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Life in Shanghai
My fourth week in China was very busy. Unlike previous weeks, I made progress in finishing the necessary paperwork to setup my life in China! On Monday, I went to the Shanghai Talent office to submit my work permit application, which is needed so I can be paid by SJTU and get my resident visa. Thanks to the help of Guoping (the Astronomy Dept. secretary), I got this application fast-tracked and received it on Tuesday! On Wednesday, I went to the entry-exit office to apply for my resident visa, which should arrive this week! So, hopefully, I’ll share that in my next post.
To submit these forms, it is vital to go with someone who speaks Chinese, which I do not. Thankfully, I went with Xiaokai, a graduate student working with my mentor Prof. Ying Zu, for the work permit and my fellow postdoc Jiaxin for my resident visa application. While the agents speak some English, Xiaokai and Jiaxin made sure that all my questions were answered! 🙂
As you can guess, I’ve been commuting a lot around Shanghai (I have a ~75 minute commute). So, I’ve seen a lot more cool art and advertisements!
I’ve also gotten a better sense of the Chinese people, especially on my daily commute, where everyone is attached to their phones, either watching tv shows, using WeChat (the main social media and messaging platform), or calling. Phones are used for everything from communication to pay here. In terms of clothing, many school students (at least younger ones) wear basic western style uniforms. However, downtown, many people my age wear western style clothing with American brands (Nike and Disney are popular). So, in terms of dress, my comic book, sports, and music t-shirts don’t stick out too much.
In terms of everything else (i.e., there aren’t many tall white men with long hair and beards), I do. A few weeks ago, while walking on Fuxing road, a women came up to me and asked to take a selfie with me (which we did). She gave me an orange as a thank you! Given that people, especially children stare, I doubt this is the last time that happens.
Also, for those of you wondering, I did see some Halloween decorations!
In terms of actual Astronomy, I’ve been organizing an every-other-day AstroCoffee for the departments graduate students and postdocs to present recent papers. It’s been fun coordinating with the Postdocs and feels great to help create something lasting (hopefully). I’m also making progress on my own research. Next week, SJTU hosts the First Shanghai Assembly on Cosmology and Galaxy Formation, which I get to present at! So, this upcoming week I will focus on the conference and preparing a presentation.
Despite the hectic work week, I did do some fun things. My main adventure was visiting the Longhua Temple. This is an amazing temple (which is actually made up of many different shrines to different Gods/versions of the Buddha). Additionally, Longhua has a 40m Pagoda building!
The 40m pagoda! 
Me next to it! 
One statue of the Buddha. 
There were flowers all over the temple. 
Another shrine to the Buddha! 
Lanterns! 
A phoenix!
Despite my pictures, this is an active temple. On Saturday, there were hundreds of people praying and making offerings. This is the third Buddhist temple I’ve visited, which has allowed me to recognize some of the common motifs at these temples. While the Jing’an temple was the most ornate, this temple was equally impressive in terms of scale! Seeing all these temples has made me really want to learn more about Buddhism. Other than Osamu Tezuka’s masterpiece, Buddha (a manga series that’s definitely worth reading), I haven’t learned much about Buddhism before moving here.
Next to Longhua Temple is Longhua Park, which houses beautiful gardens as well as monuments to the martyrs who died during the Communist revolution. I spent Saturday afternoon relaxing and walking around the park. It’s beautiful as you can see! I would love to return to the park in the spring/summer when the flowers are fully in bloom. This is a peaceful and huge expanse of greenery right in the middle of the city!
I also was able to go for another run on Sunday morning. This time, I went to some of the other parks that are near my apartment (< 1 mile away). I’ve seen a few other runners on other days (a mixture of ex-pats and locals). However, the parks usually have people doing other exercises, like Tai-Chi, stretching, and even dancing!
Food in Shanghai
This week I cooked! I’m still eating lunch at the cafeteria with my fellow postdocs, but it is great having a home cooked and healthier dinner. Interestingly, all the faculty and staff eat lunch (and sometimes dinner) at the cafeteria.
My first meal! 
Green Honeydew 
Dragonfruit
My first meal in my new apartment was a tofu and vegetable stirfry with peanut sauce! I was able to get so many different kinds of vegetables and there are a ton of different kinds of tofu: firm, silken, fried, fermented, and tofu skin. There’s also different kinds of gluten (seitan), which I can’t wait to try as well. I’ve also been trying different fruit, including green honeydew, dragon fruit, and not pictured, a pomelo.
On Wednesday, I cooked with my friend Julia! We made another tofu-vegetable stir fry along with some roasted brussel sprouts and Israeli salad! It was a lot of fun cooking together and I’m really happy that I’ve been able to cook more in Shanghai, instead of eating all my meals at restaurants and the cafeteria.
Tofu and Vegetable soup 
Fried tofu skin with bamboo and mushrooms 
Vegetarian Duck (tofu) that I got at Longhua temple
Despite cooking, I found another vegetarian restaurant near Longhua temple! Shanghai has a lot and I look forward to trying more and finding some favorites!
Jewish Life in Shanghai
This week, I joined Kehilat Shanghai for Shabbat. The Kehilat was joined by a group of tourists visiting from Brazil, who were in Shanghai to learn about the history of the Jews in Shanghai (see my previous post for photos from the Jewish Refuge Museum). Ironically, the women who I sat next to at Shabbat dinner is a hebrew scribe and colleague of Rabbi Linda, my childhood Rabbi at Temple Sinai (in Saratoga)! Despite being in a city of 26+ million people, it’s funny seeing how small and interconnected the Jewish world is.
I hope that you enjoyed hearing about my fourth week in Shanghai, As I mentioned earlier, this upcoming week is the First Shanghai Assembly of Cosmology and Galaxy Formation, so participating in the conference and preparing my presentation will occupy most of my time and energy, so next week’s post will talk about that experience. As I said in the beginning of the blog post, I’d love to hear from you, so if you have any questions or comments, please comment on the blog and subscribe!
Until next week!
In peace,
Jesse
Great post Jesse! I’m glad you’re enjoying the Buddhist temples. It’s a fascinating religion with a pretty rich history. I really enjoyed learning about the Japanese Buddhist prospective in undergrad. The parks and statues look amazing as always. Was that a giraffe statue/ad? Very cool. Enjoy the conference this week!
Thanks Emmet! I’ll definitely try to learn more about Buddhism while I’m here. The Giraffe statue was attached to a store called Giraffe. I thought it looked really cool!
Hi, Jesse. It was a wonderful post, and the pictures really drew me in. I felt as if I were with you on every adventure–from the parks to the temples and the culinary experiences, too. The flowers look amazing now, so I am excited for you to be able to see those parks in full bloom in the spring. I particularly enjoyed the story about the woman who asked you to take a picture with her and gave you an orange for a selfie–just think! This could be a side business for you if you run short of funds–will take selfies for food. Just kidding, but it will be interesting to know if you get other requests like this again. And how small the world of Jewish geography is–to think that the woman sitting next to you from Brazil knows our own Rabbi Linda from our town of Saratoga Springs. Like Emmet, I was struck by the giraffe statue, and I noticed the cat advertisement, too. Good luck on getting ready for your conference, and I cannot wait to read your next post. Much love, Mom.
Hi Mom! I’m glad that you are enjoying my writing and photos! I’ll definitely post about any other photo requests. One of the visitors from Brazil (that I met on Shabbat) said that that had happened to her as well.
Cool !
What did the front of the sculpture of the huge man lying on the grass/emerging from the ground look like?
Can you send another picture?
Loved the Phoenix!
What does dragon fruit taste like?
Xox
Hi Aunt Pam! Unfortunately I don’t have another photo of the statue of the man coming out of the ground. So, I’m not sure if it was partially buried or different pieces. However, I’ll definitely visit that park in the spring and find out when I do! Dragon fruit has a subtle flavor. There are two varieties (one is purple/pink on the inside and the other is white). It’s kind of sweet and has edible seeds, which are crunchy and sweet.
Hi, Jesse. You are really becoming quite talented at writing blog entries that make your readers eager to come back for more. Both your stories and photographs are wonderful! Now the question is will the self-assignment of a Blog entry each week drive you to do interesting and new things each week or will the regular events of your life in Shanghai move you to write such wonderful entries? In either case, I am eager to read more!
I loved the selfie story. In Italy, we three longhairs didn’t even get an orange.
Love, Michael
Hi Dad! Thank you for the compliments! I’m glad that you are enjoying the blog. For now, I think both my desire to explore my surrounding and have more cool photos to share has driven my adventures more than needing to update the blog. I forgot about the three longhairs in Italy. So, I guess wherever I go people will ask for photos. 🙂
Hi Jesse!
I very much agree with your parents! Your posts are so wonderful and I always look forward to hearing about your adventures and seeing all of your pictures. I can’t remember if this was answered in a previous blog post, but any of the Jews that are “regulars” at temple, how did they end up in China? Are they mostly students or long-term visitors? Or are they generally tourists and are temple goers changing from week to week? (That was so cool that you met someone that knew Rabbi Linda!) On a different note, when you go grocery shopping, are the foods labeled in English? How do you know what you are buying? Good luck at and enjoy your conference!
Hi Peri! I’m so glad that you are enjoying the blog! Thanks for those great questions!
The other people who join Kehilat Shanghai are a mixture of ex-pats living in Shanghai and visitors (both from other parts of China and around the world). Of the people I’ve met who live in Shanghai, it’s a lot of people who moved here for work (mostly business/manufacturing industry) as well as a few students. The community is a nice mixture of Americans, Israelis, Australians, and Europeans.
When I go grocery shopping most things are in Chinese. Some have English, like Kellogs corn flakes and skippy peanut butter. For the non-produce that’s in chinese, I use the baidu-translation app, which allows me to take pictures and then translates the image.
So cool! This must be such an awesome way to experience Judaism! And of course there would be an app to translate images! Again – very cool!
Wow looks great!! It’s interesting that many people eat lunch (and dinner!) in the university cafeteria. That kinda reminds me of a US tech company rather than a university!!
75 minutes is a pretty long commute though, are you able to get anything done on the commute (email / read papers / ??)?
And yay running 😀 You mentioned that it was a mix of locals-non locals – does it seem like a larger fraction of runners are non-local than the fraction of just people living in Shanghai? I would be interested to know how popular running as a past time is in comparison to in the USA!
Hi Juliette! Thanks for sharing those great questions.
I think the main reason that people eat at the university is that the food is subsidized so that it’s very inexpensive ($1-2) instead of $10 at a normal restaurant. There’s also not a lot of close restaurants (the campus is very large and most are about a 15 minute walk).
So far, I’ve mostly listened to podcasts and tried to unwind on the subway. Once I get my university ID card (should be soon), I’m going to try to take the shuttle between the Xuhui (near where I live) and Minhang (where I work) campuses of SJTU. I’m planning to do reading on that since It’ll be less crowded than the subway.
I don’t think I’ve seen more foreigners running than locals. I think it’s pretty popular here, but I’m not sure I’ve run by any popular running spots yet.
Hey Jesse! Good to hear that you’ll be paid soon – I’m sure that will be helpful 🙂
It’s great you were able to take some time from your busy week to explore Longhua Temple – it looked pretty cool! And I’ll definitely have to check out the “Buddha” anime.
I don’t quite remember: is Kehilat Shanghai the place you’ve gone each week for Shabbat? Is there more than one Jewish temple in Shanghai and if so do you think you’ll explore the other ones?
Good luck with conference week! I’m looking forward to hearing about it!
Hi Ryan! Thanks for commenting. I’m not sure there’s an anime of Buddha (there may be a movie), but you should definitely check out the manga. It’s great!
Kehilat Shanghai is the group that I’ve been joining for Shabbat each week. They don’t have a set building, so each week we go to different restaurants or spaces and have a Shabbat service and dinner. In addition to the Kehilat, there’s 3 different Chabad centers in Shanghai. However, Chabad is much more Orthodox than the kind of Judaism that I practice. In contrast, the Kehilat generally follows progressive Judaism, which is in line with my customs. So, while I’ll likely visit the Chabad’s at some point, at this point, I’m very much enjoying the Kehilat Shanghai Community and will likely stick with that.
Hey Jesse!
Love reading your posts! It sounds like an adventure at every turn. I think it’s cool you’ve embraced the celebrity status of frequent selfies with fans! I’m really impressed you were already able to grocery shop and navigate furnishing your apartment in Shanghai! Keep up the good work and have fun!
-Alex
Hi Alex! I’m really glad your enjoying the blog! It’s definitely been a fun experience discovering and exploring Shanghai so far!
Hi Jesse-
Just want to say hi and tell you how much I’m enjoying your news and all the photos!!! It looks amazing!
Take care –
Amy
Hi Amy! Thanks so much for following the blog. I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
hi jesse, no need to post this, just wanted to let you know that i’ve dipped into your blog and it’s good… the writing is well structured, the photos and experiences are interesting and well selected. who knows, maybe there’s an english teacher or two in your past.
dan
Hi Dan! Thanks for the compliments on the blog! As someone with tons of experience living in different parts of the world, I’m glad your enjoying hearing about my experiences.
Jesse: Just jumped onto the blog, courtesy of your mom. Very impressed how professional, well written and well-constructed it is! Blog-reading is a totally new experience for me, and I am looking forward to your subsequent posts!
Hi Uncle Grant! Thanks for subscribing! I’m glad you’ve been able to read it and are already enjoying it!