"Seeing the monster's head looming above the dark waves, Andromeda quickly
whipped out her iPhone and dialed a number and Hermes's winged sandals flew
Perseus in in no time," The old man turned and pointed to a cluster of rocks
off-shore "and that was where Perseus slayed the dragon and saved the princess."
The tour guide, a lively squat gentleman in his 60s, with a wrinkled and
sun-tanned face under a head of snowy hair, charmed a group of about two dozens
of people as he went on telling stories from Greek mythology and the Bible.
"You see the port over there?" He pointed to a few white granite houses on a
cliff down the shoreline. "That's Old Jaffa where Jonah set off to the sea,
disobeying God, and soon was swallowed by the fish. The moral? There is no
running away from fate."
It was their sixth day in Tel Aviv. A 15hr-flight away from San Francisco, Bill
and his colleagues were visiting the company headquarters as new employees.
From a distance, the city looked familiar. The airport, the freeways, the hotels,
the malls, and the office towers, etc., felt the same as in any modern metropolis.
The details varied, however. Taxis cars were mostly Mercedes and Jettas and
fares were in shekels and not cheap. The streets were safe and patrolled by many
armed young people in uniforms. After being thoroughly searched at the entrance,
one found nothing special in the mall. August in the east Mediterranean fell
in-between Beijing and SF. It was warm, slightly muggy, and comfortable enough
for a vibrant outdoor night life.
The jetlag, however, prevented Bill from enjoying much of life, day or night.
Breakfast was the highlight of the day for him before his mind went groggy. The
dining hall was small but the buffet boasted an abundance of sashimi, fresh from
the sea. He felt dozy soon after he entered the shiny office building in the
Ramat Gan distrct, a 20min shuttle ride away from the hotel. At work, he nodded
through lectures and seminars on corporate culture and processes. Their hosts
were understanding and friendly. Lunch was free but the food tasted bland. Many
of the locals smoked heavily. Bill had a hard time matching foreign names, e.g.,
Omer, Ariel, Tal, etc., to the faces. He spoke no Hebrew and felt shy in his
limited English. He stuck with his group of 90% Indian engineers.
Things got better toward the weekend and they toured Jaffa and were put on a bus
to see Jerusalem. Everything was planned to the minute, of course, which seemed
to be a cultural strength of Bill's new employer. They had a few stops before
reaching the holy city and visited recent war sites following David, a young man
wearing a kippah and carrying a Hebrew Bible which, as Bill learnt, omitted the
New Testament. To Bill, Israel was unreal until he came to the land.
At one stop, as they played team-building games out in a Mosaic wilderness, a
file of school kids on a field trip passed by. Marching on a dirt trail 30 yards
away, they were in black pants and white shirts, school uniforms no doubt, and
chattering and hollering in their guttural note-rich native language.
"We love China!" they turned and shouted in English and waved as soon as they
spotted Bill. He was stunned. He was among colleagues from all the world, and yet
the children picked him and identified his nationality! Looking at their
innocent faces, he quickly dismissed the thought that this could have been
planned, too. Proud of being chosen to represent his motherland, Bill steeled
himself and waved in return: "China loves you back!"
