Month: April 2020

Welcome to Astronomer in Shanghai! Thank you for following along with my adventures in Shanghai! As the covid-19 pandemic continues to keep many of you sheltered in place, I want this blog to highlight that while this isolation is difficult, eventually things improve. In Shanghai, life is close to returning to a new normal as my last few entries highlight. I do emphasize that the timeline will not be the same everywhere. However, we are all in this together and if we cooperate with social distance guidelines things will improve.

If you find my blog inspiring or helpful, please subscribe and let me know! To subscribe, enter your name and e-mail on the right side of the page. Once subscribed, you’ll receive an e-mail with each new post. If you have any questions about how Shanghai is recovering from covid-19, how I’ve dealt with it, or life in Shanghai, please ask. Instructions are on the “To Comment” page. Also, please share this blog with anyone who needs reassurance that eventually life will return to a semblance of normalcy.

Life in Shanghai

I want to begin this update by checking in with all of you. Even as the situation continues to either stabilize/improve here in Shanghai, know that I continue to think about all of you and your families. I hope that you all remain safe and healthy. I know how difficult being sheltered in place and having to work from home can be. So, I hope that you’re all staying positive, finding fun things to do (even if they’re small) to brighten your days, and making the most out of what is a trying situation. While I don’t know how long this situation will last, I do believe that eventually things will begin to improve in the US, Europe, and rest of the world as they have in Shanghai. With that in mind, I hope that this finds you after having another week of continued health and safety.

As I’ve discussed in my recent posts, life is close to returning to a new normal. Everyone is still wearing masks and it’s even gotten to the point that it’s shocking to see someone walking around without one. The only other noticeable changes are that we’re still required to show our green QR codes and get our temperatures taken when we enter public spaces. Even the gate to the little lane neighborhood I live in is no longer kept locked. The primary things that are different are that public places are capped (in terms of attendance) and schools remain closed. However, as far as I know, SJTU is planning to open it’s campus to students in the middle of May, so things are close to returning to our new normal.

In terms of my weekly covid-19 statistics update, the situation has continued to improve in Shanghai! There are currently just 77 cases in Shanghai (down from 112 last week) and 60 in Beijing. In Shanghai, that means that the recovery rate has risen up to 87%. For China as a whole the recovery rate is ~93%. I will again reiterate that even with these high numbers there is a lot of fear that the reopening of schools may trigger a second wave, so people here are remaining vigilant, which I agree with. I trust that as the recovery rate rises here, it will continue to rise elsewhere assuming social distancing guidelines are followed.

I know that currently there’s a lot of discussions about reopening states in the US and countries in Europe. This really scares me. When we were on week six of our quarantine, Shanghai was just beginning to reopen and even then that was mostly just certain restaurants reopening (with temperature checks) and people were not allowed to visit one another. Most offices were still closed and people were generally remaining home. I had just gone for my first run since the covid-19 outbreak began. More importantly, Shanghai took draconian actions to enforce sheltering in place, which led to this faster timeline of recovery. Given this, I highly recommend that regardless of whether you live in a state that is attempting to prematurely reopen, please continue social distancing. As I’ve emphasized, while life may be close to returning to normal, there’s still a sense that the everything is not quite normal and that precautions must be taken.

In terms of Astronomy, this was a moderately productive week. I continued revising my paper studying different methods of using the Stellar Mass – Halo Mass relation to estimate halo mass and to make that paper more self-contained. It’s been a good exercise to take a step back from this project and remember that not everyone has read my prior work (though I wish they would 🙂 ). I’ve also continued to work mostly on my DESI research on the spectroscopic completeness of galaxy cluster members and my Luminosity Function research. Overall, I’m making progress, which given the difficulties that you all now know about working from home, I view as a win! Additionally, we’ve continued to have weekly meetings within the Zu Group as well as weekly SJTU colloquiums. I’m curious when the campus opens up if we’ll have Zoom colloquiums or if we’ll do them in person (even if they’re just other Astronomers from Shanghai).

Here in Shanghai, the weather has started to really warm up and it’s been enjoyable. Most days it’s in the mid-70s to mid-80s, which is definitely hotter than what I’m used to from Ann Arbor or Saratoga. However, it’s made it really nice to go running! I went for three runs this week and during all my running and walking got many pictures of Shanghai blooming!

As you can see, there are tons of little parks and gardens around Shanghai! It’s one of the reasons I love walking everywhere!

This was a really fun week for me! On Thursday, I was invited over to my friends Heather and Shimi’s home (along with my friend Hannah Maia) for dinner and baking! (more on that in the food section). This was a very fun evening filled with delicious food, and wonderful conversation, which served as a great way to cap my 28th year!

For those of you who don’t know, Friday was my 29th birthday! Looking back, 28 was a very exciting year, I finished my Ph.D., moved from Ann Arbor to Shanghai, started my postdoc at SJTU, started this blog, and have made many wonderful friends in Shanghai! So, hopefully even though my 29th year may have started with the world being in turmoil, it will be equally eventful! I want to thank all of you who reached out to me last week via WeChat, Facebook, or e-mail with birthday wishes! It was so heartwarming to receive all of those.

This is the first birthday I’ve celebrated in Shanghai. While overall it was great, there were definitely some new experiences. First, as many of you know I’m an identical twin (Happy Birthday Emmet!) and it was a little weird celebrating my birthday 12 hours before he did, but we were still able to celebrate and virtually exchange gifts via Zoom (not sure when either of us will get them though 🙂 ). Additionally, because so many of my friends and family are in the US, it felt as though my birthday lasted 36 hours, which was really nice!

On Friday evening, my friends at Moishe House hosted a Birthday Shabbat dinner for me! Given how much of my social circle overlaps with the Moishe House group, this was a wonderful way for me to celebrate my birthday. Hannah Maia made a fantastic vegan Indian meal of chana masala, aloo gobi, and palak tofu! I also made a yummy sesame cauliflower, which was a hit! My friend Casey (one of the other Moishe House residents) also made a delicious vegan carrot cake, following my Mom’s recipe!

I had a pretty fantastic birthday! However, given the current situation around the world, I do want to reflect on how fortunate I was to celebrate with friends in person. I know, from talking to my brother, that it’s not quite as much fun to celebrate just via zoom, so this opportunity made me all the more thankful both for all the friends that I’ve made here in Shanghai and also that the situation has improved here.

To celebrate my birthday, I did buy myself some gifts. While I had an easy time finding a new pair of running shorts and an additional sleeveless running shirt (It’s hot here and I need more!), when I went to buy new ASICS Gel-Kayano sneakers I had a little more difficulty because I have big feet and unlike in the US, they don’t actually carry size 12.5 in stores (or any sizes bigger than 12). Thankfully, Hannah Maia helped me order a new pair of running shoes online via taobao! In addition to running stuff, I also returned to the anime store that I had previously visited near the Yu gardens. As I said in that post, I had to buy me (and my brother) a few anime statues! So, since I still love Dragon Ball Z, I bought myself a Vegeta statue and Emmet a Goku statue!

The Yu Gardens are exceptionally beautiful, so I decided to walk over and take a look on Saturday afternoon (https://astronomerinshanghai.com/uncategorized/the-yu-gardens-and-the-laoximen-district-and-its-history)!

As you can see, there was this amazing serpent sculpture snaking around the outer portion of the gardens! This sculpture added a new sense of wonder and majesty to the gardens!

There was also a ton of really cool graffiti in the area surrounding the gardens!

In addition to what was an incredibly fun Saturday, I also had fun hanging out with my friends Heather and Shimi on Sunday! The second photo is our reflections! 🙂

Food in Shanghai

While I didn’t go out to restaurants for any meals this week, I did have some fantastic home cooked meals! On Thursday, my friend Heather made an Ethiopian feast of lentils, spinach, and cabbage! Heather and I also made my now famous (at least here in Shanghai) chocolate tahini cookies! Hannah Maia and Heather also made injera, Ethiopian flat bread!

Overall, it was tons of fun cooking together and made for a really fun evening and delicious meal! Thanks to Shimi for all the fun food photos! I look forward to doing this again!

Jewish Life in Shanghai

As mentioned, on Friday, I went to Moishe House for my birthday Shabbat! Other than it being my birthday, it was also the first Shabbat that we’ve gotten to celebrate at the actual Moishe House since January! It was really nice being together with so many friends! I’m really glad that as Shanghai has continued to emerge from covid-19, the Moishe House community has re-emerged along with it!

Overall, this was a really fun week! I got to celebrate my 29th birthday with friends and even got to spend time outside, both running and exploring Shanghai! I’m really happy that the situation in Shanghai has improved and hope that it continues to maintain. While I’m sure many of you are unable to do similar activities now, know that once this situation improves, you’ll find yourself (as I have) so much more appreciative of the little things (whether it’s coffee with friends or going to dinner) than ever before!

I hope that this update about my life, birthday adventures, and the covid-19 situation in Shanghai provides you hope that things will improve and reach a new normal. This upcoming week should be mostly research focused and then next weekend is the Labor Day holiday. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the current covid-19 situation, please let me know. If you need advice on staying positive based on how I’ve dealt with the situation or just want someone to talk to, please reach out. I want to help support you and assure all of you in any way that I can.

In peace,
Jesse

Welcome to Astronomer in Shanghai! Thank you for following along with my adventures in Shanghai! As the world remains on lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic, I want this blog to highlight that while the isolation that comes with covid-19 is difficult, eventually things will improve. Here in China, life is close to returning to normal as my last few entries highlight. I do want to emphasize that the timeline will not be the same everywhere. However, we are all in this together. If we all do our part to cooperate with social distance guidelines things will improve. Also, if you’re looking for something to do during your time at home, please take a look at some of my earlier entries, they’ll give you a greater appreciation for how amazing of a city Shanghai is to live in.

If you find my blog inspiring or helpful, please subscribe and let me know! To subscribe, enter your name and e-mail on the right side of the page. Once subscribed, you’ll receive an e-mail with each new post. If you have any questions about how Shanghai is recovering from covid-19, how I’ve dealt with it, or life in Shanghai, please ask. Instructions are on the “To Comment” page. Also, please share this blog with anyone who needs reassurance that eventually life will return to a semblance of normalcy.

Life in Shanghai

Even as life creeps closer to returning to normal (but with masks) here in Shanghai, I can’t help but still remain nervous about the covid-19 pandemic. My family and friends back in the US are still feeling the brunt of the covid-19 pandemic and every time I get together with friends here in Shanghai, we can’t help but talk about the situation, mostly checking in that all of our families are staying healthy and safe and bemoaning the inaction of the US government. Given that, over the last few weeks, I’ve really appreciated that some of you either via e-mail or via the comments section of my blog have opened up and told me how you are doing. It’s reassuring for me to hear that so many of you are staying safe and that you have been helped or inspired by my writings. So, as I’ve done the last few weeks, I want to start this entry by checking in with all of you. How are you and your families doing? I hope that by now, you’ve started to adjust to social distancing guidelines and working from home. Most importantly, I hope that you are all continuing to stay safe and healthy.

As mentioned in the beginning of this post, life is slowly getting closer to reaching normalcy. The two main differences are 1). everyone is still wearing masks and 2). schools and universities are still closed. As I mentioned last week, the plan is still for schools to announce reopening plans on April 27th. However, for Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU; where I work), the rumors passed along to me suggest that the campus will likely open up by mid May. While it will likely take far longer for people to stop wearing masks in public, hopefully schools will reopen soon (they’ve been closed for ~ 4 months). One big recent improvement is that indoor museums are once again open! So, this week, I went to a museum for the first time in months (more on that later)!

Overall, the situation in Shanghai has continued to improve. There are currently 112 active covid-19 cases in Shanghai (a big decrease from last week), which increases the recovery rate to 81.2%. For comparison, there are just 75 active cases in Beijing. Overall, the recovery rate for China is estimated to be at 92.3%. Despite these positive numbers, when I talk with friends and colleagues, there’s still a general sense of fear of a second wave, mostly through imported cases. Also, as I’ve discussed previously, the prior absence of incorporating asymptomatic cases into the reported numbers likely skews all of these percentages high. However, the key takeaway that I would like to highlight is that while currently, the recovery rate in the US and other countries is rather low, over time (probably at least 1-2 months), the recovery rate will increase assuming everyone follows social distancing guidelines and leaders such as Governors Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom continue to rebuke the current occupant of the white house and prevent the economy from prematurely re-opening and causing a second surge.

In terms of Astronomy, I had another productive week. With my DES (Dark Energy Suvery) paper in it’s final writing stages, I’ve switched a lot of my research focus to my DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) project looking at the spectroscopic completeness of clusters and my analysis of the Luminosity Function of bright galaxies. It’s been nice to dive back into these projects and spend time working on coding and analysis instead of just focusing on writing. Additionally, we had a very interesting virtual colloquium on scaling relations between galaxy properties and halo properties (my area of expertise) this week! As I’m sure is the case for many of you, virtual Zoom meetings are now a major part of my weekly routine consisting of meetings with DES collaborators, the Zu Group, and DESI groups. Unfortunately for me, that can sometime mean late nights, but those are the sacrifices of being in global collaborations.

While last week was spent preparing for the Passover Seders I led (https://astronomerinshanghai.com/uncategorized/life-in-quarantine-week-11-and-passover-in-shanghai/), this was a more relaxed and calmer week, which I really appreciated. With more time, I did a lot of cooking! I made vegan oatmeal craisin cookies, Tomato Soup with red lentils, mushroom carnitas tacos, and vegan parmesan cheese! To balance it out, I also went on three runs this week! Running in Shanghai in April is great! It’s warm (60s-70s) and I’m surrounded by tons of beautiful flowers!

I was also able to spend time hanging out with some of my friends this week! On Wednesday, I got together for a fantastic dinner and excellent conversations with my friends Heather and Shimi and on Thursday, Moishe House hosted a post-Passover dinner! While I had a lot of fun on both Wednesday and Thursday, I think the highlight of my week was on Saturday, when I got together with some of my friends/colleagues from SJTU and we went to the Shanghai Museum of Natural History! This was the first time in 3 months I had seen anyone from SJTU in person! It was great to catch up and hear how everyone’s been holding up during the last three months. I’m definitely looking forward to being able to return to work and see/interact with my SJTU friends on a more frequent basis!

For those longtime readers of my blog, you may remember that I went to the natural history museum last November. It’s a really nice and large museum, so I welcomed the opportunity to visit again. Additionally, this time there were far fewer attendees, so it was a lot easier to see the exhibits. One of my favorite parts of the museum is that it includes a lot of Astronomy! Below, you can see me and my friends all trying to find the different telescopes that we use on a map!

Overall, the museum is similar to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, which i have fond memories of from my summer spent doing Astronomy research there. Since I’m sure many of you have been unable to visit a museum in a long time, I wanted to share some of my favorite parts of what I saw on Saturday!

There are tons of amazing dinosaur fossils as well as fossils from other animals!

And just like AMNH, there are a lot of animal models and taxidermy (which while interesting are a little creepy).

One of my other favorite parts of the museum is the butterfly exhibit! They have beautiful displays of butterflies as well as the butterflies arranged to make art!

Lastly, it wouldn’t be a natural history museum without cool rocks and seashells!

Overall, I had a great visit to the Natural History Museum. It’s definitely one of my favorite museums in Shanghai and it was a lot of fun to visit with friends! For those of you who are curious, museums do take a lot of precautions, everyone has to show their green QR codes, get their temperature taken, wear masks, and they cap the number of visitors per day.

Food in Shanghai

On Saturday, my SJTU friends and I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch! I got a very nice coconut vegetable curry with naan and samosa!

My favorite meal of the week was on Wednesday, when my friend Heather made an amazing dinner of peppers stuffed with tofu ricotta and cashew cream sauce (not pictured), a Kale Israeli Salad with tahini dressing (not pictured) and a lovely lemon pie with almond crust!

Heather is a fantastic cook and now that it’s easier to get together in people’s homes, I look forward to sharing my own cooking with Heather and Shimi in the near future. 🙂

Jewish Life in Shanghai

Passover ended on Thursday evening. To celebrate, Moishe House hosted a Mimouna celebration, which is Moroccan Jewish post-Passover tradition. For us, it was a dinner where we ate all the carbs we’d been missing! Most importantly, they were able to host the event at the actual Moishe House, for the first time in 3 months! So, another sign that things are returning to normal! I had a lot of fun catching up with friends over breakfast burritos, muffins, pancakes, and my homemade vegan oatmeal craisin cookies (which were a hit 🙂 )! While it’s been nice doing virtual events and dinners at restaurants it’s really nice to get back to doing some in person events within the Jewish community! Hopefully those will continue as life returns to normal.

I hope that this update about my life, adventures, and the covid-19 situation in Shanghai provides you with hope that eventually things will return to normal or at least reach a new normal. This upcoming week should be a fairly normal week filled with lots of research. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the current covid-19 situation, please let me know. If you need advice based on how I’ve stayed positive and dealt with the situation or just someone to talk to, please reach out. I’d love to help support you and assure all of you in any way that I can.

In peace,
Jesse

Welcome to Astronomer in Shanghai! Thank you for following along with my life and experiences in Shanghai! As much of the world remains on lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic, I want this blog will serve as a message of hope that eventually things will get better. As I’ve documented here, life during this pandemic is hard; however, eventually things will improve. Here in China, life is beginning to return to normal as my last few entries highlight. I will note that the timeline will not be the same everywhere. However, we are all in this together. If everyone cooperates with social distance guidelines things will improve.

If you find my blog uplifting please subscribe and let me know! To subscribe, enter your name and e-mail on the right side of the page. Once subscribed, you’ll receive an e-mail with each new post. If you have any questions about how Shanghai is recovering from covid-19, how I’ve dealt with it, or life in Shanghai, please ask. Instructions are on the “To Comment” page. Also, please share this blog with anyone who needs reassurance that eventually life will return to a semblance of normalcy.

Life in Shanghai

Even as the situation continues to improve here in Shanghai, it’s hard for me to fully relax because I remain very concerned about the spread of the covid-19 pandemic around the world, particularly in the US and Europe. So, I want to begin this post by checking in with all of you. I hope and pray that all of you, your families, and your friends, remain safe and healthy. How are you holding up? Have you been able to find a routine so that while working from, you’re still able to be productive?

For those of you that celebrated, I hope that you either enjoyed your Zoom Passover Seders or Zoom Easter celebrations. I’m sure there were a lot of you who found the absence of close in person activities particularly difficult this week. However, I hope that you used these holidays as an excuse to continue to connect with your family, friends, and colleagues virtually, and still were able to find them to be meaningful.

As the situation in Shanghai continues to improve, I’ve thought a lot about whether I should still refer to these posts as Life in Quarantine. I remain healthy, happy and safe. So, while life has not returned to normal, it isn’t the forced stay-at-home practices that many of you are thankfully required to partake in. The most restrictive times appear to have passed in Shanghai. While we still have temperature checks, personal QR codes, and are generally wearing masks, many of the more restrictive policies have been lifted. I’m now more easily able to visit friends, go to restaurants, and visit parks. However, the two biggest hurdles are schools, which still remain closed and enclosed public spaces, like museums and theaters. So, I’ve decided that until SJTU (where I work) reopens, I’ll keep referring to these posts as Life in Quarantine.

On a positive note, Shanghai announced that on April 27th, all secondary schools and Universities can either reopen or determine the date they will reopen! I was very excited to hear this, since I hadn’t received any update in quite a while. My boss/mentor, Prof. Ying Zu, believes that SJTU will reopen either the first or second week of May, giving students time to make plans to return from other provinces in China as well as accounting for the International Labor Day holiday (May 1st). As I noted many posts ago, my commute is about 75 minutes on the subway each way, which honestly is not something I would prefer to do daily under these circumstances. Thankfully, Ying (who also has an hour plus commute) completely agrees with me, so when the university reopens, I will only be going in 1-2 times per week (until life really returns to normal). I think that this will work out very well for me, since I’ve found a good rhythm of working from home.

Beyond the school announcement, life appears to be continuing on its upwards trajectory here in Shanghai. However, I will note that there still is concern about a second wave of cases. There are currently 162 active cases in Shanghai. However, all are imported cases where Chinese nationals were returning to Shanghai (and screened at the airport). In total, the recovery rate is up to 72%. Moreover, for China as a whole, the reported recovery rate is at 93.4%. As I mentioned last week, China only recently began reporting the number of asymptomatic cases, so this recovery rate may not be accurate. However, what is accurate is that if people act responsibly and follow social distancing guidelines (probably for at least another month), then signs of improvement will likely follow. On another positive note, Wuhan has reopened, and many of the previously isolated citizens are able to leave their homes again. While this policy was severe, I truly believe that the best way to help flatten the curve is to continue to wash your hands and to practice social distancing.

In addition to the news that SJTU should be reopening in a few weeks, this was a very productive research week for me! I finally was able to access all of my data stored on my Ph.D. advisor, Prof. Chris Miller’s computer. So I was able to finish all of the research and analysis for my first DES paper! I’m thrilled to have reached the stage where Chris, my collaborator Yuanyuan, and I can just go back and forth tweaking the arguments and strengthening the paper. Hopefully we’ll be submitting this paper for DES internal review soon! 🙂 Additionally, I was able to start making more progress on my Luminosity function analysis and look forward to focusing more of my efforts on that project in the coming weeks. On top of that, I also was a co-Investigator for an observing proposal for the first time! Since most of my science has been done with archival data, I haven’t had the opportunity to do this before!

Unsurprisingly, given the title of this entry, the majority of my time this week not spent doing work, was spent preparing for Passover. However, even with that, I still had to take advantage of the warm weather (mostly in the 60s-70s) and go for 4 runs! Even though I wear a mask when I run, I feel so much better now that I’m able to go running multiple times per week. I hope that you’re also able to still go outside for walks or runs as well! Below are some highlights from my runs!

Jewish Life in Shanghai

Passover began on Wednesday evening. As I mentioned in my last post, I helped co-lead the Moishe House Seder on Wednesday night and then lead the Kehilat Shanghai Seder on Thursday night. Given that prior to this year, I had only lead one Seder, I was incredibly nervous about how these would go. Thankfully, both Seders were lovely experiences! As one of the few communities where in person Seders were possible, I was thrilled that so many people came and enjoyed the Seders that I lead. It’s hard for me to believe that Passover marked having spent 6 months in Shanghai. I feel so fortunate that I’ve been able to become part of two warm and inviting communities and that I’ve made so many wonderful friends through those communities! 🙂

The Moishe House Seder on the first night was held on the 2nd floor of a French restaurant. We were joined by ~25 people, many of whom were my friends or people that I had met at previous Moishe House events.

Above you can see a few photos from the Seder! We were able to squeeze in to the space. You can see my influence on the Seder plate, where we had a mushroom as the vegetarian alternative to the shankbone. (As a side note, we did have eggs, they just came a little after the photo was taken.)

This Seder was a lot of fun to lead, we read a fun Passover play to tell the story of Passover and got lots of participation from members of the community to help lead other blessings and prayers. I even read my Dad’s Passover story, one of my favorite parts of my family’s Passover Seder, which many of the attendees told me they really enjoyed!

Since we were the only Moishe House hosting a Seder, the international Moishe House organization even put together a Youtube video highlighting our Seder!

On Thursday, I got to go through the process a second time! The Kehilat Shanghai Seder was hosted at the Millennium Hotel and had about 40 attendees. This was the first in person event that Kehilat Shanghai has done since January, so it was wonderful to see the community come to celebrate. It was also really nice to see so many of my friends there, some of which had been the previous night, which really helped me get comfortable!

One of my favorite parts of this Seder was continuing Kehilat Shanghai’s tradition of doing the four questions in as many languages as possible. First, I had the children lead the four questions (with the help of their parents) in Hebrew, then read in English. Then community members read the four questions in Mandarin, French, Spanish, Russian, and Latin! We truly are an international community! We also again told the Passover story through reading the play, in which one of the young children got to play G-d, which was adorable!

Overall, I’m really happy that I had the opportunity to lead these two Seders. While it was a lot of work putting the plan together (special thanks to my Dad for all his help and insight!) and exhausting, it was really special feeling the appreciation from my new community and getting the opportunity to be together again. It also made me so happy when as people left they thanked me for leading an enjoyable Seder and for helping them to celebrate the holiday. While generally we end Passover with next year in Jerusalem, I chose to end the Seders instead by saying “Next Year Together,” as a message that while we were lucky to be able to celebrate together, not everyone around the world was as fortunate as we were. Hopefully, next year, everyone will have this opportunity!

In addition to celebrating in person in Shanghai, I also woke up in time on both Thursday and Friday morning to join my parents, brother, and other friends and family for both of their Zoom Seders! While it was a different experience than being gathered around my parents dining room table, it was really nice to feel like part of their community as well! Maybe next year, I’ll have to convince my parents to Zoom me in again!

Food in Shanghai

Most of my food adventures this week centered around the Passover Seder. Both nights we had delicious meals; however, the first night’s food was incredibly photogenic, so I had to share some photos with you all! We had matzo ball soup (thanks to my friend Hannah Maia for the matzo balls), roasted green beans and mushrooms, carrots and peas, potatoes, cauliflower, fritata, and a delicious flourless chocolate cake for desert!

In addition to the wonderful Passover Seder meals, I also made some fun Passover treats! Of course, I had to make a Matzo pizza (using my homemade vegan cheese). I also made a Passover ice cream sandwhich, using chocolate covered matzo and filled with chocolate tofu mousse and a yummy vegan matzo brei! Lastly, but not pictured, I also made my Mom’s homemade applesauce to enjoy for breakfast.

With all that happened this week, it’s hard to believe that it’s only been a week since my last update. I’m glad that I was able to make significant progress on my research while also enjoying my Passover Seders. For those of you who celebrated either Passover or Easter, I hope that even though the celebrations were likely not normal, that you still found them meaningful and hopefully (virtually) spent with friends or family.

I hope that this update about my life and experiences in Shanghai offers hope that eventually things will return to normal. This week should be a relatively normal week. It’ll be nice to have a calmer week after all of the excitement last week. If you have any questions/comments or concerns about the current covid-19 situation, please let me know. As you reach your first month of life spent in lockdown, if you need advice for how I’ve dealt with it or just someone to talk to, please reach out. I’d love to help support you and assure all of you in any way that I can.

In peace,
Jesse

Welcome to Astronomer in Shanghai! Thank you so much for your interest in my life and experiences in Shanghai! As the world continues to be faced with the covid-19 pandemic, I want this blog to serve as a message of hope. Life during this pandemic is difficult; however, eventually things will improve. While life is beginning to return to normal here, you can really see the improvement over the last 9 entries. I note that this timeline will not be the same everywhere. However, more importantly, if people work together and cooperate with social distance guidelines, things will improve. If you haven’t been following along with my blog, please check out my previous entries.

If you find my blog uplifting or helpful please, subscribe and let me know! To subscribe, enter your name and e-mail on the right side of the page. Once subscribed, you’ll receive an e-mail with each new post. If you have any questions about the current covid-19 situation, how I’ve dealt with it, or life in Shanghai, please ask. Instructions are on the “To Comment” page. Also, if you know anyone who needs reassurance that eventually life will return to a semblance of normalcy, please share this blog with them.

Life in Shanghai

As the situation around the world becomes far more concerning than the situation in Shanghai, I want to begin by checking in with all of you. How are you doing? How has the latest week of staying home and working from home gone for you? Most importantly, I hope that you, your family, and your friends are all healthy and staying safe. Just as many of you were checking in with how I was doing in February, I want to make sure that all of you continue to be doing okay.

One of the primary reasons I’ve continued to update this blog each week is to providea light at the end of the tunnel. While life has not returned entirely to normal in Shanghai, things are definitely improving. I believe that we’ve reached something of a new normal. Schools are still closed (now done online). However, many shops and restaurants have reopened and each time I leave my apartment I see lots of people walking outside. So, please know that while my experience during the covid-19 pandemic is not over, it has greatly improved. I do caution that the extreme measures enforced by the Chinese government likely helped curtail the spread of covid-19, so the timeline that I present may not be applicable to all of you. However, things will get better.

I also want to emphasize that it’s okay to be scared, nervous, or anxious about this situation as I have been. The absence of a vaccine for covid-19 makes this an incredible nerve-wracking experience. The best advice that I can give is to take a positive attitude and try to focus on the things that you can control, such as following social distancing guidelines, washing your hands, and not spending the entire day looking at news websites, facebook, or listening to the current occupant of the white house. If you need something to listen to instead, I recommend American Public Media’s Make me Smart podcast with Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood. Also, as I’ve said before, It’s really important to make sure that even during this period of social distancing, we’re still connecting with people, whether it’s through Zoom, FaceTime, or the regular old telephone.

To update you on the situation in Shanghai. I continue to remain healthy, safe, and happy. Overall, the situation has improved in Shanghai. The large reductions in the number of arrivals, particularly the removal of non-Chinese arrivals, has reduced the number of new cases of covid-19 in Shanghai. There were only 39 new cases this week. There are currently 169 active cases (all but 6 of which are imported). The recovery rate is currently at 65%, which matches last week. For China as a whole, the recovery rate is estimated at ~93%. However, China only recently began recording the number of asymptomatic cases, so it is very likely that there remain more active cases and that the recovery rate is not quite this high. Optimistically, I hope that over time, as the curves begin to be flattened (hopefully over the next few weeks), we’ll see the recovery rates rise elsewhere. Additionally, I do want to note that while the recovery rate remains high, there is a lot of caution here that a second wave of the virus may still hit, so preventative measures like QR codes, temperature checks, and an abundance of hand sanitizer remain in effect.

At this point, I think all of you are well accustomed to working from home, which can be both productive and challenging. At times, I find that I’m more easily distracted. Whether it’s getting frustrated with an absence of research progress and reading comic books or it’s periodically deciding I need to clean my apartment, one thing I’ve noticed is that it’s hard to be productive every day. However, I try to set goals for myself and to accomplish something (even if it’s just reading a paper) each day. This past week, I made more progress on my DES paper. I’m almost done with this project! I have one last thing to do; however, the data I need is currently stuck on a Michigan computer, which for reasons that remain unclear, neither I or my Ph.D. advisor Chris Miller are able to access. So, hopefully I’ll resolve that issue soon. I’ve also started working on some of the codes for my DESI research. This week, I had a ton of Zoom activities. I had the Zu group meeting, meetings with Ying, Chris, and my friend and collaborator Yuanyuan Zhang as well as group meetings with the SJTU postdocs, and an astronomy colloquium. So, lots of time in front of the computer, which I find can be quite tiring.

While I did a lot of work this week, I also had time for some fun things! With the weather warming (mostly in the 60s), I was able to go running 3 times. I did 6 miles on Saturday, my longest run since January! As I’ve highlighted in previous posts, every time I go outside, it’s really wonderful to see Shanghai in bloom!

I also did a ton of cooking in preparation for Passover. I made Matzo ball soup with vegan matzo balls, my Dad’s charoset, vegan mozzerella cheese, spiced chickpeas, and chocolate tofu mousse! So, I’ll have plenty of delicious food to eat during the upcoming holiday.

Additionally, we’re still able to get together here. So, on Monday, I got dinner with my friends Heather and Shimi at an Indian restaurant.

Then, on Thursday, we met at Heather’s apartment for dinner. This was monumental, because it was the first time that I had been allowed into another person’s apartment since the covid-19 outbreak in January! Very early on, Shanghai instituted a ban on non-residents into neighborhoods and compounds. It’s great to see that policy lifting as things improve. Both opportunities to hang out together were great fun, filled with discussions about Passover, Academia, and unsurprisingly the current covid-19 situation. While it’s always fun to meet at a restaurant, it was so nice getting to relax in someone’s home for a change.

Along with the lovely nature in Shanghai, I also saw some other cool things around Shanghai this week!

Food in Shanghai

As previously mentioned, on Monday, Heather, Shimi, and I went to a fantastic Indian restaurant! It was definitely the best Indian food I’ve had here in Shanghai. We had delicious naan bread, a fantastic spinach dish, a lentil dal that just warmed me up, as well as yummy mushroom and eggplant dishes!

When we got together again on Thursday, Heather made a fantastic bbq jackfruit meal, which instantly transported me back to the US! Unlike in the US, jackfruit is really easy to get. Oftentimes, you get it raw (not canned) from local fruit markets! I’m looking forward to cooking more with jackfruit myself as well!

Additionally, on Sunday, I got together for lunch with my friend Hannah Maia to finalize the plans for the Moishe House Seder, which I’m co-leading. I got a very nice vegan green Shakshuka.

Jewish Life in Shanghai

As I’m sure many of you are aware, Passover begins on Wednesday night! The situation in Shanghai has improved enough that we are fortunate to be able to do in person Seders. I’m co-leading the Moishe House Seder on Wednesday night with Hannah Maia and leading the Kehilat Shanghai Seder on Thursday. I look forward to updating you on how those go. So, given the proximity of the holiday, I spent a lot of time preparing for leading the Seders. Special thanks to my Dad for all his help with outlining a Seder and discussions about what the most important parts are. Additionally, as mentioned, on Sunday, Hannah Maia and I finalized our plans for the Moishe House Seder.

Thanks to Chabbad, I was able to get all the food I needed for Passover, including what I needed to make vegan matzo ball soup!

In addition to Seder planning, we had a zoom Shabbat on Friday. I’m glad that we’ve continued to do these throughout this whole experience, since it’s been a nice way to connect with community members both in Shanghai and abroad.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been working from home for 10 weeks now. I’m glad that I’m able to stay somewhat productive and also see some of my friends. I hope that you all are able to stay productive and connect with friends and family even if it’s not in person.

I hope that this update about my life during the covid-19 pandemic in Shanghai provides comfort and assurance that things will improve. Please take social distancing seriously and help flatten the curve. This week, I hope to get some research done while also preparing for Passover. To all of you who are celebrating Passover, I hope that you have a meaningful holiday experience. Maybe instead of ending by saying “Next year in Jerusalem”, we should be saying “Next year Together.” I look forward to sharing with you stories and photos from my Seders! If you have any questions/comments or concerns about the current covid-19 situation, let me know. If you need advice for dealing with a more isolated life or need someone to talk to, please reach out. Given all of the love and support I received from you all, I’d love to provide you with my own.

In peace,
Jesse