Thank you for following along with my adventures in Shanghai! I hope you’ve been enjoying experiencing this amazing city with me!
If you haven’t, please subscribe and let me know what you’ve been enjoying! 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 my life in Shanghai, let me know. Instructions are on the “To Comment” page.
Now, onto this week’s adventure!
Life in Shanghai
The fall semester here at SJTU officially wrapped up last week. However, this really doesn’t change much in terms of my day-to-day activities. The only thing that’s really changed is that the SJTU campus has emptied out and the Astronomy department for all intensive purposes is empty (and will likely remain that way until after the Lunar New Year Holiday, which ends on 1/30). For me, in terms of my research and productivity, last week was a normal week (except for the Departmental Chinese New Year Celebration and end of the semester meeting in the Zu research group). I’m still making progress on my Luminosity Function research as well as making fast progress on looking at how the cluster Stellar Mass – Halo Mass relation is impacted by the incorporation of satellite galaxies. So, I’m aiming to make headway on these results over the next two weeks while the university is on break.
Last week, the Astronomy and Physics Departments held a joint Chinese New Year party/performance! This was a surprise to me. I found out about the party 5 minutes before it started. 🙂 The party featured different department members playing games, singing traditional Chinese songs, dancing, and giving speeches. A woman also played the Pipa, the Chinese Guitar, which was really cool to see/hear. My friend and fellow postdoc, Haojie, told me that she was playing a song that was hundreds of years old!
Unfortunately for me, the majority of these were in Mandarin, so I couldn’t follow much. However, that didn’t prevent me from participating in the games!
Thanks to Haojie, you can see me play a game where I had a box of ping pong balls strapped to my waist and had to jump and dance around to get them out. As you can see, I was a good sport and had fun, while still making a little bit of a fool out of myself. Even though I didn’t win, it was a fun, yet bizarre experience! 🙂
Throughout the celebration, the department was giving away red packets on WeChat. This was done by posting the packet on the WeChat group and giving the packet to the first 10-20 people who clicked on the packet. These were small monetary gifts (< $10). I won ~ $4. Additionally, every attendee was given a bag of snacks as well as a blanket, which was a gift from the union (that represents the faculty and staff).
For my adventure this week, I returned for a second visit to the Jing’an Temple. I wanted to see how a Buddhist temple is decorated for the Lunar New Year Holiday.
The primary decorations are the beautiful red lanterns, which adorn the temple ceilings as well as the beautiful flowers
For those of you who missed some of my early posts, the Jing’an temple has amazing statues of different Buddhist deities and aspects/depictions of the Buddha.
The Happy or Fat Buddha 
The Giant Buddha 
As you can tell from these photos, the architecture and aesthetic of Jing’an temple are breathtaking! There’s so many little intricacies and details of the sculptures and the temple that I didn’t notice on my first visit!
I want to emphasize (as done in previous posts) that this is an active temple. There were a lot of people making offerings, praying, and burning incense at each statue. However, out of respect for their privacy, I tried not to take photos of them while they were praying.
Unsurprisingly, there are tons of Chinese New Years decorations up all over Shanghai! Since the Jing’an temple is located closer to the center of the city, I saw some of the coolest decorations there!
You can see that the decorations stretch along the entire length of this mall!
There were also a lot of cute smaller decorations!
In addition to the decorations, outside Jing’an temple, I saw a street musician, playing the guitar. Unlike big cities in the US and Europe, I haven’t seen any street musicians in Shanghai. He was playing a mix of Chinese songs and English songs. He played Bob Dylan’s the Times they are a Changin’ while I was there. One difference is that unlike in the US, where everyone gives coins or paper money, he had a sign set up with his QR code so you could scan and give him money via WeChat or Alipay! So everything is done digitally here!
In addition to the decorations I saw near Jing’an Temple, I also found Chinese New Year decorations in the areas and shopping malls near where I live.
Outside Fuxing Park
While much of the decorations and advertisements that I saw this week in Shanghai were centered around the Lunar New Year, there were still a lot of other cool sculptures and advertisements that I saw as well!
A cool James Harden Jacket 
While all of those were very cool. My two favorites this week made me realize that Shanghai isn’t so different from the US. The first was an add for the NBA, which featured different NBA players interacting with Chinese fans and wishing them a Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year. To my surprise, as I walked down to the Xintiandi metro Monday morning, I was met with the smiling face of Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell! As an diehard Jazz fan, this was an excellent way to start the day!
The second advertisement that I saw on my daily commute featured Wonder Woman star, Gal Gadot! It’s always nice to see ads where I recognize the people in them, especially when it’s some of my favorite celebrities!
While most of what I see on a daily basis is completely foreign to me, it’s nice being reminded that even though I’m not able to communicate well with the people here in Shanghai, they have some of the same interests as me. 🙂
Food in Shanghai
This week, I tried another vegan/vegetarian restaurant. On Saturday, I got lunch with one of my friends near Jing’an temple. We went to a cafeteria, located behind the temple that only serves vegetarian food! I got tofu, bok choy, peanuts, rice, and vegetable soup. We also got vegetable bao buns, broccoli, and mushrooms! If the food at the SJTU cafeteria was this good, I would definitely still be eating there
On Saturday, I got tons of dried fruits and nuts from a local vendor shown on the right. I got dried apricots, two kinds of raisins, and almonds!
While I haven’t shared photos of these kind of vendors before, I’ve seen a lot of vendors selling different fruits, meats, and vegetables, but this was the first I’ve seen selling dried fruits and nuts, which reminded me a lot of buying some of these same things in markets in Israel!
Jewish Life in Shanghai
This week I had a lot of interactions within the Jewish community. On Friday, I joined Kehilat Shanghai for a lovely Shabbat service. I particularly enjoy observing Shabbat since it adds a nice sense of calm to my week, so I’m really glad that I’m able to observe Shabbat so frequently, here in Shanghai.
On Sunday morning, I taught the students of Kehilat Shanghai’s Sunday School (ages 5-12) about the phases of the moon and lunar calendars, as they spent the day learning about New Year’s celebration. So, unlike my past experiences teaching them, I actually got to use my skills as an Astronomer. 🙂 The students were learning about lunar calendars since the Chinese and Jewish calendars are both are solar-lunar calendars. It was a lot of fun getting to interact with the kids and some of their parents. However, I think the highlight of the activity was having the kids make the phases of the moon out of oreos!
On Sunday evening, I joined Moishe House for a Bagel dinner (or Brinner). To contribute I made vegan oatmeal raisin cookies, which were a huge hit! As I’ve said before, It’s been really great having the Moishe House and Kehilat Shanghai communities as ways for me to meet people and make new friends here!
I hope you enjoyed learning about my visit to the Jing’an temple and my Chinese New Year celebrations! This week will be relatively quiet. I’m told that Shanghai shuts down around the Lunar New Year. So, since I’m staying in town, I’ll likely be working from home will definitely be trying to get in a few extra runs! I look forward to sharing my upcoming adventures with you all! If you have any questions/comments about Shanghai, let me know! Also, if you are observing the Lunar New Year, I hope that you have a wonderful holiday!
In peace,
Jesse
Way cool Jesse!
Loved the year of the rat round green sign!
Lots of great looking meals and art!
How many ping pong balls did you dance off?
Any pictures of the Oreo cookie phases of the moon?
Clever idea!!!
Thanks for the update!
Hi Aunt Pam! I don’t know how many ping pong balls I danced off, but it felt like a lot! I didn’t take any photos of the kids, but if I get to do it again, I will!
It sounds like you had a fun week! The temple looks amazing and I like the way the red lanterns draw your eye, but not in an overly gaudy way. It’s interesting that (at least in your department ceremony) they still are referencing 2020. Does the Chinese calendar have a different year marker, like the Jewish one. I loved the ads. Thanks for explaining what the one of Donovan Mitchell was! I’m really glad that the kids enjoyed the astronomy demos. It’s always fun when there is an edible prop (like how we did the curvature of the universe with Gaitskell in cosmology). Enjoy a quiet week!
Hi Emmet! I also liked how the temple was decorated. The Chinese system does do years like the Jewish calendar. It’s 4718 (so it’s about 1000 years younger than the Jewish/Hebrew calendar).
Hi! As your mom’s fellow Zumba dancer, I most enjoyed the ping pong dance video. To me, it looked as though you almost won. You had that single ball left that just wouldn’t drop! Happy New Year.
Thanks Barbara! I didn’t realize how close I got to winning, but it was still a ton of fun!
Thank you for sharing this Jesse.
Shanghai sounds absolutely fascinating – Very intrigued by the way that even buskers are digitally literate and connected – and that dried fruit and nut stall looked incredible. I wonder if spices and herbs are sold in a similar manner.
Also very intrigued by the almost professional air of that party game. At my college (SUNY Empire State) when we have “holiday” and other parties any games (at conferences etc) are far less well organized (certainly no MC with mics).
Hi Bernard. I’m glad that you’re enjoying the blog. I haven’t seen spices and herbs being sold on the streets in that same manner. I’ll have to keep my eye out and let you know. I was also very surprised by how organized and official the Holiday party was, it was unlike anything I’ve previously experienced.
The oreo phases of the moon activity is a great idea! Did you come up with that?
I hope you have a happy lunar new year Jesse!
Thanks Ryan! I didn’t come up with that on my own. When I did an outreach event at one of the Ann Arbor Elementary Schools last year, the undergraduates who helped out organized that. It’s a lot of fun and works well for elementary – middle school students.
Hi, Jesse.
I really enjoyed your entry this week. In looking at your photos, I am struck by how the modern buildings blend in with the very ancient ones. The Jing’an is breathtaking. There are so many intricate details to look at as you note. I want to visit the dried fruit stall when I come to visit! And you certainly were a good sport to volunteer to participate in the dancing game!
I hope you have a very productive week, time to catch up on projects and hopefully for some fun, too. And congrats, too, on joining the board of Kehilat Shanghai. I know you will be a real asset to the group. Much love, and Happy Lunar New Year! Mom
Hi Mom! Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed seeing the pictures of the Jing’an temple. It’s really amazing how it’s nestled in between modern buildings.