September in Beijing: The High Holy Days, Vegan Cooking, and the China Open (Tennis Tournament)!!!

Hi Everyone,

Thank you again for returning to my regularly scheduled Astronomer in Beijing blogs. I’m going to aim to get these back to the first weekend of the month. I hope you’re all doing well and staying safe and healthy. I know for many of you, that September is the start of the school year/new semester, so I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying that. For those of you who are Jewish, “L’ Shana Tovah!” I hope you had a lovely Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (yes, my last post was posted after Rosh Hashanah, but I didn’t include it in that post, so bear with me) and a wonderful Sukkot and Simchat Torah, too! Also, in regards to yesterday’s news from Israel, I’m praying for peace to return and a swift end to the war. I hope that the Israeli people are doing okay and that if any of you have family or friends that they are safe.

Here in Beijing, the fall is starting to get underway. The leaves are just starting to change and more importantly, the weather has finally cooled down. The high temperatures are now in the 70s with low temperatures in the 40s and 50s, meaning we have crisp morning air and comfortable weather to run in. As it hasn’t been terribly long since my last post, this will be a shorter post, but I did do some cool things beyond attending the High Holy Day services at Kehillat Beijing, so I hope you enjoy hearing about them!

The High Holy Days in Beijing

Here in Beijing, we were able to celebrate the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with a Rabbi for the first time since before the pandemic! While I really enjoyed the community-led services the past two years (especially as I played a big role leading songs and doing torah readings), it was really amazing to have a Rabbi again and gain some new insights into the Torah readings practices of the holidays. In case any of you are looking for Conservative Rabbi’s in Jerusalem, Peretz Rodman and his wife Miriam re-joined the community for the first time in about 10 years (they had previously done 6 or 7 High Holy Days with Kehillat Beijing in the early 2010s). We started off our 10 days of awe with a lovely Erev Rosh Hashanah service and meal. Since Rosh Hashanah was on Shabbat, the service was a bit different since there are certain prayers and customs that you don’t do on Rosh Hashanah if it’s Shabbat, but it was so lovely to see how large and vibrant the community is! We had ~ 75 people join us in the Capital Club, including some new faces. This was also probably the best meal I’ve had at the Capital Club, too! Also, if anyone is wondering why I’m sitting in the front facing the audience, there was an idea of having some of us act as song leaders. It was a nice sentiment, but it’s a bit strange to be facing the community instead of being part of it, especially since we weren’t leading the service.

On Saturday morning, we had our Rosh Hashanah services in the Capital Club gymnasium (ok, it’s more of a gymnasium in the style of a ballroom, not a basketball court), which used to host Kehillat Beijing every week prior to the pandemic. While the space was nice, it was also the first time I got to see our community’s very unique ark – which is a converted Chinese cabinet (we have a separate ark at Roberta & Ted’s where the Torah stays now)! I had the pleasure of chanting torah again this year and the services were lovely. We had ~40 people join us! Although most communities likely did taschlich on Sunday, we did do it on Saturday because we only had one day of services. Because of the location of the Capital Club, we were able to walk down to the Liangma river that runs through Beijing and do it there! We followed that up with a lovely community meal at an Italian restaurant. It was really nice to just hang out and chat with our community!

We then returned as a community to the Capital Club for Kol Nidre a bit over a week later. Again, the services were lovely (though I do miss Temple Sinai’s 8pm start time – ours started at 6:30, which, because of the ~ 30 minute cab ride to the capital club meant I had my pre-fast meal at 5pm). The highlight of the service was a lovely rendition of Kol Nidre that one of my friends did! While we had ~ 50 people Kol Nidre, we had a much more intimate day service (~ 25 people). Although the services were lovely, the morning did get off to a bit of a rocky start as when Rabbi Peretz arrived, nobody could find the Torah! Apparently, some wires had gotten crossed and it hadn’t been moved from where we were for Rosh Hashanah to the ballroom where we were for Yom Kippur. After the Torah arrived, we were able to do the full service and I again got to chant Torah (also, a big thank you to Rabbi Linda and Jonathon, who’s recordings I, Roberta, and other community members used to learn the portions)! One of my favorite aspects of this year’s Yom Kippur service was that after we sang the traditional “Ashamnu” – an alphabetic confession of our sins, we did a write your own (In English). We did this at both the morning and afternoon service. I had the opportunity to write four different ones below.

C – “We have Cheated ourselves and others”

D – “We have Deified idols and believed celebrities opinions matter more than they do”

N – “We have Not remembered that we Need love”

Z – “We have not Zigzagged when we could and thus not allowed ourselves the time to explore new things”

In between the morning and the afternoon service, we had a small and wonderful discussion about whether G-D has to do Teshuva. It was a really interesting look at some of the few times when we are presented with God’s opinion (springing from the story of Jonah – the haftorah portion traditionally read at the afternoon service at Yom Kippur). We then capped off the day of fasting with a lovely break fast meal (and I finally got my rugelach – though they don’t compare to my mothers). All in all, it was a lovely High Holy Day season in Beijing and it was so nice to spend time with a Rabbi and the community as a whole. It was also a bit bittersweet as I know I won’t be here next year (although no idea where I’ll be), so this was my final High Holy Days in Beijing.

And because we were at the Capital Club, I wanted to share a few lovely photos of Beijing from the purview of the 50th floor!

Vegan Cooking Class with Vegans of Beijing

After a few months away (I missed the June cooking class due to travel and the normal July and August cooking classes were canceled due to renovations – though we did have the fun dumpling making class), the Vegans of Beijing Vegan Chinese cooking classes returned to the Hutong Cooking School with Chef Chao. Although I enjoyed the dumpling making class, I really do like Chef Chao’s format and I have learned how to make so many delicious Chinese dishes! This month, we turned our focus a bit towards a Vegan spin on the iconic Peking Duck. While I’ve had one vegan alternative – crispy “vegetarian duck” – a fried layered tofu skin (it’s one of my favorite dishes), we didn’t do that. Instead we made two different types of tofu skin rolls (Peking duck is traditionally served with little wanton wrappers so you can make your own roll). We made a king oyster mushroom tofu skin roll with sweet flour sauce and a raw vegetable tofu skin roll. I thought this was a pretty ingenious way to use tofu skins! For those of you who aren’t familiar, tofu skins (also called yuba – the Japanese name) aren’t the large block of tofu you see at most western grocery stores, but rather made from the film that collects at the top of the soy milk that is boiled to make tofu. In China it’s commonly sold in large lasagna noodle-like sheets or dried in sticks. But in the non-dried form, it really does resemble a wrap! We also made the “three treasures” dish, made of a saute of eggplant, potatoes, and green pepper. All three were delicious.

The first dish we made was the tofu skin rolls with veggies. As I mentioned above, we took large sheets of tofu skins and basically cut them into wrap sized rolls (because the freshness of tofu skins can be a bit hard to discern, we boiled them briefly before using them). As shown in the photos, Chef Chao’s knife skills are impeccable and he julienned his veggies with ease (for those of us in the class, it took a bit longer). For the roll filling, we used a mix of carrots and beans sprouts (we quickly blanched them in boiling water), cucumber, and cabbage. We also made a delicious spicy chili sauce with lots of garlic and ginger. We assembled the rolls just like a burrito and then cut them into smaller, bite sized rolls (see Chef Chao’s beautiful example on top – he used scallions to tie them) and you can see my delicious, but less pretty version below. These were a delicious start to a wonderful cooking class.

The next dish we made were the king oyster mushroom with tofu skin wrapper. Unlike the other tofu skin rolls, here, we used the tofu as more of a wrapper/utensil, so we put the cooked mushrooms in the wrapper. Although the dish includes some finely cut scallions and cucumbers (to be in the style of Peking duck), the majority of the cooking was in the mushrooms. We’ve done a lot of mushroom dishes and a lot of king oyster mushrooms, but I’m always amazed at the multitude of sauces and cooking styles that really transform the mushrooms. We cut up our king oyster mushrooms into long strips, which we then boiled. Once cooked, we wrung the water out before sauteing them withe the sweet flour sauce. For our sauce, we used a mix of sweet flour sauce (this is a Chinese sauce used primarily for Peking duck), soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar. We cooked the mushrooms and sauce down to the delicious sticky dish you see below! Definitely one of my favorites!

Our last dish was one that I was very excited about, the “three treasures”, featuring potato, pepper, and Japanese eggplant. I was very excited for the Japanese eggplant because I like them a lot, but eggplant can be a bit intimidating to cook (I think the worst dishes I’ve made on my own were epic fails with eggplant). We cut the eggplant into triangles and the potatoes into wedges before sauteeing them all lightly. Because potatoes take the longest, we cooked them first, then added the eggplant, and finally the pepper. The entire dish had a nice subtle heat thanks to the peppers and the sauce was delicious. Because there was no corn starch in the sauce to thicken it, we only cooked the vegetables about halfway before taking them out to create the sauce. We then reduced the sauce and cooked the vegetables together, so that everything just melted in your mouth! It was a delicious and fun cooking class!

Also, although not food related, when I was chatting with one of the other attendees of the cooking class (he was from Ireland), I discovered that he had a been a counselor at CTY at Skidmore about 10 years ago. What a small world!

The China Open – Professional Tennis in Beijing

One of the things that I was most excited for when I initially accepted the position in Beijing is that there is usually an ATP 500 (mid level event) and WTA 1000 (high level event) in Beijing on the professional tennis tour. However, because of the pandemic, quarantining, and the Peng Shuai situation, the tournament and all other professional Tennis tournaments in China hadn’t happened since 2019. However, with the opening up of China, professional tennis has returned! And this year’s line up was stacked – featuring most of the top ten players on the men’s and women’s sides! As I think many of you know, I’m a big tennis fan, so once I figured out how to get tickets, I knew I needed to go! Although Beijing is a giant city, the National Tennis Center is surprisingly close to my apartment (just about 40 minutes on the same subway line that I live on – it helps that it’s part of the Olympic Park complex and that’s about 25 minutes due North from my apartment on the subway).

I was able to get tickets for the Diamond Court (the main court) on Saturday during the day session and got to enjoy a full day of tennis. I got to the stadium around 11:30 and because the first match on the Diamond Court hadn’t started yet (Nicholas Jarry – #22 in the world vs Matteo Arnoldi -#42 in the world), I was able to explore the grounds and see a bit of some of the doubles matches and the women’s qualifiers (the men’s tournament started a few days before the women’s to account for this week’s Shanghai men’s tournament). As you can see the grounds were full of fun tennis displays, games for kids, and lots of tennis courts!

Once 12:15 rolled around, I made my way to the Diamond court and found my seat for a thrilling 9 hours of tennis (yes, the day session went really late). As I said previously, the first match featured Nicholas Jarry vs Matteo Arnoldi – Jarry had beaten world number 6, Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round. It was a really close match that went the full 3 sets. Early in the match, Jarry went up a break, but towards the end of the first set, Arnoldi broke back and then took the set in a tiebreak. Though Jarry came out a bit sluggish in the 2nd, he was able to rally and then win the second and then the third set! Despite the difference in the rankings, the two were really evenly matched and nobody was giving an inch. It was a great appetizer of a match for the main action on Diamond Court.

The main event (at least for me) featured world #3 and 2021 US Open Champion Daniil Medvedev vs world #12 Alex di Minaur in their 2nd round match. From the second the players stepped onto the court, you could tell that the atmosphere was different. Not only was the crowd larger and more energetic (unfortunately, there were still a ton available seats), but the tennis shifted into high gear. Now, I’ve watched a lot of high level tennis on TV, but somehow it’s different watching in person. Seeing Medvedev go for all of the angle shots in the back corners of the court was amazing.

He played his characteristic style of standing as far from the baseline as possible and just exuded a calmness throughout the match. Not to be outdone, di Minaur made sure his presence was felt in the match as well. He came back from a break down to force a tiebreak with some gutsy serving. Despite some amazing rallies (they seemed to go on for 20+ shots), Medvedev took the first set and basically never looked back, winning in straight sets. However, the second set was equally amazing, even though Medvedev was in control the entire way. Although all of the players are obviously world class, it was so amazing to see such a great player and really see the difference between the world number 3 and world number 22! This will be a huge highlight of my time in China! If I wasn’t busy writing applications, I’d definitely have tried to go again. Hopefully wherever I end up next, there will be a tennis tournament nearby!

The last match on the Diamond Court featured a 1st round clash on the women’s draw of world #29 Elise Mertens vs world #146 Yue Yuan from China. Like the Jarry-Arnoldi match, this was another war of attrition. However, while the crowd was rooting for good tennis in that match, the crowd was decidedly in favor of Yuan (I kind of felt bad for Mertens because she really couldn’t do anything to get a cheer). Mertens came out strong, winning in the first set, before her serve betrayed her in the second. The third set was really a struggle to see who could hold serve first, with multiple breaks of serve. Finally, Yuan came out on top and the crowd erupted.

After the day session ended (at 9pm, so well worth the price of admission), I walked around the grounds a bit to see everything lit up at night. It was really pretty and capped off an amazing day. Also, because of the set up of the Lotus court (the #2 court), I was able to peak in and watch the end of the 2nd round match between World #7 Andrey Rublev and World #34 Ugo Humbert (Humbert won in an upset) – It was really awesome!!!!!

Astronomy Update – Life at Tsinghua

Although it’s only been three weeks since my last post, I have done a fair amount of research. With the time crunch now fully underway given my upcoming postdoc applications (no applications submitted yet-the first that I’m applying to are due in late October), I split my time between my postdoc applications and Project Morphology. I’m about halfway through my research statement – it really helped that I could spend much of my mid-Autumn festival vacation working on it (for those of you who haven’t applied to a postdoc in Astrophysics, you typically submit a cover letter, CV, and 3-5 page research statement – some of the more prestigious fellowships will ask for a more detailed research plan or a statement of past research). I’ve already gotten some good feedback from some of my collaborators on the different research ideas that I’m proposing – all building off the two main projects that I’ve worked on here at Tsinghua and will be sending it out to various collaborators next week.

In terms of Project Morphology, I have some very promising results in terms of looking at the differences in the morphology of the galaxies in the two similarly selected protoclusters. As two systems makes it difficult to make any overarching statements about the evolution of the morphology-density relation, we can compare and contrast these two protoclusters, which is the plan of the paper. I’m hoping to get that paper drafted in the next few weeks, so I’ll basically be in non-stop research mode. I’m also still working on Project Low-z with Jesse (I need to spend a bit more time on that) and am starting to figure out what the project that I’ll lead as part of the C3VO survey is. All in all, I have a lot of exciting research coming up and not always enough time to do it.

Although not Astronomy related, the semester has officially begun at Tsinghau (it started around 9/15). While it doesn’t impact my daily life, the campus is definitely a bit more bustling and there are department seminars again. Enjoy some pretty photos of the campus!

Happy Goldie Day!!!

This was a big month for Goldie, even if she didn’t know it. Goldie has officially been my cat for over a year! It’s hard to believe that she’s only been with me for a year, but I’m so happy to have her. She really lightens up my life here in Beijing. Since Goldie is a rescue cat, I don’t know her actual age and birthday, so I celebrated her birthday as the day I adopted her and based on her teeth, the vet thinks she’s about 3, so that’s what I’m going with.

Although Goldie has lots of toys, I wanted to do something special for her birthday. I realized that as long as she’s lived with me, she’s never had any catnip, so I ordered her a couple of small stuffed animals with a little catnip (see below of her loving to play with Mr. Whale) and gave her a catnip ball that Jesse had had for Charlie & Scottie. She really likes both and I’m so glad I could give her a gift she enjoyed.

Outside of her birthday, with the cooler weather, Goldie has entered her “hibernation” phase. Although she likes to spend time on my bed at night, she usually sleeps in the corner or side and not on top of any blankets. However, once I get up in the morning, she’ll prance around and ask for extra food and then sit with me for a little bit, before returning to my bed, where she burrows under the covers and sleeps for hours. I like to joke that Goldie’s 9-5 is napping :). Isn’t she just adorable!

Jewish Life in Beijing

Beyond the High Holy Days, we had a few lovely Shabbat dinners this month, too (unfortunately, Sukkot coincided perfectly with the Chinese National Day holiday and the Mid-Autumn festival, so many people were out of town and we didn’t do anything for Sukkot this year). Since my last post, we had two Shabbat’s (because of the Chinese National Day, we didn’t have a Shabbat dinner last week). The first was a traditional Shabbat dinner, while the second was a Chinese Shabbat dinner in honor of the mid-Autumn festival. As per usual, Ted (and Roberta & Ted’s Ayi for the Chinese cooking) made us all an amazing meal! I’m so glad to be part of this community.

Exploring Beijing

Although I didn’t do nearly as much traveling this month as last month, I did get to explore a few different areas of Beijing and saw some cool signs, posters, and bike decals that I thought you’d enjoy! I was mostly in the Shichahai/Houhai area (the lakes that I live near) as I had to head to the police station to re-register after my visa was renewed. Before the sea of photos, I want to highlight this really cool glass flower display at the top of Houhai!

Beyond that, I also saw some other fun stuff!

Although the temperatures have finally started to cool, the highs still reach the mid-70s most days, so I’ve gotten to see some pretty flowers, too!

Vegan Food

Although it’s only been three weeks, I had three amazing vegan meals with friends this month. A few weeks ago, Richard wanted to get off campus and hang out by Shichahai, so we went to Liansu World, a new vegetarian restaurant that just opened and is maybe a 10 minute walk from my apartment (the closest one by far). We got lemon tea, hibiscus tofu, roasted eggplant, crispy mushrooms, roasted mountain mushrooms (with a spicy chili rub), and dumplings! It was a delicious meal (and also just fun to hang out – it’s crazy to think that we’ve both been here approximately two years). My favorites were the eggplant and the mushrooms!

The next day, Richard, Pablo, Tom, Tom’s girlfriend Hannah (who’s visiting from the UK), and I went to Tianchun Miaoxiang, the vegetarian restaurant by Tsinghua! We had a delicious meal of watermelon juice, sauteed cauliflower, spicy dry pot, bamboo & noodles, spicy vegetarian mock fish, fried lotus root, roasted mushrooms, sichuan spicy mock fish, and tofu skin rolls! Everything was delicious and it was really nice to meet Hannah as Tom has talked about her quite a bit! My favorite dishes were the mushrooms, the spicy dry pot, and the tofu skin rolls (and yes, those are similar to what I learned to make!).

This past week during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday (I was working from home for most of the week because the campus was on break), I met up with my friend Miriam (we met at Kehillat Beijing, but she also teaches English at Tsinghua) and we had a wonderful meal at Ye Bo Zhai, a vegan restaurant near the Lama Temple. We got sour plum soup (it’s really a juice), kaofu (seitan), sesame cabbage, kung pao chik’n (the chik’n was tofu), beijing style eggplant, and stir-fried shiitake mushrooms. It was all delicious (and also great to catch up with Miriam). My favorite dishes were the kaofu, eggplant, and mushrooms!

Because it is the Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes have been everywhere! For those of you who aren’t familiar, mooncakes are a dense Chinese pastry made as a symbol of friendship (you usually give them as a gift) during the mid-Autumn Festival. Although they generally look very pretty, they usually are not vegan (or vegetarian) as they are traditionally made with lard and sometimes include a whole salted egg yolk. However, because Buddhist vegetarian restaurants exist, I was able to get a few different vegan ones. These are still dense pastries, but the ones I’ve had so far (mostly flavored with nuts) have been quite good!

I also did some cooking of my own this month. I made three different tofu dishes. I made a chili lime tofu, a peanut butter tofu (with broccoli), and General Tso’s tofu (with cauliflower). It was all delicious!

Animals of Beijing

Although I spent a lot of time with Goldie this month, I saw a lot of other animals too. Most fun, was that at my cooking class, Chef Chao’s neighbors have a number of animals (I think he said there are 3-4 cats, a dog, and maybe a duck and a rooster?). We had some cat visitors join us during the class. I think the little kitten especially was hoping to get some scraps (unfortunately vegan cuisine isn’t popular with cats) – don’t worry, Chef Chao gave him a snack later. It was so cute to see them wander around the kitchen (they stayed on the floor and didn’t jump to the counters).

I also saw my typical slew of neighborhood cats and dogs (and Roberta & Ted’s puppies, Mimi & Honey, though I only got one cute photo). The street cats seem to be loving the slightly cooler temperatures and one of my neighbors cats (I think they have 3 or 4) was very affectionate yesterday (that’s the one I see in the window the most).

What Am I Reading/Watching?

In terms of books, this month, I finished the third omnibus of Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso’s hard-boiled crime noir 100 bullets. If you’re looking for a gritty & grisly crime drama, I highly recommend it. I’m still reading Anthony Horowitz’s Moriarty and am really enjoying it – I’ll hopefully have a brief review of it next time.

In terms of tv, I finished watching the third season of the anime Demon Slayer! For my money, it’s one of the best anime currently airing. It’s a samurai fantasy tale of mystical swordsman who slay demons and the animation is both dynamic and beautiful. It has some of the best fight scenes and it’s just great! I can’t wait for the next season! I also finished season 2 of Bosch on Amazon Prime. Season 2 focused on the murder of a corrupt, mobbed-up porn producer and was another great season. Bosch does a really great long-form detective show with characters who feel very real. I highly recommend it. I also finished season 2 of Sweet Tooth on Netflix. Based on the comic book series of the same name written and drawn by Jeff Lemire, it tells the story of Gus, a human-deer hybrid in a post-Apocalyptic world. Although I like the show, it definitely is strongest when it focuses on Gus and his protector Jeppard. Lastly, I finished season 4 of Harley Quinn on Max. While I liked the show early on, i think this season jumped the shark too much and focused too much on making Harley look heroic to the disadvantage of every other character. It’s not a bad show, but it needs to figure out what stories it wants to tell, because this season felt like it was waffling the entire time.

East Meets West

This month, I saw a number of signs of Western pop culture in Beijing! While it was primarily through cartoons (Minions, Spongebob, Toy Story, and the Simpsons), I also saw a cool Peter Rabbit display at a bookstore here in Beijing (more on that in the anime & comics section). I also saw a Poppa John’s sign here in Beijing! I though it was odd that the slogan was in English “Better Ingredient, Better Pizza”, but that the name was written in Mandarin!

While not my typical East Meets West photos, I did want to highlight a shoutout to the Hudson Valley. Although much further downstate than Saratoga, I rarely see mention of New York outside of NYC, so I had to snap a photo of the ads for the Hudson Valley Brewery at the bar next to the Gulou Gourmand Import Store that I go to. I guess they were doing a collaboration of some kind! I thought that that was pretty cool!

Anime & Comics

As always, no Astronomer in Beijing post is complete without me showing all of the cool anime, manga, and comics paraphernalia that I saw in Beijing. The highlight this month was when I went into the Page One bookstore near Tsinghua. They had an extensive selection of manga and even some Chinese translations of Harry Potter! While the only graphic novels they had in English were Dog Man (I know my cousin’s Henry & Max really liked them), I did get to finally get a DC comics graphic novel in Mandarin! I usually like to pick up comics or manga in another language when I travel, but manga is tricky, since a lot of it here is in Japanese (or if it’s translated, it’s harder for me to tell), and I hadn’t seen any US comics in Mandarin before!

Of course, I also saw a ton of cool car/bike decals, statues, and displays this month. There was a lot of Pokemon, but also Dragon Ball Z, Doraemon, and Demon Slayer! I love seeing all of the different statues and stickers!

For those of you who made it this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed hearing about my High Holy Days in Beijing, going to the China Open, and learning to make three new vegan dishes! October has already been full of a lot of writing and research, and I think the rest of the month will be more of the same as I start applying for new postdoc positions, but I’m sure there will be a few fun things to share! I hope you all have a safe, happy, and healthy month (and hopefully a peaceful one for Israel, too). As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please let me know! It’d be great to hear from you!

In Peace,

Emmet