The Shanghai History Museum

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Now, onto this week’s adventures!

Life in Shanghai

For the first time in Shanghai, I had a normal week. There was no more paperwork to fill out and no more offices to visit. It was so nice to have a calmer week. The only life update is that I got an air filter. While I haven’t found the air quality to be that bad (only on a few occasions), getting an air filter was highly recommended, so it’s been nice to have that in place. So far, it seems to be working quite well.

In terms of Astronomy, this was a fairly productive week! I finished the initial draft of my DES paper on the Stellar Mass – Halo Mass relation and it’s evolution (part of my dissertation). So, hopefully, my Ph.D. advisor Chris Miller and I will be able to finalize the paper and send it to the collaboration before the year is out. We also ran our second week of AstroCoffee at SJTU. This week, many of the graduate students in the Zu group presented for the first time!

Alhough this was a normal week, I still wanted to do something fun. So, I visited the Shanghai History Museum (located in People’s square).

This museum focused on the history of ancient Shanghai, as well as the more recent history of the city. The second floor featured ancient artifacts (similar to those from the Shanghai Museum).

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On the upper two floors, there were paintings, photographs, and historical documents relating to Shanghai’s recent (1900-present) past. Shanghai’s history is fascinating. It’s a city that has gone from being over-run by British, French, and American colonizers to being conquered by the Japanese in WWII, to being a central location in the Communist Revolution, to being one of the largest and economically dominating cities on the planet. The museum offered me a lot of insight into Shanghai’s history. Which, prior to visiting, I really hadn’t learned anything about.

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I was surprised to see that there was a display honoring the Jews of Shanghai. Shanghai was one of the only cities in the world that allowed Jews to emigrate during the Holocaust. While the story presented is exagerated (it was mostly one person whose actions allowed this), it is a story that Shanghai is incredibly proud of.

While I was at the museum a group of teenage boys came up to me and asked to take a picture with me. While I’m still not sure whether it’s the fact that I’m a foreigner, American, or just a tall guy with a beard and long hair, this is starting to occur regularly.

One thing I found fascinating was a video exhibit highlighting the new landmarks in Shanghai. Much of what I’ve seen (the Bund, People’s Square, the airport) were built in the last 20 years. So, if you visited Shanghai prior to 2000, you may not recognize the city! Shanghai is constantly changing. Everything is built fast here!

I also had plenty of time to see a lot of interesting buildings and beautiful scenery! Some photos were things I saw on Sunday during my 6.2 mile run (my longest in Shanghai!). It was still warm this weekend, but this upcoming week, it will start to be colder (in the 50s). However, if it doesn’t get too cold, maybe I’ll work my way back into running half marathons again!

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There are a lot of cats in Shanghai. I don’t know if these are people’s pets or strays. However, most are friendly and I know people who’ve adopted street cats. However, given my busy lifestyle, I don’t think I’ll be adopting a cat anytime soon (even though I love cats!).

Also, there’s a Tim Hortons in Shanghai! Seeing this near People’s Square brought back fond memories of going to Tim Hortons in Buffalo for lunch when I would visit my grandparents!

Also, as many of you know, I listen to a ton of podcasts, including Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal. This week, they discussed the issues package delivery causes for traffic congestion and the environment. If you’re curious, China may have solved this problem. When you order anything, it is delivered first to a regional delivery hub (by medium size trucks), then taken by electric motor scooter to your apartment. So, it minimizes the traffic for bigger trucks and the carbon footprint because the scooters are electric. Additionally, electric cars are really popular here!

Food in Shanghai

I’ve continued cooking a lot here! This week, I made my Dad’s vegetarian meatballs (which are his grandmother’s recipe from the depression). It’s one of my favorite dishes. I wanted to make something that reminded me of home for the week of Thanksgiving.

I also tried a bunch of different fruits and other food. My colleague Jiaxin brought in raw jackfruit (which is often used as a vegetarian protein). It was very good! Hopefully I’ll be able to get some to eat or make a jackfruit dish soon! I also had a fantastic lunch at one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants!

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All the food I’ve had at restaurants has been fantastic! It’s really quite different than the American style Chinese food I’ve been accustomed to in the US.

Jewish Life in Shanghai

This week, I joined the Young Jewish Professionals group at Kehilat Shanghai for Shabbat dinner! While I’d met a few people before at other Kehilat events or at Moishe House, it was really nice getting another opportunity to meet people who are my age. One was working on his Ph.D. Two others work in higher education, helping Chinese students and universities connect with American and Western Universities for study abroad programs and for recruiting Chinese students. It was nice meeting people who are in similar fields to what I work in!

Additionally, I spent Sunday afternoon at the Moishe House’s bagel brunch. I’m really surprised that I can get a good bagel here. It’s been fantastic that I’ve found the Jewish community here to be so friendly and welcoming. Combined with my friends at work (mostly the other postdocs), it’s helped make this transition much easier!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s entry! This should be another relatively normal week. I’m hoping to make more progress figuring out my research plans/goals for my postdoc. To those of you in the US, I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving (I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing to celebrate). If you have and questions or comments, please let me know and subscribe!

Until next week!

In peace,
Jesse