Welcome to Astronomer in Shanghai! Thank you for following my blog and for your interest in my adventures in Shanghai! As covid-19 continues to plague the US, and you are (hopefully) wearing masks when you go outside and are social distancing, I hope that my blog highlights that the world can recover from covid-19 by following these practices. Once things improve, I hope you’ll look forward to small interactions with friends and family. I’m sure you’ll find that these interactions meaningful and enjoyable. In Shanghai, life has returned mostly to normal. Since outbreaks may still occur, it’s important that you wear masks and cooperate with social distancing guidelines so things improve.
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Life in Shanghai
I hope that this latest entry continues to find all of you, your families, and your friends continuing to be safe and healthy. As the covid-19 situation continues to get worse throughout the US and Europe, I hope that all of you are being smart. Please wear masks, continue to practice social distancing, work from home (if possible), wash your hands, and generally be cautious and smart. Even though covid-19 is no longer directly impacting my life in Shanghai, the situation elsewhere keeps it constantly at the forefront of my mind. So, please do everything you can do to be safe. The last thing I want to hear is that one of you is sick.
For the last time this election cycle, I want to encourage all of you to vote. While I’m happy to report that many of you have already voted, I want to encourage all of you to make sure that your friends, neighbors, and students (most importantly) have voted. America is in desperate need of change and this is our opportunity for improvement. While a single election won’t eliminate the polarization, division, racism, and hate that exists and is being sown throughout the US, by electing Vice President Biden and Senator Harris, we can go a long way in repairing the lasting damage that the current administration and it’s enablers have done. Hopefully, next week, I’ll be telling you how I celebrated with friends after the election.
In terms of covid-19, the situation in China remains under control. The numbers continue to creep up in Shanghai. However, we’re still dealing with an incredibly small number of cases. Moreover, all of these are imported of cases, where the people are tested immediately upon arrival into the Shanghai airport and are not allowed elsewhere or home until after they are no longer infectious. So, China is taking strong precautions (what the US must do) to prevent a second wave. In total, there are 100 active cases in Shanghai, which corresponds to a recovery rate of 90.9%. In Beijing, there are currently 4 cases. In total, for China, the recovery rate is 94.3%.
In terms of research, this was a fairly productive week. I went in to the office twice. It’s a nice 25 minute walk to the bus from my new apartment! As I started working as part of the Telescope Allocation Committee for the DESI secondary proposals, much of my week was spent reading over these proposals (most of which were very interesting). So far, it’s been an interesting experience serving on the Committee, though with daylight saving time, the meetings will be later, which will mean more late nights. I think that it’s been very beneficial to learn what topics are important for other areas of Astronomical research. Additionally, I spent more time working on my Luminosity Function analysis as well as starting my analysis of the higher redshift (out to z~1.0) DES-ACT clusters. So, I’m currently balancing a lot of different and interesting research projects!
In addition to my work, I went for 3 runs! I’ve really enjoyed using my runs as opportunities to start exploring the areas surrounding my new apartment. Also, on Thursday, I went running with Heather! This was the first (hopefully not last) time I’ve gone running with anyone here in Shanghai and reminded me of running in Saratoga with my Dad, Boston with Emmet, or Ann Arbor with my friend Juliette! The streets are wide enough, so it was really nice to talk to someone throughout my runs instead of just being plugged in to the latest episodes of the many podcasts I enjoy. 🙂 Below are some highlights from my runs and walks around Xuhui!
This week was Halloween! From my understanding, Halloween has been imported to China via the ex-pat communities. Many bars, stores, and restaurants put up decorations and host parties (some for kids , too). I saw lots of people (both ex-pat and Chinese) dressed up. However, I don’t think that trick or treating happens, and there’s definitely no explosion of the candy market like what happens in the US. However, it was a fun excuse to hang out with my friends and dress up! On Saturday night, Moishe House hosted a Halloween Party at a Roller Skating bar! Sadly, the actual skating rink was much smaller than I expected, which made skating a little difficult. However, it was still a lot of fun!
For my costume this year, I went as the Milky Way Galaxy!
I used cardboard and glow in the dark star stickers to make the Milky Ways spiral arms! I thought it was a really great costume! Plus, I now have some decorations for my bedroom! 🙂
However, the best costume went to my friends Kate, Ilan, and Pina, who dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood, the woodcutter, and grandma! If you look closely, you can even see that Pina is wearing glasses! 🙂
Following Saturday’s Halloween festivities, on Sunday, Moishe House hosted another party, this time a joint birthday and goodbye party for Lucky, the dog that they’ve been fostering. Lucky will be going back to Israel to be with her family. The Israeli government is chartering a flight to return pets of Israeli citizens who were left behind in China. So, while we’re all happy that Lucky gets to go home to her family, we’ll all miss her at the Moishe House!
As you can see Hannah Maia got Lucky an adorable birthday cake, made of chicken and cheese.
Just as the Moishe House lost one pet, they’ve actually gained another. Daniel found a tiny abandoned Kitten in their complex and decided to take it in and care for it (and essentially adopt it). So, on Sunday, I got to spend some time playing with a very tiny and incredibly cute kitten! It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to play with a cat, so I really enjoyed it! The kitten is about 3-4 weeks old, so I’m sure I’ll share some photos as it grows over time!
So, as you can see, I had a very fun, animal, and friend filled weekend! I’m really glad that I have so many friends here in Shanghai so that I’m always able to do fun things when I need a break from work!
Jewish Life in Shanghai
On Friday, I was invited to another of the Kehilat Shanghai Family Shabbats! Even though I don’t have a family here in Shanghai, it’s really enjoyable for me to be invited to these and I’m grateful to continue to be included! It’s been a wonderful opportunity to get to know a lot of the different community members as well as get a sense for what’s important to the community. It also brings back fond dinners with my cousin Margaret and her family while I was living in Ann Arbor!
Overall, this was a very nice and productive week! I’m still really enjoying my apartment and I got to do a lot of fun social activities with my friends, while also getting to play with their pets! Next week should be another productive research week, but I already have some fun activities planned as well!
I hope that you enjoyed seeing my Halloween photos and the photos of Lucky and the new kitten! If there’s anything you’re curious about, please let me know.
In peace,
Jesse
Hi Jesse,
I’m so glad you were able to have a fun Halloween! That is a great costume and will look fantastic on your wall! Our Halloween festivities consisted of making Halloween themed sugar cookies and eating candy corn while watching Enola Holmes. It sounds like you got the much better time. How was the roller rink, other than small? Did it have the typical disco ball and play 70s music? I think the last time I was at one was during senior week at Brown. I really like Kate and Ilan’s costumes, too! I’m glad you got to have a send off for Lucky! I’m sure he will be missed. I hope he liked the cake, it looked great! That is a very cute kitty! Does it have a name yet? I’m glad you went to the family Shabbat and are enjoying being a part of the community! I’m also glad that you got to do more running. I really like the pictures you shared. I’m glad the research and DESI TAC are going well (sorry about the late nights). Keep me posted on the DES-ACT project, since that’s right up my alley. Anyway, I hope you have another safe and Productive month and hopefully the number of cases in Shanghai stop creeping up! Hopefully we’ll know who the president is by next weekend and be celebrating a Biden/Harris win.
Love,
Emmet
Hi Emmet! Thanks! I’m glad you liked my costume! I’m glad you guys did something fun for Halloween! The roller rink was fun, they did have skates that were just barely big enough for my feet. However, it was small and crowded, which made it hard to continually skate and not just start/stop. Sadly no disco ball or 70s music. It was nice getting to see Lucky one last time and she did love the cake! The kitten is adorable. It hasn’t been named yet. I’m just starting the DES-ACT project, but I’ll keep you in the loop throughout. I hope that you also have a safe, healthy, and productive week!
Hi Jesse, Another very enjoyably informative post. Loved your costume. It reminded me of a Purim many years ago when my brother, Leslie and I dressed as tramps. OK we won a prize at our synagogue for our costume but one of my best friends who was not Jewish told his mother who told mine that when he saw my brother and I walking to the synagogue (it was about five minutes from our tenement in Glasgow) he never knew that we were so poor (we lived in a very working class area of Glasgow). Our raggedy clothes fooled everyone.
I cannot imagine the criteria that one needs to use to agree to allow a research team (or individual) precious time to use a telescope. Is the telescope involved optical – in which case I would imagine that the time is even more limited (daylight is out; cloudy weather is out etc). Radio and other ‘scopes might have more possible time but then do the observations require extensive periods of time? Observational time must be one of the most scarce resources on the planet and the n umber of projects asking for time must be relatively speaking enormous.
Covid -19 given its likely origins and given our (human) increasing encroachment on wild animals and given our increasing ability to engage with others face to face across the globe would seem likely to be a precursor to many similar pandemics , pandemics whose mortality rates are as likely to be far greater than this one than not. And given the US’s clear inability to treat seriously public health, with people on the radical right – let me call them fascists – claiming that GOOD public health practices are encroachments on their “civil liberties” (no one – NO ONE can tell them not to gather; no one can require that they wear masks to protect others; no one can tell them that they cannot run factories or retail establishments as they wish, is a recipe for death rates beyond the imagination. It’s true, though, that in the not too distant past, states and the federal government was wont to use quarantine and other public health practices as instruments of control with regard to immigrants and would be immigrants; minorities about which “authorities” were concerned were about to exercise political power that would call into question the supremacy of White “Christian” males… (complex interstices here) and indeed, Trump has been using this virus to restrict immigration and asylum seekers, but there is a world of difference between good public health practices and public health practices that are invoked for political (not party political but political in the context of power and control) reasons and Fauci and his team and other independent scientists who have no axes to grind other than axes of science (and it is true, that “science” can be other than objective when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity and gender and authority and power; and can use “algorithms” that are not sufficiently rigorously inspected for their inherent biases (Tuskegee syphilis “experiments” on African Americans continued WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT until 1972 and the US government engaged in sterilization of “feeble-minded” women in the 1920s (The US Supreme Court permitting this as perfectly legitimate in 1927) with the Nazi’s using this as their model during the holocaust. So, while we must not view science in the abstract as beyond reproach – it is after all a set of human practices – we must nevertheless agree to use those practices when we feel that due diligence has been taken to ensure that any inherent biases are acknowledged and addressed. – masks, social distancing, restrictions of all and any “large” indoor gatherings are all clear and unquestionable vectors for the spread of this virus. So our right wing “protectors” of the US constitution are now causing upwards of 90,000 new cases a day in the US. G-d help us!
Stay safe.
Hi Bernard! I’m glad you liked the costume. You’re Purim story sounds very funny! In terms of the telescope, DESI is an optical spectroscopic survey. We’re mostly determining which projects have strong scientific merit, and which need priority due to thesis work or upcoming instruments. Then we’re figuring out how to allocate time. Ideally, giving as many projects some time as possible. I’ll talk about it a bit more in my next post.
I completely agree with your take on the covid-19 pandemic. I agree that this is sadly unlikely to be the last one in my lifetime. I agree with your thoughts on science. It is a very human practice and as such is subject to the problems that humans themselves bring in. Moreover, as you point out, there are plenty of examples of science being used in racist and morally unjust ways. However, I agree that we do need to put faith in scientists rather than in politicians and that we must try to improve the situation. Hopefully we’ll have some change soon.
Hey Jesse, that was an awesome costume. Very creative and it looked good! Not much going on here for Halloween (which is good); I actually kept forgetting it was a holiday. Also, it’s great Lucky gets to go home and congrats on the new (Moishe house) pet kitten! It looks super cute.
I hope you have another nice week!
Best,
Ryan
Hi Ryan! Thanks! I’m glad you liked the costume. That’s good that not much was happening in Ann Arbor, especially given the campus lock down. I completely agree with you about Lucky (who will be missed), and the new kitten! Hope you continue to stay safe and healthy!
Hi, Jesse.
I enjoyed following your outings this past week. Your Halloween costume is fabulous. I know when we talked on FaceTime that you were really undecided on what to be for Halloween, but you came up with an idea that is so perfect for you and astronomical in how well it came out! The stickers look fabulous on the arms of the Milky Way, particularly in how they glow in the dark. And how sweet of Hannah Maia to get Lucky a send-off cake. I know how you will miss him.
That is an adorable kitten, Jesse. I don’t think I ever interacted with such a tiny kitten. All our kittens were three months old and weaned by the time we brought them home, so I never bottle fed a kitten. But I remember the fuzzy fur that will change as the little kitten gets bigger. Of course, with the kitten’s orange coat, it makes me think of our Lee. Have you come up with a name for him (I say him because most orange cats are male)? If you don’t have a name yet, you might consider calling him Keeper–that fits in that you found him and are keeping him, and it is the name of Emily Jane Bronte’s beloved dog. Just a thought.
Halloween was quiet here–we enjoyed Enola Holmes! I delivered Halloween treat bags to children I am close to, and everyone seemed to enjoy the treats and candy. I bought sponge candy bars from Fowler’s, so I am excited to try one. Of course, Emmet got a bag, and I wish I could make one for you, too! One is never too old for Halloween candy.
Good luck with your research. I hope you and Chris and Yuan Yuan can finish that paper soon, and I hope we will have much to celebrate next week with a Biden-Harris win.
I love you and miss you.
Mom
Hi Mom! I’m glad that you liked my costume! I will miss Lucky, she’s a very sweet dog, but at least other of my friends have pets.
I don’t think I’d ever interacted with a kitten that tiny either. He’s really adorable though. He did remind me a little of Lee (at least in coloring). I think I’ll let Daniel and Hannah Maia name him though.
I’m glad that Halloween was quiet, but it’s nice to hear that you did some fun activities. I also hope that Chris, Yuanyuan, and I can wrap up the paper soon. I hope that you have a safe and healthy week!
That was your first time running with anyone?? Wow, it’s been a while!! I always think about you when I run south on Washtenaw then east on Stadium by the middle school, since we took that route surprisingly often!
That’s a really cute kitten!!! He’s so small!
Also, nice costume 🙂
Hi Juliette! Yeah, it was the first run with anyone! The combination of the pandemic and crazy hot summer made helped contribute, but also not a ton of my friends are runners. I remember the run by the stadium and middle school! That was one of my favorites! The kitten is adorable. I’m glad you liked my costume! Hope you and Michael are doing well!