RUTHFULLY YOURS

A Chinese student of Bible and the Ancient Near East studies at The Hebrew University (HU) of Jerusalem recently represented the school and Israel on China’s highest-rated game show, HU said on Sunday.

Lechao Tang, 24, of Wenzhou, China was invited by China’s national TV channel to participate in a Chinese version of an Israeli hit quiz show, “La’uf Al Hamiliyon” (Trying for a Million), in a meet against students from Harvard, Yale, Cambridge and other leading universities.

The particular episode of the highly-rated trivia program, which offers contestants the opportunity to win prizes, was the second highest ranking TV show of the day, and the sixth highest ranked of the week — the program’s best recent achievement, according to HU.

“I’m glad to be a link between the Hebrew University and my home country of China,” Lechao said.

“It’s an exciting cultural opportunity for me to introduce Hebrew U to China from the point of view of a Chinese student,” according to Lechao, who is pursuing a master’s degree at the university’s Rothberg International School,

“The hosts of the TV show are a couple and they’ve been to Israel. They shared an anecdote about the wife placing a note in the Western Wall for good luck to have a baby — and this year they had a son! They also showed a video I made of my classmates’ multilingual blessings wishing me luck,” he said in a statement sent to reporters.

Lechao, whose name means “Happy” in Chinese, completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon in the US. He originally went there to study linguistics but he quickly fell in love with Judaic studies. “I couldn’t resist the beauty of the Hebrew language, so I chose to study further,” he said.

Lechao teaches Hebrew online through “One-Man University,” a non-profit Chinese educational start-up, and introduces Hebrew and Israel to Chinese Internet users via a personal blog.

Lechao sees many similarities between the Jewish and Chinese peoples, from customs to festivals and philosophies.

“I believe that these two important peoples should cooperate in the course of globalization. My people should know more about the Jewish people and vice versa. And I would like to be a messenger between them,” he said.

Watch Lechao in action during the episode: