ABSTRACT
It has been widely accepted that Jewish people went to settle in China a long time ago. It is also believed that ever since they arrived in the vast land of China, they had lived a comparatively peaceful life. However, little was known in China about these ‘Jewish’ people’s origins, their history, their culture and their ancient religion. Like the Hebrews before the Babylonian Exile in 586 BCE, for centuries, the majority of the Chinese were not aware of the existence of any other great cultures, philosophies and civilizations apart from their own. Like some Jews who referred to, and still refer to, themselves as the ‘chosen people of God’, many ancient Chinese thought that China was in the middle of the universe, it was the cradle of world civilization. They regarded Chinese culture as the only pure, original and superior one, and so were Chinese people. Outsiders were considered to be barbarians, or Huawairen (people outside of Chinese civilisation), their cultures were bad for the ‘virtuous Chinese’. 1 There is hardly any reason to expect the ‘superior Chinese’ would consider the Jews to be somehow different from other barbarians.
