Hi Everyone,
Welcome back to Astronomer in Beijing. I hope that you’re all staying safe and healthy and that those of you who are in academia are having an easy and stress-free end to the semester. As should be apparent by the title of this blog entry, April was a pretty busy month for me. Before I dive into the fun things that I was able to do earlier in the month, I want to update you all on the current COVID situation here in Beijing. Before I begin, I want to say that I know by US standards, the numbers of COVID cases here in Beijing are still very low and that many of you are likely living in areas where the COVID rates are still much higher than Beijing. However, because of China’s Dynamic Zero COVID policy, the Beijing government treats every COVID case as a potential super-spreader event, which makes any time there is an outbreak more stressful for me. Here in Beijing, the situation was fairly normal for most of the month. Because of the cases in Shanghai (for those of you wondering, things seem to be improving their as the cases are now primarily clustered to those already in quarantine because they were close contacts), Beijing schools (including Tsinghua) implemented a weekly testing policy for all students, faculty, and staff (that includes postdocs). This has meant that I’ve been getting tested every Monday. Although the cases were still low, the terrifying situation of the COVID quarantine sites in Shanghai has made me incredibly anxious, to the point that Mondays are just generally stressful days (apparently, the sites are nicer here in Beijing, though we haven’t had enough cases that they would need to convert stadiums into large mass housing sites). Thankfully all of my COVID tests have been negative so far, but as a bit of a hypochondriac, living in China during a pandemic hasn’t been ideal for my anxiety. Unfortunately, the stricter entry-exit policies for Beijing couldn’t stop the wave of COVID hitting China from impacting Beijing. Last weekend, right before my birthday on April 24th, the city started to report an uptick in cases. First it was 10 cases, then 30, and now we’re at about 50 a day (again, as I said, small numbers in a city of 21 million). However, on Monday, because of a cluster in Chaoyang, the district where Roberta & Ted live, the city government announced mandatory testing this week, where each person had be tested three times between April 25th and April 30th. Because of Tsinghua’s regular testing, my test of the 25th was already taken care of, so I only needed to do two more tests (both negative). However, despite the fact that I don’t live near Tsinghua’s campus (it’s about a 45 minute commute), I’ve chosen to get tested on campus because their testing service has been reliable at updating my health app (it’s taken anywhere between 8 and 24 hours to get the results). For those of you in the US, everyone who gets a COVID test can easily get the result. However, in Beijing, because all of the COVID tests are tied to our health apps and foreigner names and passports are different from Chinese names and passports, I’ve seen lots of reports of foreigners whose apps are not updated, and saw one friend post that she was turned away from getting tested because she was a foreigner (more on that below). Currently, there have only been 2 cases in Xicheng, where I live, and 7 cases in Haidian, where I work, but the added stress in the city has me stressed out. Additionally, though one of our department secretaries does an excellent job keeping us informed of potential areas of outbreaks and close contacts, getting texts sometimes multiple times a day asking if we’ve been to various places keeps me on edge.
Because of the fear of a Shanghai style lockdown, there have been reports (somewhat falsely) of a run on food and supermarkets to get non-perishable foods. Although lots of people have stocked up (including myself, my pantry is now full of canned beans, lentils, quinoa, cereal, dried fruit, and various sauces), all of the grocery stores I’ve seen have been generally full. Sure some of the selections at the import stores are not as robust, but they are not empty like they were in Boston when the US shut down. I will say, and I think this is especially true of Shanghai, that one of the big differences between the US and Chinese response to the idea of a lockdown comes from the idea of grocery shopping. While I grew up going to the grocery store once a week and buying food for a week (and thus having a refrigerator that could fit food for a family of four), here most people go shopping every few days and have small refrigerators. Thus, the idea of having staples in a pantry is less common here. Also, I do want to note that one of the reasons that the government has been quick to react is the vaccination rates here in China. While ~ 88% of the populace is vaccinated (I’m unsure if that means 2 shots or 3), only ~ 50% of the elderly are vaccinated. As they are the most vulnerable, that’s definitely a concerning statistic. In order to combat this (as shown above), the Beijing government has been offering free eggs, rice, and other foods to people over 60 and 70 to get vaccinated (so if you think only the US will offer donuts or lottery tickets to convince people to get vaccinated, you are sadly mistaken).
Right now, the COVID situation is bad for China and I’m hoping that I won’t be writing a brief update sometime in the next week or so to correct this. However, May 1st is the May Day Labour Day holiday, and despite the Beijing government asking people not to travel, in a city of 21 million people, unless they implement a strict lockdown, people are always on the move (well, other people, I’m sticking to my apartment). Currently, since the three tests in five days has ended, the city will be requiring everyone to get a test within 48 hours if you want to enter a public park, museum, basically any venue. They are also adding two additional rounds of testing for people living in Chaoyang and Fengshan (so not me) and all restaurants are take out only starting May 1. However, as a precaution, I attempted to get tested today. Key word being attempted. Because Tsinghua hasn’t announced another round of mass testing, I tried going to the pop-up testing site near my apartment. However, I was told I couldn’t test there because I’m a foreigner (it’s really frustrating given that the testing is free that they impose this restriction, apparently because our health apps are different, but I don’t know – For those of you who’re wondering, foreigners are only ~ 1% of the population in Beijing, so it’s not terribly surprising that we’d be forgotten about). I then attempted to get tested at the Tsinghua Hospital, only to find out that their testing site closes at 11:30 on weekends and holidays. So first thing tomorrow morning, I’ll be meeting up with Richard to get tested. Just to be safe. After the holiday, the plan is to require everyone to be tested weekly (this seems to be the plan for all of the major cities) if they want to go to public spaces or use the subway. I haven’t heard from Tsinghua if they’ll be doing mass testing during the holiday. If not, I’ll have to head in early again to go to the Tsinghua Hospital. Right now, I’m doing ok, but to all of you who’ve reached out to me personally or to my parents, thank you so much for thinking of me. It’s not been the end of the month that I wanted, but hopefully by the next time I post, things will be better.
So, after that, I hope you enjoy hearing about the fun things that I did in April!
A Visit to Tiananmen Square
When I first decided to accept my postdoc at Tsinghua and the reality of moving to Beijing set it, I put together a list of famous places that I wanted to visit in Beijing. As I wasn’t all too familiar with Beijing landmarks, the main things on my list were the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and Tiananmen Square. As I’ve visited the first two, the nicer weather in April (it’s been above 70 degrees most days and gotten up to 90 on other days) meant that a visit to Tiananmen was in order. Richard and I decided to visit Tiananmen on a Sunday morning and I must say, this was the most security I’ve had to deal with possibly in my entire life. Before leaving the subway station at the Tiananmen Square East station, we had to show our passports and then were asked where we worked (thankfully, Tsinghua is a big deal here, so that helps, especially because explaining Astronomy research in Chinese wasn’t going to happen). Once we left the Subway station, we had to present our passports not once, but twice during the actual entry to the grounds (and again were asked where we worked and what our jobs were). I was then given the most thorough pat down that I’ve ever had entering a metal detector, after which they went through our bags. Thankfully, I had taken much of my astronomy stuff out of my bag, so my water bottle and granola bar were deemed innocuous. However, they did go through my small, mostly empty 3 x 5 notebook looking for something. Unfortunately, Richard wasn’t so lucky. He had his astronomy notebooks with him and the security guards spent a good few minutes looking at all of the math (again, I’m not entirely sure what they were looking for). Once of the security guards kept going on about a pen in Richard’s bag that had the cap off until another security guard walked over and put the cap back on the pen. All I can say is that they really take security seriously.
As you can see from the pictures above, the entrance to Tiananmen Square is quite magnificent with fountains, an obelisk (that reminded me at least aesthetically of a Native American totem pole), and a giant portrait of Chairman Mao. While many Chinese tourists were taking selfies in the Square, I felt that this wasn’t the location for that. While you can see the immenseness of the giant red entrance building, I was surprised at how quickly we seemed to enter and then exit Tiananmen Square. Since we weren’t there for the sunrise flag raising, Richard and I walked through the path quite quickly and I didn’t even realize we’d seen everything until after we exited it. Compared to the grandeur and size of the Forbidden City next door, it really is quite small. For anyone who is able to visit Beijing, I’d recommend visiting the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square on the same day given just how close they are.
The Ancient Observatory
After visiting Tiananmen Square, and at the advice of an article in The Beijinger, an English language Beijing news site, Richard and I decided to visit the Ancient Observatory here in Beijing. I had first heard about it from Roberta & Ted a few months back and as an Astronomer, it was a no brainer place to visit. Although it was a bit of a trek from Tiananmen Square (about 3 miles), it was definitely worth the walk! One of the coolest parts of the Observatory is that it was built in 1442 (making it one of the oldest still existing observatories today – it was actually a functioning observatory until the early 1900s) and architecturally, the tower looks very similar to parts of the Great Wall (it’s actually part of an old Ming Dynasty wall that used to surround the city).
At the observatory itself, there were a ton of exhibits examples of ancient Astronomical tools on display. Although most people (including most Astronomers) think of Astronomy as having solely Greco-Roman roots (given the importance of Aristotle in the early ideas of an unchanging cosmos), much of the world’s collective Astronomical history is owed to Middle Eastern astronomers who preserved and built on that knowledge during the Dark Ages (hence why so many stars have either Latin or Arabic names). However, despite that history, there was still a lot of Astronomy being done in ancient China (and throughout all of Asia). The observatory highlights the different tools like sextants, sun dials, and armillary spheres. Now you’ll notice that some of these tools are rather European in nature, that’s because Jesuit monks were put in charge of the Observatory in the 1670s. However, I loved that they were all aesthetically Chinese! All of the cool dragons, especially on the armillary spheres! What I would have given to be able to buy a recreation (sadly the gift shop was not open, but I’m sure I’ll be back when Jesse comes to visit Beijing).
There were also a number of really cool Chinese and English language displays highlighting Astronomy research, the history of Chinese Astronomy and the Observatory, the Solar System, the Chinese Lunar calendar, and some of the more obscure/unusual Chinese inventions. The discussions of the calendar were really interesting to me as one of the things that I remember vividly from the Astronomy Before the Telescope class that I took at Brown (in the Ancient West Asian Studies Department) highlighted how much of early astronomy focused on calendar systems and portending omens. Much like the Hebrew calendar, the Chinese lunar calendar follows the phases of the moon (for months). However, the Chinese calendar also marked various Mid-Season stars to mark the solstices and equinoxes (the appearance of Antares – the big fire star – is what was used to denote the new year as early as the 24th Century BCE). Outside of the Astronomy, one of the coolest inventions that I saw was a “drum cart”, which was basically an ancient mechanical odometer where it was designed to beat a drum after the wheel goes a set distance!
However, I think my favorite part was seeing the full size real tools up close! They had a few different tools, including a human size armillary sphere on the grounds and when Richard and I climbed the tower, we were able to see even more of these enormous devices. They also had statues highlighting the different Chinese zodiac constellations and even an ancient planetarium! If you look at the middle images where there is an orange grate in the front with small pin points of light, that’s the inside of the planetarium, where clearly someone very meticulously carved holes to show the constellations! You can also seem some giant sextants, which would have been used to plot the positions of the stars. Given the height above much of the city and the relative flatness of Beijing, it isn’t hard to imagine using these instruments to actually observe the motion of stars and planets (especially in a pre-air polluted Beijing!).
I’m definitely glad Richard and I were able to visit the Observatory, as it’s one of the coolest and most Astronomy-Geeky places I’ve been here in China. It definitely reminded me of the Galileo Museum in Florence as well as the museum portion of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff! This is a must for any Astronomer who makes their way to Beijing!
The Vegan Market
After being unable to make the last couple of Vegan Markets, I was super excited to be able to attend the April Market! As I’ve mentioned before, it’s super cool to see so many exciting vegan bakers and chefs (both Chinese and foreigners) and also get some vegan food that isn’t vegan Chinese food (don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a number of amazing vegan and vegetarian Chinese meals, but sometimes, it’s just nice to have a vegan Cheese sandwich (see the vegan goat cheese sandwich below), a vegan samosa (calzone), or some vegan desserts that I didn’t make (so many yummy vegan cookies, tiramisu, and brownies)). As per usual, I left with a wide array of tasty treats as well as a few non-food items. Because of the beginning of spring, the market offered vendors the opportunity to do a yard sale style market, so I picked up Marion Bradley’s Lady of Avalon (as I’m quickly running out of English language books), as well as two mini sketchbooks, which I’m hoping to use (and given the possibility of an upcoming lockdown, quarantine drawings could be back).
Passover in Beijing
Like many of you, I had the pleasure of celebrating Passover this month (for those of you who celebrated Easter or are celebrating Ramadan, I hope you all had a lovely holiday). Here in Beijing, I was able to take part in three different Seders, each unique and special. However, even before the Seders, I needed to figure out how to get matzah. Unlike in the US (or at least in Boston or Saratoga), I can’t just go into my local grocery store and find the Kosher for Passover display. Instead, I was able to go to Chabad to get my Passover needs. Beyond matzah and matzah meal (and yes, I got a lot of matzah and still have more of it), I also got this amazing (and HUGE) vegan Israeli chocolate bar (because how could I not – for scale, it’s probably the size of 10 Hershey bars at least). Also, the collective Chabad Houses of China offered a lovely free Seder to Go box that you can see below. It was really nice to get all of my Seder plate needs (its tough to find horse radish) in one box (although I didn’t really need or want the shank bone, mushroom or beet all the way – that went right into the trash after my Seder (and no, I never opened the plastic container it was in)).
In terms of actual Seders, on the first night of Passover, I was able to go to a wonderful Seder for the entire Kehillat Beijing community. While the original plan was to have the Seder for ~ 60 people at Roberta and Ted’s home, because of COVID restrictions, they were not allowed to host a large gathering. As such, Roberta was able to let us return to what I’ll be referring to as an undisclosed location in downtown Beijing (because the venue asked that we not take photos of the dining area, I’m being intentionally vague as I don’t think they wanted to advertise that they were hosting large events). Unfortunately, since there are no photos of the dining area, there are also no photos of the Seder plate or the lovely meal. However, before I describe the Seder, I want you all to marvel at the amazing view (and if you look closely in the picture in the 2nd row on the right, a very high kite!). We were on the 50th floor of this undisclosed location and the view was magnificent. The only view I’ve seen in China that comes close is when I visited Jesse’s friends John and Alex at their apartment in downtown Shanghai. Because I don’t spend much time in central Beijing in the evenings, I was also amazed by how lit up the city is at night. In Gulou where I live, it’s not like that at all. Now, back to the Seder. Since we were at the undisclosed location, we were able to have ~ 80 people (which outside of the Seders I attended at Brown-RISD Hillel and BU Hillel is the largest Seder I’ve ever been to). However, because of space and COVID restrictions, we had to be divided between three rooms, all of which were connected via Zoom, which was different. Despite that (and a few initial technical difficulties), Roberta led a wonderful Seder. Because I know most of the prayers (key word most, my family does a lot more in English than we did at this Seder), I was one of the prayer leaders in the third room with a few different people that I’m friendly with. Despite the larger size, there were many personal touches that I really enjoyed. We had a whole makeshift children’s choir to sing the four questions (there were probably 20 kids, at least) and many Kehillat Beijing members shared personal anecdotes, stories, and poems (Roberta had asked the community to share anything they liked). Two highlights for me were a poem read by one of my friends here in Beijing, but written by my parents former Skidmore colleague, Carolyn Forche, and the story of one of our congregants grandmothers surviving in post-WWII Japan. I also got to share my father’s humorous Passover story of a Goat at the Seder (if you’ve ever been to a Seder at my house, you know the one) and it was very well received. In terms of the actual meal, everything was delicious. I think my only complaint is that because the Seder wasn’t at Roberta & Ted’s not everything was vegetarian, so I had to figure out which things I could actually eat. Thankfully, the matzah ball soup was vegetarian, and there were plenty of potatoes, carrots, and other veggies for me to enjoy. I think the highlight foodwise was the vast array of desserts, everything from flourless chocolate cake, to macaroons, and chocolates! After the meal (the only downside of having such a large group is that dinner led right to dessert and I like my families tradition of finishing the Seder before dessert), we concluded the Seder with a rousing rendition of the Madrigal of numbers in Hebrew (that’s one I only know in English – I was unable to successfully do Chadgad yah in Yiddish, so switched to English after Roberta asked me to lead it) and lots of other songs. All in all, it was a joyous and festive night and definitely a highlight of my time in Beijing!
As I mentioned above, I went to not one, not two, but three Seders this Passover! The 2nd Seder that I attended was Kehillat Shanghai’s virtual Seder led by Jesse and his friend Alex (you can see my Seder plate below). They did a wonderful job blending traditional and interpretive readings with some very fun videos including the most recent Billy Joel Passover from Six13 and a beautiful and fun rendition of the Five Questions featuring videos of lots of kids from Kehillat Shanghai. Despite Shanghai being in lockdown, I am really proud of what Jesse put together and the perseverance of the Kehillat Shanghai community! The third Seder I attended was my parents’ 2nd night of Passover Seder (which was Sunday morning for me). Jesse and I were joined virtually by our Aunt Pam and our cousin Robbie and his girlfriend Stefanie. Because my Dad was leading the Seder, this just felt homey and nostalgic for me. We used the Union Haggadah that I grew up with and as the youngest Hebrew reader, I got to chant the four questions (a favorite of mine). It was also really nice to see some family and all be together, even if it was over the internet. I’m really glad that I got to have three so unique Seders. It made for a lovely Passover.
Beyond the Seders, I also did some Kosher for Passover cooking, as you can see below. I made my father’s traditional charoset (walnuts, raisins, apples, and cinnamon), vegan matzah ball soup (and before anyone asks, they were floaters), and many a matzah pizza. Since macaroons and the Kosher for Passover cake mixes are pretty much impossible to get here in Beijing, I went with the good old favorite of chocolate covered matzah. I usually like to make a matzah crunch, that has a caramel brittle, but because vegan butter is difficult and expensive to get here, I went with peanut butter and made a matzah dessert that was very nostalgic of one of my mother’s friends chocolate and peanut butter covered ritz crackers.
Happy 31st Birthday to me (and Jesse, too)!
Last weekend, April 24th, was my birthday (which was thankfully just after the end of Passover as Kosher for Passover cakes are never very good). It’s my first time celebrating a birthday here in Beijing and I was really glad that it was last weekend and not this weekend, because that meant that I could have my friends Richard and Paulo (see the photo below) over to my apartment to celebrate. While I had lovely birthdays the last two years (including my mother mailing me a cake to Boston, a chocolate ice cream Fomu cake (both in 2020), and a lovely birthday celebration with my parents last year), it was really nice to get to celebrate in person with friends. We all got together at my apartment for some yummy homemade vegan chocolate ice cream (from the Fomu cookbook – for those of you not from Boston, Fomu is an amazing vegan ice cream shop that was an ~ 15 minute walk from my apartment in Brighton), a homemade vegan strawberry cake, and some snacks including a vegan Buffalo cauliflower dip that I made. It was a lot of fun to catch up and talk about everything from Astronomy to life in China to anime. While Jesse wasn’t able to send me anything from Shanghai, he did make me a lovely card (I still have a card and some presents for him that I hope I can give him sometime this summer) and my mother was able to order me an Immersion blender on BaoPals (an Amazon-esque site) that I’m excited to try out this week. Also, I treated myself to a few new anime and Justice League figurines and Richard bought me some exquisite chocolates (see below)! The birthday celebration was topped off by some zoom celebrations with some of Jesse’s friends, as well as lovely zoom and Facetime calls with my parents, Aunt Pam, and cousin Margaret, her husband Dave, and their two sons, Henry & Max (and some really nice birthday e-mails and facebook messages). Despite being so far away from Jesse, my parents, and the rest of my family, it really was a lovely day.
Life at Tsinghua
In terms of my academic life, April was a pretty full month. Research-wise, most of my time has been spent working on Project Morphology. As I mentioned last month, I’ve started writing up the paper and after a fruitful conversation with my supervisor, we’ve come to an agreement about what background sample we’ll be using to compare to our sample. While I don’t have any immediately new results to share on that front, I’m hoping that by next month’s post, I’ll have an almost finished manuscript (the background statistics may take a bit of time). Unfortunately, I haven’t done too much work on Project Radio, though I did download some new LOFAR data and aim to ramp that project back up soon. Also, as part of an ongoing collaboration, we recently discussed a new mini-project regarding bent radio sources (the type of energetic emission from supermassive black holes that my dissertation was focused on) that I think is quite exciting and might try to spearhead.
Although not on campus, last week I also spent my evenings attending the Galaxy Clusters 2022 Virtual Conference hosted by the Space Telescope Science Institute (associated with Johns Hopkins). Although the start time wasn’t ideal (9pm China time; the conference went until 4am, but I never made it past midnight), I did enjoy hearing a number of interesting talks, including a few that were quite relevant to my own work. While I didn’t give a talk at this conference, I did give a poster presentation. From that poster, I had the opportunity to chat (via GatherTown) with a couple of other scientists who do similar work to me and tell them about my research. I definitely got a few ideas for different things to think about as I write the analysis portion of my paper. Jesse and I (Jesse also attended) were also able to meet up with our former undergraduate advisor at Brown, Ian Dell’Antonio, and catch up with him, which was very nice. In terms of science, one of the coolest results (and one immediately relevant to me), was a poster looking at a similar sample of high-z clusters and protoclusters (ironically one that I’m super familiar with as it was the main comparison sample for my dissertation work) and also looking at the morphology-density relationship. Although they use a different galaxy tracer (thus meaning I’m not being scooped, phew), I did schedule a zoom meeting with the lead author of the poster to better hear about what they’re doing and how it compares and contrasts to my own research.
Although much of my time on campus has been spent doing Astronomy or getting COVID tested, I’ve been able to do a few fun things on campus, too! Richard and I had the opportunity to partake in a workshop on Chinese tea at Tsinghua organized by the Tsinghua International Scholars office. While this wasn’t something akin to the Japanese tea ceremony, with all of its unique ceremonies, it was really interesting to learn about how Chinese tea is traditionally brewed and the different types of tea (Pu’er is still too earthy for me). Unlike in the US where most people use tea bags, here, you first boil the water, then poor it into a separate kettle with tea leaves. You let it steep briefly before pouring the tea into your cup. As I’ve never been a huge tea drinker, it was interesting to hear the Chinese students discuss the importance of tea in their homes and how it was used to connect family members. I also enjoyed the various tea cakes (though I avoided the ones with salted duck eggs, those definitely are not for me).
Additionally, this month marked the three year anniversary of the founding of Tsinghua’s Department of Astronomy (where I work). While there have been Astronomers at Tsinghua far before 2019, previously they had been associated with the Physics Department. Although I couldn’t follow much of the celebration (since it was in Mandarin) or partake in many of the sweets (it was still Passover), it was nice to get together and celebrate.
That same week also marked the 111th Anniversary of the founding of Tsinghua (it seemed like a lot of departments had birthday’s that weekend, so it might be possible that they all celebrate coinciding with the university as a whole). As a result, Tsinghua was opened to a limited amount of public (maybe not the smartest move given that the campus is usually closed, but thankfully there hasn’t been an uptick of COVID cases on campus as a result). Although I hadn’t been planning on partaking in much of the festivities, since I was already on campus for my Saturday group meeting, I decided to walk around and take pictures of the campus and some of the decorations. Between the celebration and the start of Spring, it definitely reminded me of the way Brown would spruce up the campus just in time for Campus Dance and Commencement every year.
One of the things that was most exciting about Tsinghua’s 111th Anniversary was that buildings that are not usually open were open. As such, I was able to visit the Schwarzman College Campus, one of the nicest buildings on campus and home to many of the Schwarzman scholars that I’ve met at Kehillat Beijing this year. Two of my friends, Matthew and Karen, showed me around and wow, this is a fancy building. Given the Astronomy Department’s current spacing crisis, I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious. For those of you unfamiliar (I certainly was before I came here), the Schwarzman Scholars program was founded as a way to allow US and international scholars to better understand China and allow for future international collaborations between China and the US while students earn a one year Master’s Degree in Global Affairs. Since the program was founded during the Obama Administration, there were letters from President Obama on display, which is really cool! Ironically, the College is about 10 minutes from my office, but I’ve never been because due to COVID, they highly restrict who can enter the building. Unlike my department, which is just offices, their building includes a cafeteria, dorms, a gym, and all of their classroom space (as well as lots of common areas). Basically it’s designed to be self-sufficient from the rest of campus.
Beijing in Bloom/Exploring Beijing
Although the end of March definitely saw the beginning of spring in Beijing, April is definitely when Spring set in. As such, I took a lot of photos of flowers this month. Since spring hasn’t set in for everyone who’s reading this, I thought I’d share them with you. I’ve always enjoyed taking photos of flowers (maybe it’s my grandfather, Bompa’s influence, or just a love of a pop of color, but I’m constantly stopping to snap a picture), and being in Beijing has not been a disappointment. I think my favorite are the pink blooms on the trees. I’m not sure what type of flower they are (if you know, please let me know), but they’re beautiful! These pictures span my own neighborhood, Tsinghua’s campus, the area around Tiananmen Square, and really all over Beijing.
Beyond the pictures of flowers, I also spotted some cool buildings and cityscapes as Richard and I walked between Tiananmen Square and the Ancient Observatory.
Also, as I was walking around, I also saw a few different cute motorcycle covers, ads, statues, and other signs!
However, one of the things that I wanted to highlight is that because willow trees are so prevalent, it can sometime look like it’s flurrying. While the fuzz is tough to capture in a photo, I think the two photos below do it justice.
More Jewish Life
Beyond Passover, I was also to go to two lovely Shabbat dinners at Roberta & Ted’s house this month (because of the COVID restrictions – and my generally stress regarding that – and my being exhausted from the late night conference, I decided not to attend this week – however, I did get to go to my brother’s lovely Zoom Shabbat with Kehillat Shanghai). As per usual, Ted really does a wonderful job with the themes. For the last Shabbat before Passover, we had a Spring Shabbat featuring lots of veggie dishes, pasta primavera, and spring rolls (as well as a lovely homemade Challah complete with edible flowers).
During Passover, we had Earth Day Shabbat, which featured some classic Passover staples, potatoes, veggies, matzah, charoset, matzah Lasagna, and some fun desserts.
Unfortunately this ended up being the last Shabbat at Roberta & Ted’s house for a while as they are on their way to the US to visit family. However, assuming things don’t worsen with COVID, Kehillat Beijing is still planning to do Shabbat dinners in some form. I’ll keep you all posted.
Beyond Shabbat and Passover, I also attended two Zoom talks about the Jews of Shanghai this month. One was organized by my brother’s friend Hannah Maia and Kehillat Shanghai, which was a talk by Jerry Lindenstraus, who fled Europe as a child just before WWII and wound up taking refuge in Shanghai. It was quite interesting to hear his first hand account, especially in regards to the lack of assimilation. I think much as I’ve found, Mandarin is hard to learn. However, I was surprised at how independent he portrayed the European refugees. It really felt that they didn’t interact with the Chinese. I guess this is similar to what was conveyed in the Jews of Shanghai documentary that I watched as part of Temple Sinai’s Jewish film series last year, but it was still surprising (it probably didn’t help that I’d just finished reading Peony and that was all about Jewish assimilation in China). He did note that he stayed lifelong friends with some of the other children that he met even after they all left Shanghai, so that was nice. However, I did think it was pretty cool how many of the places he mentioned were familiar to the Shanghai residents! Additionally, the next week I went to a zoom discussion organized by Australia-China Young Professionals Initiative about the two main Jewish families in Shanghai, the Sassoons and the Kadoories (one of the speakers was Jonathan Kaufman, who wrote The Last Kings of Shanghai). It was really interesting to learn about the history of the two families and especially how both of the families paths diverged after WWII. The Kadoories went to Hong Kong and stayed there, they eventually returned to Shanghai and are one of the most influential foreign families, while the Sassoons returned to Europe. As neither of these stories were things that I was familiar with before coming here, it’s quite interesting to learn about the rich connections between Jews and China.
More Vegan Food
Beyond the vegan market, I was also able to try a wonderful vegetarian restaurant after Richard and I visited Tiananmen Square. We go kaofu (a chewy Chinese seitan, served cold), vegetarian fried fish (which, based on the other tables, must be one of their most popular dishes and tasted eerily like french fries, but in a good way), vegetarian duck (layered tofu skins), a spicy veggie and tofu soup, and tofu steaks. All of the food was amazing! And I love how each restaurant has such a different array of foods. I think my favorite was the spicy veggie and tofu soup and the kaofu. The spices had a nice warming effect and despite it being pretty hot when we were out, were really delicious.
Beyond my one meal, I also was able to find some more vegetarian food here in Beijing. Last Monday (just before Beijing announced the start of the various COVID restrictions), Richard, Paulo, and Chris (a professor in our department), did our approximately monthly Laowai dinner. This time, we tried a new restaurant which had a yummy barbecued tofu burger! Yay not just a salad and fries. I also spotted (and bought) some Yum Earth pops in one of the import stores (My Aunt Pam had gotten these for me in Boston and I really like them), and finally found white strawberries! While the white strawberries were delicious, I was a bit disappointed that if you close your eyes, they tasted exactly the same. I do wonder what color jam they’d make though. I also made some delicious Monster cookies following the recipe from The Lunch Room in Ann Arbor!
Animals of Beijing
No Astronomer in Beijing post is complete without some photos of animals. This month, I snapped a few good ones of my favorite puppies (Mimi and Honey, I’ll miss seeing them while Roberta & Ted are away), as well as some other neighborhood dogs and cats. I’ve really enjoyed spotting the neighborhood cats as two of them live next door to me and one always seems to be hanging out in the window!
What was I Reading/Watching?
This month I finished reading The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the 4th book in the Millennium Series (and the first in the trilogy by David Lagercranz). I’d read the original trilogy last spring and devoured them (I’d seen the original Swedish movies when I volunteered at the Saratoga Film Forum in high school, but had never actually read the books). Although the books are known for their violence, I find that both Lagercranz and the original author, Stieg Larsson, excel at weaving an intricate web of political intrigue and crime drama. Like the earlier books, this one again stars Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist pursuing an investigation into a conspiracy involving the NSA, the death of a Swedish scientist studying AI, and a criminal organization led by Salader’s twin sister. I devoured this book and am super excited to read the next two books! Thankfully Jesse was able to get them in Shanghai, because if not, I’d definitely be a bit bummed. Outside of that, I also read a ton of manga and comics this month, too!
In terms of movies and tv, I was able to watch The Batman for a second time (in honor of my birthday and so that I could watch it in sync with Jesse) since it’s now available on HBO Max. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, I still HIGHLY recommend it, especially since it is available on streaming – though a big screen is better. Outside of that, I finished the final season of Killing Eve, which was a bit of a let down. After a killer first season, the show has definitely felt like it’s been on the decline and I was disappointed in the wishy-washy ending. However, I have been really enjoying The End Game airing on NBC (the finale airs this Monday). It’s another criminal conspiracy show in the vein of The Blacklist, but it’s quite good! I’m hoping the finale gives a satisfying conclusion and doesn’t set up for a season 2 (since it hasn’t been renewed yet).
East Meets West
As usual, in my adventures through Beijing, I’m always looking for some signs of America. Like past months, many of those signs featured Disney characters, especially Mickey! He’s very popular here. And so is Harry Potter (although I’ve seen no ads for the new movie)! However, I also spotted a Rafa Nadal hat on the subway and had to snap a photo as he’s my favorite tennis player! Additionally, when I went to Uniqlo to get a new light-weight sweater, I saw some cool sweatshirts featuring Benjamin Bunny and the Mona Lisa. Also, I had to snap a picture of the Porsche dealer and McDonalds near Tiananmen Square!
Anime & Comics
As with all Astronomer in Beijing posts, it wouldn’t be complete without all of the photos of comics, manga, and anime paraphernalia. Since I was looking to buy some statues and toys for Jesse for our birthday, I saw a lot this month! Obviously Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Demon Slayer, and One Piece are the kings of anime, while I do see a lot of Marvel and DC, but I also spotted some Crayon-Shin Chan, Haikyu!, Detective Conan, and Sailor Moon. I really do love spotting all of the random toys, as well as pens, and white-out featuring some of my favorite characters (yes, I’ve bought the pens, but not the white-out, I don’t really use that anymore). Interestingly, I also spotted some kids graphic novels in the form of Big Nate and Amulet. I’m an avid reader of Big Nate in the sunday comics, so it’s fun to see! I’ve heard great things about Amulet too, if you’re looking for YA graphic novels.
Beyond what was in stores, I also spotted some cute statues, stickers, and posters around the city (including a cool Pub Quiz poster featuring the Riddler at the restaurant we went to for our Laowai dinner). I think I love seeing these the most because they just seem to pop out of nowhere and stress how ubiquitous anime and comics fandom is here as compared the subculture that it is in the US.
For those of you who managed to make it all the way to the bottom, thank you so much. It means so much to me that so many of you reached out to me or my parents to either wish me happy birthday or check in to see how things are in Beijing! I really hope that things don’t head the way of Shanghai and that Beijing is able to curb the current COVID wave so that I’m not trapped in my apartment, but I’ll keep you all posted. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to either comment below or write me directly! It’s always wonderful to hear from you. I hope that you all have a safe, happy, and healthy May!
In Peace,
Emmet
