Month: November 2019

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Now, onto this week’s adventures!

Life in Shanghai

For the first time in Shanghai, I had a normal week. There was no more paperwork to fill out and no more offices to visit. It was so nice to have a calmer week. The only life update is that I got an air filter. While I haven’t found the air quality to be that bad (only on a few occasions), getting an air filter was highly recommended, so it’s been nice to have that in place. So far, it seems to be working quite well.

In terms of Astronomy, this was a fairly productive week! I finished the initial draft of my DES paper on the Stellar Mass – Halo Mass relation and it’s evolution (part of my dissertation). So, hopefully, my Ph.D. advisor Chris Miller and I will be able to finalize the paper and send it to the collaboration before the year is out. We also ran our second week of AstroCoffee at SJTU. This week, many of the graduate students in the Zu group presented for the first time!

Alhough this was a normal week, I still wanted to do something fun. So, I visited the Shanghai History Museum (located in People’s square).

This museum focused on the history of ancient Shanghai, as well as the more recent history of the city. The second floor featured ancient artifacts (similar to those from the Shanghai Museum).

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On the upper two floors, there were paintings, photographs, and historical documents relating to Shanghai’s recent (1900-present) past. Shanghai’s history is fascinating. It’s a city that has gone from being over-run by British, French, and American colonizers to being conquered by the Japanese in WWII, to being a central location in the Communist Revolution, to being one of the largest and economically dominating cities on the planet. The museum offered me a lot of insight into Shanghai’s history. Which, prior to visiting, I really hadn’t learned anything about.

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I was surprised to see that there was a display honoring the Jews of Shanghai. Shanghai was one of the only cities in the world that allowed Jews to emigrate during the Holocaust. While the story presented is exagerated (it was mostly one person whose actions allowed this), it is a story that Shanghai is incredibly proud of.

While I was at the museum a group of teenage boys came up to me and asked to take a picture with me. While I’m still not sure whether it’s the fact that I’m a foreigner, American, or just a tall guy with a beard and long hair, this is starting to occur regularly.

One thing I found fascinating was a video exhibit highlighting the new landmarks in Shanghai. Much of what I’ve seen (the Bund, People’s Square, the airport) were built in the last 20 years. So, if you visited Shanghai prior to 2000, you may not recognize the city! Shanghai is constantly changing. Everything is built fast here!

I also had plenty of time to see a lot of interesting buildings and beautiful scenery! Some photos were things I saw on Sunday during my 6.2 mile run (my longest in Shanghai!). It was still warm this weekend, but this upcoming week, it will start to be colder (in the 50s). However, if it doesn’t get too cold, maybe I’ll work my way back into running half marathons again!

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There are a lot of cats in Shanghai. I don’t know if these are people’s pets or strays. However, most are friendly and I know people who’ve adopted street cats. However, given my busy lifestyle, I don’t think I’ll be adopting a cat anytime soon (even though I love cats!).

Also, there’s a Tim Hortons in Shanghai! Seeing this near People’s Square brought back fond memories of going to Tim Hortons in Buffalo for lunch when I would visit my grandparents!

Also, as many of you know, I listen to a ton of podcasts, including Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal. This week, they discussed the issues package delivery causes for traffic congestion and the environment. If you’re curious, China may have solved this problem. When you order anything, it is delivered first to a regional delivery hub (by medium size trucks), then taken by electric motor scooter to your apartment. So, it minimizes the traffic for bigger trucks and the carbon footprint because the scooters are electric. Additionally, electric cars are really popular here!

Food in Shanghai

I’ve continued cooking a lot here! This week, I made my Dad’s vegetarian meatballs (which are his grandmother’s recipe from the depression). It’s one of my favorite dishes. I wanted to make something that reminded me of home for the week of Thanksgiving.

I also tried a bunch of different fruits and other food. My colleague Jiaxin brought in raw jackfruit (which is often used as a vegetarian protein). It was very good! Hopefully I’ll be able to get some to eat or make a jackfruit dish soon! I also had a fantastic lunch at one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants!

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All the food I’ve had at restaurants has been fantastic! It’s really quite different than the American style Chinese food I’ve been accustomed to in the US.

Jewish Life in Shanghai

This week, I joined the Young Jewish Professionals group at Kehilat Shanghai for Shabbat dinner! While I’d met a few people before at other Kehilat events or at Moishe House, it was really nice getting another opportunity to meet people who are my age. One was working on his Ph.D. Two others work in higher education, helping Chinese students and universities connect with American and Western Universities for study abroad programs and for recruiting Chinese students. It was nice meeting people who are in similar fields to what I work in!

Additionally, I spent Sunday afternoon at the Moishe House’s bagel brunch. I’m really surprised that I can get a good bagel here. It’s been fantastic that I’ve found the Jewish community here to be so friendly and welcoming. Combined with my friends at work (mostly the other postdocs), it’s helped make this transition much easier!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s entry! This should be another relatively normal week. I’m hoping to make more progress figuring out my research plans/goals for my postdoc. To those of you in the US, I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving (I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing to celebrate). If you have and questions or comments, please let me know and subscribe!

Until next week!

In peace,
Jesse

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Life in Shanghai

As noted in my last post, I have my resident visa! On Monday, I used this visa to setup my bank account at the Bank of China. Doing so, finally allowed me to access the wonderful, and magical, world of mobile pay! In China, everyone uses mobile pay. There are even street vendors that won’t even accept cash. Up until this week, I was stuck in the past, paying for everything in cash. Now, I have access to Alipay and to WeChat pay, which are linked directly to my bankcard. To use them, I just simply click on the app and scan the QR code! This makes shopping and eating at restaurants so much simpler! I don’t need to carry around an oversized wallet (except that I still need all my ID cards). I literally pay for everything on my phone (from groceries to fruit, to my water filters). For those of you in America, this is the way of the future! Nobody uses credit cards (the notion of credit and debt is frowned upon in China). I hope that in a few years these kind of systems become more commonplace in the US.

I also got my university ID card and an SJTU e-mail. So, I can now pay for my lunch at the cafeteria, instead of mooching off my colleagues. By the end of the week, I finally felt like a “real” person in Shanghai because I, like everyone else, could use the same pay systems.

To get the bankcard and campus ID card, I spent a lot of time wandering around the SJTU Minhang campus. The campus is huge! I only stay in a tiny corner of the campus. There is some really cool graphiti in an overpass on the campus as well!

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In terms of Astronomy work, this was a productive week. We started our AstroCoffee program. This is a 3x per week meeting where 2 people present recent papers posted on arXiv. It was really cool seeing the work I spent organizing it come together. I can’t wait to see how it grows and evolves here. I also made more progress on my DES research (the last chapter of my dissertation) and am writing that up. In terms of new work, Prof. Ying Zu (my mentor) and I spent time discussing different research avenues for me to explore. I’ll be spending some time in the coming week(s) figuring out what I’ll be working on. For those Astronomers, topics include: the splashback radius, the lensing is low problem, the luminosity function of galaxies, and tracing halo formation.

I also got my water filters installed! For those of you who haven’t been to China, the faucet tap water is not safe to drink because of old pipes and the large amount of Chlorine used to clean the water. As those of you who’ve known me for a long time know, I always carry a reusable water bottle with me, so it’s been a huge relief not to have to rely on bottled water anymore! Yay tap water!

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My adventure for the weekend was to visit the Shanghai Museum, which I managed to miss twice on my visit to Shanghai in the summer. So, I was really excited to visit! This is an art/archaeology museum.

On my way there, I ran across a theatrical performance, where people were dressed in a variety of traditional Chinese outfits and practicing a routine. I’m not entirely sure what I watched, but the clothing was magnificent!

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The Shanghai Museum is about a mile from my apartment, so I was easily able to view the four floors of exhibition halls. There was so much to see! Pottery, Bronze works, Buddhist statues, jade, coins, calligraphy, drawings, paintings! Below are some highlights from my visit! Definitely stop by if you visit me in Shanghai!

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Visiting the Museum was overwhelming (in a good way). I was surrounded by so much art and history. I really want to go again and do a guided tour (if those exist in English) so I can learn more about the culture. While my photos don’t show it, the Museum was incredibly crowded and mostly just locals and native Chinese, not tourists. It’s great to see that they are interested in their own history just as much as I am!

The grounds near the Museum are also incredibly beautiful! So, on Sunday, I came back to the area, and the nearby People’s Square park for a 5.5 mile run! It’s still very warm here (today it was almost 80). However, the temperature will start to cool into the 50s/60s this upcoming week. Here are highlights from my run!

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In addition to all of these cool sites, I did see very cool advertisements as well!

Food in Shanghai

I’ve been able to cook in Shanghai. However, this weekend, for the first time, I ordered groceries online through a company called Kate & Kimi, which features specialty vegan products like seitan and vegan cheese! Everything was delivered in bags and boxes to my apartment right on time and it was much more convenient than schlepping to the grocery store. Overall, my order came out as advertised. According to Ying, this is the common way most people shop for groceries in Shanghai.

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Jewish Life in Shanghai

To celebrate Shabbat this week, I joined the Moishe House for Shabbat services and dinner. I arrived early, so I got to help prepare dinner (I mostly chopped and diced vegetables, but also got to make a pear/apple crumble!). It was great fun getting to spend Shabbat with other Jewish young professionals. Most are in Shanghai for either business, school, or as teachers. Since I’ve gone to so many Kehilat Shanghai and Moishe House events, I’ve met some of the other people who regularly attend. It’s been nice seeing familiar and friendly faces and getting to know people. Albeit, whenever I meet new people at these events, they are always shocked to meet an Astronomer. Since I’m usually the first they’ve ever met! 🙂

I hope that you enjoyed reading about my latest week in Shanghai, This was a relatively normal week and I finally started to feel like a resident of Shanghai. Since I now have all of these things in order, hopefully I’ll ease into a routine here. Although, I’m sure there will be many more interesting things this upcoming week. I’ve enjoyed getting and answering your questions and comments on my blog, so if you’re curious about anything I said, let me know!

Until next week!

In peace,
Jesse

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Life in Shanghai

For those of you who read my last post, you know this week was busy. SJTU hosted The First Shanghai Assembly on Cosmology and Galaxy Formation. So, unsurprisingly, my week centered around the conference.

Before I delve into that, I wanted to let you know that I have a resident visa! So, for those concerned (I know I was!) I will not be kicked out of China anytime soon! 🙂

The First Assembly of Cosmology and Galaxy Formation was an interesting first conference experience as a postdoc at SJTU. Many of the Astronomers came from China, Korea, and Japan; however, there was also a contingent from Europe and North America , so I was able to meet and present my research to a lot of different Astronomers I had not met before. I think I was even able to build at least one collaboration. For those Astronomers reading this, unsurprisingly, the conference was incredibly broad with a vast array of topics covering simulations to observations and Lambda CDM cosmology to the formation of the first galaxies, which meant that there were a lot of talks that were unrelated to the work I am generally fascinated by. However, overall, I think I learned a lot about the latest progress in these fields.

The conference ran Monday through Friday with a half-day on Wednesday with 10-14 talks (each 15-25 minutes) each day. This was an exhausting week. I served on the local organizing committee (LOC) and shepherded the microphone around on Monday and Thursday during question periods. As an LOC member people occasionally asked me where to eat, which as a vegetarian, who lives far from the university, lead to many awkward pauses.

I also presented my research (my DES work and Ph.D. work) on Friday! My talk was well received and I got a lot of compliments on my ability to explain my research coherently as well as on my calm presentation style. Hopefully this is the first of many great opportunities to present my research as a postdoc!

The highlight of the week was by far the Conference reception and banquet, which was held on a cruise on the Huangpu River! I had not visited the Bund during my time in Shanghai (because I knew this was coming up) and this was an amazing opportunity to get to see it lit up.

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As you can see, the Bund is lit up like a light show at night (every night)! If you ever come to visit me (which you should), this is a must see experience!

Given how exhausting the conference was, I planned a more relaxing weekend which meant no additional cite seeing. However, I plan to do some more exploring or museum visiting this upcoming weekend!

Food in Shanghai

Due to the conference, many of my meals were provided at the dining hall this week. However, the conference provided some excellent deserts! I’m not sure if it’s SJTU or China in general, but French style deserts are very popular.

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The benefit of having my apartment is that I was able to cook healthier meals and eat salad, which offset the many yummy deserts from the conference. My only interesting meal this week was from Shabbat dinner.

Jewish Life in Shanghai

My weekend, especially Sunday, was filled with interactions with the Jewish community. On Friday, I joined Kehilat Shanghai for Shabbat services and dinner. It’s been quite nice becoming friendly with other regular members who like myself come to most Shabbats as well as getting to meet community members who have lived in Shanghai for years. After a month here, it’s great to feel like a part of the community.

On Sunday, I subbed for the the Kehilat Shanghai religious school (Tov). I taught the class for the 11-12 year olds. We spent most of the class going over different stages in a persons life that are associated with Judaism. The kids were working on creating a board game (i.e., similar to the game of life). Although it’s been a long time since I’ve been at either Sunday or Hebrew school it was fun seeing how similar it is here. This also gave me a chance to see how diverse the community is. It’s a mixture of families from the US, Europe, Israel, Australia, and those where one parent is Chinese.

I then spent Sunday afternoon/evening baking at the Shanghai Moishe house. We made fantastic peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and a pumpkin pie. It was a sweets filled evening of fun with new friends! I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the Moishe House residents as well as getting to meet other young professionals living in Shanghai! This is another community that I’ll keep coming back to.

I hope that you enjoyed hearing about my latest week in Shanghai, This should be a relatively normal week. There are only a few more things I need to get set up (like my University ID card and bankcard). So, hopefully, I’ll finally have everything I need soon. I’ve really enjoyed getting your questions and comments on my blog, so please keep that up and subscribe!

Until next week!

In peace,
Jesse

Just a quick note. If you are interested in the post and would like to comment. Please click on the “To Comment” page for instructions

Additionally, if you are interested in following my adventures and want to be automatically updated about posts, please subscribe. You can subscribe by entering your name and e-mail on the right side of each page. If you have trouble subscribing, please contact me and I can add you directly.

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Life in Shanghai

My fourth week in China was very busy. Unlike previous weeks, I made progress in finishing the necessary paperwork to setup my life in China! On Monday, I went to the Shanghai Talent office to submit my work permit application, which is needed so I can be paid by SJTU and get my resident visa. Thanks to the help of Guoping (the Astronomy Dept. secretary), I got this application fast-tracked and received it on Tuesday! On Wednesday, I went to the entry-exit office to apply for my resident visa, which should arrive this week! So, hopefully, I’ll share that in my next post.

To submit these forms, it is vital to go with someone who speaks Chinese, which I do not. Thankfully, I went with Xiaokai, a graduate student working with my mentor Prof. Ying Zu, for the work permit and my fellow postdoc Jiaxin for my resident visa application. While the agents speak some English, Xiaokai and Jiaxin made sure that all my questions were answered! 🙂

As you can guess, I’ve been commuting a lot around Shanghai (I have a ~75 minute commute). So, I’ve seen a lot more cool art and advertisements!

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I’ve also gotten a better sense of the Chinese people, especially on my daily commute, where everyone is attached to their phones, either watching tv shows, using WeChat (the main social media and messaging platform), or calling. Phones are used for everything from communication to pay here. In terms of clothing, many school students (at least younger ones) wear basic western style uniforms. However, downtown, many people my age wear western style clothing with American brands (Nike and Disney are popular). So, in terms of dress, my comic book, sports, and music t-shirts don’t stick out too much.

In terms of everything else (i.e., there aren’t many tall white men with long hair and beards), I do. A few weeks ago, while walking on Fuxing road, a women came up to me and asked to take a selfie with me (which we did). She gave me an orange as a thank you! Given that people, especially children stare, I doubt this is the last time that happens.

Also, for those of you wondering, I did see some Halloween decorations!

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In terms of actual Astronomy, I’ve been organizing an every-other-day AstroCoffee for the departments graduate students and postdocs to present recent papers. It’s been fun coordinating with the Postdocs and feels great to help create something lasting (hopefully). I’m also making progress on my own research. Next week, SJTU hosts the First Shanghai Assembly on Cosmology and Galaxy Formation, which I get to present at! So, this upcoming week I will focus on the conference and preparing a presentation.

Despite the hectic work week, I did do some fun things. My main adventure was visiting the Longhua Temple. This is an amazing temple (which is actually made up of many different shrines to different Gods/versions of the Buddha). Additionally, Longhua has a 40m Pagoda building!

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Despite my pictures, this is an active temple. On Saturday, there were hundreds of people praying and making offerings. This is the third Buddhist temple I’ve visited, which has allowed me to recognize some of the common motifs at these temples. While the Jing’an temple was the most ornate, this temple was equally impressive in terms of scale! Seeing all these temples has made me really want to learn more about Buddhism. Other than Osamu Tezuka’s masterpiece, Buddha (a manga series that’s definitely worth reading), I haven’t learned much about Buddhism before moving here.

Next to Longhua Temple is Longhua Park, which houses beautiful gardens as well as monuments to the martyrs who died during the Communist revolution. I spent Saturday afternoon relaxing and walking around the park. It’s beautiful as you can see! I would love to return to the park in the spring/summer when the flowers are fully in bloom. This is a peaceful and huge expanse of greenery right in the middle of the city!

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I also was able to go for another run on Sunday morning. This time, I went to some of the other parks that are near my apartment (< 1 mile away). I’ve seen a few other runners on other days (a mixture of ex-pats and locals). However, the parks usually have people doing other exercises, like Tai-Chi, stretching, and even dancing!

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Food in Shanghai

This week I cooked! I’m still eating lunch at the cafeteria with my fellow postdocs, but it is great having a home cooked and healthier dinner. Interestingly, all the faculty and staff eat lunch (and sometimes dinner) at the cafeteria.

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My first meal in my new apartment was a tofu and vegetable stirfry with peanut sauce! I was able to get so many different kinds of vegetables and there are a ton of different kinds of tofu: firm, silken, fried, fermented, and tofu skin. There’s also different kinds of gluten (seitan), which I can’t wait to try as well. I’ve also been trying different fruit, including green honeydew, dragon fruit, and not pictured, a pomelo.

On Wednesday, I cooked with my friend Julia! We made another tofu-vegetable stir fry along with some roasted brussel sprouts and Israeli salad! It was a lot of fun cooking together and I’m really happy that I’ve been able to cook more in Shanghai, instead of eating all my meals at restaurants and the cafeteria.

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Despite cooking, I found another vegetarian restaurant near Longhua temple! Shanghai has a lot and I look forward to trying more and finding some favorites!

Jewish Life in Shanghai

This week, I joined Kehilat Shanghai for Shabbat. The Kehilat was joined by a group of tourists visiting from Brazil, who were in Shanghai to learn about the history of the Jews in Shanghai (see my previous post for photos from the Jewish Refuge Museum). Ironically, the women who I sat next to at Shabbat dinner is a hebrew scribe and colleague of Rabbi Linda, my childhood Rabbi at Temple Sinai (in Saratoga)! Despite being in a city of 26+ million people, it’s funny seeing how small and interconnected the Jewish world is.

I hope that you enjoyed hearing about my fourth week in Shanghai, As I mentioned earlier, this upcoming week is the First Shanghai Assembly of Cosmology and Galaxy Formation, so participating in the conference and preparing my presentation will occupy most of my time and energy, so next week’s post will talk about that experience. As I said in the beginning of the blog post, I’d love to hear from you, so if you have any questions or comments, please comment on the blog and subscribe!

Until next week!

In peace,
Jesse