I just finished 1 Nephi 21, which is a prophecy of Isaiah. Nephi begins explaining this prophecy. I found a note in my margin from my mission in Taiwan. This note is related to 1 Nephi 22:4: "There are many who are already lost from the knowledge of those who are at Jerusalem." In my note I write "This time period is just 50 years after the scattering of Israel. 'Lost' in this verse can be taken to mean Lost from the knowedge of the Savior from the Old Testament. China probably didn't have those records." I have often speculated about some of the parallels between ancient Chinese and ancient Jewish customs. I dug around a little bit and found the following. I have thoughts about some of these similarities myself, but these are put together fairly nicely. The source is http://hubpages.com/hub/lost_tribe_of_Israel_Chinese.
Note: These observations are not well formed arguments. I am presenting them here only as observations. They should not be taken as anything but some ideas to provoke further thought. For example, in my thesis, I wrote:
One particular classroom discussion illustrates the difference between simple comparisons and continuities. During this discussion I made the observation that I thought there might be connections between the ancient Jewish Passover custom of smearing lamb’s blood around doorposts and the Chinese New Year custom of hanging writings on red strips of paper on the top and sides of the door. Eric Hutton who was teaching the class commented that we have to be careful in calling such observations “connections.” To illustrate his point he cited the example that just because people of two different regions of the world wear pants does not necessarily mean that their wearing of pants has historical linkages or significance.
I think that this anecdote applies well to the information below. For an interesting discussion on "conscious continuities" vs "connections" see Perry, Elizabeth. Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-1945, (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1980), pp. vii.
Okay, now that I have thrown all the academic crap in there, here is what I Googled up. Enjoy!
The lost tribe of Israel - Chinese
We all know that Israel or Jacob, son of Isaac, fathered 12 sons who started the 12 tribes of Israel. Today, Israel as a nation is from the only surviving tribe of Jews or Judah. All others tribes were vanished with history.
But is this truly so? I remember news running for days on television many years ago about the lost tribe of Israel returning to Israel from Ethiopia. Not long later, I recall I saw on television another group of Israel tribe returning home from Russia. I would not believe the report if I had not seen the real people in the news. The Ethiopia Israelis looks just like any black African. Those returned from Russian look more like Caucasian than the Middle East Jews.
Jews has many traditions originated in the Bible they still observe today. They celebrate the pass over to remember God's mercy on the night of the plague on the first born. In the New Testament, Jews hired the wailers in a funeral to moan with commotion and cries. Today, we still see the same loud cries in a funeral to indicate sincere sorrow they feel for the parted one.
Chinese too, has some traditions and practices exactly the same like the Jews. Rich Chinese funerals still hire people to cry in the funeral with the same meaning as it is intended in the Biblical Jews. We may not see this practice much in China mainland due to some culture up rooting during the Cultural Revolution under the Communist reign. But in Taiwan and Hong Kong, hire wailing is a common phenomenon of the rich.
Another Jewish funeral tradition that Chinese still practice is for the children of the deceased to wear sackcloth and use ashes to hold the jot stick. Although not all Chinese will wear sackcloth in a family funeral today due to the effect of the influential western culture, but we can still see many Chinese who keep the old tradition of wearing sackcloth in a funeral. Those who do not wear it would cut a small piece of sackcloth and clip it to the shirt in the funeral and during the mourning period for 3 months.
For a Chinese house, it is auspicious to keep a pair of red paper on the front gate and doors to dispel evil spirit and usher good luck. Red that signifies blood is the most preferred color to all Chinese. In Chinese New Year, red paper must be hang or stick to the front door. A similar custom Jews do from the pass over tradition.
In Chinese New Year, the cake Chinese has is also unleavened bread or the Nien-Gao similar to the unleavened bread Jews has in their Abib or Nisan festive season.
There are many other customs of Chinese and Jews so similar that it can hardly be a coincidence. Jews and Chinese alike will travel the world to return home for the New Year eve family gathering feast. Jews and Chinese too would give up anything in life to enable their children for higher education.
Looking at some Chinese writing will further confirm my belief that Chinese a one of the tribe of Israel. We know that Chinese writing starts from the right and end on the left, Jews too has the way of writing from right to left.
In fact, Chinese character is more to drawing than writing. Every word is drawn from the real object of thing or person. The word sun is a circle with a line in the middle saying the sun is round with light shining in the center. The word person is a straight line down with two small lines under drawn like a man with 2 legs.
The word boat looks more like a picture of a Chinese junk. But for a big boat, it is a drawing of a boat with eight mounts in it. Why the eight mounts in a boat? It is because Noah with his family members of seven who survived the flood in the Ark
Another Chinese word "Come" is a cross with 2 persons hanging on both sides of the cross and people under the cross. Who can the 2 person on the cross be except the two robbers who were crucifies with Jesus one on his right and one on his left. The person under the cross is the one Jesus say to "Come" to me.
The most amazing of the Chinese characters is the word righteousness. It is a picture of a lamb on top of me. No one can be righteous unless he/she is under the grace of Christ Jesus.
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