Hi Everyone! Welcome back to Astronomer in Shanghai! I hope that all of you had an enjoyable, safe, and healthy end of the summer. For those of you that it impacts, I hope that you have had an easy adjustment to the start of the new school year and that whatever restrictions due to covid-19 that are in place are allowing you to feel safe and stay healthy. Additionally, for all of you who celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I want to start by wishing you all L’Shana Tova and hope that you had an easy and meaningful fast! I’ve been very busy since my last post, from introducing Emmet to Shanghai, presenting my research at a virtual conference, to co-leading Kehilat Shanghai’s High Holiday services. So, I’ve got a ton of highlights to share with you!
Adventures with Emmet!
As I mentioned in my last update, Emmet got out of his 2 week hotel quarantine on August 17th, which was then followed by a 1 week period of community health monitoring. He then spent ~ 2 weeks in Shanghai with me before moving to Beijing to start his post-doc at Tsinghua University. I had so much fun hosting Emmet in my apartment and getting to show him parts of Shanghai! Since this was Emmet’s first (of many) visits to Shanghai, I wanted to make sure that he saw some of the most recognizable spots as well as some of my favorite spots in Shanghai!
There’s so much to see in Shanghai, so Emmet and I spent an entire day walking around different parts of the city. From people’s square to the Bund, and then to the Yu Gardens. It was great fun showing Emmet some of the most iconic parts of Shanghai. Of course we had to get a picture in front of the iconic Shanghai skyline on the Bund, which is highlighted by the always impressive Shanghai Tower! Maybe next time we’ll go see the Bund lit up at night! 🙂
We next went to the gorgeous Yu Gardens (Yuyuan). Yuyuan is an amazing Garden complex located right in the heart of Old Shanghai. It’s surrounded by a shopping center (that’s built to look traditional), but you wouldn’t know it once you’re inside. Yuyuan is one of my favorite places in Shanghai, because it doesn’t feel like your in a giant and modern city! I love coming to the gardens every few months, so it was a must share with Emmet!
The part of the garden that Emmet and I enjoyed the most was this really cool bonsai garden that was covered with mist (which was very enjoyable on a hot day–it was almost 100 degrees). The mist made it feel as though instead of being in Shanghai we were in the mountains!
Additionally, since Emmet and I are both huge fans of comic books and manga, we had to go to the Foreign Language Bookstore as well as some of the anime/toy stores around Shanghai! Uniqlo also even had a new Demon Slayer shirt that we bought!
There are so many amazing models and statues! One of my favorite things about living in China is how popular many of the manga/anime that I grew up loving are. You see the influences in advertisements and see the characters all over the place (from t-shirts to stores to kids backpacks). Even though Emmet and I only bought a few little statues, it’s always cool seeing some from our favorite animes including Dragon Ball, Gundam, One Piece, Demon Slayer, as well as Batman and our other favorite DC Comics heroes!
In addition to the more famous sites, Emmet and I also spent a lot of time walking around the different parts of Shanghai near where I live (Xuhui, the Former French Concession) and where I used to live (Xintiandi — Fuxing Park and People’s square).
And how could we not take a photo with the statue of Karl Marx (and Friedrich Engles) in Fuxing park!
One of the other highlights of having Emmet here in Shanghai was introducing Emmet to many of my friends! I’ve been telling my friends for over a year that Emmet would be moving to Beijing and that eventually they would get to meet him. So, I was delighted to finally introduce him to many of them (though I’ll have to have another party the next time he visits, since there were many others who didn’t get to meet him). Along with a few dinners with friends, I also hosted a welcome party for Emmet. For that, Emmet taught me how to make vegan Fomu ice cream (we made oreo and chocolate) for my welcome party for him!
Sadly, Emmet did have to leave Shanghai to go start filling out paper work and to begin his postdoc in Beijing. Emmet took the high speed train to Beijing (what I’ll take to visit him), so I went to the train station for the first time to see him off.
Even though Emmet’s not living in Shanghai with me, it’s so nice having him in the same time zone so that we can talk/text throughout the day! 🙂 I look forward to visiting him in Beijing soon, once he’s settled.
Astronomy Update
Even with the High Holidays and Emmet’s arrival in Shanghai, I still had to squeeze time into my day for my research. While I’m not going to be providing a detailed update on the projects that I’m working on this time (I’ll do more updates when I have exciting things to share), I did want to let you know that I had the opportunity to present my research (my DES Stellar Mass – Halo Mass Relation project and my research on Halo Mass proxies at SJTU) at a virtual conference on measuring the Halo Mass of Galaxy Clusters based in Spain ~ 2 weeks ago! Even though I had to present after Erev Rosh Hashanah (at ~ 11pm), I was thrilled with how my talk went! The conference was all done on Zoom and live streamed on Youtube, so Emmet and my parents got to watch it! And since it’s still on Youtube, I wanted to share the video so that all of you have the opportunity to learn about the research that I’ve been doing!
My talk starts right around the 2:05 mark (in case the link doesn’t start there)! Hope you find it interesting! And definitely let me know if you have any questions!
Additionally, though not related to my research, there’s a lot of interest in space and Astronomy in Shanghai and China! Shanghai built a new planetarium, that I hope to visit with friends once the initial rush to get tickets calms down. Moreover, the first three Taikonauts sent to orbit for the construction of the Chinese Space Station safely returned to earth after their 90 day mission! The name Taikonauts comes from Taikong (space in Mandarin) combined with the naut (like astronaut). Following their return the Taikonauts are required to do a 14 day quarantine, just like all other new arrivals to China. 🙂
Kehilat Shanghai High Holy Days
This year I had the pleasure and honor of co-leading the Kehilat Shanghai High Holy day services with my friend and fellow KS board member Alex! This was the second time that I’ve lead Kehilat Shanghai’s High Holy Day services. However, last year, I did it solo. The process of co-leading with Alex was so much easier and less stressful for me and unlike last year I was able to take the time to both enjoy the services and reflect on the past year, my actions, and how I’d like to improve in the coming year.
We are so fortunate that we were able to gather in person as a Jewish community safely in Shanghai! Doing so allowed us to have lovely in person services that everyone within the community could enjoy and participate in! I hope that next year we are all able to gather and celebrate safely together!
Here, you can see some photos that were taken at our Rosh Hashanah services! Alex and I alternated either leading the service or giving the sermon for each of the services. As you can see, I also had the honor of chanting from the torah at both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur! Thanks to the wonderful recordings from Rabbi Linda and Rabbi Jonathan (my Rabbis at Temple Sinai in Saratoga Springs), I was able to successfully learn both portions in ~ 1 week each! So, I’m sure I’ll be able to chant again next year. 🙂
10 days after Rosh Hashanah, we gathered again for a lovely and meaningful Yom Kippur. We were fortunate to have community member who is and professional singer chant a powerful and beautiful rendition of Kol Nidre, which brought tears to my eyes as it reminded me of hearing Gil Harwood’s Kol Nidre when I was growing up within the Temple Sinai community.
One of my favorite aspects of getting to lead services this year was that it provided me the opportunity to give two sermons to the Kehilat Shanghai community. I spoke at Erev Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur day. As preparation for giving the sermons, I spent time reading the different Torah and Haftarah portions associated with each Holy Day. Following that close reading, I outlined what I wanted to talk about and determined how to best convey my message. Special thanks to my Dad for looking at drafts of the outlines and providing insightful advice and feedback! And thanks to both my parents and Emmet for feedback on the final sermon as well.
Since I delivered those sermons to the Kehilat Shanghai community, I also wanted to share them with you all. However, I didn’t actually write them down. Whenever I give Astronomy talks it’s entirely done using notes (no script), so I found it nearly impossible to write out what I wanted to say. So, instead I used an outline. However, since I didn’t think the outline would fully convey my message, I’m sharing with you an audio recording of the sermons that I gave!
For Rosh Hashanah, I was inspired by the story of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, as well as the Haftarah story of the birth of Samuel and the idea of faith that exists in both stories. Additionally, I focused on Abraham’s use of Hineini and what that means in a modern context for our community. For Yom Kippur, I was inspired by the Prophet Isaiah’s description of “Is this the fast that I have chosen” and spent time talking about what it means to fast and what actions we can ask atonement for.
As a fun sidenote, after giving both of these sermons, Emmet, commented that I had given two sermons that were unknowingly inspired by the manga/anime My Hero Academia, one of our favorites! 🙂 For Rosh Hashanah, I had captured the spirit of All Might, who’s catch phrase is “I am Here,” which is a loose translation of Hineini. For Yom Kippur, I had captured the spirit of Endeavor and his quest to atone for his past actions. So, even though I hadn’t thought of this while I was preparing the sermons, this connection was to fun not to share! 🙂
While I know not all of you celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I hope that many of you take the time to listen to my sermons (~ 12-13 minutes each). If you do and have any thoughts on them, please let me know! I hope you find them as meaningful and interesting as the members of the Kehilat Shanghai community did.
Overall, it was a very positive experience leading the High Holy Services! Thanks to Alex for making it a much easier and enjoyable experience than last year. It was so nice hearing from so many community members how much they enjoyed the services, how much fun it looked like Alex and I were having, and how meaningful the sermons that we both delivered were. While I hope that in the future the covid-19 situation around the world recovers to the point that we can again invite guest Rabbis to Shanghai, it was very meaningful for me to have the opportunity to help my Kehilat Shanghai community celebrate and begin 5782.
Life in Shanghai
As I noted in the beginning, this was a very busy month. However, that didn’t stop me from exercising and doing some other fun activities. It’s finally getting cool enough that I can comfortably go running, which makes me very happy! However, I’ll still be going to the F45 HIIT classes as well. In addition to what I already described, there were also a few other smaller events that I wanted to mention. As usual, we had our Trivia Night at Tacolicious! I was really happy that Emmet was able to come and participate in this one! I even wrote a twins category in honor of it! (The questions are posted at the end).
Additionally, in the middle of the 10 days of awe, Kehilat Shanghai had another community Shabbat, this time led by Alex. It’s been really nice having these monthly Shabbat gatherings (with services) over the last few months and I look forward to continuing having these in the coming months!
In addition to fun events with friends within the Jewish community, I also got to spend a lot of time with cats (and 1 dog, Pina!)! Part of that was because I was cat sitting for my friend Anton and taking care of his cat Solo (the white/gray cat below)! I also got to meet Kate and Ilan’s new cat Magey (who is so adorable to watch playing with Pina)! Plus, there are always plenty of friendly and photogenic cats in my neighborhood and around Shanghai! Magey, Pina, and Solo are very friendly and cute, so I look forward to playing with them more soon!
Additionally, I saw some other cool street art, art, and signs that I wanted to share!
Food in Shanghai
During Emmet’s visit, I took him to all of my favorite vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai! So, in addition to cooking together, we had tons of great meals!
First, we had an amazing dinner with my friends John, Alex, Ha, and Nadav at Vegetarian Lifestyle, the first vegetarian restaurant I ever visited in Shanghai and one of my favorites! We enjoyed tamaki hand rolls, spicy mushrooms, fried lotus root, cauliflower, lotus root balls, vegetarian chik’n (seitan), dumplings, eggplant, dragon fruit juice, spicy sword beans, noodles, braised tofu, mushroom bao, fruit, and red bean buns!
The food was so good that it’s hard to pick a favorite. However, the highlight was probably the braised tofu, which melts in your mouth !
After visiting the Bund and Yu Gardens, Emmet and I went to Hui Yuan vegetarian, another personal favorite (though closer to my old apartment). We enjoyed kaofu (spongy seitan), sweet and sour seitan, sword beans, tofu skins, apricot mushrooms (mushrooms with an apricot sauce), and a braised mushroom with seitan dish!
This was another fantastic meal filled with so many different and unique flavors and textures!
Lastly, Emmet and I went to Duli, a vegetarian/vegan Asian fusion restaurant! We enjoyed a wonton soup, ma po tofu hummus, Szechuan tofu stir fry, and cauliflower and corn dumplings!
This was another amazing meal and so different from the others we had enjoyed together!
As you can see there’s so much different and unique dishes that I’m able to enjoy in Shanghai! I’m so grateful that there are so many vegan/vegetarian restaurants that allow me to explore different parts of Chinese cuisine! I’m also so glad that I got to share some of my favorite foods with Emmet and look forward to trying some new vegetarian/vegan restaurants when I go visit Emmet in Beijing!
As you can likely tell, this past month was very eventful and very fun! It was so wonderful to be reunited with Emmet and get to spend so much time together. I was also very grateful that I was able to have a meaningful High Holy Day experience. This upcoming month will definitely be a lot calmer/quieter and more research focused. However, there are two Chinese Holidays, the Mid-Autumn Festival (happening now) and the Chinese National Holiday (celebrating the founding of the People’s Republic of China) at the beginning of October, so I’m sure there will be plenty of interesting things and fun things to share with you all next month. In the meantime, I hope that all of you continue to stay safe and healthy.
In peace,
Jesse
Trivia
Twins
1). In The Prestige, Alfred Borden is actually the stage name of secret twin brothers played by this actor?
2). The twin brother of this famed rock and roll legend, Jesse, died at birth.
3). This protagonist of the Millennium series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series) is a twin (though her sister only plays a role in the 3 most recent books).
Bonus: Name the sister.
4). These twins “co-founded” Facebook along with Mark Zuckerberg?
5). Who are the first pair of twins to appear in the Bible?
6). In this novel by Alexander Dumas, this French monarch is secretly replaced by his hidden twin brother.
7). In this film, Tom Hardy plays Reggie and Ronny Kray, violent gangsters in the London underworld.
8). Name this pair of twins that make up the Constellation Gemini.
9). Twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin are the electro-pop duo behind this hit song from the Lego Movie?
10). Name these two twins who legend says founded Rome.
Famous Philosophers
1). Though it’s unclear if this philosopher existed, he is known as the founder of Daoism.
2). This philosopher and author of the Republic, whose birth name was Aristocles, is considered the founder of Western political philosophy.
3). Name this Philosopher and tutor to Alexander the Great.
4). This philosopher and monk is credited with bringing Buddhism to China
5). “The End Justifies the Means” is often attributed to this author of the Prince, though he never actually used that phrasing
6). This philosopher was the founder of contemporary Kabbalah.
7). “I think therefore I am” was the end result of this Philosopher’s search for a statement that could not be doubted.
8). This Danish Philosopher is considered to be the first existentialist philosopher and wrote texts criticizing religion, Christianity, morality, ethics and many other subjects.
9). This philosopher is considered by many to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century and his early work included Tractatus, which focused on the logical relationship between propositions and the world.
10). This American philosopher and writer is best known for his work analyzing the Hero’s Journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Answers
Twins: 1). Christian Bale 2). Elvis Presley 3). Lisbeth Salander — Bonus) Camilla 4). Winklevoss Twins 5). Esau and Jacob 6). The Man in the Iron Mask 7). Legend 8). Castor and Pollux 9). Everything is Awesome 10). Romulus and Remus
Philosophers: 1). Lao Tzu 2). Plato 3). Aristotle 4). Bodhidharma 5). Nicola Machiavelli 6). Isaac Luria 7). Rene Descartes 8). Soren Kierkegaard 9). Ludwig Wittgenstein 10). Joseph Campbell
