Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re all doing well and staying safe and healthy! For those of you in the Northeast and other cold weather parts of the US, I hope the winter hasn’t been too chilly and you haven’t had too much snow. Here in Beijing, spring is starting to creep in (it was a very mild winter with hardly any snow). Before I dive into what I did this month, obviously China has continued to be in the news for most of February. On the COVID front, life in Beijing has returned to normal. Although I continue to wear a mask, outside of when I’m on the subway, I’m definitely in the minority. The reports from a few different news outlets here have somewhere between 80% and 90% of the population of Beijing getting COVID in December/January, which is insane. Interestingly, just this past week, China announced that they had successfully defeated COVID and that every action here made was the correct action. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this is putting the most positive spin possible on everything that has happened over the last 4 months. While China seems to have weathered its first real COVID surge since 2020, it didn’t leave unscathed (just about everyone believes the COVID death counts are severely under-reported, the economy hit a tail-spin, and there was real public unrest). If you’re interested in hearing more about this, I highly recommend listening to the most recent episode of the Drum Tower podcast (which is from the Economist), entitled “Decisive victory?”, which does a great job discussing the ongoing societal ramifications of COVID Zero. While I understand that people are excited that COVID restrictions are over, I do think this victorious attitude is a bit concerning, because COVID isn’t gone forever. As all of you in the US know, COVID comes in waves and if people aren’t getting vaccinated (and the health care system isn’t optimized), then we’ll just wind up in a vicious cycle of COVID cases.
Additionally, February has been an interesting month for US-China relations. Between the balloon and the more recent lab-leak report, there has been a lot of US bashing in the Chinese news. Obviously these are two drastically different issues, but given that both sort of put China and the US in direct competition, I would say things could definitely be better. While I haven’t been directly impacted by any of this, it’s definitely a concern. While I think much of the world is pretty unsatisfied with the Chinese response to the balloon crisis, I really can’t speak to the likelihood of the lab-leak theory. However, in general, the constant bashing of the West (including China’s recent statements on trying to end the war in Ukraine), especially when portrayed against the propaganda infallibility of China, can be frustrating at times.
Now, on to the fun stuff!
A Visit to the British School of Beijing
Early in February, one of my friends from the Vegans of Beijing asked if I would be interested in visiting her Kindergarten class at the British School of Beijing. As I always enjoyed visiting my cousin Alex’s elementary school classes when I was in Boston, I was excited to visit! The kindergarteners had done a unit on the planets, so I was really excited to answer all of their questions! When the fifth grade teachers heard that I was coming, they asked if I could talk to their classes, and I was more than happy to visit them, too!
I gave a presentation to all three kindergarten classes, so there were probably ~50 – 60 Kindergarteners eager to ask space questions. Although I had prepared a slideshow highlighting the solar system and other fun astronomy images, I always find that school visits work best when the I let the students just ask questions. I was a bit nervous with the Kindergarteners because they’re so young, but once I said who I was, they were ready to ask questions! There were lots of questions about the sun (why it’s hot), the size of the solar system, and the moon (and how it formed)! Overall, I was really impressed with the questions from the Kindergarteners!
After visiting with the Kindergarteners, I got a short break before presenting to all of the 5th graders. This time, we were in the auditorium and there were probably close to 100 students. Like with the Kindergarteners, I prepared a presentation, this time focusing on how Astronomers do Astronomy (i.e., how telescopes work) and then everything from the solar system, to exoplanets, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and my personal favorite galaxy clusters. This time, I could barely get through the first slide before the students started raising their hands to ask questions (the teachers had given me a heads up that the students would have lots of questions – they did a unit on space before the Lunar New Year break and were also excited to have a visitor in school – the school (and all Chinese schools) had basically been closed to anyone who isn’t a student or teacher due to COVID). And boy, did they ask fantastic questions. Lots of questions about black holes, the number of stars in the galaxy, terra-forming other planets, galaxies, how one becomes an astronomer, and even questions about JWST and ALMA (I’m really glad I had my slides, because a lot of times, they helped to show answers to the students questions)! While I was originally slated to have about 30 minutes, the students were so enthusiastic and kept asking questions that we went for almost an hour (and if they didn’t need to stop for lunch, they could have kept going even longer). It was so great to see their enthusiasm and interest in space! I will say, that with all of the students, it’s definitely hard to make sure that everyone can ask a question who wants and I definitely tried to work my way around the auditorium, but I was so glad that the students really did enjoy my visit! The teachers also were really pleased with how enthusiastic everyone was and I hope that I’ll be back sometime in the future!
Although I don’t have any pictures of the visit that I can share (since they all have lots of kids in them), I can link to an article that the British School of Beijing posted about my visit! Also, I do want to show some of the photos of the school, which I thought was really nice! While I haven’t been in a school for a while, everything here was very shiny and new and had a real international vibe (with both Mandarin and English). As with most/all of the international schools, a lot of the teachers, are foreigners and all of the students are required to have a foreign passport (although some of them are ethnically Chinese). Although I obviously spend most of my time doing science, it’s so nice when I can do some outreach and get people excited about space!
Also, although I don’t have an photos, I must say that Shunyi, the district where the British School of Beijing is, has some of the most American looking suburban style housing complexes I’ve seen here. If you removed the Mandarin street signs, I could have been in a rather nice development in Wilton!
Beijing Royal Fighters vs the Jiangsu Dragons
On Wednesday, I got a message from the secretary in charge of the postdocs asking if any of the foreign postdocs would be interested in attending a professional basketball game (the Chinese League is the CBA – Chinese Basketball Association). As I think many of you know, I’m a huge basketball fan and really enjoyed getting to go to games in Boston (mostly Celtics-Jazz games with my friends Mike and Phil), so when I got this message, I knew that I wanted to go. Thankfully, I was able to get a free ticket and Tom, who just got back from the UK, was also able to join! So Thursday night, I ventured down to the Olympic Sports Center to go see the Beijing Royal Fighters play the Jiangsu Dragons!
Although I’ve been under the Olympic stadium on the subway multiple times a week, I’ve never seen the Bird’s Nest lit up at night, so that was really cool to see! The game was held in the National Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium, which hosted some of the handball in the 2008 games. Beyond this being the first sporting event that I attended in China, this was also the first sporting event I’ve been to go to since I went to a Jazz-Celtics game in March 2020 (almost 3 years ago, and just a few days before the NBA shutdown due to COVID). With all of that, it was a bit surreal to see a game in person!
As you can see from the photos, the stadium was pretty packed! I didn’t really know what to expect, because Beijing has two teams, the Beijing Ducks (see the pun!) and the Royal Fighters. Much like the Knicks and the Nets in the NBA, the Ducks are definitely the more famous/more popular team. However, the Royal Fighters coach is Stephon Marbury (if you followed the NBA in the 90s and early 2000s, you might remember him – he was one of the first NBA players to continue his career in China and he’s become a national icon in terms of basketball here – and he even has a green card). Not too surprisingly, Stephon Marbury definitely got the loudest cheers! While I won’t give you a play by play breakdown of the game, I will say that not being terribly familiar with the level of the CBA relative to the NBA, I thought the play was quite good. Sure there were definitely a few more sloppy plays, but it’s a competitive league! And boy, did we get a good game. The Dragons came out to a hot start (they’re lead scorer is former NBA player Antonio Blakeney – for those of you who aren’t familiar, each team is allowed to have three foreign players, with many of them coming from the US), but the Royal Fighters clawed back taking the lead in the second and hanging on to it until midway through the 4th quarter. With about 5 minutes (of game time left), Tom asked me if I thought the Beijing lead of 8 points was safe and I said all Jiangsu needs is a few made baskets and unfortunately for Beijing, that’s what happened and the Beijing Royal Fighters lost 89 – 94.
Despite the loss, it was a ton of fun and I’m so glad that Tom could join me! Beyond the game play, I think the atmosphere was surprisingly American (or at least a facsimile of an NBA game). In particular, the soundtrack of the game could have been taken right out of the TD Bank North Garden in Boston (although the music was mostly the muzak version of the songs). The announcer’s were constantly cheering on the Royal Fighters with the Chinese equivalents of the typical “Defense” chant and other cheers. The refs even dressed like NBA refs! There were a few differences from an NBA game. In particular, the stadium is obviously much smaller than an NBA arena. Additionally, you can’t go anywhere in an NBA arena without seeing a place to buy food and team merchandise. Here there were only one or two places to buy team gear and food. I did get a cool scarf, though (also the food portions were normal size, but that’s to be expected)! Additionally, although the NBA has their dance teams, the cheerleading routines were far less athletic and had a 1950s aesthetic, which was a bit odd. Regardless of the differences and the Beijing loss, the game was great and it was a great night, so I’m so glad that I could go!
February’s Vegan Market
February also saw the return of Vegan Markets in Beijing (ok, there was one in January, but I was still a bit hesitant about crowds at that point, so I didn’t go). These are some of my favorite events in Beijing, not just because of the delicious food, but also the great music, and getting to see some familiar faces (given how large Beijing is, outside of the Jewish community and the Astronomy Department, I think I’ve only run into people I know around the city less than 10 times in the last year and a half). This month’s market had a Valentine’s Day theme, and I stocked up on a ton of delicious food!
As you can see from the photos, I got some delicious vegan mac n’cheese, savory crepes, mock baozi, focaccia and pretzels!
I also got tons of delicious sweets! Including a delicious mini apple pie, vegan chocolate caramel cheesecake, vegan strawberry yogurt, and lots of yummy other goodies! While I love to do my own vegan cooking, it is so nice to be able to buy some tasty ones, too!
Vegan Chinese Cooking Classes – Spring Pancakes
February also brought the return of the Vegans of Beijing Chinese cooking class. This month, we made spring pancakes (chunbing in Mandarin). We did this in honor of the Lunar New Year (also called Spring Festival) because spring pancakes are the traditional food of the beginning of spring (signified by Lichun, ~ two weeks after the Lunar New Year). Similar to when we made baozi, we made the spring pancakes first and then a variety of different fillings! For those of you unfamiliar with chunbing (I know I was!), I think the closest thing I’ve had in the US is moo shu pancakes (I have no recollection of the filling for the moo shu pancakes I’ve had in the US, so I can’t compare that, but I think texturally, the pancake is similar). It’s a paper thin dough, which you stuff yourself with a variety of different fillings.
I want to say that while the English word is pancake, these are nothing like Western-style pancakes! The dough is surprisingly simple (just two parts flour to one part water with a little salt). We rolled the dough until is was very smooth and then let it rest while we prepped the ingredients for the fillings. In terms of making the actual pancakes, we cut our dough into eight pieces and then flattened them by pushing it down with our hand. We then put a bit of oil on the top of each dough circle and then placed two of them together. We then rolled them until they were approximately the size of a small tortilla and cooked them in a pan (the pancake is also sometimes traditionally steamed, but we didn’t do that). After they were cooked (they looked a bit like tortilla), you pull the two pieces apart (almost like you would for a pita pocket – to get a really thin pancake!
Once we had the pancakes made, we went about cooking the fillings. We made three different fillings. The first filling was stir fried chives, rice noodles, carrots, and mung bean sprouts. We needed to chop everything (other than the mung beans) into really fine strips so that we could saute them quickly. One of the things I really love here is the use of the rice noodle to add a little textural difference to the bean and the sprouts! I also hadn’t used Chinese cabbage before, so it was interesting to see how it’s cooked (traditional Chinese dishes very rarely include raw leafy greens). Because of the simplicity of the sauce (just soy sauce), the pop of the different veggies really comes through!
The second pancake was probably my favorite! It was a stir-fried mushroom and potato pancake. I’ve made a lot of different mushroom and potato dishes in these classes and they always end up being both delicious and different from the previous ones! We cut the potatoes into very small matchsticks and then sauteed them with chili and garlic to gave a nice spicy potato and mushroom dish!
Lastly, we made a stir-fried pickled cabbage and mung bean noodle pancake. While this was probably the simplest prep (since we bought pre-pickled cabbage), the cooking was the most involved as we needed to cook down the noodles and cabbage with a fair amount of water until they were soft and the dish had an almost scrambled egg like look. All of the dishes were delicious and could have been eaten without the pancakes, but it was really fun to assemble them ourselves and make some delicious pancakes! I’ll definitely be making these again soon!
Life at Tsinghua
This month, I started to go back into the office regularly. While I definitely didn’t miss the packed subway commute every morning, it’s been really nice to be back on campus. As I mentioned last month, I successfully submitted my paper (Project Radio) to ApJ (the Astrophysical Journal). For those of you who are unfamiliar with Astronomy publishing, unlike in English (the field outside of Astronomy that I’m most familiar with because of my parents), Astronomers have to pay to publish. Thus, I’ll definitely let you know the cost of this paper (I’m expecting it’ll be quite a lot given that its ~ 32 pages and has 2 tables and 20 Figures). Right now, I’m still in the waiting game. The last I’d heard, a scientific editor had been selected, but their job is to find a referee, who will usually get 4 – 6 weeks to review the paper. As such, it could be a while before I get any feedback. Still, it feels great to have this paper done!
As Project Radio is in the final stages, I shifted my focus to Project Morphology (my study of the shape of galaxies in early universe protoclusters) and Project Low-z (my project with Jesse studying low-z clusters with bent AGNs – the type of radio active super massive black hole that I wrote my dissertation on). While I wish I could say that February was a super successful month for Project Morphology, unfortunately, it was mostly spent troubleshooting various issues that I’ve had with the Galapagos code. Thankfully the astronomer who wrote the code has been incredibly helpful and we seem to have finally narrowed down the specific issue that I’m having. Right now, I’m planning on spending time tomorrow attempting to use Galfit on the images (Galapagos is an IDL wrapper that allows you to run Galfit in multi-image mode) to determine why it doesn’t seem to be working for the cutouts that Galapagos creates. I didn’t have any issues previously running Galfit on these same images, but I added a new image to better scale the detections and I have a sneaking suspicion that something went wrong there. Thankfully, I have made headway on Project Low-z, though I’m still working my way through double checking the classification of host galaxies with each AGN. While it’s a bit slow, I’m hoping to finish with that sooner rather than later so that Jesse and I can dive into the more fun science.
Additionally, I’ve started reading up on some background material for two new projects dealing with galaxy quenching in galaxy cluster/protocluster environments. One working with a postdoc at Peking University (who was a grad student at Tsinghua) to use galaxy colors to identify quiescient (non-star forming) and star forming galaxies in distant galaxy groups to better quantify how galaxies quench (stop forming stars) as a function of environment in the early universe and another working with Pablo (my colleague at Tsinghua) to use new data to analyze similar quenching mechanisms in the outskirts of more local clusters.
Beyond my science, the Department of Astronomy held its annual Year End Meeting (delayed from December due to COVID). While much of the ceremony/meeting portion outside of the chair’s speech are in Mandarin, it’s a nice way to celebrate the department. Also, I was incredibly surprised to be one of three postdocs to receive the 2022 Annual Active Postdoc Award! I know I’ve done a fair amount in the department, so it’s nice to get some recognition! Additionally, at the end of meeting, we do some musical performances! I think my love for singing and karaoke is pretty well known by now, so I wasn’t too surprised that I was asked to sing. I sang Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard from the movie musical Once (if you haven’t seen Once, I highly recommend it). It was so much fun to sing and everyone really liked it!
I wasn’t the only one who sang. A grad student in my group sang a duet in Mandarin and one of the professors did a trio with two of her graduate students (also in Mandarin, so I didn’t know the songs). While this event is always a bit of a juxtaposition – going from traditional meeting to karaoke – for those of you from BU, this would be like if at the end of a department meeting, we immediately started unplugged (but it only lasted 3 songs) – it’s a nice way to end (or in this case start) a new semester! Additionally, as part of my award and a thank you for singing, I now have more coffee than I know what to do with!
Goldie
Throughout February, Goldie has continued to be a bundle of cuteness! She loves sleeping on the couch next to me while I work (her new thing is to sit in my usual spot on the couch when I’m doing my work at my living room table). Since I’ve been going into the office, I definitely feel a bit sad to leave her alone all day, but she’s always happy to see me when I get home (and usually a bit anxious for dinner, too!). I’m so glad she’s here to keep me company!
As with last month, my apartment (or more aptly, my rooftop deck and skylight, continues to be the hot spot for the neighborhood cats. Almost every day that I work from home, I hear Goldie meowing and staring at the skylight because there’s a cat there (we even had 3 different cats stop by within an hour of one another last week!). She’s taken to sitting on the couch and staring constantly at the skylight. I still can’t tell if she’s sad she can’t play with them or if she’s just trying to get their attention, but I’m glad she isn’t shrieking in terror like my parents’ cat LC (and no, she won’t be going outside to meet them, a few of them are much bigger than here and she can’t climb like they do). I did go up on the roof to see if there was anything up there that might be attracting them, but couldn’t find anything. My guess is it gets a lot of sun, is softish wood, and the skylight is probably really warm. Also, unfortunately there’s too much dust and glare on the skylight for the cats outside to see Goldie, so they don’t know she’s there.
Jewish Life in Beijing
After nearly 3 months of zoom services, Kehillat Beijing finally returned to in person services this month (it helped that Roberta & Ted got back to Beijing). It has been so nice to see so many people after such a long time. Although I loved leading Zoom services, it’s so nice to hear other people sing (since that’s lost on zoom) and it just feels like a community when we can all be together in person. Additionally, the return of in person Shabbat’s has meant the return of Ted’s delicious Shabbat dinner’s and Roberta’s wonderful Challah! This month we had two welcome back Shabbat’s (one for Ted and one for Roberta) and a Mexican Shabbat. All three were amazing and I really missed these fun dinners! I’m so excited for some fun Jewish celebrations in the coming months, including Purim & Passover, and that we can celebrate together and in person.
Exploring Beijing
Between the various vegan events and school visits, I did a lot of exploring this month! However, the best exploring came when Daniele and I met up to attempt to visit the Ancient Observatory. I say attempt, because unfortunately, Apple Maps lied to us and told us the Ancient Observatory was only closed on Tuesdays, when in fact, it is also closed on Mondays as well. While it was disappointing, we’ll definitely try to visit again once he’s back in China. However, because we were close to downtown, we thought we’d walk around and see some of the massive skyscrapers in Beijing (including the famous CCTV building, famous for looking like a pair of pants!). Because I live closer to the historical part of the city, it’s easy to forget that there are enormous modern high-rises here, too! Also, there were a ton of fun Lunar New Year’s decorations still up!
Beyond exploring downtown, I also saw some more Lunar New Year’s decorations up this month in other parts of the city.
Additionally, I saw a ton of other cool looking buildings and signs while wandering the city (as well as some fun cars and motorcycle/scooter blankets)! Enjoy!
More Vegan Food
Outside of the Vegan Market and Vegan cooking classes, Pablo, Daniele, and I went to the Vegetarian restaurant near Tsinghua as a send off for their trips to Europe for some relevant conferences (I’m still searching for some galaxy cluster conferences this summer – there will be one in China that I’ll be attending with Jesse, Pablo, Paulo, and Richard, but it’d be fun to go to a relevant international one, too!). We had a delicious meal! We got jasmine tea, watermelon juice, “military tofu” – a cold tofu dish with a spicy sauce (really good!), flame tofu, eggplant & chickpeas, tofu skin “fish”, translucent mushrooms, fried lotus root, and chestnuts & lotus root “meatballs”. We also got some interesting quasi-desserts, little grain cakes and yam with blueberry jam (that’s the one that looks like an ice cream sundae). My favorites were the military tofu, tofu skin, and walnut & lotus root meatballs, but everything was delicious! It’s really great to have such a delicious restaurant so close to campus!
I also did some cooking of my own this month. I made a delicious hearty vegan chili, two different types of veggie burgers, and a miso mushroom soup!
China Drawings
This month, I only did one drawing, but I really loved how it turned out. It’s a drawing of a dragon lurking in the darkness and it was inspired by this dragon statue hiding in one of the pagodas at the Lama Temple. Let me know what you think!
Animals of Beijing
With the return to in person Kehillat Beijing services, I also got to see my favorite puppies in Beijing, Mimi & Honey (Roberta & Ted’s dogs). As always, they love hanging around all of us during services and begging (usually unsuccessfully for food) during dinner. Beyond them, I also saw multiple cats around my neighborhood (not just on my roof) and a few dogs, too! While I love having Goldie, it’s nice to wander past a cat, too!
What Am I Reading/Watching?
Since my last post, I’ve continued reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. While I’m inching closer to the end (less than 100 pages), I haven’t finished it yet. Outside of American Gods, I’ve obviously read a fair amount of manga and comics. I recently started reading the graphic novel series The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. I’m currently on volume 5, but one of the nicest things is that I get to read physical comics again! I had brought it with me to China, but gave it to Jesse when I arrived, so we were able to swap graphic novels that each other had read when he visited last month.
I’ve also been watching some good tv as well. While I’ve picked up a few new streaming shows that are airing weekly (I’ll discuss them when I finish them), this month I finished Tokyo Vice on HBOMax and Ozark on Netflix. Tokyo Vice is a hard-boiled crime drama set in 1990s Tokyo. It’s an adaptation of the memoir by Jake Adelstein and tells the story of his time as the first American reporter at a Japanese language newspaper and his investigation of the Yakuza. While part of me wishes that we could get a show centered around people of Asian descent without a white lead, the show does do a really good job portraying the difficulties of being a foreigner in Japan as well as the more dangerous elements of Tokyo life in the 1990s (without dipping too much into the white savior trope). While China is not Japan, I can definitely see some of the similarities between my own experience here, including foreigners creating small communities among themselves and the belittlement by some of the inability to speak the language. Additionally, although not the characteristic of Japanese society that I’m most fond of, I was glad that the show portrayed the casual anti-semitism that is unfortunately prevalent in Japan (only from an honesty standpoint to Japanese culture). The show stars Ansel Elgort as Adelstein, and the always fantastic Ken Watanabe as the honest Detective Katagiri. The show has been renewed for a second season and I’m really excited to see what happens next! As mentioned above, I also just finished the 4th and final season of Ozark. I’ve talked about it before, but Ozark is both amazing and incredibly dark and depressing. It’s really a deconstruction of how you can succeed in America by doing the worst possible things. It’s dark and hard to find anyone to root for, especially as it seems like everyone with a shred of redemption either gets their hands dirty or is killed throughout the season. While at times not the most fun show to watch, it’s always been top notch television and Jason Bateman and Julia Garner are both amazing (as is the entire cast). I was really impressed with the end because Wendy, played by Laura Linney, got a shred of redemption that I was hoping for (because she had pretty much built her path toward total destruction) by finally confronting the abuse she had from her father. It’s a fantastic show and I highly recommend it.
East Meets West
While this section is usually an array of US brands that I saw throughout Beijing, this time, I stumbled on an FAO Schwarz toy store when I was exploring downtown with Daniele and I thought you’d all enjoy seeing the wide array of toys! I always think of FAO Schwarz as the iconic NYC toy store (although I’ve never been), but it’s cool to see one here in Beijing (and given the prestige of the brand, not terribly surprising). This definitely looked way more like a store in the US than the typical toy stores (where I see all of the anime figures) that I’ve seen here (although they had a lot of cool figures here, too!). There was also a Lego Store next store, so I thought I’d share some photos from that, too!
Anime & Comics
No Astronomer in Beijing post would be complete without a look into all of the anime & comics paraphernalia that I saw around Beijing and this month is no exception. When I was in the FAO Schwarz, I wandered by a ton of gatchapod machines for anime (Demon Slayer, One Piece, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Pokemon) and comics figures (mostly Marvel movie stuff)! While I couldn’t figure out how to buy one (and neither could Chinese patrons there, too), I did take a ton of pictures.
I also saw some other cool anime figures and ton of cool anime stickers on bikes throughout the city! My favorite two were the giant gundam play structure and the cool Batman figure (that one was at FAO Schwarz and was well outside my price range).
Additionally, the unofficial Marvel movie embargo appears to have ended because I saw advertisements for Antman Quantumania around the city! While I didn’t go, I’m hoping the new Shazam movie opens here, since I really enjoyed the first one!
For those of you who made it this far, thank you so much for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed hearing about what I was up to in February. I hope you all have a lovely March and whether you’re celebrating Purim, St. Patrick’s Day, or March Madness, that it is a good, safe, and healthy month for you. I’m already looking forward to the end of the month when I’m planning to visit Jesse in Shanghai! As always, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns on anything about my life in Beijing, please feel free to reach out! Stay safe and healthy everyone!
In Peace,
Emmet
Hi Emmet! Another fantastic blog post! It’s so nice to see life starting to return to normal for you and in Beijing! I loved hearing about your school visit! It’s so wonderful that you were able to do it and it sounds like all of the kids had a fantastic time! I hope you get to visit again! And it certainly is cool to see all of the kids interest in Space! Hopefully you’ve inspired some of them to keep wanting to learn more!
The Beijing Royal Fighters game sounds like so much fun! It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been ~4 years since I went to a live sporting event. It certainly sounds like you and Tom had a fun time! I’ll have to see if I can figure out how to purchase tickets for the Shanghai Sharks. That said, The arena and everything looks very cool! It’s kind of interesting that it’s just a lower bowl. I wonder if more popular teams have larger stadiums? Or if live sports aren’t as popular in China as in the US? Still very cool to see Stephon Marbury and recognize a few former NBA players! I’m still bummed I never got to see Jimmer Fredette when he played for the Shanghai Sharks.
As always, I’m super jealous of your haul from the vegan market! I was really happen the Jiashan market (near F45) was back, but it wasn’t quite as impressive as yours (lots of tasty stuff though)! The baked goods look amazing and I’d love to try some of the chocolates or fudge (as those may travel better)! The cooking class looks great! It’d be fun to try to make the pancakes! And all three fillings look super tasty! I’m very intrigued by the last one as I haven’t tried mung bean noodles. All of your other vegan meals and cooking look fantastic as always!
I’m glad that you’re able to regularly go back to campus again! Congratulations on the award! I know that the department has its challenges, but it’s a really nice honor and definitely something you can put on your CV! Your version of Falling Slowly was great as well! That’s such a great movie! Again, congratulations on submitting your paper. I know how much work it was! It’s great to hear about your progress on Project Low-Z and on Project Morphology. I know you’ll get Galapagos figured out soon. Though it’s great that you have help with getting that working. I’m excited to pick up more on Project low-Z as I think there are a lot of really interesting results I can do using redMaPPer and their BCGs!
As I’ve told you many times. Goldie is absolutely adorable! She’s such a great companion and friend for you! It’s so nice that she keeps you company while you work and wants to sit in your spot when you sit elsewhere (Scottie and Charlie do that too, though sometimes they take my spot when I just get up to stretch or get water. It’s great that Goldie is interested in other cats, but also good that she doesn’t freak out like LC. She certainly looks very expressive! Hopefully at some point in the future you can adopt a friend for Goldie! That said, I’m sure she’s happy to have you!
I’m so glad to see Kehillat Beijing is back in full swing! All the meals that Ted prepares look fantastic as does Roberta’s challah! I can’t wait to join for a Shabbat when I visit in April! It’s so great that you have such a friendly community for you to be part of in Beijing!
I loved seeing this side of Beijing! It so differs from the parts I saw when I visited (it’s much more reminiscent of Shanghai)! I love seeing the Rabbit decorations! A bunch are still up in Shanghai, and they’re always fun to see! All the other cool art/advertisements are neat as well! I also loved seeing the anime and comics stuff as well as FAO Schwarz! It’s always interesting to see what is popular here and it’s great to see so many characters we know and love!
I hope that you have a great and productive month! I can’t wait to see you in a few weeks and have you meet Scottie and Charlie!
Love,
Jesse
Hi Jesse,
I’m so glad you enjoyed the blog post. The school visit was a ton of fun! I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to do it. I hope you can find out how to get tickets to a Shanghai Sharks game. It was fun to see. I think the Ducks play where they did basketball for the 2008 Olympics, so I assume that’s a bigger stadium. Yeah, there was just one bowl, no inner and outer bowl. I don’t know if basketball, though very popular, is quite that popular. I know Worker’s Stadium, the big Soccer stadium is huge, though. It was really cool to recognize Stephon Marbury! It is too bad that you weren’t able to see Jimmer. That would have been really cool. I’m glad you enjoyed the haul from the vegan market. March’s market is the 18th, so I can definitely pick up some of the chocolates to share with you (and maybe some vegan cheese if they have any?). We can definitely try to make the pancakes! Though probably on a day where we have time. They do take a bit of time to make. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the mung bean noodles and the rice noodles, but I still really liked the dish! It’s definitely nice to get an award. I’ll be sure to add it to my CV. It was so much fun to sing Falling Slowly! I’m glad you liked it. Thanks for the congratulations on the paper. I’m hoping to make some good headway with Galapagos and Project Low-Z this month. I’ll keep you posted. Goldie is certainly adorable! She’s definitely quite interested in other cats. She spends a lot of time sniffing the door at night, so I wonder if she smells the outdoor cats and that’s what she’s doing. She definitely is always happy to see me when I come home. It is so nice to be back with in person Shabbats this month! I can’t wait to have you come to one in April. I love the rabbit and decorations, too! I hope March is a happy, healthy, and productive month for you. I’m looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks!
Love,
Emmet
Hi Emmet,
What a delicious post… filled with amazing looking foods!
Congratulations on your award!
And great to hear that your papers are all moving along!
Sounds like you are on a roll!
Loved seeing you perform… and the visual movie combo..was cool
Such a wonderful song.., and you did a great job!
Loved seeing the pictures: the basketball game, the British school, Goldie and all the street sights and wow, that challah looks so fabulous!
Glad it’s warming up there and you are back on campus and seeing friends!
Cold and wet here… but no snow!
Have a good day Emmet!
XoPam
Ps: what was that big red pepper/ pumpkin like sculpture? A special fruit?
Hi Pam,
All of the food was amazing! I’ll definitely cook some for you whenever we’re together next! Thank you so much for the congratulations! I’m so glad you liked my singing. If I remember correctly, I think you actually recommended Once to us (and maybe sent us the DVD?). I’m so glad you enjoyed seeing Beijing through my eyes! The visit to the school was great! As was the Basketball game. It’s been unseasonably warm here this week (in the 70s), but the air quality has been terrible, so not as enjoyable as I’d like. I hope you enjoy your break in Florida! The pumpkin was some kind of ad for Louis Vuitton! I thought it looked cool, but no clue what it was advertising!
Love,
Emmet
Emmet –
Since Rabbi Linda and I retired on January 1, we have been traveling pretty much constantly doing Bread and Torah teaching and visiting family – and we just got back on Wednesday from a trip to Israel for a rabbinic conference. So it’s been a while since I have been able to take the time to read through one of your posts, and I’m so glad I did.
Your accounts of speaking to the classes at the British school (they were lucky to have you), your return to in-person work at the University, the basketball game, your cooking classes, and your sightseeing – what a change from the way things have been for much of your time in Beijing! The reports on the meals and the vegan markets, as always, make my mouth water. We always love hearing about what’s going on in the Jewish community. And thanks for the sweet report on Goldie.
Mazel Tov on receiving the Annual Active Postdoc Award! You didn’t dwell on it but I’m sure it’s a bigger deal than you are letting on.
Good luck on your paper and on your plans for the future. Rabbi Linda and I send you our best. And Happy Purim! We look forward to seeing that report.
Hi Rabbi Jonathan,
It certainly sounds like you and Rabbi Linda have been busy! I hope all of your visits with family and the conference in Israel were fun! I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed the blog post and seeing all of the photos! The school visit was definitely a highlight. It’s so nice to see so many students with lots of questions about space! Thank you for the congratulations on the award! It’s definitely nice to get some recognition! Kehillat Beijing is doing its annual Purim Shpiel this Friday, so that should be a lot of fun! We tend turn it into a political satire, but it’s a lot of fun! I hope you and Rabbi Linda have a wonderful March and continue to enjoy your retirement.
In Peace,
Emmet
Dear Emmet,
It is always a treat to wake up to your blog. I enjoyed seeing so many things. I had had the chance to hear you sing “Falling Slowly” from Once, but it was a treat to listen to it again, Emmet. I did not realize that you had won one of the Active Postdoc awards–well deserved. You have done so much to welcome the other postdocs, and you also have brought your musical talents to the department there. Mazel Tov! Now what will you do with all that coffee?
I loved seeing the basketball game, the cooking classes, Goldie, the return to Shabbat dinners with Roberta and Ted (and Mimi and Honey), and the British School of Beijing. The school looks amazing, and the children all seem so engaged. You are a wonderful science advocate! Your dragon drawing is one of your best, and I love how it is inspired by one of the sculptures on the pagodas of the Lama Temple. I hope you will get a chance to do more drawings inspired by what you see. Good luck with Project Morphology–here is hoping the kinks are worked out, and you can begin writing it up. And I am excited to know that the project with Jesse is underway, too. And isn’t it neat that the James Webb Space Telescope made it onto a postage stamp. As soon as I saw those, I knew I had to buy them. I even bragged to the postal clerk that my two sons are Astrophysicists!
I am now out of my big purple cast, but the real work begins with Occupational Therapy to address the stiffness and pain in my wrist. I am determined to get back my mobility and strength, so we can do another Zeus Fitness challenge together. I have missed that. I have accomplished a lot in my writing, though, and I think the typing helped to keep my fingers nimble while I was in the cast.
I am so impressed with your cooking skills and really am eager to have you cook some of those delicious meals when we can get together. Happy Purim.
I love you and miss you.
Mom
Hi Mom,
I’m glad you liked getting to hear me sing Falling Slowly! And thank you for the congratulations about the award. In terms of the coffee, I’ve already given some to Tom and I’ll probably give some to Richard when he’s back. I’m glad you like the drawing of the dragon! I’ll definitely do a few more China inspired drawings, too! Thank you for the well wishes on the different research projects. I think the JWST stamps look pretty cool to me! Thank you for getting some. I’d say send a letter with one, but given the mail here, it could take months to arrive. The children were definitely super engaged and it really made the time fly (though I was pretty tired by the end of it). I’m glad to hear that you’re out of your cast! I’m sorry that the physical therapy will take so long, but I’m confident you’ll get your full mobility and strength back soon. I definitely miss getting to do the Zeus challenges with you. I’ll definitely do some Chinese cooking when I see you next! I may need to adjust some of the spice levels for Dad, though! I love you and miss you, too! Stay safe and healthy!
Love,
Emmet
Emmet, As Purim begins Monday night (although for those who do, the fast of Esther begins Monday at dawn , let me wish you a chag Purim same’ach and as they say in Yiddish , a freilechen Purim (a joyful Purim.
Loved your blog as always.
So even as the Chinese appear to be suggesting that Covid is now in the rear view mirror, we in the US are seeing another uptick in the number of deaths with those not vaccinated about 4 times more likely to shuffle off their mortal coil than those who have taken advice of the various state and federal heath authorities.
The recent assertion that the DoD, I think it is , now thinks that Covid was a result of poor lab protocols in China strikes me as too coincidental given the to and fro between the US and the PRC . Certainly, the claim “we” are making is one with quote Low Confidence.. yet we are making it. sounds more like political posturing than valid scientific claims. But I really do not know.
You discuss buying vegan food and I wonder how the prices for purchasing food products compare to buying the ingredients and preparing the food yourself.
Gotta say, I never realized that it was standard practice in the sciences to have to pay for publication, and while I can understand why some publishers may view publishing papers in journals whose subscriptions are small compared to the cost of publication, I cannot but help think that many underprivileged researchers may simply not have the money , and their universities may not have the funds to routinely enable critical papers to see the light of day. And that affects us all , doesn’t it?
Those pics of your cat, Goldie, are really delightful. I have to say, that I suspect that however, dust covered the skylight I suspect that cats are very in tune to other cats in the vicinity. At least our two are and if any cat wanders into our yard, they seem to be more aware than NORAD is of non US vessels in our airspace. (they fight each other when they can’t get to the “invading feline entity”.
You mention Japanese antisemitism. When I worked in London for an Org called the Jewish Memorial Bookshop, we used to receive dozens of requests from strangers in Japan who were besotted with an interest in Judaica. anything we had in the bookstore, they wanted and they often requested very esoteric titles. And I mean esoteric titles. So , I suspect that while some people in Japan have a bizarre idea of Jews and Judaism, others are seriously semitophiles.
Not sure if I told you in my last response to your blog but I found a great recipe for spongy seitan. The secret is to add a little yeast (and sugar) . The recipe I found suggested that you add the proofed yeast to the seitan dough , but what I have been doing is adding the yeast and sugar to the water, and then making a dough. I then allow the dough to rest for about an hour (as if baking bread) and then steam the seitan for about 15 minutes after which I allow the seitan to cool for 30 minutes.. I then tear the dough which which has doubled in that time into one inch pieces and pan fry the seitan about 3 minutes on each side. The seitan is so full of bubbles created by the CO2 that it can hold all kinds of sauces.
Great to hear that you were awarded the annual active post doc award. Hearty congratulations.
Signing off even as I am trying to make some hamantaschen using not pastry dough but a yeasted dough much like my grandmother used to make when I was a kid.
Stay safe and stay well, Emmet.
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
I hope you also had a lovely Purim! We’re doing our Kehillat Beijing Purim Shpiel at Shabbat this week (it’s a hybrid of political satire the Purim story). Given the lack of transparency about COVID deaths, it will be intriguing how the government reports future COVID waves here. I’m not terribly optimistic that they’ll do much (or even say it’s COVID – just death due to something). I agree that the timing of the lab leak report is a bit suspicious. I definitely think there should be more transparency for discovering a Patient Zero for COVID and fully isolating how it came to impact humans, but I’m not ready to comment on lab leaks. So it’s a bit difficult to gauge the prices of the different vegan foods relative to the cost of the items needed to prepare because a few of the items that I assume some of the vegan bakers use (like vegan butter or vegan shortening are pretty tough to get here – they’re ~ 3 – 5x the price at Price Chopper, so that sort of skews the price). Generally I think there’s some mark up, but even the most expensive single item I got (the mac n’ cheese) was ~ $10, so nothing is super pricy. I do think things like the vegan yogurt that I can get here are far pricier here relative to normal yogurt (even though they’re both made in China, so the vegan mark up is likely a bit higher). In terms of prices at restaurants, most of the times, my share of the meals is ~ $20 – $30, which is on the more expensive by end (not fine dining, but you can get a lot of food really cheap here). The fact that we pay to publish is definitely a concern for scientists from poorer countries/with funding concerns. There are fee waivers, so I know there are work arounds, but it’s not ideal. While I think ultimately that peer review is super important, it doesn’t help that the reward for that peer review isn’t much (you get a small discount on your next paper). It certainly is something that needs to be improved (I’d also argue that the antiquated notion of charging different amounts for figures and tables is odd given that everything is a PDF now and rarely are these articles printed in magazines. You’re likely right about the other cats and Goldie sensing them/them sensing her. I often wonder if she wanders to the door during the day because one of the outdoor cats is nearby. She certainly always knows when they are near. That’s quite interesting about Japanese people looking for esoteric Judaica books. I took a class on Japanese religion in college and I know that there are tons of smaller religious branches (beyond mainstream Buddhism and Shinto) that splinter in some Western beliefs, so I wonder if there is a connection there. Your seitan recipe for the kaofu sounds amazing! I’ll have to try that. Can you send me it! I made the seitan nuggets that you suggested a while back and those were great. I’d be interested to know how much yeast there is. I hope your hamantaschen came out well! Stay safe and healthy!
In Peace,
Emmet
Emmet, I enjoyed reading your blog so much! As a retired elementary teacher, I loved reading and seeing photographs of your interaction with the students. I’m sure that the students as well as their teachers really appreciated your time and expertise. You are truly amazing the way that you have so many varied interests and hobbies. It was wonderful to read about your life and time spent on astronomy, basketball, cooking, sightseeing, singing, comics, jewish life, and of course with your cute Goldie. Thank you for sharing these experiences and congratulations on your Postdoc award!
Hi Peg,
I’m so glad that you enjoyed the blog! The school visit was so much fun! The kids were so energetic that it made my job easy – I just had to answer their questions. And it’s always nice to share what other adventures I get up to here in Beijing, so I’m glad that resonates with you. I hope you and Art are doing well!
In Peace,
Emmet