Hi Everyone,
Welcome back to my Astronomer in Beijing blog. I hope this post finds you safe and healthy (and for those of you who are in academia, having a delightful start to the summer). As the title of this post indicates, May definitely wasn’t a very fun month for me. Before I dive into the ordeal that has been my life in Beijing in May 2022, I want to assure you all that I’m doing fine. I have plenty of food, water (which, since they don’t recommend drinking the tap water here in China is vital – I paid for a built in water filter, following Jesse’s recommendation), Astronomy research, podcasts, comics, and tv to pass the time. Unlike previous months and previous posts, where I give a brief update on the COVID-19 situation in China and then dive into fun things I did this month, the majority of this blog post will be spent telling you how I dealt with a lockdown here in Beijing. I haven’t really been able to do anything fun that wasn’t virtual since my birthday, but hopefully next month’s blog will be able to remedy that. Before I dive into the narrative, I do want to thank those of you who reached out to me either in person or through my parents to make sure I was ok. It really helped to cheer me up.
As I mentioned in my last post, the number of COVID cases began to slowly increase in Beijing just before my Birthday (with the uptick starting on April 23). Because of China’s Dynamic Zero policy in regards to COVID, basically any cases outside of the quarantine for people coming into the country is grounds for a lockdown and/or restrictions. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit of a hypochondriac and the fact that I’m living in a country where the overwhelming majority of doctors and people don’t speak (or at least aren’t comfortable speaking) English, makes all of these outbreaks more nerve-wracking to me. As the cases ticked up and up, first from 5 to 10 to eventually ~50 (where it generally plateaued), the constant stresses were 1) did I need to get a COVID test today, 2) where can I get a COVID test today, 3) were any of the reported COVID cases nearby either Tsinghua (where I work) or Gulou (where I live). As I mentioned in my last post, during the last week of April, Tsinghua had required us to get tested on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and out of an abundance of caution, I chose to basically go onto campus, meet up with Richard, get tested, and head home (an ~ 2.25 hour loop all together). However, after continuing that pattern on May 2, 3, and 4th (there was quite a bit of confusion at this point about if we needed to get tested every day, every other day, or what), I awoke to a message from my fellow postdoc Paulo with a letter from the University telling us all that Tsinghua had closed the campus to people living off campus. This threw my routine into a bit of a tizzy as I now had to figure out where I could get tested. As I mentioned in my last post, my only prior experience with attempting to go to the COVID tents set up on the street around Gulou ended up with me getting rejected because I’m a foreigner. With the help of other expats who are in the Safe & Sane Beijing WeChat group that I’m in (basically a community run news aggregator for COVID related updates in English that has truly been my lifeline to understanding the policies, testing procedures, and lockdowns), I was able to find out that other expats had been able to successfully get tested at the Drum Tower (about a 5 minute walk from my apartment) and all I needed was my passport. Phew!
This began the beginning of my time working entirely from home and basically spending the entirety of my days at home. My new routine became wake up, do the day’s Wordle, read the morning comics on gocomics, get tested, do a Zeus fitness work out and then get to work. Initially, the testing cadence was every other day throughout the entire city and in Xicheng, the larger district where I live, we were tested on odd days. However, as the number of cases continued to stay around 50 and those cases started to creep up in Xicheng, they changed the testing cadence to every day. While the testing procedure is pretty standard, I will say that it isn’t entirely foreigner friendly (or maybe putting it another way, some of the people in line are rather cautious of being near foreigners). On the first day I got tested, a person literally stopped on their bike to stare at me and ask (surprisingly in decent English) why I was there. On other days, I had people who despite everyone being told to stand 2 meters apart would crowd their Chinese neighbors, while trying to get as far from me as possible (I know other people experienced this too). And one day, they were even photographing me when I got tested (they might have been photographing everyone, but it felt like the photographer was spending a lot of time staring at me). Although this was a bit annoying, I tried to zone it all out and listen to podcasts while I waited in line. The only difficulty I have is that it’s always a bit of a struggle to tell people how to spell my name. Unlike Chinese nationals who have an ID card that can be scanned so that they will be able to get their test results, foreigners need to enter their passport number and name (I will note that this process is different for Jesse in Shanghai where they’ve set up a QR code system for everyone). Since everyone uses Arabic numerals, the passport number is thankfully easy. However, the number of variations I’ve gotten on Golden-Marx is interesting to say the least (GOLDEN-MARX, GOLDENMARX, Golden-Marx, Golden-marx, Goldenmarx, goldenmarx ….). Thankfully the passport number seems to be the key (although one day they did also ask my age and twice I received a slip indicating that I had indeed been tested) and I’ve been able to get all of my COVID test results on the Beijing WeChat Health (all still negative for those of you who’re wondering). Thankfully for my sanity, the test results usually appear anywhere between 6 and 18 hours after the test.
Despite the strict testing protocols, in my opinion many people here take COVID just about as seriously as people in the US. By that, I mean that despite mask mandates, it’s totally fine to take your mask off while in line to smoke your cigarette, for old men to huddle up with their buddies while playing some various forms of Chinese chess, or for kids to play maskless with kites and streamers not more than 50 feet from a mass testing site (look closely at the picture of the Drum Tower to the right). As my father can attest, I returned from many a COVID test exasperated that so many of the elderly people I saw seemed to be oblivious to the fact that there was a pandemic and that we are being asked not to congregate. As I mentioned in my last blog, this is particularly frustrating because despite the high fraction of vaccinated people here in China (~88%), the vaccination rates are far lower among the elderly. I’ve spent much time chatting with Richard about this and we both find it odd that you can mandate testing here (and actually enforce it, since we need a negative test within 48 hours to enter everything from a grocery store to public transportation), but the hill of personal liberties that seems to be a step too far is getting vaccinated. I know some fraction of people are unable to get vaccinated, but that doesn’t account for the ~ 40% of Chinese nationals over 60 who remain unvaccinated. Given the mentality that we all must suffer for the greater good, it seems a bit hypocritical. I know some of the vaccine hesitancy stems from a preference for traditional Chinese medicine (and their have even been quasi-scientific studies arguing that Chinese medicine is good to fight COVID), but I think at this point, we know that getting herd immunity is the best path forward.
As all of this was going on, Beijing was starting to shut down. During the May Day holiday, Beijing closed schools, in person dining at all restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, non-food related shops, and even some outdoor parks (apparently this was done to prevent large gatherings outdoors of people). Because of all of this, I decided that it made more sense to just wait to do any fun excursions until thing returned to normal. As I was trying to avoid crowds and not take too many unnecessary trips out, I tried to limit my grocery shopping and supplemented some of my usual shopping with delivery orders. Thankfully, because I was aware of Jesse’s situation in Shanghai (for those of you wondering, Shanghai finally “reopened” on June 1!), I took this time to continue stocking up on canned beans, lentils, oatly, juice, dried fruit, dried mushrooms, noodles, and chocolate.
Interestingly, as all of this was going on, I was also getting bombarded with WeChat messages from the Tsinghua Department of Astronomy asking us all to verify that we’d been tested on given days. While I truly appreciate all of the hard work the various department secretaries do and understand that Tsinghua was hounding them to make sure everyone was getting tested, I will say that getting constantly reminded about testing and reporting our results did little to make me feel like things were normal and really didn’t help my overall anxiety.
Unfortunately for me, the shit really hit the fan on May 23th. Just before 9am, as I was about to leave to get my now daily COVID test, I was startled by a loud banging on my door. Now maybe this is because for the 7 years of living in Boston, people rarely ever knocked on my door, or the fact that I’m used to the door bell at my parents house, but I find that anytime anyone knocks on my door, especially an unexpected knock, that I get a bit jumpy (the knocks also tend to be more banging than a gentle knock). When I opened the door, I was greeted by a police officer putting caution tape across the entrance to my apartment (see the photo to the right). This alone got me worried! After about a minute of saying that I don’t speak Mandarin and playing phone translation tag, he finally was able to tell me that I was not to leave the apartment. At this point, I didn’t know why someone was at my door, but given the situation, I figured it was likely COVID (though I knew it wasn’t me since I had tested negative the previous day). I tried to ask how long this would last, but he said we’d be informed later. So then the waiting game began. I thought, perhaps naively, that we might be informed quickly. As one of the tips from the Safe & Sane group was to be in contact with your neighborhood committee if any kind of lockdown occurs, I reached out to my landlord (who after sending him multiple messages in both English and Mandarin finally did put me in contact with the Neighborhood committee a few days later, but more on that later) and the Safe & Sane group to see if anyone had any ideas. Unfortunately, nobody knew exactly what was going on, but the timelines people mentioned ranged from anywhere from 3 days if it was just a close contact, two 2+ weeks if it was a positive case. Thankfully, one of the Kehillat Beijing members who works at the US Embassy is also in my Safe & Sane group, and she reached out to see how I was doing. It was really nice to hear from someone (other than Jesse and my parents) in those first few hours when I was freaking out. However, the real fun began that evening when I received a call from the police. Now normally they speak Mandarin at me and then end up having to text me to figure out what they want, but clearly since I’m registered with a US passport and have the least Chinese sounding name possible, they had someone who speaks English call. I was definitely a bit concerned as they were asking if I live on Houmachang Hutong. Not knowing that this is literally around the corner from me, I kept responding that I live on Qianmachang Hutong. When that was conveyed, he told me to stay safe and I wished him the same. About two hours later at around 10pm, I got another knock on my door. This time through a series of hand signals and broken English, I was told that I needed to get a COVID test. Now because of what Jesse had described in Shanghai, I assumed I’d just follow the line of people, but when I got outside, there was no line. I just wandered around my poorly lit hutong neighborhood until I found another person in a white suit (all the people who take our COVID tests are dressed head to toe in white disposable plastic suits). After he again just pointed in a direction where nobody was, I asked again in English where we were supposed to get tested. Now maybe it was because I sounded a bit like an ugly American, or the fact that I was exhausted and rather annoyed, but finally a different white suit took pity on me and guided me to where I needed to get tested. (Before I continue, I do want to note that although I’ve lived in my apartment for over 8 months, I’ve never really explored the side streets in my hutong neighborhood, because hutongs are a bit like a maze and I’ve never felt like getting lost.)
When I woke up Tuesday morning, I was greeted with the notification from the Safe & Sane group that there had indeed been a positive case around the corner from me (a few days later a second case was also reported from the same location, as well). Interestingly, this was the only confirmation that there was a positive case. I never heard anything official from any of the neighborhood committees or authorities. Given the confirmation, I assumed I’d be in this for the long haul, so I waited to hear anything from the community. Finally, around 8pm, I got another knock on the door. I assumed it would be for a COVID test, but this time I was pleasantly surprised that they were organizing us to give us government issued noodles and veggies! I made sure to thank the workers, who made sure to tell me to thank the Chinese government instead. I got 2 large packs of noodles (not that I needed more noodles), a cauliflower, a large bag of bean sprouts, a large bag of Chinese chives, 2 daikon radishes, lots of ginger, and more dill than I would ever be able to use (in talking with my friends, apparently dill is a very popular filling in dumplings). Although I had a lot of food in my apartment, it was definitely nice to get some more fresh things! Here, I was also added to a WeChat group for the community, one of which I thought would let me know when we needed to get tested (and any other potential updates).
Things progressed largely the same on Wednesday. I did some research while basically waiting to see if I heard anything from the community. This time we got a message that we needed to pick up our at home COVID tests at 7pm (as opposed to the PCR tests I’d done previously). Now, you might think this should be a relatively simple process, but because the government wanted to make sure people were taking the tests and verify the results, I had to wait in line for about an hour just to get the test (much like the PCR test, they needed to register each test with each person’s ID). Then, after doing the test, I had to wait in line for another hour just to return it! This definitely felt a bit like a comedy of errors as many of my Chinese neighbors started to complain about potential double exposure because of having to wait outside twice. The only positive to come from this is that while I was waiting in line, one of my Chinese neighbors introduced herself to me and we had a nice chat about what was going on, life in Beijing, life in the US, and how we were managing during the lockdown. Since most of my neighbors don’t appear to speak much English (or maybe just aren’t interested in talking with me), it was nice to get to chat with someone in person!
On Thursday morning, I was greeted by another loud banging on my door. This time, I discovered that they were putting a magnetic lock on my door (and all of my neighbor’s doors) as a way to further enforce that we stay in our apartments. I guess that despite being told not to leave, many of my neighbors took this to mean don’t leave the neighborhood (not that we could leave as it was thoroughly fenced off, but that they could sit and smoke in the alley or just hangout outside). Although the magnetic lock didn’t really prevent us from leaving, it is supposed to make a noise when the door is opened. Ironically, I got lucky as my lock never seemed to make noise regardless of what I did. Later that day, I finally heard back from my landlord putting me in contact with the neighborhood organizer. However, despite this seemingly good piece of news, I was then bombarded with questions from my landlord about my job, how many people live in my apartment (something he should have known), and whether I had been tested the last few days. I responded that I hadn’t because I was told not to leave my apartment and had not left my apartment since nobody had told me to get a PCR test or sent a message in the WeChat group telling us to do so. The complete lack of organization and transparency up until this point was really starting to frustrate me. If I’m yelled at by multiple people in white suits not to leave my apartment, I shouldn’t assume that I can just wander around to figure out when COVID testing is happening. Someone has to be in charge. I then messaged the WeChat group to ask if we were supposed to get tested and found out that there was testing on Thursday. Thankfully, I made it just in the nick of time (I got there at 5:55 and it closed at 6)! This was really my first chance to see just how closed off and locked down the community was and it definitely felt a bit scary. They set up a ton of temporary fences and walls and really did lock us in (see the photos below). At this time, I was also added to yet another WeChat group and this one did make the effort to inform us of the daily testing times and policy. Interestingly, later that evening, one of my neighbors (one of the few who speaks English), knocked on my door to give me another take home test to do, as well.
Starting Friday (5/27), the community organizers (or at least whoever was in charge of the WeChat groups) finally seemed to get organized and began telling us around noon when the testing window would be each day (it was usually 2:30 – 5:30 and I’d go around 3:30). It was always interesting to see what people were doing in lines. Sometimes families would be together playing some form of hacky sack with a badminton ball, other times I’d find neighbors in traditional western style pajamas as if they’d been lazing around all day and hadn’t been bothered to get dressed. Another thing that was interesting was the number of people who were still using their bikes despite the area where we were locked down covering less than a quarter mile. But to each their own. The one thing the organizers constantly stressed was not to bring pets when getting tested. While testing stabilized, it was still a bit frustrating that we were never given any information on how long this situation would last. The only bit of information we were given is that multiple times we were told that not enough people had been tested and that the lockdown (or “sealing” as it was referred to) would be continuing. By the following Wednesday, they were even asking us to sign in multiple times (thankfully the sign in list had my name in English as there is no way I would recognize a transliterated version of my name in Mandarin) to get tested and report to the WeChat group that we had been tested (since they have to record our name and ID number to get a test, this seemed a bit like overkill as they should be able to easily figure out who hasn’t been tested and thus be able to reprimand those who did not get tested or at least make sure they go get tested). While I was at least getting some information, the total lack of infrastructure within the community si quite frustrating. Multiple times during the lockdown I had people knock on my doors to ask me how many people live in this apartment, write down my name, passport number, and take pictures of my passport. Occasionally, my neighbor who speaks some English would accompany them, but usually it was a lot of pointing and limited words (I was even added to yet another WeChat group and I still can’t figure out what the difference is for all of them). The only other thing that really bothered me was that despite the entire community being locked, people still walked around without wearing a mask and I never saw any of the numerous security officers or white suits ask someone to put on a mask.
Ironically, one of the few bright spots of this lockdown period came from one of the WeChat groups I was added to. Last Saturday, a neighbor had attempted to deliver a package to me and I saw that the name was also in English and that the person was in one of the new WeChat groups. I reached out to him and let him know that the package should be at his place soon (this is the downside of having multiple 61 Qianmachang Hutong apartments; ironically this happened again a few days later – I don’t know if it’s that people know that two foreigners both live in different 61 Qianmachang Hutongs, or what). It turns out that the other foreigner is a professor in the Math Department at the Yau Institute at Tsinghua! Given that all of my Chinese colleagues always comment how far away from campus I live, I was pretty shocked to find another person from Tsinghua! It’s been really nice to not only have a familiar face who speaks English (he’s from the UK), but also someone else who is dealing with a lot of the same difficulties of not really knowing what is going on and not being fluent in Mandarin! Since meeting on WeChat, we’ve run into each other a few times while getting tested and have chatted back and forth about deliveries and where to get food!
Now you’re probably wondering how I was doing on food after a week locked down. Unfortunately, the Tuesday night bag of veggies from the Chinese government was the only food we received. Unlike Jesse’s situation in Shanghai, we didn’t receive a steady supply of food. Given the fact that I had food at the beginning of the lockdown and had a lot of food stocked up, I was able to ration my fruits and vegetables so that I had those. I want to stress that at no point was I ever starving or hungry even. Thankfully the day before the lockdown started, there had been a spike in cases (with 90 being reported), and I ordered a lot more canned goods and gatorade as a precaution, so I was fully stocked heading in! However, by 10 days in, I definitely was eating way more sugar and carbs than I usually do. While we were locked down, apparently it was still possible to order deliveries and as such, the community did little to organize any large group buys of food. However, I never attempted to do delivery mostly because so many of my Chinese neighbors were complaining that the delivery drivers didn’t know where to put the food and would call and ask them and they didn’t know either or that deliveries were going missing (since I can’t communicate with the delivery drivers, this seemed next to impossible for me). As you can see above, the sort of haphazardly put together system required people to stand over a fence to get their deliveries handed to them, not the easiest thing to do. Since I was ok on food, I figured, I’d wait until I was really out of fruits and vegetables, all while hoping that the community would reopen soon (I will say that multiple of the secretaries from the Department of Astronomy and other Chinese speaking friends reached out to say that they would be happy to help if I needed anything, though my preparedness had kept me well fed). While they didn’t give us any more food, they did give us hand sanitizer and masks, so at least that’s something (though it was about 10 days in when they gave them to us)!
Finally, after 12 days in strict lockdown, I awoke yesterday morning to a message that the community would be partially reopening at 11am. While they are still asking us to work from home and stay inside, we are now allowed to leave the hutong as long as we show the pass we were given (basically a yellow note card). I jumped at this opportunity to stretch my legs a bit and also get some much needed groceries! After striking out at my usual grocery store (it was closed and looked like it wouldn’t be reopening very soon), I lucked into running into the Math Professor from Tsinghua, who sent me the location of where he had gotten groceries. Thankfully, I was able to get ~ $50 worth of fruits and veggies, so now my fridge is quite full of fresh food!
Although I was pleased to be able to leave, I was startled by how large an area the lockdown encompassed. As you can see in the above and below photos, they basically walled off the entire side of my street, encompassing over 10 blocks on one side. I knew that my little corner of the hutong was shut down, but I didn’t realize just how much was actually closed. It was definitely eerie to walk around with all of the fencing still up and also equally eerie when I crossed the street to go to the grocery store and things appeared normal. Right now we’re in a 4 day health monitoring (although what the status of testing is still a bit unknown to me), but at least things seem to be trending in the right direction. Hopefully the fences will be gone soon and life will return to closer to normal.
I do want to say that unlike in Shanghai, where everyone was locked down, a lot really depends on where you live. I know people who were out living their lives like normal, socializing with friends, going running, and were really only affected by the large scale Beijing restrictions. Others, like me, were less lucky. Richard, who lives on Tsinghua’s campus, was in a quasi-lockdown when Tsinghua closed. They divided the campus between the area for the undergrads and graduate students (basically the majority of the campus) and the residential area where he lives. So despite being on campus, he was unable to go to our office or the majority of the campus (though they finally eased restrictions and he can at least leave his portion of the campus, although he cannot enter the rest of campus). However, as I write this, Beijing has announced an easing of restrictions, with restaurants set to reopen for dining in tomorrow and schools the following week. The number of daily cases has seemed to drop to less than 15, with almost all of them coming from locked down districts like mine. Still, we’re being asked to test every 48 or 72 hours if you want to go to a grocery store, take the subway, or basically do anything outside of staying in your home. While I don’t want to spend too much time focusing on the positive and negative impacts of China’s Dynamic Zero Policy in regards to COVID, I do feel like this cannot be the status quo forever. To have everyone’s lives radically disrupted every time there is a positive case is extreme (and incredibly harmful to the economy). Look, I’m glad I never tested positive, but I also spent two weeks dealing with a lot of anxiety of never knowing what is going on and not really feeling comfortable in my home. At least when I was in Boston during the initial lockdown in 2020, I was comfortable in my home and new how I could get groceries when I needed them (and Fomu Vegan ice cream when I wanted some sweet comfort). While the nonchalant nature of COVID policies currently in place in the US probably swings a bit too far to the left for my preference, I do think that some kind of happy medium should exist. One where quarantining at home is allowed (for those wondering, if you test positive, you are sent to specialized hospitals here in Beijing), people still wear masks, but more importantly are allowed to live their lives and are not punished or ostracized for getting sick.
So to summarize, in total, between April 25th and June 5th, I took 31 PCR tests (all negative so far – I haven’t gotten today’s results yet), 2 at home tests (both negative), and spent 12 days in a strict lockdown. Definitely not the most fun way to spend a month.
Life at Tsinghua
Ok, so most of my research life didn’t actually happen at Tsinghua, but I thought I’d share these two pictures I took from when I was last on campus to get tested. You can see the Observatory off in the distance (I will actually visit it when I can get back on campus) and all of the flags up for the 111th Anniversary of Tsinghua.
Research wise, this was an interesting month. I’m not going to lie, between the work from home mandate and then the COVID lockdown in Gulou, I’ve had far more productive months. Unlike the start of the pandemic in the US, when I was able to put my head down and work because I was finishing my dissertation and had quite strict deadlines, I haven’t had similar deadlines and my anxiety and nerves have definitely gotten the better of me. I’m hoping that as things return to normal, I’ll be able to focus a bit more on making headway in my research.
In terms of actual research, most of my time was focused on Project Morphology. As I’ve discussed before, I’m measuring the shape of distant protocluster galaxies to better determine the role the environment plays on their evolution. While I’ve completed the analysis for the protoclusters themselves, I can’t say whether or not I see any evolutionary trends if I don’t compare to a background field. As such, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to set up a wrapper (an additional computer program) that will allow me to run Galfit, the program I use to measure the galaxy’s shape, in a batch mode so that I can run Galfit on the 2000+ background galaxies quickly and efficiently. I’ve been creeping forward on this thanks to a lot of help from a few colleagues and some of their collaborators. I’m cautiously optimistic that I should be able to maybe run the program this week (and if not, have a secondary program to try that runs in Python instead of IDL). Outside of computer programming, I had a great meeting with Ekta Shah, a postdoc who works with my good friend Brian Lemaux, who is an expert on merging galaxies. As I’ve identified a large number of potentially merging systems in my protoclusters, it was really useful to talk with someone who has experience looking at similar galaxies and discussing what properties might be the most intriguing as I finalize the analysis on these protoclusters. Additionally, in chatting with Ekta, I discovered that the sample she’d worked on overlaps with my background sample, so I can further verify how good (or bad) I am at identifying merging systems to better quantify my results. I’ve also made a fair amount of headway on the paper draft of Project Morphology, although, without the final results, it’s a bit tricky to write large swaths of the paper. Outside of project morphology, I’m finally starting to work on Project Radio again as I really need a break from Project Morphology, and Jesse and I finally got started on Project Low-Z, a new analysis of some previous work that influenced my dissertation that combines Jesse’s dissertation work and mine to look at galaxy evolution among clusters hosting bent radio sources (I should be able to share some more details on that project next month).
Although I was working from home this month, I was able to have a number of really productive and useful meetings with the department’s colloquium speakers. Ironically, three of the four colloquiums in May/June were early universe/galaxy cluster related (none of the previous speaker’s this semester were). The first was with Prof. Tao Wang from Nanjing University, a collaborator of Zheng’s (and a future Collaborator on Project Key) and it was great to get to share some of my results and also talk about some potential future projects. Tao even invited me to come to visit Nanjing (although given the University’s/Beijing’s travel restrictions, we haven’t even begun to figure out when). The second was with Prof. Joseph Hennawi at Leiden University, who is another collaborator of Zheng’s. Although his research focuses more on early universe quasars than the protoclusters they reside in, it was great to get another perspective on my research and also on what questions might be worth exploring as I continue to chart my research path at Tsinghua. The last colloquium speaker was Dr. Nina Hatch from Nottingham University. I was super excited for Nina’s talk as I was the person who recommended she give a talk and I was really pleased when the faculty approved my recommendation and then that Nina was available. Nina is an expert on radio AGN, galaxy clusters, and protoclusters, and I’ve really enjoyed discussing science with her at a number of cluster conferences over the last 6 years. Her colloquium was fantastic and the work that she’s doing is really interesting (I’ll definitely be citing her and her students work as I continue to work on Project Evolution and Project Low-Z among others)! I also had a great conversation about my research, especially about how to think about the morphology-density relationship and why we see what we see in the protoclusters. I’m so glad that Nina could give the talk and I’m definitely excited to try to invite a few more speakers in the coming years!
Outside of all of these meetings, I also attended on more Virtual Conference at the beginning of the month. This conference, called POSTER, focused on flash talks, 2 minute talks given by each person, and then a larger poster session format. I was able to have a few interesting conversations about my work on Project Morphology. More importantly, I discovered that Zheng had hired yet another postdoc (bringing our group up to 7 postdocs this fall, which is quite a lot) because one of the other participants introduced himself as being a postdoc at Tsinghua and neither Paulo or Richard knew him. Pablo, our new postdoc, is still currently in Spain, but it’ll be great to have another foreigner in the group (and another person to help encourage Zheng to do group meetings on any other day but Saturday or Sunday). I’m looking forward to having him arrive soon!
Speaking of new postdocs, we had a few new international postdocs officially arrive in China (really unfortunate timing for them) and I was able to hangout with them virtually. Tom, who is a new postdoc from the UK who is in Paulo and Richard’s group, arrived early in May and we’ve been helping him navigate getting things set up here in Beijing (thankfully Yuning, the secretary for the postdocs, has been very helpful, too!). Richard, Paulo, Jiaxin (Paulo’s wife), Tom, Jesse, and I had a virtual game night, which was a ton of fun! We played a variety of Jack box games and then played an online version of Telestrations! Later in the month, Richard, Paulo, Tom, Chris (the foreign faculty member in our department), had a virtual laowai hangout, where we got to meet Chris’s new postdoc Seongjoong, who’s from South Korea. It was great to hangout again and chat and see how everyone is dealing with the lockdown. We’re all hoping to get onto campus soon, but aren’t terribly optimistic.
Additionally, the Department of Astronomy had a few zoom hangouts and coffee hours to help lift our spirits. After being isolated, I’ll take any zoom interactions! Even slightly awkward coffee hours with mandatory questions! We did also have a relatively useful meeting with the Department Chair where we could air our grievances with the department (mostly relating to the fact that someone keeps smoking on the 6th floor where our offices are and that is a problem). We also discussed other ways to create a more cohesive department (especially since the postdocs are in a separate building).
Exploring Beijing
Ok, so as the top portion of this post states, I really didn’t get to do any exploring this month. However, I did get to take some photos of some pretty flowers in my neighborhood and around the Drum Tower, so I thought I’d share them with you! I also saw a few other cool things that weren’t flowers, too!
Jewish Life
As should probably be expected by now, all of my Jewish events this month were virtual. While some smaller in person Shabbat dinners did happen this month, I chose not to attend out of an abundance of caution. Since Beijing was asking people not to eat at restaurants and not to congregate, it just made more sense to me to have virtual services. So this month, I was able to co-lead, with Jesse, three virtual Shabbat services (and one hybrid Kehillat Beijing service). I really enjoyed getting to co-lead with Jesse. I don’t think we’ve gotten to do that since our Senior year at Brown when we co-led the Reform Minyan. While the services didn’t have a huge crowd, since some of my friends here in Beijing were also locked down and unable to attend in person services, it was nice to get to include them, too! I’m hoping that later this month I’ll be able to go to some in person events again!
While not services related, I also got to participate in Kehillat Shanghai’s Zoom trivia this month! I played on a team with Richard and Paulo and I think we performed admirably! We got 4th place (and would’ve done better if any of knew more about esoteric modern music). It was a ton of fun and I’m really glad that Jesse organized it! Also, I also was able to watch the livestream of the Alef Beats’s commencement concert last weekend (my old college a capella group)! Having spent a week in lockdown at that point, it was wonderful to see a few familiar faces in the audience and those who came up for the alumni song and hear everyone having so much fun!
Vegan Food
Ok, so I didn’t get to go to any vegetarian or vegan restaurants. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t show off some delicious food. Since the April Vegan Market happened just before Passover, I had a few different vegan cookies from the Small Batch Cookie Company (shortbread, birthday cake, PB&J, and double chocolate) that I got to enjoy!
I also thought I’d show off some of my own vegan cooking for a change! I made a Thai red curry noodle curry, my interpretation of mercimek koftesi (a turkish recipe I had gotten from my parent’s colleague Maggie Greaves’s husband Cagri – I had to use quinoa instead of bulgar), stir fried bean sprouts (thank you Chinese government), roasted daikon (again, thank you Chinese government), my own double chocolate chip cookies, barbecued oyster mushroom crustini, and a black bean taco on a homemade scallion pancake! Also, for anyone wondering what I did with all that dill, I made some daikon pickles, but I still have quite a bit and it probably won’t end up getting eaten (it’s really not my favorite).
Animals of Beijing
Although I wasn’t able to go anywhere, the neighborhood cats were out and about and I did get to see them a bit!
What was I Reading/Watching?
Because of my work from home and the removal of ~ 1.5 hours of commute from my day, I definitely watched some tv to help unwind and stay calm. While not every show I watched was great, I did finish a few that I definitely recommend. I finished the 6th and final season of Lucifer, which is loosely based on the comic book series written by Mike Carey with a number of different artists. For those unfamiliar, it’s a police procedural, where Lucifer Morningstar is a consulting Detective with the LAPD. It’s a great show and one that definitely benefitted from its move off Fox and onto Netflix. I also watched seasons 5 and 6 (the final season) of The Expanse, which is a sci-fi epic based on the novels by James S. A. Corey. While it’s definitely a series that leans into hard sci-fi at times, it’s a really interesting tale of politics, race relations, and the human struggle. The characters in the show are incredibly fleshed out and I really enjoyed the show! I definitely want to read the books (though who knows if I can get them here in China). I also watched the first season of Pennyworth on HBOMax (initially it was on Epix). It’s a great British spy/police drama set in 1950s England centering on the rise of fascism in the UK. It’s also a Batman prequel as the show centers around Alfred Pennyworth, Thomas Wayne, and Martha Kane. However, even if you aren’t a DC comics fan, it’s a fun show and one that you don’t need to know anything about comic books to enjoy. Lastly, I watched season one of The After Party on Apple TV+. If Knives Out is a murder mystery with a bit of comedy, this is a comedy with a bit of a murder mystery. Featuring an all-star comedic cast, the show is set around a murder at an after party of a 15th high school reunion. Maybe because I’m 13 years out of high school at this point, this show just felt like it was made for my demographic and I thought it was a ton of fun!
On the reading front, I obviously have read a lot of comics in lockdown. I also finished reading the manga series Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, a 25 volume epic about clans of clashing Japanese demons in modern day Japan, which I really enjoyed. I also finished book 5 of the Millenium series, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye. As with the previous four books, I really enjoyed this one. I find the Lisbeth Salander character to be incredibly compelling and love the way David Lagercrantz was clearly influenced by recent writings regarding experiments with twins (as shown in Three Identical Strangers) to further develop the world and differences between Lisbeth and her sister Camilla. I also love the Mikael Blomkvist character and the perspective he brings to the stories as he’s uncovering the mystery as you read the book. I’ve started reading book 6 and am already enthralled and can’t wait to read what happens next!
Additionally, as today is the French Open final, I’ve also enjoyed getting to watch Rafael Nadal earn a 14th trip to the Roland Garros Final (and a much deserved thank you to my parents for still paying for cable and thus allowing me to watch the coverage on Tennis Channel). Although the matches are usually late at night or really early in the morning given the time difference between China and France, I’m a huge Rafa fan and any time I can watch him it’s worth it. Especially after some rough injuries involving a stress fracture in his rib and his nagging foot injury, it’s great to see Rafa playing so well. I’ll be pulling for Rafa tonight! Vamos Rafa!
Quarantine Drawings
For those of your who I’m not friends with on facebook, at the start of the pandemic in the US, I started doing daily quarantine drawings, which I continued for almost 600 days (until I finished my 6th sketchbook upon arriving in China). Because of the return of my quarantine, I figured it was time to restart the quarantine drawings. Unlike the previous batch, none of these are established comic book, manga, or anime characters. Some of these are characters I’ve been drawing for years, while most are just fun doodles. I’d love to hear if you have any favorites! Even if you aren’t a frequent commenter and just want to let me know in a short message, that’d be great! I scaled down the sketch book (it’s about 3×5), but they’re still a ton of fun to do!
Anime & Comics
No Astronomer in Beijing post would be complete without at least a few pictures of comic book, manga, or anime related things. While the pickings were a bit slim, I did see a Demon Slayer sticker and Sailor moon stickers on various mopeds this month. I also walked by this crazy car every day to get tested and had to share all of the geeky things (a One Piece decal, goku figurines in the corners, Captain America and Spiderman pillows!).
For all of you who made it this far, thank you so much for reading this month’s blog. I know it wasn’t quite as exciting as previous months and that you didn’t get to see any new sights here in Beijing, but I hope you got a bit of better understanding of what it’s like to deal with COVID lockdowns here in China. As always, if you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please let me know either in the comments section below or reach out via e-mail! Thank you again for reading! I hope things continue to improve here and return to normal and that for all of you reading, June is a happy, safe, and healthy month!
In Peace,
Emmet
