Welcome to Astronomer in Shanghai! Thank you for following my blog and for your interest in my life and 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 what the world can look like after a recovery from covid-19 begins, which can only happen by following the practices listed above. Once things improve (which is not now), I hope you enjoy small gatherings with friends and family. I’m sure you’ll find these interactions meaningful and enjoyable. In Shanghai, life has returned mostly to normal.

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Life in Shanghai

I hope that this latest entry finds all of you safe and healthy. Even though 2020 has been an incredibly trying year, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I hope all of you were able to reflect on what you are thankful for. Moreover, I hope none of you made the decision to gather in large groups. While I know that this may have been difficult, in order for the covid-19 situation to improve, it’s paramount that people continue to maintain social distance practices, minimize your pod to only essential people, and generally avoid unnecessary contact and large groups.

It’s hard for me to disentangle the political and covid-19 situations in the US. So, I want to reflect on some of what’s been happening. It’s frustrating and scary that the covid-19 situation in the US is so out of control. There are over 13 million recorded cases in the US. The only other country with anywhere near as many cases is India. It frightens me that so many people were selfish and traveled or gathered in large groups. I fear that between now and Christmas, this number will only drastically rise, and thousands of people will die. I find the continued absence of empathy or acknowledgement of wrongdoing by the current administration incredibly problematic. This is not just a failure of leadership from the current (and soon to be former) President, but from the entire Republican party (Mitch McConnell’s selfish refusal for a stimulus package). Its abundantly clear that this party only cares about their own personal well being and not the greater good of America. Moreover, the pardoning of Michael Flynn is very problematic because it is a precursor to what will surely be Trump’s attempts to pardon himself. I don’t understand how so many people were so delusional as to believe that Trump was fit for office, let along doing a good enough job to warrant 4 more years. I remain scared by the division that I see from the outside when looking at the US. This division is illustrated not only in the political rhetoric and cries of a rigged election, but in the response to the seriousness of covid-19. I hope that the incoming Biden administration can assuage some of my fears, but I fear that the continued polarization of American may have reached a point of no return.

Now to transition out of politics, This was another very productive and busy week for me research wise. I finally sent off my DES Stellar Mass – Halo Mass paper to my collaborator! 🙂 So, hopefully, I’ll be submitting that paper to the collaboration in the coming week or two. I also spent a lot of time working on my Luminosity Function research. I’ve optimized the codes I used for this analysis so it’s now significantly faster than it was previously! We’re looking at the different ways we can measure the background galaxy counts, which have yielded some surprisingly interesting results. I’m also continuing to work on my DES-ACT high redshift galaxy analysis and started to measure the intra-cluster light (the faint diffuse light that surrounds a central galaxy), which is cool! Lastly, I’ve been back finalizing the analysis for my SMHM magnitude gap vs central + N satellites analysis (a project I started in March). Hopefully, that’ll be quick, because most of the paper is already written!

Outside of Astronomy, this week was dominated by preparing for Thanksgiving (lots of cooking)! In preparation for the feasting (and in an effort to burn some calories), I went running twice. It’s still warm enough to wear my short tights, which is nice, though the temperature is now down to the 50s (lows in the 40s). Additionally, on Sunday, Moishe House organized a post Thanksgiving cardio HIIT workout using resistance bands and bamboo poles, which was a lot of fun! So, I definitely got enough exercise in to counteract the feasting.

During my runs and walks I saw a lot of cool things, including a really neat Peanuts exhibit that I’ll have to go back to take a closer look at!

I thought the high rise with the Chinese pagoda on top was really cool as well!

In addition, there were some other fun highlights this week! On Tuesday, Kehilat Shanghai and Moishe House did our monthly trivia night at Tacolicious! This time, I had the pleasure of being the host. I wrote two rounds of questions, one on Judaism and Food and a second on Things people are Thankful For. It was another fun night! Though next time I hope I get to play instead of just hosting. 🙂

Additionally, the combination of the workout and Moishe House Thanksgiving allowed me to spend some time with my favorite animals! The Moishe House kitten (tentatively named Osiris) is adorable. Plus, I also got to see Kate and Ilan’s fluffy and friendly dog Pina!

In addition to the fun stuff, I also got my flu shot on Friday. I went to a local clinic (thanks to Shimi and Heather for the help setting it up) and it was nearly identical to my experience in the US. The only difference was that I needed my passport.

Thanksgiving in Shanghai

For those of you who are longtime readers, you may recall that last year, I didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving, which was a depressing. Thankfully this year was quite different. I was invited to two separate Thanksgiving celebrations on Friday night and Saturday night.

On Friday night, Moishe House hosted a Thanksgiving Shabbat! There were over 30 people in attendance. There was so much delicious food! Since turkey is so expensive they opted to do a vegetarian thanksgiving (which made me very happy)! I brought homemade stuffing (my Mom’s recipe). I also helped Hannah Maia make lentils with mushrooms, onions, squash, and a miso maple syrup sauce, which we then stuffed inside pumpkins as the centerpiece!

Other than the stuffing and Lentils, we had challah rolls, mushrooms, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, salad, cranberry relish, green beans, and just a ton of other delicious food. For desert there were a plethora of pies as well as delicious homemade gelato (chocolate, vanilla, salted carmel, and earl gray with blueberry swirl).

The Moishe House Thanksgiving feast was followed up by another night of delicious food and wonderful company hosted by Heather and Shimi! We had a smaller 15 person celebration on Saturday. On Wednesday, Heather and I had made seitan as a vegetarian main course, which turned out fantastically! I also made more stuffing as well as orange cauliflower, which was a huge hit! You can see pictures below. 🙂

This was another night of delicious food and even better company! In addition to what I had made, there was macaroni and cheese, potato salad, bread, cheese, edamame, and cranberry relish (plus some meat items). For desert we all enjoyed a delicious pumpkin pie that Heather had made as well as Chocolate cake and banana pancakes! Overall, it was a delicious and satisfying meal filled with great conversation with friends!

Before I conclude, I want to reflect on how lucky and grateful I am. First, I realize how fortunate I am to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with so many wonderful friends because of how China has handled covid-19. I know that for many of you, this was a particularly difficult holiday because you made the smart and safe decision and decided not to be with loved ones. While I’m sure that was difficult, I know that next year’s celebration will be that much sweeter. I also want to acknowledge and thank all of my friends who helped me celebrate Thanksgiving! After a year of not celebrating the holiday, it was so wonderful to celebrate with so many close friends here in Shanghai. Whether it was collectively enjoying the delicious food or the many interesting conversations I had over two nights of feasting, I am so grateful to have so many friends here to celebrate with. Lastly, I’d like to especially thank Heather and Hannah Maia for hosting two amazing Thanksgiving celebrations. I’m so grateful to have both of you as my close friends! Whether it’s celebrating holidays together, making jam, collaborating on events, discussing important topics such as anti-racism, or working out, I’m really thankful to have you both in my life! Thank you for being such caring, supportive, and fun friends!

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to thank my loving and supportive family. While I haven’t seen them all in over a year, I sent them flowers to let them know I was thinking of them. Even though I’m half a world away, thank you for being so supportive of me. Whether it’s talking about research or talking about life, I’m so grateful to always have the three of you to talk to, Thank you for being the best parents and brother that I could ever hope for.

I also want to make sure that you (my readers) know how grateful that I am for all of your interest in my life and experiences in Shanghai. It’s been a wonderful way for me to stay connected with family, friends, and community members back in the US and I’m so glad that you all get so much enjoyment out of it! Thank you for your continued support!

As you can tell, this was a very eventful, but wonderful week, filled with lots of research progress and even better celebrations with friends and family. This upcoming week will definitely be quieter and likely be quite research dominated, but I’m sure I’ll have a few fun things to share!

I hope that you enjoyed hearing about my Thanksgiving celebrations and seeing all the delicious food. If there’s anything you’re curious about with regards to my life in Shanghai, please let me know.

In peace,
Jesse