Jiang Wenli, verifying her rumored Jewish ancestry, went to Kaifeng. She found she fit local old Jews' features at the old Jewish stele, learning the fading local Jewish history.
The moment Jiang Wenli looked up while crouching before the weathered Jewish monument in Kaifeng’s Old City, everyone present was stunned.
Years ago, when Jiang Wenli mentioned that her maternal grandmother was from Kaifeng and that her family had Jewish ancestry, it sparked considerable discussion in the entertainment industry. Many people were skeptical of this claim, and she herself hoped to verify the rumors, so she set off for Kaifeng.
After
arriving in Kaifeng, she visited residents in the alleys of the old city, interviewed elderly locals, consulted old genealogies in the library’s collection, and even asked the elderly woman who had been running a hu-la-tang stall at the entrance to the alley for over thirty years about local history.When she crouched before the weathered monument marking the site of the long-vanished Jewish community and looked up, everyone present was somewhat surprised.The descendants of Jews who had lived there for generations now looked much like the surrounding Han Chinese residents, whereas Jiang Wenli and her sister—who lived far away—actually more closely matched the physical descriptions of Jews provided by the local elders.
The historical remnants
before her eyes also gave her a sense of a history that is gradually being forgotten: During the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng’s Jewish community was quite sizable, with approximately 5,000 people settled there. Later, as the imperial examinations and intermarriage became widespread in the region, the faith of the younger generation gradually shifted.By the fifteenth century, the local Jewish community had lost contact with the outside world, and the culture passed down through generations gradually faded away. With the death of the last rabbi in 1850, the religious tradition came to a complete end.
The
wind swept the sycamore leaves from the alley past the corner of the monument, and she stood before it for a long time. Most ordinary people have, at some point, felt the urge to trace their roots; often, they spend their youth striving to make a name for themselves elsewhere, and as they grow older, they frequently wish to trace their ancestral origins and discover the origins of the familiar foods and old sayings they knew in their youth.
It often takes quite some time to untangle
the family roots scattered throughout the years and trace their original lineage.
In your daily life, why not ask your elders more often and take a look through the old items and records you have at home? That way, you won’t find yourself without anyone to ask when you want to look back on the past later on.
