A New Normal Week in Shanghai

Welcome to Astronomer in Shanghai! Thank you for following my blog and for your interest in my adventures in Shanghai! As covid-19 keeps many of you sheltered in place or working at home, I hope that my blog illustrates that once the world recovers from this outbreak, things will improve. You should all treasure the small daily interactions. In Shanghai, life has returned to a new normal. I emphasize that the recovery timeline for Shanghai is not applicable everywhere and that new outbreaks may occur. However, we are all in this together and if we wear masks and cooperate with social distancing guidelines things will improve.

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Life in Shanghai

As you’re reading this, I hope that all of you as well as your family and friends are remaining safe and healthy. I really hope that all of you are still taking covid-19 seriously. Despite the relatively small number of cases in Shanghai, many of us here are still wearing masks. So, I implore you all to continue to be cautious and vigilant. Please stay safe and do your best to remain healthy.

I know I began last week’s post by emphasizing my growing concern about the covid-19 situation in the US; however, I feel it’s necessary to do it again. While it’s comforting to hear from many of my family and friends that they continue to wear masks and socially distance, this past week has really done nothing to help assuage my concerns about the US as a whole. It seems like every day I awaken to reports of the number of cases hitting record highs all throughout the country. The continued disregard by the current administration to do anything to alleviate the situation or even attempt to flatten the curve is incredibly frustrating and also rather humiliating. I often talk with my ex-pat friends here in Shanghai about the situation in the US and there’s a general shame that many of us feel to be American. The sheer level of disregard for public safety is staggering. Having worn masks every time I’ve gone outside since January (even when I run), I don’t understand the insistence on the public to not wear masks. This is not a political issue. So, I implore you please don’t be selfish. Wear a mask or a bandana over your face. It shows that you think it’s important to keep your neighbors healthy and that you care. While I know many of you are already doing so, please continue to encourage your friends and family do wear masks every time they are out in public. This is the only effective way to slow the spread of covid-19.

For the most part, the situation here in China remains in check. While there have been additional cases in Beijing, all reported information that I’ve seen suggests that that secondary outbreak is relatively under control and that the number of new cases in continuing to decline. In total, there are 311 cases in Beijing. I’m lucky, that outbreak has not spread at all to Shanghai, where there are just 25 cases, all of which have been imported. The recovery rate in Shanghai is 95.5% and the recovery rate in China as a whole is 93.9%. So, the situation remains stable here in China. However, there remains a fear of a secondary outbreak and travelers returning from Beijing are required to do a 14 day self-quarantine.

In terms of research, this week was fairly productive. I had a very productive and insightful meeting with my Ph.D. supervisor/mentor Prof. Chris Miller and spent a lot of time this week improving and strengthening some of the analysis in our SMHM relation paper for the Dark Energy Survey. I think we’re both trying to make this paper as airtight as possible, which hopefully will help reduce any difficulties in the referee process. Additionally, I’ve continued to be somewhat stumped by the inconsistencies between my measurement of the Luminosity Function and prior measurements, so I’m sure I’ll be spending a lot of time on that in the near future. Along with a lot of time spent running computer code (which is really what most of my research is), we had our normal Zoom AstroCoffee, Zu Group meetings, and SJTU Astronomy colloquiums.

Much to my personal uncomfortability, it’s continued to be hot, humid, and rainy here in Shanghai. I think I’ve reached the point where the humidity bothers me a lot more than the heat. I can run in heat, but it’s so uncomfortable to run when it’s excessively humid (which is frequent). Despite that I took advantage of a few breaks in the weather and got in 2 runs this week. While I’d love to run more, it’s difficult when the weather is working against you.

Due to the overcast weather, I didn’t get as many great photos of flowers, however, I did see a lot of cute cats this week!

Additionally, I saw some very interesting and beautiful sculptures, paintings, statues, and buildings as I walked around Shanghai (Yes, even in the heat, I still try to walk most places).

As I mentioned in last week’s post. This week was the Dragon Boat Festival Holiday. Unfortunately, most of the large events and actual Dragon Boat Races in Shanghai were cancelled due to fears of large crowds due to covid-19. So, unfortunately, I didn’t do anything special to mark the holiday. So, I know I have a few things to look forward to for next year!

Overall, this was a much more low key and relaxing week, compared to last week. On Tuesday, I attended a lecture on rural education in China with my friends Heather and Shimi. The talk was given by an educator who has built an international network using the Chinese version of Zoom to teach students in the most rural regions of China. A lot of the topics covered via the online education are related to the arts, which are generally not as well taught be rural school teachers (since they lack the training). The talk focused on some of the difficulties of online teaching as well as how it’s been successful in enhancing students educational opportunities, since it’s often difficult to convince teachers from Shanghai or Beijing to move to rural China. It was very inspiring to hear how teachers from around the world use the internet to enhance the academic experiences of those students. Given the proliferation of online teaching due to covid-19, I wouldn’t be surprised if this kind of thing becomes more common.

On Saturday, my friends Kate and Ilan hosted a lunch party to show friends their new apartment. Given that it was a rainy, hot, and humid day, it was very relaxing to enjoy good food, company, and conversations ranging from covid-19 to Mrs. Maisel! I made my now famous sticky sesame cauliflower, which was again a huge hit!

One thing that I really like about living in Shanghai is how internationally diverse my friends are. Maybe it’s because ex-pats are all drawn together, but it’s really interesting learning about the cultures and experiences of my friends. I have friends from China, the US, Israel, Ukraine, France, Mexico, Argentina, the UK and many more. I feel like it’s been a great way for me to grow as a person and become more cognizant of the world I live in.

Food in Shanghai

I cooked most of my meals this week, but I still had some interesting food to share with you. In terms of my own cooking, I made orange tofu, roasted broccoli, vegan mozzarella cheese, roasted chickpeas, tahini sauce, and orange-pineapple popsicles! So, plenty of good stuff to eat this upcoming week.

On Friday, the Moishe House community did a Taco Shabbat! I got mapo tofu and buddha’s delight tacos! I find the Chinese-Mexican fusion very interesting!

On Sunday, I got breakfast with one of my friends and had a delicious chia seed porridge with pepitas, coconut, dragon fruit, and blueberries!

Jewish Life in Shanghai

As I just mentioned, on Friday, Moishe House hosted a Taco Shabbat! In contrast to last week’s very moving Solidarity Shabbat, it was nice to have a relaxing and fun Shabbat spent with friends. While we didn’t do a Shabbat service, we still gathered to say the Shabbat blessings and enjoy some delicious challah baked by my friend Hannah Maia. I’m really happy to be part of the Moishe House community here. It’s been a great source of fun and friendship during my time in Shanghai, and particularly since covid-19 began.

This was a calm and more low-key week. This upcoming week should allow me to focus a lot of research. I’m also going to be presenting some of my research at the Zoom Galaxy Cluster Seminar for the Harvard Center for Astrophysics on Tuesday (thanks to Emmet for setting it up :)), so that’s exciting!

I hope that this update about what a new normal week looks like here in Shanghai reminds you that eventually things can and will resemble what you’re used to. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the current covid-19 situation, please let me know. If you need someone to talk to about how to stay positive and productive while you shelter in place, please reach out. I want to help support you and assure all of you in any way that I can.

In peace,
Jesse