When I used to travel abroad on business, I usually had a more interesting time than my non-religious Israeli colleagues. They were free to wander unaccosted around whatever major city we found ourselves in, whereas every walk I took was liable to involve an encounter of one kind or another, because my kippa advertised to almost all the world and his wife that I was Jewish.

Only one of these encounters proved less than pleasant. That was when an Israeli confronted me and lectured me for 15 minutes about how he could not bring himself to return to Israel because of the evils of Bibi Netanyahu. I got the distinct impression that, far more than he wanted to convince me that he had made the right decision, he wanted to convince himself.

My most amusing experience was in Thailand. Close to the Bangkok open market, there is a Chabad Centre, which, like all Chabad Centres around the world, offers religious services, free meals on shabbat, and uncritical acceptance of all Jews, and is a magnet for hordes of Israeli backpackers (whether they are religious or not), as well as for Jews from around the world who are in Bangkok on business or holiday. Five minutes’ walk from the Centre there is (or, at least, there was, 17 years ago) a hotel whose bedrooms used locks and keys rather than electronic keycards, which made life easy for orthodox Jews, who would otherwise not be able to access their rooms over shabbat. The hotel offered special weekend rates to any guests who mentioned that they were referred there by Chabad, and the reception staff knew that these observant guests would, on Friday night and Saturday, hand in their room key every time they left the hotel, to avoid infringing the prohibition on carrying any goods from the private domain (the hotel) into the public domain (the street) on Shabbat. The walk from the hotel to the Chabad Centre took you through a street packed with tiny massage parlours, with masseuses sitting on their beds, waiting for customers. As you passed each parlour, the diminutive Thai masseuse would wish you ‘Shabbat Shalom’, which was simultaneously slightl;y surreal and strangely comforting.

Finally, my most bizarre experience was when an elderly Puerto Rican crossed the road in San Juan to ask me whether I was something senior in the Catholic church.

In recent years, I have wondered about the wisdom of wearing a kippa in public outside Israel, and, if I was still travelling frequently, I suspect I would resort to a cap more often than I did 15 years ago.

However, I didn’t think, and still don’t, that I have any reason not to wear a kippa in Penamacor. I got some curious and puzzled looks around the village, but nothing more sinister than that.

However, I did also collect a strange encounter to add to my collection. I mentioned a few weeks ago that we ordered some white goods online. When they were delivered (impressively punctually), the lorry driver and his assistant greeted us with a warm ‘Bom Dias’ and then made short work of wheeling the cooker and washing machine in. As they went out to fetch the tumble dryer, the assistant, who was quite swarthy, with broad features, spotted my kippa and gave me a warm ‘Shalom’. I was mildly, but not very, surprised that ‘Shalom’ had penetrated to rural Portugal; after all, Bill Clinton had made the word famous at Yitchak Rabin’s funeral, and hosting the Eurovision Song Contest three times has possibly done more to bring Israel into people’s living rooms than anything else, so I thought very little of it.

However, when the same young man, after all the goods had been brought in, turned to me again and wished me ‘Shalom Aleichem’, my curiosity was aroused. The phrase may simply denote ‘Peace be to you’, but, as I have attempted to show in my translation, it has rather old-fashioned and faintly religious (sometimes almost ironic) connotations. It is, in short, not a phrase I expected to hear from a European whose only experience of Israelis was from the popular media.

And so, Micha’el asked the young man where he had picked up the phrase, and he explained that he was born in Brazil, and his best friend growing up in Rio de Janeiro had been an orthodox Jewish boy. You can’t hide away, even in Penamacor!

Which brings us to the China shop. My more perceptive readers, noting the upper-case ‘C’, will realise that the china in question is not ceramics, but rather the world’s most populous country.

In recent decades, relations between Portugal and China have warmed considerably. As a result, not only are large national Chinese corporations moving heavily into utilities and transportation in Portugal, but, in addition, large numbers of Chinese, principally from Macau and Shanghai, have moved to Portugal to launch smaller businesses. (Of course, ‘large numbers’ is a relative term, reflecting here the size of the population of Portugal, and not that of China.) To counter its negative population growth and boost employment opportunities, Portugal offers initial tax incentives to non-European foreign nationals moving to Portugal and starting businesses there. 20,000 Chinese have so far moved to Portugal (16,000 of them in the last two decades), though, since the population of Portugal is only about half the population of Shanghai alone, this migration has been felt more in Portugal than in China.

Many of these Chinese have opened shops, the length and breadth of Portugal, selling a wide range of household goods. (Apparently, China produces quite a lot of these goods very cheaply. Who knew?!) Even Penamacor boasts its own China shop, and our major social activity on our first stay in our new home was walking down there to buy a sweater, a pastry brush (a soft bristled one that I had been looking for in Israel for about a year), an electrical extension lead, Shabbat candles, plastic sleeves for filing, aluminium foil disposable baking dishes, a computer mouse, liquid soap, a kettle, and so on. We were in the shop every day (sometimes twice a day), and on only two occasions did they not stock what we were looking for. Once, I wanted a black marker pen, and the shopkeeper, after I had finally managed to explain to her what I wanted, immediately phoned her local triad contact, and the pen was in the store the following day.

On the other occasion, we wanted a bamboo rice steamer, and, paradoxically, that was the one item the China shop could not supply. Go figure!

When, at the end of our stay, Micha’el explained to her that we were leaving the following day, she was devastated. Whenever we were in the store, there would be at most another two people there, buying, typically, just a devotional candle, or a lightbulb. I suspect we were her best customers ever. She was very relieved when Micha’el explained that we would be back.

When I showed her the photo I had taken of her, she reminded me that what unites mankind is far greater than what divides us, by declaring (with graphic miming) that the photo made her look fat.

Within a short time of Micha’el and Tslil arriving in Portugal, they were on friendly terms with the China shopkeeper. She made a fuss of Tao, as is common in Penamacor; there are not a lot of babies there to make a fuss of, and he is eminently fuss-of-makeable. Micha’el informed her that his name was Tao, expecting her to be delighted that they had chosen such a significant Chinese name. “Tao?”, she said, furrowing her brow. “Yes, Tao,” Micha’el replied. “You know, the path, the way, the great philosophy.” She looked even more perplexed. There followed a few minutes while they both googled on their phones, the shopkeeper occasionally muttering “Tao? Tao!!?” to herself. After a few minutes, Micha’el found a site in Chinese that promised to clear up the confusion. He showed it to her, triumphantly. “A-a-a-h-h-h! Tao!” she declared, using a different tone from the one Micha’el had used. Then she looked at him as if to say ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

All of this makes our linguistic challenge even more daunting. As well as learning the distinct Penamacor dialect of Portuguese, we now apparently have to get our Cantonese tonals polished up before our next trip in February.

Don’t forget that you can get a clearer picture of Micha’el, Tslil and Tao’s life in Portugal by following, subscribing, liking (and maybe even sharing) their youtube channel