Happy Passover! Last night, Maddy and I celebrated the first Seder here in China. It was a bit small, just me and her, but very comforting to get back to our roots.

It is surprisingly difficult to celebrate Passover in Shenzhen because, surprise surprise, there are basically no Jews. So Maddy picked up a few boxes of matzoh and some assorted Passover goodies from a supermarket when she was in Hong Kong last week. I handcrafted our very own Seder plate, except horseradish and parsley are virtually nonexistent here. Also, we couldn't really find a shank bone so I made an origami one and colored in with pen (it took me three hours just to finish the shading on your upper lip - Napoleon dynamite). Also, we used tissue paper to represent the horseradish. Although there is no Manischewitz wine here, there is a Chinese alternative -- basically an extremely sweet wine. We prepared the apples and walnuts and made some charoset.

Then, all we had to do was find a Haggadah and print one out from the Internet. My first search of Google led me to the two-minute Passover Seder brought to you by slate.com, an absolutely hilarious rapidfire approach to the Seder. (http://www.slate.com/id/2139601/)

But I settled on a regular Haggadah, and Maddy and I did all the prayers, sort of. If you look really carefully, you can see the afikomen in a paper towel under the dinner table (it’s a glass table, you can see through). Our Seder was something in between the 2-minute Seder from Slate and the typical Novich Seder led by my father who likes to expedite things and get straight to the meals and the loud Novich arguments across the table (which somehow always end up being about the state of medicine today and how hard being a doctor is). Maddy actually was present last year for our Passover Seder at my house, just three weeks after I started dating her. And look at us now.

Back to the matzoh, I am a little bit concerned that we might not have enough unleavened bread to make it through to next week. I might have to start living on tuna and eggs when things get tight.

Tonight, we are actually hosting the second Seder for a grand total of six people, which might just be half of the entire Jewish population here in Shenzhen. It will be a girl from Arizona, an Israeli, and two Russians. Go Jews!