Evening, end of September 2006, up in the mountains of the Yading nature reserve in Sichuan province. Hanging around in a simple lodge, in an altitude of more than 4000 meters, I suddenly heard my name called: “Ori, Ori, come quick!”. I rush towards the callers and they point at a couple approaching - pale skin, red hair, seems as if I’m not the only foreigner here anymore! But what are the Chinese so excited about? I learn the answer seconds later, when the girl opens her mouth and says: “Shalom”….  (for those of you who aren’t Israeli/Jewish - “shalom” means “hello” in Hebrew, the language spoken in Israel)

My countrymen and I swap a few pleasantaries, and they ask me whether or not I know that tonight is Rosh Hashana, the Israeli/Jewish new year. After I say that I didn’t remember, they tell me that they especially brought apples and honey (traditional jewish new-year food) up the mountain, and would I like to celebrate with them?

And so, despite my slim connection to Jewish customs, I ended up celebrating the new year after all - up on a mountain in China, with two Israelis and four Chinese friends (who were happy to join in on the fun). Coincidence? Fate?

…..

Evening, mid-December, 2006, sitting in a restaurant in Kunming. A friend and I are having dinner, when suddenly the lights go out. It seems that the restaurant is having some sort of an electrical failure. Waiters come over to the table and place two candles - one of them taller, on some sort of stand, and one of them shorter - on the table and light them. I sit there for a while, staring at the candles, when I suddenly realize: today is the first day of Hannukah… (again, for the Jewishly-impaired: the main custom in Hannukah, a Jewish holiday, is lighting candles on a special lamp. In the first day two candles are lit, one of them placed higher than the other)

I’m definitely not a religious person, but these coincidences are getting more and more suspicious….