SNOWSTORM IN KAIFENG

by Steven Steinbock

Last week, the Jewish community of southern Maine had planned an evening of storytelling and stand-up comedy. I was asked to participate. I’m no stand-up comic, but I do tell stories, and occasionally perform stage illusions.

According to the Chinese calendar, The Year of the Rat had just begun. Just before the snowstorm, I had a brainstorm. I’d tell some stories of the Jews of Kaifeng, intermixed with some Chinese-themed magic tricks. My presentation was pretty well set, but Nature intervened. Meteorologists were predicting a Nor’easter to hit the New England coast on Thursday. The Nor’easter didn’t quite materialize, but we did get a decent blizzard, and the evening of storytelling was cancelled.

All was not lost, however. In preparing for the show, I did a lot of research about this obscure corner of Jewish history. I learned some nifty stories, and picked up a little Mandarin along the way.

A century before the founding of the Roman Empire, there were probably Jews traveling the Silk Road, if not actually living in China. By the 1100s, a sizeable community of Jews had settled in Kaifeng, the capitol of the Sung Dynasty. There are still a few hundred Chinese who claim lineage to the Jews of Kaifeng.

Names were a challenge for both the native Chinese and for the Jews who migrated from Persia a thousand years ago. Jewish families were each given one of seven family names that were pronounceable by the Chinese. But then there was the problem of what to call the Jews as a whole. They were variously referred to as You-Tai-Ren (“Judah people”) and Yi-Ci-Le-Ye (“Israel”). But the name that stuck is the most interesting, and has an interesting story. To this day, the religion of Jews of Kaifeng are referred to as Tiao-Jin-Jiao, which roughly means “the religion that takes out the sinew.”

I won’t tell any stories – or give further explanation on names – about the Kaifeng Jews this week. But I’ll invite readers to guess where I went this past Christmas Eve.

CRIME CLUB RECOMMENDATIONS

Last week I told about the Doubleday Crime Club. Most of the volumes that Doubleday put out under that imprint were novels. But this is a Short Story forum. So here are a few recommended story collections from the shelves of the Doubleday Crime Club:

1. H.C. Bailey, A Case for Mr. Fortune (1932), A Clue for Mr. Fortune (1936), Mr. Fortune Here (1940), and others. Bailey wrote about two fictional sleuths. Lawyer Joshua Clunk, a sort of proto-Rumpole (my favorite, although I think I’m in the minority) was featured in Bailey’s novels. Physician Reggie Fortune, kind of a dandy of the Peter Wimsey, appeared in gads of short stories and several novels. I’ve listed several of the story collections. Warning, Bailey isn’t for everyone. The writing is brilliantly clever, but it also has an intellectual flair that a lot of modern readers find like swimming in corn syrup.

2. Isaac Asimov. Tales of the Black Widowers (1974) and Casebook of the Black Widowers (1980). In each of the stories in these volumes, seven men gather at a New York restaurant for a monthly gathering during which they solve impossible crimes and situations. As unlikely as the premise may seem, the stories are quite clever. (Even if you can’t track down the Crime Club volumes, there’s a book or two currently in print that collect them).

3. Mignon Eberhart. The Cases of Susan Dare (1934). These six stories about mystery author Susan Dare and her pal reporter Jim Byrne are among Eberhart’s best. The fun, snappy dialogue reminds me of Erle Stanley Gardner’s “Bertha Cool” books, except that Dare is thinner and cuter.

4. Manning Coles. Nothing to Declare (1960). Twelve short adventures with British linguist/spy Tommy Hambleton. I believe that many of these were originally published (in the US, anyway) in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

5. Leslie Charteris. The Saint Around the World (1956), Saint Errant (1948), Send for the Saint (1978) and many others. Doubleday published something like 13 short story anthologies and 14 collections of novellas and novelettes, as well as more novels than can dance on the head of a pin featuring Simon Templar, the Saint.

6. Lillian de la Torre. The Detections of Dr. Sam: Johnson. Eight mysteries set in 18th century England, narrated by James Boswell, and relating the adventures of Dr. Sam.

7. Rufus King. Diagnosis: Murder (1941), Faces of Danger (1964), Malice in Wonderland (1958) and others. The first volumes listed contains stories featuring Colin Starr, MD. Most of the other stories in King’s anthologies are set in the fictional Florida town of Halcyon.

In addition to these, Doubleday Crime Club published anthologies of stories by Margery Allingham, George Simenon, Edgar Wallace, and others, as well as various MWA and Detection Club anthologies.

Happy reading.