Hi Everyone! Welcome back to Astronomer in Shanghai! I hope that this latest entry finds all of you doing well, staying safe and healthy, and hopefully enjoying the start of spring! For those of you who celebrate, I hope that you either had a wonderful Passover, a nice Easter, or a happy Ramadan.

When I wrote to you all last April, it was early on in what became one of the most challenging experiences of my life. A little over 1 year ago (April 1, 2022 on the Puxi side), Shanghai began it’s 5 day lockdown that lasted for 2 months. In mid-March of 2022, the COVID case numbers in Shanghai began increasing and COVID testing became mandatory, with neighborhoods locking down for a single positive case. So, the lockdown wasn’t the start of the troubles. SJTU locked down its campus for almost 3 months (thankfully I wasn’t there) starting in March. Given that I’m now able to experience April for the first time since 2021, it’s hard not to reflect on just how challenging the lockdown was. I was fortunate that my compound had almost no cases (none in my building), that I never got sick, that I had enough food to eat (and was given more than I needed by the Xuhui government), that I was able to get vegan food (vegetarian meatballs and tofu thanks to my neighbors), and that I was even able to get Matzah (thanks to the Israeli consulate and Chabad). However, the same can’t be said for many of my friends and colleagues and for the majority of people living in the poorer, less affluent parts of Shanghai. Despite my good fortune, the situation was incredible stressful, depressing, and isolating. While I have many friends in Shanghai, everyone was so stressed and dealing with these challenges that often times, days would go by without hearing from anyone outside of my family (though there were a few Kehilat friends who checked in on me every week or so). Going outside, even to take out the trash or for a PCR test became nerve-wracking. I was wearing jackets, pants, gloves, multiple masks even when it was hot and I’d have to wait outside to be tested. Most days, the lone highlight (outside of talking with Emmet, my parents, or other friends) was the morning F45 classes that I did on Zoom with Scottie and Charlie watching. Those classes, because of the situation at SJTU, were the only regularity I had in my life. So, it’s hard for me not to look at everything I’ve been able to do this month with that in mind. With that said, I remain grateful for all the messages of support I got from so many of you. It really helped me get through the whole ordeal. I’m grateful that the strict policies ended in December. While the lockdown was certainly miserable, I wanted to note it because of how China is attempting to rewrite the narrative of 2023 and the lockdowns, almost erasing them from having happened. Those lockdowns had a huge impact on my time in Shanghai, both in terms of my day-to-day life, and also because it led many of my friends to leave Shanghai earlier than planned.

Emmet’s Visit to Shanghai

After reflecting on last year, I want to focus on how much better my life is this year than one year ago! I’ll begin by sharing the highlights of Emmet’s recent visit to Shanghai! Emmet last visited in August of 2021 when he arrived in China (and spent ~ 4 weeks in Shanghai, 2 in quarantine), so it was great to have him come visit again and get to meet Scottie and Charlie! For those of you who are long-time readers, you’ll recognize a lot of the places I took Emmet. While not new for me, most of these places (including the temples and gardens) were places I hadn’t visited in 2 or even 3 years, so it was great to go back!

Friday

Emmet arrived in Shanghai on Friday and I picked him up at the train station. When we arrived back at my apartment, I was very curious how Scottie and Charlie would react. Thankfully, it wasn’t too extreme. Charlie hid for a little bit, but pretty quickly came out to say hi and warmed up to Emmet by the end of the day. Scottie was a bit more standoffish, though thankfully he began to sniff around Emmet and his things.

As Emmet and I have mentioned, upon arrival in another city, foreigners are required to register with the police (within 24 hours). When you stay at a hotel, this is done for you. However, since Emmet was staying with me, we had to use the online system. Thankfully, we were able to get the system to work (though there was some issue with getting the photo done correctly and with selecting my address). Afterwards, we relaxed and enjoyed a delicious delivery lunch from Duli!

Friday was more low key. Even with the rainy weather, we visited the Jing’an Temple. The Jing’an Temple is one of the coolest temples in Shanghai, partly because it’s quite lavish, but also because it’s in the heart of Jing’an district in downtown Shanghai. It creates an interesting juxtaposition of the traditional and ultra-modern (there’s stores built into the outside of the temple), though the temple itself is not old, rebuilt in the 1980s and renovated in ~2010, it has been in that location since the 1200s.

As you can see, the gold trim that highlights the temple makes it feel very ornate! As Emmet pointed out, it’s interesting how this temple (rebuilt in the 1980s) features so much wood as opposed to the stone temples in Beijing. There are also many magnificent Buddha statues in the temple. However, because the Jing’an Temple along with the others we visited are active temples, I chose not to take photos of the actual Buddhas or of people praying. That said, the Jing’an Temple does feature a very magnificent 6.2m Buddha! Another fun thing to do at temples is to throw coins into these large pots. Like throwing a coin into a fountain, you add a wish of luck when you do it!

After going to the Jing’an Temple, we went to our monthly Kehilat Shanghai community Shabbat, hosted by my friends John and Alex! Sadly, this was the last Shabbat that they’ll be hosting as they’ll be moving this month. I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to introduce Emmet to many of my friends within the Kehilat community! A lot of them have heard so much about Emmet or seen him on Zoom, so it was nice to have him meet them in person!

The Kehilat Community’s been such an important part of my time in Shanghai, so I’m glad that Emmet got to join us! I look forward to joining Emmet’s Kehillat community in Beijing this month!

Saturday

On Saturday, we began the day by visiting the Longhua Temple. Unlike the Jing’an Temple, which is very compact, with a large multi-floored complex, the Longhua Temple is much more spread out and longer. The distinguishing part of the Longhua Temple is its amazing 40m Pagoda that you can see as you approach the temple! The original Temple dates back to 200 CE, but the current design (as a result of reconstruction) follows the architectural style of the Song Dynasty (~1000 CE), though most of the buildings were rebuilt in the 1880s. Additionally, unlike the Jing’an Temple, the Longhua Temple grounds are filled with many beautiful trees, including some gorgeous cherry blossoms!

Though you can’t exactly tell, the Longhua Temple is a set up as a series of different prayer halls to different Buddhas (along with smaller prayer halls on the sides). So, it’s really interesting to walk the entire grounds and see how the size and depiction of the deities changes. Having not seen the temple since 2019, I loved seeing the amazing pagoda again, but this time with Emmet and cherry blossoms in bloom! It was also neat that so many of the Lunar New Year’s lanterns were still up!

Right before Passover was the Qingming (Tomb Sweeping) Festival, a festival where you honor your ancestors. Traditionally, at Qingming, people eat Qing tuan, a green mugwort dumpling filled with red bean paste. They were selling them at the temple (which also sells other vegan foods), so Emmet and I bought some to try (they’re the green dumpling below).

Next to the Longhua Temple is the Longhua Gardens, which house the Longhua Martyr’s Cemetery that commemorates martyrs who were killed by the Kuomintang in the 1920s for being communists. The primary way that this is conveyed is through the statues on the grounds. Interestingly, many of the statues have a Greco-Roman aesthetic to them. Even with spring just starting, the grounds are beautiful, especially the lovely bamboo gardens.

Right near the Longhua Gardens, we saw a Toyota Prius! As some of you know Emmet and I (and both of our parents) all used to drive Toyota Prius’s (our Mom still does, our Dad now drives a Nissan Leaf). Though I’ve seen lots of other Toyota cars in Shanghai, I hadn’t seen a Prius since moving to Shanghai! Electric cars are incredibly popular (there’s a Tesla factory outside of Shanghai)! While I don’t need to drive here (or want to), It’s exciting just how much of the car/bus infrastructure is electrified.

Following our visit to the Longhua Temple and Gardens, Emmet and I walked back to downtown Xuhui. One of my favorite parts of walking around in the spring is that there’s so many flowers! On our way back to the area closer to where I live, we walked by Xujiahui park (where I often run) so I could show Emmet the gorgeous flowers there!

Although Emmet wasn’t able to go visit the SJTU campus (it’s unclear how unofficial guests can be brought on to campus), we did get to walk by the downtown SJTU campus near Xujiahui! Even though I don’t work at that campus (and haven’t actually been inside since the lockdown), it was nice to show Emmet part of the campus.

We then walked around the absolutely gorgeous Former French Concession and went to lunch at Godly, one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai, which happens to be over 100 years old. The Former French Concession (which extends from the SJTU campus to near where I live) is one of my favorite parts of Shanghai! From the French plane trees that line every street to the gorgeous architecture (you’ll see a lot more photos), it’s one of my favorite places to walk or run (when it’s not too crowded)!

While in the FFC, we saw these humongous (and very well behaved) dogs! There were at least 30 people petting and photographing them! Following lunch at Godly (more on food at the end), Emmet and I did a bit of shopping at a bunch of different stores, mostly looking at some of the cool anime/manga statues and toys! While we’ve definitely slowed down in what we’ve purchased (we can’t buy everything that looks cool, we only have so much space in our suitcases), it is always fun to go to the different stores, whether it be X11, Popmart, or Uniqlo and see what they have! I’ll share some of the anime highlights from this month at the end.

Afterwards, we went and saw Shazam: Fury of the Gods at the IAPM mall! Emmet and I are huge DC Comics fans. Prior to moving to China, we saw all of the DC movies together. So, this was actually the first one we’ld seen together since the first Shazam movie in 2019. This was only the 2nd movie I’ve seen in theaters while in China. The first was Wonder Woman 1984 in December of 2020 (at that time, there was no fear of COVID in Shanghai). If you recall, I never got to see The Batman in theaters, because it opened in China just as Shanghai was entering the lockdown. One interesting thing was that there were no previews, the movie just starts. I’m not sure if this is because it’s a foreign movie or if previews just aren’t a thing here.

I loved Shazam: Fury of the Gods! Just like in the first one, Zachary Levi and the rest of the cast do an excellent job at portraying what it’s like for Billy Batson and his foster family to gain super powers. It was great fun to see Shazam battle Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu along with a slew of mythical monsters! The fight scenes and the effects were fantastic! While, I think I still preferred the first film, it’s still a lot of fun and definitely a movie everyone can enjoy! Though maybe my favorite part was getting to see it with Emmet!

After such a full day, we spent the evening hanging out in my apartment with Scottie and Charlie! As you can see, Charlie fully embraced Emmet as a member of the family (i.e., someone he can climb on or cuddle with) and Scottie was starting to warm up to Emmet!

Sunday

On Sunday, we began the day by going to the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum! Given that this museum is as close as I can get to finding a little personal history in Shanghai (though to the best of my knowledge none of my family escaped through Shanghai), it’s probably unsurprising that I’ve been here many times. That said, despite some of the more propaganda aspects that are weaved into the narrative of the museum (mostly towards the end), it’s still an excellent museum. So, I was glad that Emmet had the opportunity to visit! While I’m not sharing a ton of photos, you can see more in past entries or on Emmet’s blog.

The first part of the museum is my favorite, it tells the story of the Jews who escaped persecution from the Nazis and fled to Shanghai. It also interweaves some of the history of the Jewish families (namely the Sassoons and Khadouri’s) who came to Shanghai for business in the late 19th century. That earlier history, which is not the emphasis of the museum, is something I am fascinated by. I’ve gotten to learn about it through talks with Historic Shanghai. There’s also the excellent book, The Last Kings of Shanghai, which I look forward to reading. Part of the reason I like the first part of the museum the most is that it uses personal narratives, through items, pictures, and testimonies shared by people who lived or grew up in Shanghai. While some of it is repetitive, you get the sense of how difficult it was to live in Shanghai. In the 1920s, Shanghai was a small port town, not the gleaming metropolis of today. While the area of the Former French Concession was nice and affluent, much of the Jews lived in the Hongkou area (and were ultimately forced to live there when it became a Jewish ghetto), which was smaller and less developed. Below, you can see some of the Judaica and personal objects/pictures that caught my eye.

The second part of the museum, which I didn’t include photos from tells the story of the Holocaust. Since it’s unclear to me what history of WWII is taught in schools, this is important to include to contextualize why this museum exists in the first place. Weirdly, this is juxtaposed with an exhibit of Jews who assisted the communist party, which feels out of place. The last part of the museum, which you can see are tablets with the names of people who came through Shanghai. So, if you or someone you know has family who escaped through Shanghai, let me know and I’d be happy to look them up!

Unfortunately, the Ohel Moishe synagogue (probably my favorite part of the museum, since the inside is still set up to look and feel like the synagogue it was when it was built) was closed when we went. Hopefully, Emmet and I will get to visit again!

After the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum, we went to the nearby Xiahai Temple. This is a much smaller, local Buddhist temple. However, it was still really neat to see! Unlike the other temples, this was originally a temple to the sea gods and later turned into a Buddhist temple. My favorite parts were the dragon statues as well the distinctive yellow coloring!

After our visit to the Xiahai temple, we went back to downtown Shanghai for a fantastic lunch at Vegetarian Lifestyle (also known as Jujube)! After our delicious lunch, we went to the nearby Jing’an sculpture gardens! This is one of my favorite places in Shanghai (especially in the springtime)! My friend Shimi took me there in 2020 to see and photograph the tulips. However, in 2021, I went too late and many of the tulips were already dying. Of course, I missed out on all springtime related activities in 2022, so I was so glad that I could enjoy it with Emmet this year! For those of you wondering, the sculptures are there year round, but the tulips are only there for ~ 1 month.

As you can see, the tulips, along with the sculptures are absolutely amazing! My favorites are the Bulls and the Ostriches! You can see that this was one of the areas that we went to that was incredibly popular and it’s obvious why! One of the other really cool parts is that there’s also a more traditional Asian garden. There was even a neat student art exhibit set up in that area!

After going to the Jing’an sculpture gardens, we went on an extended walk to People’s square and then to Fuxing park (for those longtime readers, that’s the area where I lived during my first year in Shanghai)! I hadn’t been back in a while, so it was fun to see that area, especially in full spring bloom! While Emmet had seen some of those places during his first visit, it was nice to share all of the different places that were an active part of my time in Shanghai with him!

Afterwards, we did some shopping in Tianzifang, somewhat of a shopping and artist area near the French concession! We were able to get some cool statues and some gorgeous scarves! I’ll definitely be back to pick up a few more gifts before I leave!

On our way home, we even stopped by F45 so that Emmet could see where I work out most mornings and meet the friendly cats! After such a long day, it was so nice to spend some time in the evening relaxing with Scottie and Charlie! Plus, as you can see, by Monday morning, Scottie had completely warmed up to Emmet and even sat on his lap!

It was such a fun visit! I’m so glad that Emmet was able to come visit Shanghai again! It was so much easier without all of the COVID restrictions that were in place during Emmet’s last visit! I’ll be visiting Emmet next week (we’ll get to celebrate our birthday together!!). It’s so nice that we’re able to see each other every month!

The one thing we need to get better at is arriving to the train station early. We definitely cut it closer than desired. Emmet arrived at the 8:00am train at 7:55 and was the last person allowed to board. Thankfully he made it, marking a fantastic end to a wonderful weekend together!

Astronomy in Shanghai

With all that happened this month, you may think that I’m not spending that much time on research. However, even with the new and exciting position in Nottingham, I’m still devoting the vast majority of my time to Astronomy research. This month, I officially signed my contract to join the University of Nottingham in September! There’s still a lot of visa paperwork I’m working through, but things are definitely moving in the right direction.

Even though things are dragging a little with finalizing the luminosity function paper, I’ve already started some follow-up analyses looking at the impact of larger radial apertures and the magnitude gap on galaxy populations within clusters. We have some interesting, though modest findings so far, but there’s definitely more for me to investigate.

I’ve probably spent the most time working on Project Low-z, my project with Emmet! It’s definitely fun to work together and since we’ve both been working on cluster science for a long time now, feels great to collaborate! We have some very promising results updating the low-z COBRA clusters to newer SDSS data and also cross-correlating the catalog with SDSS redMaPPer! Moreover, we have some interesting findings related to the mass distribution of bent radio sources vs other radio sources. The goal is to get this analysis drafted and written up this summer so that we can submit it before I move!

I’ve also been working on some follow-up ICL analyses, looking at the ICL in the entire redMaPPer cluster sample. Mostly I’m looking to determine whether there’s any correlation between the ICL and the magnitude gap to determine whether both processes result from central galaxy hierarchical growth. This is something that I aim to continue to do throughout my postdoc at Nottingham, so it’s great to get some of this started with my DES collaborators and friends Yuanyuan and Ricardo!

Zu Group Retreat at Zhujiajiao

This past weekend, the Zu Group did a research group retreat and mini-conference (a series of presentations) at Zhujiajiao (a water town that’s on the outskirts of Shanghai)! Due to the food difficulties (vegan + the last day of Passover) I only spent Friday there, but it was a great opportunity to both explore Zhujiajiao and also present my work and hear what many of the graduate students have been working on!

After the presentations and group lunch, I spent the afternoon with some of my colleagues exploring Zhujiajiao! It was really cool to see the water town, full of bridges and canals. Though the shopping was a bit similar to a lot of different tourist places I’ve been. One unique highlight was the pungent scent of stinky tofu that permeated Zhujiajiao. While I generally love tofu, I still can’t get over the smell of stinky tofu (the smell did not make me want to eat it).

We also went to an interesting nearby park that had cool statues of famous people (writers, artists, and scientists)! Here are some of my favorites!

My Ph.D. Supervisor, Chris Miller, visits Shanghai!

Additionally, my Ph.D. supervisor Chris Miller is currently visiting China (he has a colleague at USTC in Hefei). Chris came and visited Shanghai last weekend and it was wonderful to be reunited and to catch up and talk about research, my experience in Shanghai, Michigan, and my new position at Nottingham! Other than Emmet, Chris is the only person that I know who’s visited China since my arrival, so it was really nice to show him around the Former French Concession!

Chris will be in China for the next month, so we’re planning another visit so he can give a talk at SJTU (Plus he’ll be at the conference Emmet and I are going to in Huangshan next month)! It’ll be nice to get to see him again in person before he leaves! For those of you interested, it is possible to get visas to China; however, flights still remain rather expensive and PCR testing is required to enter China.

Life in Shanghai

As I said in my last blog post, I’m trying to make the most of my last few months in Shanghai, so as you can already tell, I’m doing a bit more (making sure to see and experience as much of this city as possible). That said, I’m still making time for going to F45 or going running! Unfortunately the air quality hasn’t been great for the last couple weeks, so it’s been more of F45 than running. That said, I am definitely getting stronger and it’s a lot of fun to work out at F45 (which has a Nottingham branch)!

Outside of Emmet’s visit, here are a few other highlights I wanted to share with all of you!

Anime Exhibit

As many of you know, Emmet and I are huge anime fans! So, when I saw that a nearby art gallery was doing an exhibit of anime animation cells (the drawings and cutouts that are used to make anime), I jumped at the opportunity to go! They had art from a lot of series I’ve enjoyed including Dragon Ball Z, Once Piece, Naruto, Slam Dunk, and Astro Boy! They also had pieces from Sailor Moon, Detective Conan, other works by Osamu Tezuka, and multiple Miyazaki films.

Being a fan of both comics and manga, it’s a lot of fun to see the process of how anime used to be made! So, I’m glad I had the chance to see it!

Jade Buddha Temple

On my way home from the anime exhibit, I went to the Jade Buddha Temple! I hadn’t been here in ~ 3 years. It was just as stunning as I remembered. However, the biggest shock was that I realized that the last time I visited, I hadn’t actually seen the Jade Buddha! I was so glad I decided to come by and visit! As you can see, this temple is something of a combination of the Jing’an Temple and the Longhua Temple. It’s in the middle of the city (surrounded by skyscrapers), but is set up in a similar manner to the Longhua Temple, such that there are many prayer halls with progressively larger Buddhas. Interestingly, the Jade Buddha is in the back, offset from the rest of the temple, which explains why I missed it last time. This temple was built in the 1880s when two jade Buddhas were brought to Shanghai from Myanmar. I had seen the smaller reclining Buddha (there’s also a larger marble reclining Buddha next to it), but this time I got to see the sitting Jade Buddha as well!

As you can see, the architecture and the grounds are pristine! I’m so glad I was able to visit it again and this time see the Jade Buddha!

The Yuyuan Flower Festival

This month, Yuyuan (the Yu Gardens) hosted a Flower Festival to celebrate Spring! As many of you may remember, I love the Yu Gardens! They’re one of my favorite places in Shanghai! The flower festival was a mixture of the lantern festival style decorations with flowers along with a temple fair, with traditional vendors! It made for a great afternoon on a beautiful day! Plus it was fun seeing some of the Lantern Festival lanterns again!

As you can tell by so many of the photos I’ve shared in this update, one of my favorite parts of Shanghai in the spring is all of the lovely flowers! Whether it’s walking or running by the nearby Xujiahui Park or just walking around the city, I love how vibrant and full of life Shanghai feels in the spring. After not getting to experience it last year, I’m so glad that I did this year!

There are also so many other interesting things to see just walking around. From interesting statues, to advertisements, to street art, you never know what you’ll see! While some of these are things I’ve seen before, it’s nice that so much of the city is recognizable to me!

As usual, there were also a ton of cool anime and manga things that I saw! Some of these were at toy stores while shopping with Emmet, but it’s still really neat to see some of my favorite characters in regular stores instead of just part of a subculture.

There were also these really cool Pokemon sculptures at one of the Malls in Xintiandi!

Although Charlie and Scottie are my favorite cats, there are a lot of street cats in Shanghai. It’s almost impossible to walk somewhere without seeing a cat. While many of them are looked after (in particular the ones who live in residential neighborhoods or the F45 cats), some are more feral. Many are friendly, so I sometimes try to carry cat treats with me when I walk. I’m glad so many of them are looked after.

Scottie and Charlie

As you’ve already seen, this was a fun month for Scottie and Charlie! They got to meet Emmet! Thankfully, Scottie and Charlie (Charlie in particular) have warmed up a lot to guests. While they’re still somewhat startled when people knock on my door, they are now much more friendly with my Ayi and when I have had friends over! That said, I’m so grateful that I had them last year during the lockdown. They provided so much love and comfort then and they continue to be such wonderful companions!

As you can see they continue to be incredibly adorable together!

They are so photogenic when they’re sleeping or just hanging out!

Charlie also reached the shelves in my bathroom for the first time! While Scottie can jump up unassisted, Charlie had to jump from my back to get there. While Scottie is bigger, Charlie is definitely a bit more curious and I was glad he finally got up there! That said, Scottie was not thrilled and came up to shove him out.

Food in Shanghai

Since this month I had Emmet’s visit and Chris’s visit, I had a lot of really delicious meals!

First, We enjoyed a delicious delivery meal from Duli! We had the Gangbao pizza with tofu, a dumpling soup, and chickpea-cauliflower baozi! The boazi are one of my favorite dishes!

We then had a delicious meal at Godly, the 100 year old vegetarian restaurant! We enjoyed kaofu (spongy seitan), fried vegetarian duck (tofu skins), fried mushrooms, sword beans, tofu hot pot, and a stir fry with seitan and vegetables. The seitan in the stirfry was super soft and unlike the texture I normally eat! I think the seitan and vegetarian duck were my favorites!

Next we enjoyed a fantastic meal at Vegetarian Lifestyle (Jujube)! We enjoyed pear juice, sword beans (one of my favorite dishes to eat and cook), fried mushroom skewers, vegetarian chicken (seitan) with a spicy sauce, braised tofu (that melts in your mouth), a stew of vegetarian fish (tofu) and pickles, and lions mane mushroom baozi! The baozi were so much fun to eat! I think the baozi, mushroom skewers, and sword beans were my favorites!

When I met up with Chris it was during Passover, so when we went to Duli, I had to pick dishes I could eat. I enjoyed a berry and banana smoothie, mapo tofu hummus (I didn’t eat the pita), a delicious salad, dan dan potato gnocchi, and a tempeh and king oyster mushroom curry! I think the gnocchi and the hummus were my favorites!

Additionally, though not vegan, when my friend Alex and I were planning the Kehilat Shanghai Community Passover Seder, we went to Bottega, a pizzeria that Emmet’s been to in Beijing. It won the award for best Pizza in Asia (which includes Australia and Japan – Japan has the most Neopolitan pizzerias outside of Italy)! We enjoyed a salad and a delicious eggplant pizza! The pizza was very light, much more similar to what I enjoyed when my family visited Italy!

Additionally, earlier this month, I went to the Jiashan market again. This time, I got some homemade chili oil, vegan energy balls (lemon and chocolate) as well as what you see below, a vegan tiramisu and vegan jiaozi (dumplings)! I love pan fried dumplings, it adds a great texture. Plus, I think this is the first vegan tiramisu I’ve had since I lived in the US! It was fantastic!

Despite all of the delicious food that I enjoyed, I still did a lot of cooking (including for Passover)! I made dan dan noodles, corn chowder, cauliflower chili, red curry noodle soup, and Emmet and I made sword beans while he was here!

Passover in China is always a little different than in the US. While Chabad does a great job bringing in matzah, they haven’t (or at least as far as I know) brought in the different mixes and cakes that I enjoyed growing up. So, I had to make some tasty food for me!

Of course, I made quite a few matzah pizzas topped with tofu and veggies. I also made my Dad’s recipe for charset, as well as a fantastic vegan matzah ball soup!

However, my biggest culinary accomplishment was a fantastic frozen desert that I made for the Seder my friends John and Alex hosted! I made something almost like an ice cream cake using a vegan mousse! It started with a layer of chocolate covered matzah. Then I added the the chocolate peanut butter mousse, followed by another layer of chocolate covered matzah. Once that set, I added the peanut butter mousse and then a layer of matzah cruch! I was so thrilled with how it came out! It was a big hit!

Jewish Life in Shanghai

As I already mentioned, this past month, we had a fantastic Community Shabbat, hosted by my friends John and Alex. It was so nice to have Emmet join us. However, this month, much of my Jewish life revolved around Passover!

I spent the first night of Passover celebrating with my friends John and Alex (and a few of their friends/colleagues)! They hosted a wonderful Seder and it was so nice getting to celebrate together before they move! Since they had already packed up their haggadahs, we used a modified version of the Zoom Seder that Alex and I had made the year before.

For the Second night, Alex and I co-lead the Kehilat Shanghai Community Passover Seder. This is the 4th Seder I’ve lead/co-lead for the community. Since the lockdown last year, one of the things that we’ve struggled with is determining how big the community currently is. So, I was thrilled that we had over 50 people join (including some former community members who came to visit Shanghai for the week)!

After not being able to gather in person, it was so wonderful to be able to celebrate Passover together as a community! I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to once again lead the community and that everyone seemed to enjoy the Seder! This Seder was my last big Kehilat Shanghai event (there will be some smaller Shabbats and trivia nights this summer), so I’m glad that we had such a wonderful group, that it went so well, and that everyone enjoyed it!

In addition to the inperson Seders, on the morning (for me) after the First night, I joined my parents for their First night Seder (their 2nd night Seder was their big one). We’ve done this the last few years and while it’s not quite as fun and special as being together around the Seder does make it seem like I’m not as far away as I am. I hope that I’m able to join for Passover in Saratoga next year and that all four of us can celebrate together in person in the coming years!

What I’m Reading and Watching

This month, I didn’t finish reading any books (I’m in the middle of the Best of 2019 Sports Writing). However, I did read all four volumes of the French Graphic Novel series Ogre Gods (it’s unclear if more will be published), which was fantastic! It tells the story and history of a world in which there’s a tribe of Giants that rules over a small kingdom. However, the kingdom is plagued by interbreeding among the giants until Petit, a human sized giant is born who has the potential to change everything. I loved the way the narrative between volumes shifted perspectives and time periods. It’s really great, with excellent art, and I’d definitely recommend it!

In terms of TV, I finished the 1st season of Shrinking on Apple TV. Shrinking was created by some of the creators of Ted Lasso, including Brett Goldstein (who plays Roy Kent) and tells the story of a Psychiatrist (played by Jason Segel) whose wife unexpectedly passes away and is left picking up the pieces of his life and raising his teenage daughter with the help of his friends, neighbors, and colleagues. While dealing with very real and human emotions and situations, the show has a similar positivity and attitude to Ted Lasso and I found it incredibly enjoyable! Plus, there’s excellent performances by the main cast including Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, and Jessica Williams! I’d definitely recommend it! I also finished watching the 2nd season of Game Theory with Bomani Jones on HBO Max! Bomani Jones is an ESPN talking head who I was first introduced to on Around the Horn and now listen to his 3x per week podcast (The Right Time). Bomani does a fantastic job of adding his critical perspective, intellect, and wit to topics in each week of sports. This is like a late night show about sports, but also offers a needed social commentary about many of the sports infrastructures. While not as evergreen, it’s definitely worth a watch!

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you so much for reading. I know this month was a very long update, but there was so much that I wanted to share and with my time in Shanghai coming to an end wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything! Next month, I’ll share some of the highlights from my trip up to Beijing! If you have any questions about anything that I shared or anything else related to life in Shanghai, please reach out and let me know!

In peace,

Jesse