was truly lovely and I keenly missed a whole year of not having dinner with them and getting to know them. So the other outing where Jamie and I wanted to treat the Lins must have been a different night. That time I proudly led them to the Julia café next to the Yilan Sports Park. They had never been to the café, so I felt super suave about this. They said it was because the place was rarely open. :::foreshadowing::: We got there and the place was—closed! Oh, the shame. The sign said it was closed for the BCT (so you see what I mean about the Chinese being so studious). Maybe the owner closed so he could take his kid to sit the high school entrance exam. Ah well. Jennifer and her husband had a rapid conversation in Taiwanese, and then everything was settled and we were driven to a mountain-top restaurant that used to be another restaurant, which apparently had better food. The Lins regretted the low-end cuisine (Jamie, Teagan, and I thought it was fine), but said that they had primarily taken us there for the view, which did not disappoint. Stars, city lights below. They said they did not “trust” the coffee at the new restaurant (having tasted the food), so we went to the Luna Plaza for Starbucks for quality stuff. Oh, the irony. I was not going to tell them that Americans sneer at Starbucks coffee, that it is a love-hate relationship where we drink it because it there (always, always there) and has so many choices, but that anyone pretending to a finer taste for coffee must sigh and say that the quality does not compare to X’s (Oren’s, if you’re at Columbia), just before they sip from there skim milk, tall latte.

*This was the second of two good conversations with that principal. The first was once when I sat next to him at lunch and we spoke about the Taiwanese army. Taiwanese men have mandatory service right before university. (Or right afterwards?) He was in infantry and gave the impression that they pretty much walked in giant circles around the island. It was very tiring. “Very tiring!” he lightheartedly exclaimed and the other teachers at the table chuckled. They rested one night (or did they do this often?) in a graveyard, using the tomb walls to block off the wind. They sent up a quick baibai prayer, apologizing to the ghosts for the intrusion, and went to sleep. I think they were a little uncomfortable with camping in a graveyard, but more uncomfortable with the constant marching.

P.S. Totally misspelled “pogrom” while writing this. I had it as “progrom.” Maybe that helps account for Cynthia’s and the principal’s confusion.

Ghost Month

One of the ruder Mandarin terms for a Caucasian foreigner is bai gui (white ghost). Today, I actually felt like one. As I sat at my desk, reorganizing it after the move to the new office, it occurred to me that soon I would be packing it all up again, for good. The imminence of my departure from Taiwan settled on me, and for the first time I really considered how far away I would be from my students and new friends, and how hard it would be (I confess—unlikely) to sustain meaningful communication across the ocean. I put most of the things away, leaving a stack of papers for filing—tomorrow, I promised myself. Then I picked up my bag and walked out of the office and down the hall, leaving for the day. Classes had just ended, and on the way I passed a bunch of ninth graders who called and waved cheerily to me as I passed. I felt like I was floating past them, dreamlike, as if I was already half gone. “Goodbye, Alana!” they cried. I knew they meant it the same way they had all year: goodbye, see you tomorrow. But it tolled and shuddered deep in me as though they were saying goodbye for the last time. “Goodbye,” I weakly answered, smiling so sadly. Could they tell? I brooded over this as I scootered home, thinking sad and sweet thoughts, occasionally laconically reminding myself where self-indulgent romanticism has gotten me. By the time I pulled into the garage, I felt human again, though rather achy in the teeth and throat. I came to Taiwan during Ghost Month and it seems that I will leave during one, as well.

Middle School: The Meltdown

I love Tim. Every time I see him, he has more facial hair—in new places! This is only one of the charms of teaching middle school.

My students are in that funny in-between phase, and (luckily for me) on the cuter end of it. So while one girl comes up to me for hugs or (as I suspect one of her teachers weaned her onto) high-fives, others show me pictures of hot guys in magazines.[1] And there are of course notes passed in class: “Jimmy and Emma—husband and wife!” “I’m in eighth grade and like you a lot—do you want to go out? Check yes/no.” I’ve intercepted a few in class (which I guess doesn’t speak too well for my teaching and ability to engage the students). One in particular gave me heart pangs. Having caught one that I couldn’t make out myself—actually, that would be all of them—I brought it to my co-teacher after class. She giggled and explained that it was a note from a girl to a boy in the grade ahead of her, asking if he wanted to be her boyfriend. He had checked “no.” It’s OK, Jessica reassured me, they pass these notes all the time, and the girl would likely send out another offer to a new boy the next day. Still…thinking of all those Beverly Cleary books and the excitement among my own middle school classmates over boyfriends and girlfriends, I figured it had to sting a little. But I digress. I have caught boys—boys!—blow-drying their hair between classes. (They like to spike it up a bit. Think Japanese manga.) My students complemented Jessica and me on our “sexy” dresses for the costume competition at Wu Jie. (See earlier post.) They always ask if I have a boyfriend. The boys in the grades that I don’t teach wing by me in the hallways and at my desk, shouting “hello!” and “good morning!” I get the feeling that they’ve been dared by the other boys inevitably surrounding them. When I answer, they all break up into laughter, bowling over each other and slapping the back of my greeter. What a lot of commotion. I alternately raise my eyebrows sardonically and sheepishly grin at the girls I’ve been chatting with, and look around to see if we’ve disturbed anybody. The other teachers take no notice.

Since the highest grade I teach (of my two) is eighth, attitude is mainly puerile, with kids shouting out of turn and walloping each other behind the teacher’s back. They also fall asleep a bunch in class and get rather pissy about being asked to spruce up. The girlfriend-boyfriend thing is also directed more at other people (idols, teachers) or cutesy almost-pretend dating amongst each other. To suggest them to be actually dating each other is a near-sure way of making the whole class laugh. One or two weeks ago, I was writing an example on the board where I needed to list two names. Joking around, I wrote the name of one of the boys in the class (who happens to be very good at English, so he kind of has it coming to be singled-out like this) and asked which girl’s name I should write next to his. “Emma!” shouted a bunch of students. Emma is also very good at English. “OK,” I said, and scribbled it. “No, no, no,” moaned the boy (Michael), and waved his arms in frantic Xs. “OK, who?” I asked. He wanted out. Desperately, he put forth the first option that seemed neutral to him. “My mother,” he called. “Oh my god, I never knew!” I cried. He covered his face and everyone laughed. I wrote down Madonna. I hope this doesn’t seem cruel to you. We were all joking around, and it was very clear that this was all in jest. The rest of the class went very well, and I think it was at least partially due to the good-humored bantering that we began with.

My next class did not go so well. There had been no teasing at its opening. Connection? A whole row of boys did not pay attention, chatting amongst themselves and claiming to not understand what I was saying. “But I know that can’t be,” I bitterly complained to one of my roommates when I got home. “All of my other classes understood, even the seventh graders.” “No,” she agreed, “they were just being little shits.”


[1] Last week, Jocelyn came over to me with a magazine full of pictures of idols (pop stars). She pointed to one man/boy she found very handsome. “Girl,” I said dismissively. Unfortunately, many Asian men come off as appearing somewhat feminine to Western eyes. “Nan,” she corrected. (“boy”) “Girl,” I retorted, not taking it. “Nan,” she emphatically repeated. “Girl.” “Nan.” “Girl.” “Hanguo.” (Korean) “OK,” I laughed, he’s excused. [“Nan” actually means “male” and “Hanguo” is “Korea,” while “Hanguoren” would be “Korean,” but the words above are what she meant colloquially.]

Confusion Says

A good deal of my time here is spent in confusion. More than I would like to admit, certainly at the time it occurs. But it seems that each week (if not each day) brings clarification to something I had previously thought I understood. During orientation, the state of Taiwanese education perplexed me--just how many students do go to college? At the beginning of the spring semester, I learned that we would be moving into the newly-constructed wing of Wu Jie Junior High in April. This surprised me since I could have sworn I was told in September that the wing would not be completed until 2010. This morning, my coworkers oohed and ahhed at my newly straightened hair (yay for Taiwanese hair salons and Jill's birthday bash) and asked me if I had tang zhi-ed it. Yes, I nodded, hearing "straight" (zhi) in the question. But some further miming (and coworkers) later revealed that they had asked if I had permed it. (Is tang at all related to soup?) Oh, no, I said. Ah, said a coworker, emphatically ironing her hair with pretend tongs, "you dgkjsgf???? zhi-ed it?" Yes, I said, nodding at the make believe tongs, not quite sure if we had hit the mark the second time either. And just now--only moments before I sat down to write this post!--I had my latest confusion encounter.

Last week, I went to Poya, a large store that sells household items. Anything from cosmetics to stationery, shampoo to soup pots, scooter helmets to popular and imported candy, pillows (small--for couches or desk-top napping), cleaning solvents to house slippers can be found in this store. It's a grand place, but if you call it by "Poya," locals will give you a blank or confused stare. "Baoya" will get you a smile and nod of appreciation--the same type you might get from mentioning Costco to a friend. Anyway, I went in search of one thing (which I have since forgotten, a shame since it turned out to be one of the few things that cannot be found in this megastore [along with large shower hair-catchers]) and of course walked out with my arms fully loaded. One of my impulse buys was a package of something from Quaker Oats. It now seems that I had been mislead by such words as "coffee" and "latte" on the labeling to believe I was holding a beverage. Funny how that happens. No, no, my office-mate told me (the same one who had mimed ironing her hair). What I had bought was a food item, but one that I could drink. ??? Yes, food that I can drink. I decided to open a package and test this definition of "food." (This had all started, just so you know, because she had generously offered me a packet of instant Barista coffee. Barista is a knock-off of Starbucks, which they also have in Taiwan, but tends to be more of a luxury item. [This does not prevent them from having the same desperate signs now populating New York--Starbucks is committed to making the best coffee possible and begs you to tell them how they can improve. A downward trend is a downward trend, it seems, and is not confined to the home-culture. Or maybe this is what happens when you franchise across oceans. Problems in one place are credited toward another, regardless of the actual reception of the merchandise in the new territory. I also saw these signs in Thailand.] Anyway, when she proffered her powdered latte, I proudly bust out mine. I was a little excited to show that I had finally caught onto the Taiwanese tendency to keep small food and drink supplies at one's desk. (It helps a lot with lunch, because the schools don't supply drinks. One of my schools has a hot/cold water machine in the hallways, the other has one in my office. But there's nothing flavored at hand.) Yeah, so anyway, I offered her a Quaker Oats not-coffee latte in exchange for her Barista latte. Of course, no exchange is necessary, but everyone here is so nice and keeps looking out for me and giving me things that it's nice to be able to return the favor. And that's when she told me that my drink was not a drink. And so I tested it, emptying the packet of powder and oat flakes into a cup and filling it to the top with hot water (from the machine in my office). And you what--it was thin. The powder and flakes floated around in the muddy water and had to be mixed in with a spoon. It strongly resembled a drink. I brought it back to the desk. My office mate and I peered into the mug. "You don't need a spoon," she told me. "The flakes will melt." It was starting to look more and more like a beverage. I drank it.

P.S. The flakes never fully melted. A few light ones floated, the rest sank to the bottom. I scooped them out with my spoon. Final status of food designation: inconclusive.

This is Not a Jewish Country

, despite all the Chinese food. It only takes the winter holidays to prove it. Christmas is popular here, with Santa Clauses, tinsel, and holiday greeting cards everywhere. Bookstores sell miniature Christmas trees—pre-decorated—and clerks at Surewell (like our Pathmark) wear Santa caps. (Their red-shirt-and-green-vest uniforms help add to the elf look.) Christmas songs are also ubiquitous (my ninth grade biology teacher’s favorite word [“Here comes the ubiquitous Alana” No, not correct usage, as it turns out. I called him out on it, which was, in hindsight, a rather bitchy thing to do {feichang bu limao really disrespectful}. I apologize and realize that I deserve every bit of rudeness I get from my students.]), though not continuous. This makes a great difference. In New Jersey, it seems that radio stations will play five Christmas songs in a row, throw in something by Clapton, and then fall back on the holiday tunes. There are even Christmas song marathons. Here, we get a heap of songs, but they are pretty evenly broken up by other songs. The songs also tend to be more skewed towards pop or jazzy gospel versions of the songs. Very little cutesy stuff going on, which makes it much more pleasant to listen to. For example, one song I hear a lot of (a very lot of—sometimes it seems to be on repeat, though this is probably just the effect of wallowing for two hours in front of a coffee cup and an LSAT book at a local café and the next day trying on nearly every style of Crocs in a shoe store and then wavering between three colors until the employee attending me suggested I just buy two pairs—these places do not have extensive music libraries) is “Last Christmas, I Gave You My Heart.” The story in the song may take place during Christmas, and “Christmas” may be in the title, but the song isn’t really about Christmas, so it doesn’t feel oppressive.[1] Though there are many Taiwanese Christians (and a whole slew of churches that some of my fellow ETAs are trying out), Christmas here seems almost more like a fun Western gimmick than a highly marketed and publicized religious holiday. One sample of this is how co-workers ask me how my family celebrates Christmas, even though I’ve told them I’m Jewish. (Maybe they forgot but I think this happened when I was in Beijing for the summer, too, and then my teachers definitely knew I was Jewish.) I think they see it as more of an American holiday than a Christian one. To be fair, I think a lot of Americans see it this way, as well.

Tonight I had a hearty dose of how unexposed Taiwan is to Judaism. I decided to make latkes for my students to include in a lesson on Chanukah. This would require potatoes, onions, and eggs (all of which I’d seen in the supermarket), as well as either sour cream (fat chance in Taiwan—still haven’t gotten my hands on ricotta or cottage cheese) or apple sauce, which I naively assumed would be a standard food item of any developed nation. As part of the lesson, we would be playing dreidel, so finding some of these was also a must. Surely, I thought, even if there were no authentic dreidels in Luodong (a plausible scenario), there would at least be normal tops that I could decorate with ‘N’s, ‘G’s, ‘H’s, and ‘S’s.

My first stop was Jin Yu Tang, a large stationary chain store. Large in its popularity (think Staples) and in its actual size: three floors of anything from sucking candies to posters of idols (Taiwanese celebrities). On a side note, names here tend to be very glamorous. Jin Yu Tang translates directly into “Gold Jade Palace.” Furniture stores might be named something like Joy Fortune Home Décor. A popular mall here is You Ai, which I think means Friendship and Love. Anyway, after being directed to the correct room/department in Jin Yu Tang, I was shown a “top.” These are Chinese tops, an object I had forgotten about until I saw them in the store. Thinking back on it, though, I think I saw people playing with them at the Columbia Lunar Gala show. They are large wooden cones. I would not be able to wrap my fingers around one of them. At the top is a string and I think you set them spinning by yanking on the string and releasing, rather than twisting an arm of the actual object, as we do. I motioned “no” and imitated twisting a dreidel in the air in front of me. The employee who had lead me to the Chinese tops went back to see if they had any tops like the one I described. She came back with a negative, and that really set the theme for the night. I asked if there were any toy stores nearby where I might find what I was looking for. She suggested the night market, which would have been my next guess. I had hopes of an actual store dedicated to toys tucked away in the market, but what I found were what I had seen numerous times: narrow shops/stalls filled with notebooks, study guides, and toys, generally of the cheap plastic kind. I looked into a few places, but found none. People seemed intrigued with the concept of a top you spin by using your hand. I wasn’t really homesick, but I could almost feel all the bags of plastic molded dreidels flooding New York this week. If only I could reach out and snatch a few. Eventually, I settled on buying dice and covering them with paper squares printed with ‘N’s, ‘G’s, etc. (It wasn’t until this morning that I realized that a dreidel has four sides and a die six. Oh well. It worked anyway, except with one group of boys where one boy cast the die and it kept landing on one of the uncovered sides, showing a few dots instead of a letter. Each time he would look up as if blocked from continuing the game, and I would reach over and recast the die for him until it finally landed on ‘G’ and I pushed the pile of candy to him and thankfully moved on to another group.

After the dreidel/die settlement, it was time to pick up some supplies for the latkes. First I went to Poya (like Walgreens) figuring they would have apple sauce, individually-wrapped candy by the bag (for the dreidel game), double-sided tape (for converting the dice), and a hair catcher for my shower (unrelated purchase). I drew a zero, though admittedly I didn’t even bother to look for the tape after I nixed on everything else. There was some bagged candy, but expensive. Applesauce was not in their inventory. OK, I thought, it isn’t a supermarket, after all. (There were hair catchers, but too small for my drain.) On to Surewell. No hair catcher (suitable for me, that is—there were catchers that could go into a drain, but I needed a surface model). Some bagged candy, but mainly toffee and jelly-like things, some coffee and caramel sucking candies, no “fun-sized” Snickers or Crunch bars. No applesauce. An employee and I finally settled on the actual word for it (I think). At first I was calling it pingguo jiang (“apple” “sauce,” but this “sauce” is more like soy sauce) and was told to look by the bread (as if it were a jam), but on describing it as something soft that small children and babies eat, I was told that the store did not have any pingguo ni. Where might I find some, I asked the elf/employee. Try a store that specifically sells infant products, he suggested. Well, it was already too late last night to find a baby supply store. At 10:00 pm, I was lucky to make it in and out of the supermarket. I wonder if I would’ve gotten a better answer if I had also described it as a popular food for the elderly. Or are there elderly supply stores here? So no topping to go with my latkes, although H. Davies told me last night that it was actually very easy to make applesauce. Maybe I’ll try that this week. (Nice surprise call from the Davies last night as I was trying to write this entry.)

I stayed up till about 4:00 am cooking the latkes. It takes a remarkably long time to peel two potatoes and one onion. I was a bit nervous when adding the wet mixture of eggs and grated vegetables to the hot oil since I had just had a conversation with my dad about starting kitchen fires by adding water to hot oil. It all turned out alright, though, if a bit burned around the edges. One latke (my last and best!) did fall on the floor while I was flipping it from the pan onto the paper towel-lined latke plate. I considered throwing it out, but this was my best latke ever we were talking about (this being my first time cooking latkes), so I blew on it and brushed it off over the garbage can. I think it was fine, at least once I plucked off the long brown hair. I only felt a little guilty about feeding it to my students in class today (a sweet group of three girls), and mentally congratulated them on their caution with trying the latkes, though they were of course concerned for the wrong reason, not knowing the personal history of the specific latke they were sampling. But I would never ask anything of my students that I wouldn’t do myself, and so I ate a piece of that latke, too. And speaking of the Davies and cooking fiascoes, it’s déjà vu all over again.

End result: dreidel game: success. Latke sampling: sparse (but who could blame them: these latkes were cold and not giving off their particular winsome scent). I made nine large(ish) latkes, worrying about how I’d split them between my 24 students.[2] It turned out to be enough for them and eight co-workers in my office with an entire one left over for me. I guess trepidation makes the latkes go round.



[1] The day after beginning this blog entry, I heard a re-make of this song, now sung by a man. Very into the remix/karaoke culture here.
[2] Twenty-four had latke curriculums for that day. I have roughly 650 students total, and taught four classes of around 30 students about Chanukah (or “Hanukkah,” as my students know it, in conjunction with Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins). (But only the first class got latkes.)