An Action Packed August: Visits to The Lama Temple, A Chinese Ballet, Bell Tower, Drum Tower, and Lots of Vegan Events!

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all so much for returning to my Astronomer in Beijing blog! I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy and that you had a relaxing end to the summer. For those of you who are teachers/professors/work in academia, I hope the beginning of the semester (or the upcoming semester) isn’t too stressful. As I mentioned in last month’s post, I’ve officially spent over a year in China (and as the of the time of writing this, have now spent over a year in Beijing). While I won’t reflect on my year in this post (it’s in the last post if you missed that), it’s hard to believe that I’ve spent a year in Beijing (and by that I mean, that I literally have not left the city since I arrived last September). Before I dive into my very full month, I do want to just give a brief update on the COVID situation here in Beijing. Thankfully, things are remaining stable, with only a handful of new cases reported each week (usually a single new case every other day). That doesn’t mean that the city has eased any of the COVID restrictions. We still have to get tested every 3 days to be able to do anything. While the actual testing is pretty easy, it was frustrating when the test I took this past Sunday and then again this Friday the results never showed up, thus preventing me from going into campus on Monday (thankfully I was able to take a test Monday and that came back negative) and doing other errands on Saturday (again, thankfully the other text came back negative). Additionally, I have now received my booster of the Sinovac Vaccine, so in the eyes of the Beijing QR Health code, I’m fully vaccinated. Other than some arm soreness, I didn’t have any side effects. Beyond that, this was a pretty fun month.

The Lama Temple

Early in August, Richard, Tom, and I visited the Lama Temple (which in Chinese is called Yonghegong). Unlike many of the other places I’ve visited, the Lama Temple is pretty close to my apartment (about a 40 minute walk) – though not as close as the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. Before I dive into my tour of the temple, it’s worth noting that architecturally, it shares many similarities with the Forbidden City as it was originally the home of the Yongzheng Emperor (prior to him becoming the emperor) and was built in the late 17th century. As his son didn’t know what to do with the palace upon his death, he decided to transform into into a monastery affiliated with the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. While most of the temples and palaces that I’ve previously visited in Beijing show hints of Buddhist influence, the Lama Temple is a functioning Buddhist Temple. Their are active monks who live and pray their daily here, and as such, while you’ll see lots of photos of the exterior of the temples and some of the non-active prayer halls, you won’t see any photos of the many statues of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas since people aren’t allowed to take photos inside the prayer spaces.

As I mentioned above, the Lama Temple lies directly in the middle of the bustling hutong neighborhoods of Dongcheng (the neighboring district to Xicheng, where I live – these literally translate as west city wall [Xicheng] and east city wall [Dongcheng]). Because of the surrounding urban modernity, one of the things I appreciated was that there is a decently long walkway entrance of trees between the gate to enter the Lama Temple grounds and the actual temple. In having this, it allowed me to refocus on the actual temple, as opposed to the normal day-to-day life.

Once we entered the temple grounds, the first thing that I noticed was the overwhelming wafting smell and smoke of burning incense. Since I’m not Buddhist, I didn’t feel comfortable lighting incense, but I think just about every other person visiting was actively praying. I take this in stark contrast to some of the synagogues that I remember visiting in Europe where if you aren’t visiting on a Friday night, though the Temple may be active, there are not people actively praying at that time.

While I can’t share photos of the many statues of the various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, I will say that this was one of the times where the many Japanese history and religion courses I took at Brown have come in handy. While I’m not trying to equate Japanese forms of Buddhism with Tibetan Buddhism, there are obvious parallels, so I was glad that I had a bit of context for some of the various statues. From an aesthetic standpoint, it was also quite fascinating to see the wide variety of poses and expression displayed in the statues, as some definitely appeared more terrifying than the traditional friendly Buddha. The temple grounds contain a number of different halls and temples, with each temple getting larger than the one directly previous it. One of the most interesting features of the Lama Temple is that as you walk through the various gates/temples that lie along the main path, each level becomes slightly more elevated than the last. While it is a subtle change in elevation, it’s really cool to turn around and look back through the previous gates. Since I can’t show pictures of the statues, I can share photos of the exterior architecture.

There were also a number of really cool smaller ornamental statues and bells around the grounds, too!

While I totally understand that I couldn’t take photos, I will say that once you’re done reading this, please google the 18m Golden Buddha (Maitreya) that is at the Lama Temple. It is amazing in both it’s shear size and it’s majestry. I don’t quite know if the temple was built around it, or if it was assembled inside, but I have neverseen anything quite like it. You walk into the temple and are immediately in awe. I think the closest thing I can think of is that if you imagine the Lincoln Memorial, but instead of it being open air, it was enclosed and you didn’t know how large it was until you walked in the building. It’s so large that they even have part of it underground to prevent it from falling over during earthquakes.

A Chinese Ballet

While most of the excursions that I go on involve visiting museums, temples, and other historic sites, earlier in August, I had the opportunity to attend a Chinese ballet (small disclaimer, they didn’t refer to it as a ballet, but since there was no singing or speaking and it was artistic dancing, that’s what I’m going to call it) at the National Center for the Performing Arts here in Beijing as part of a program for Foreign talents living in Beijing. It was really cool to get invited to see something pretty unique (and something that I likely wouldn’t have attended otherwise) and also get to get for free. While I’ve seen my share of ballets and dance performances over the year, this was truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Stylistically, it was a mix of traditional ballet-esque movements with things that looked more akin to tai-chi or kung fu. There was a lot of rhythmic jumping and flipping! There was an insane degree of fluidity to the movement and it worked in tune with a rotating circular stage to create a spectacle that was breathtaking. Also, the costumes weren’t leotards, but looser fitting and added more movement to the dancers. Story-wise, the performance was very hard to follow. Unlike Western story ballet (like the Nutcracker, which I think was the last ballet I saw in person), this was an esoteric tale of the creation of a famous scroll painting of mountains (see examples of part of the scroll below). There was a bit of a time paradigm, where there were people in the present and people in the past (sort of like in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia), and at times the members of the troupe portrayed the rich mountains in the scroll. While I wouldn’t have been able to follow the story without the description, it was still a wonderful performance.

While I obviously couldn’t take pictures of the actual performance (beyond the bow at the end), I can share pictures of the scroll that inspired the ballet as well as the many exhibits and art pieces at the National Center for the Performing Arts (as part of the event, they gave us a tour of the National Center for the Performing Arts). It’s a really cool space (and the largest performing arts center in Asia). While I’ve included a picture from the outside, I didn’t actually get to see the building since I entered via the subway entrance. However, it’s too stunning a building not to include! I also loved all of the modern art sculptures of dancers, as well as the displays of past performances, performers (Yo-Yo Ma), and costumes.

The Bell Tower & Drum Tower

Although I’ve shared lots of photos of the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower in this blog, I haven’t actually visited them. After almost a year of living within walking distance of them and getting multiple COVID tests by them, I finally visited the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower (with Richard)! And they did not disappoint! For those of you who aren’t familiar with traditional Chinese timekeeping, bell towers and drum towers are staples of ancient Chinese cities. My understanding is that these two facilities work in tandem. Where the bell in the bell tower would ring multiple times during the day (Ancient Chinese timekeepers didn’t use hours, they used a slightly different system), the drum tower would beat primarily during the night (Ancient Chinese scientists designed water clocks – where you fill a fixed volume with water that is designed to drain in a set amount of time – to determine when to beat the drum during the night) and the two would beat in tandem (drums always first) at the start of a new day. While both of these facilities are ceremonial now, it was still quite amazing to see the scale of these towers up close and the artistry in the designs!

Richard and I visited the Bell Tower first and I think the first thing I immediately noticed was just how steep the set of stairs is to get to the platform for the bell. Neither Richard nor I could imagine how they got the bell up there. And this isn’t a tiny a bell (as you can see in the photos), it stands ~ 7 meters tall and weights 63 tons and made entirely of bronze. In terms of history, the Bell Tower was originally constructed in 1272, but was destroyed in two different fires, before the current iteration was rebuilt in 1745. Interestingly, there is a rather grisly legend surrounding the “King of the Ancient Bells” about how the Emperor wanted the bell done within 80 days and the artisan who was making the bell was struggling to make one that didn’t crack. On the final day, he still couldn’t make the bell, but at the last minute, his daughter jumped in the furnace and the artisan used his despair to forge the bell (I did say it was grisly). Traditionally, the bell was struck 108 times (representative of the Chinese calendar’s year) for announcements (18 times fast, 18 slow, and 18 medium – repeated twice). Though we couldn’t hear the bell (it hasn’t been actively used since ~ 1920), we could get a pretty amazing view of Beijing from up at the Bell Tower!

After a quick lunch break (more on that below), Richard and I went to the Drum Tower. Like the Bell Tower, the Drum Tower dates back to 1272 and again, like the Bell Tower, it burned down in a fire. However, the Drum Tower, as it exists today, dates back to 1420. Similar to how the number of times the bell was rung is representative of the Chinese calendar, for the Drum Tower, the number of drums represents the Chinese calendar, with one main drum representing a year, and 24 smaller drums representing each of the 24 solar terms (a month/week hybrid) based on accurate observations from ancient Chinese astronomers (you can see a rather complex looking diagram in the last batch of photos in this section).

Unlike the Bell Tower, which is purely historical, there is drumming in the Drum Tower. Every two hours, a group of drummers perform and Richard and I were able to time our visit to see it! The drumming was probably the coolest part of the tower (which like the Bell Tower, towers over the city and was yet another super steep set of stairs). As I’m not an expert in Chinese drumming, the closest thing that I can compare it to is taiko drumming from Japan, where you create a rhythmic pulse by beating both the drum and the side of the drum creating a dichotomy of noise that rings out throughout the tower. While there is one ancient drum still left, all of the drums that are played today are modern replicas built in the style of the ancient drums. I’ve included a video below for you all to enjoy!

Other than the drums, the top of the tower also housed some cool time keeping devices (a water clock and a stele-shaped clock – the large tablet looking device, which uses the set time a metal ball takes to roll down a series of slopes within the box to keep time). As many of these devices were key to ancient astronomy (much of ancient astronomy was tied to accurate time keeping), it’s really cool to see these devices, especially as they are all aesthetically very Chinese!

Like the Bell Tower, the Drum Tower also offers a magnificent view of Beijing! One of the cooler things of the Drum Tower is that below the tower, on the ground level, they’ve created a small museum highlighting the history of the area and much of the science behind the different calendar schemes used in Ancient China (and even a rockband video game-style version of drumming). Historically, they showed how at various points, the Drum and Bell Towers were the centers of commerce in a very bustling Beijing (which they still are to some extent). It’s really cool to live in such a historic neighborhood. While I won’t dive into too much detail of the different calendar and time keeping systems, it’s cool to see examples of sundials and other representative time keepers that I’ve never heard of (like a gauge ruler, which they used to measure the length of time between sunset and sunrise, which is highly variable depending on your latitude).

A Vegan Market, Vegan Ice Cream Social, & Vegan Chinese Cooking Classes!

This month, I was able to take part in not one, not two, but three Vegans of Beijing events. Immediately following my trip to the Chinese ballet, I went to the August Vegan market. Since I didn’t really have lunch before the ballet (they did give us cake at the event), I was definitely pretty hungry by the time I got to the Market. And thankfully, it did not disappoint!

As you can see below, there was a ton of delicious food. Including an amazing vegan grilled cheese, crepes, and lots of cookies and other baked goods! I was also able to get some artisanal vegan cheese (which is way harder to find here than in the US), and some vegan deli slices (made of seitan). I also got some vegan mooncakes (a traditional Chinese dessert – the red and blue pastries below – that’s served during the mid-Autumn festival, which is next weekend). Usually these desserts have a whole egg yolk in them, so it’s nice for me to get to enjoy these ones! This one had a mix of dried nuts and grains inside! I know I’ve said it before, but I really love these markets. It’s not only a great culinary adventure, but it’s just great to start to see some familiar faces within the vegan community here in Beijing. Unfortunately the space where the markets have been held was just sold, so I don’t know where the next market will be, but I can’t wait!

The following week, the Vegans of Beijing hosted an ice cream social co-sponsored by Yeyo, a vegan ice cream and yogurt brand from Beijing. While vegan ice cream is increasingly common in the US, it isn’t here (though I have found Vegan Oatly ice cream at the import store – see the photos in the More Vegan food section), so it was nice and yummy to have an 100% vegan event. The ice cream has a sweet plain base and we had a ton of mix ins including oreos, sweet red beans, nuts, fruit, and various of snacks. You can see my mini-sundae below! While the actual sundae construction didn’t take too long, it was fun afternoon just hanging out with friends! I also got some new spider plants at the event to brighten my apartment!

Lastly, last weekend, I went to my second Vegan cooking class. Like the last one, this was hosted by the Beijing cooking school. This time we cooked Sichuan dishes, including one of my favorite dishes, sword beans! For those of you who are less familiar with Sichuan cuisine, it’s characterized by its use of hot, dried chilis, and lots of spice in general. This week, we made cumin mushrooms (using oyster mushrooms), stir fried potatoes, sword beans, and mapo tofu. All of them were delicious, and I’ve already made the sword beans and mapo tofu again (and I’ll be making the rest again soon!).

While you can see the finished dishes, I also wanted to share some photos of the entire cooking process below. You can see Chef Zhou showing off his amazing knife skills (in traditional Chinese cooking, you only use a cleaver, which is definitely a bit terrifying for me – I usually prefer smaller knives). Unlike the last class, this time, we did all of our prep first, which made the food even more delicious, since I was really hungry by the time we finally cooked. While most of the ingredients aren’t too different from things you’ll find in the west, I do want to note that Chinese green beans are different from haricot vert. I think they’re more similar to long beans, but they are thicker than what I was used to. We also used different types of Chinese pickled veggies and broad bean paste in the dishes. I still find the potato dishes to be the most different, since I’m so used to a fried or baked potato. Here, we soaked shredded potatoes for about half an hour before cooking them in a pan. For anyone wondering, I think I got a good sense of how to make these dishes, since I was able to help Jesse recreate a few of them yesterday!

Life at Tsinghua

In terms of research, this was a pretty good month. On the positive news front, I just found out that IDL has been successfully installed on the Tsinghua Astronomy server. This means that I should be able to get Project Morphology back up and running in the next couple of weeks. On that front, there have been some very interesting, tangentially related results from JWST that make me even more excited to continue exploring galaxy morphology in the early universe and the importance of the cluster/protocluster environment. As IDL wasn’t installed for much of the month, I spent most of August working on Project Radio. Specifically, I finalized (with the exception of the error analysis) the analysis of the size/projected area of bent radio sources in and not in cluster environments in the early universe. While measuring the projected physical extent of a radio source (or really any astronomical source) is relatively straight forward, I spent about a week trying to figure out the best way to measure the area inside of the projection of a radio source (for those of you who aren’t mathematicians, imagine drawing any non-uniform shape and then estimating the area of that shape accurately). With a little help from Richard, I was able to use Green’s theorem to estimate the projected sizes of my radio sources accurately! While I don’t want to spoil the results of my analysis here, I will say that I’m excited to write the analysis section of the paper as what we see/don’t see is intriguing. I’m also finalizing the spectral index analysis, so I should have just about all of the analysis for this project wrapped by mid-week. With that in mind, I’m hoping to write up a full draft of the paper to send out to some of my co-authors by the end of September/early October. In terms of Project Low-Z, I’m still working away double checking the host galaxy of each bent radio source in a local universe cluster. I’m hoping to have all of that done by the end of September so that Jesse and I can get to work on doing the analysis, as the preliminary analysis we did was pretty interesting.

Beyond my research (and the new JWST posters we printed for our office – see above), we also welcomed one new foreign postdoc to my research group, Pablo (who’s from Spain). It’s nice to have another foreigner in the group. I’m hoping an extra person can help persuade some of the graduate students that Saturday is not a good time to have a group meeting (I was able to convince Zheng that we should do a poll to see if any other times work). Also, it’s just nice to have a growing contingent of foreigners in the department. While I like my Chinese colleagues, many of them are less interested in hanging out an doing stuff on the weekends (some of them have children and/or family living with them in Beijing, which prevents that), so it’s nice to have friends to explore with. I also met another foreign faculty member here, this time a professor in the History of Science department who studies Ancient and Middle Eastern Astronomy/Astrology (and other ancient science). Alberto is originally from Italy, and since History of Astronomy is a small field, he knew the professor I had when I took the Astronomy Before the Telescope course at Brown! It was nice to meet another foreigner on campus and especially someone outside my department. He mentioned that the History of Science department has a nice collection of ancient astronomical tools and that he’d be happy to show them to us, so hopefully I can set up a visit soon!

Since I was wandering around Tsinghua’s campus a lot this month, I saw lots of lovely flowers, so I thought you’d all enjoy them. Other than the flowers, I also saw a rather ironic no bike parking sign!

Additionally, though not exactly part of my life, one of the unique things I’ve noticed being at a Chinese university as opposed to an American university is that apparently instead of traditional orientation, here, all of the incoming students (at all Chinese universities) partake in some kind of military training drills. As such, throughout this month, I’ve seen a slew of young people in army fatigues on campus. While I haven’t taken pictures, I was definitely a bit confused at first as to what is going on.

Exploring Beijing

With all of my excursions, I saw lots of cool things this month in Beijing! Here are some of my favorite statues. Most are cute anime-esque stuff, but I do love this super imposing gold statue of what I think is some kind of Buddha (or at least a monk) that I wandered past after going to the ice cream social!

As I am wont to do, I also took a ton of pictures of flowers this month. As summer is ending, the flowers are definitely starting to get more scarce, so I’m trying to enjoy them while I can!

I also went for my first run in almost four months yesterday! Between the lockdowns and heat, I had been reticent to go running, but with the cooler temperatures, I was finally able to enjoy a nice run around the lakes! While I’m definitely a bit rusty in terms of my form, it was so nice to run again!

I also saw lots of other cool buildings, posters, and signs this month!

And lots of cool stickers and decals on scooters, cars, and shirts!

Jewish Life

In terms of Jewish life, Kehillat Beijing celebrated Shabbat every week this month. For the first two weeks, we had some lovely Shabbat services/dinners at various friends homes. For one of the Shabbats (when my friend Forrest hosted), I got to lead the service! I even made a Vegan Challah (mine is the smaller one on the right)! While it wasn’t quite as pretty as the Challah’s that Rabbi Jonathan makes every week, I think I did a pretty good job for my first entirely solo Challah!

While the Shabbats across Beijing were lovely, it was really nice to get to celebrate the return of Roberta & Ted to Beijing! It just felt like a return back home/a return to normalcy. As you can see by the selfie below, we even had a really full house for their return! Since a large number of people who come are affiliated with the US embassy in some capacity, a lot of people had gone back to the US during the summer (some jobs cover those costs, unfortunately, mine is not one of them) and were just now returning to Beijing. It was so nice to get to catch up with Roberta and Ted and hear about what they were up to in the US. While it was mostly familiar faces, there have been a handful of new faces, including another Physicist (he’s Turkish and works at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, not too far from Tsinghua)! Given that a number of people have left Beijing (although not as many as Jesse’s community has lost in Shanghai), I’m glad to see some new faces.

I’ve also enjoyed the return of our themed Shabbat dinners and Roberta’s wonderful Challah (she made an onion sesame Challah that was AMAZING!). While the first dinner was just a normal Shabbat (Roberta & Ted remodeled their kitchen while they were away, so it was still getting set up), we had a Ukranian and Vietnamese themed dinner for the last two (in honor of both Ukrainian and Vietnamese Independence Day) and both were lovely!

With the High Holy Days rapidly approaching, I’m so glad that Kehillat Beijing is back to normal and that I have this community that I can celebrate with!

More Vegan Food

This month, I also went to two different vegetarian/vegan restaurants. The first one I went to with Richard and Tom before our visit to the Lama Temple. The meal was amazing! We got Tofu wrappers (the first dish, it comes with little rice paper wrappers that you make little taco-esque wraps with), bamboo with kefir leaves, roasted vegetarian duck, 3 kingdoms spicy hot pot, sour noodle soup, and roasted mushrooms! All of the dishes were amazing (though I had a lot of trouble serving the sour noodle soup and getting it into my bowl)! I think my favorites were the bamboo (it was so different than anything I had, really crispy and with the kefir, very light on the palette) and the vegetarian duck!

Last weekend, in between visits to the Bell Tower and Drum Tower, Richard and I went to a cafe (Nugget/Silence) that offers vegan cookies (I got a chocolate espresso cookie and a matcha lemon tea – I also got a vegan Birthday cake cookie to go and a non-vegan, but still yummy carrot cake cookie) nearby! I’d been meaning to check it out since it’s pretty close, so it was nice to have a reason! Nugget also hosts a number of cool arts/gaming events, so I think I’ll be back. After that, we got lunch at a small Japanese fusion vegetarian restaurant. We got hawthorne juice, a soy milk broth hot pot, a rice bowl with pickled veggies, and veggie nuggets! It was delicious, especially the hot pot! Hot pot is super popular here, but not usually vegetarian, so it was really nice to get to experience it!

This month, I also made a lot of great vegan dishes of my own! I made my first two loaves of bread, which was a lot of fun! I saw my Mom make a ton of sourdough bread during the pandemic, so I tried to channel that with my own bread making. From that bread, I made a delicious mushroom sandwich! I also made a vegan dal makhni, homemade seitan nuggets, two different tofu dishes, a cauliflower curry, and chocolate tahini cookies!

As I mentioned before, I also found some vegan Oatly ice cream at the import store (I got the berry flavor). While the container was small (a bit bigger than a dixie cup), it was tasty!

Animals of Beijing

Although I don’t have cats like Jesse, there are a few neighborhood cats that I was able to get some cute pictures with (and even pet briefly, too!). I always love coming back to my apartment and seeing my neighbors cats hanging out in their window. This month, I also have the return of my favorite puppies in Beijing, Honey and Mimi (Roberta & Ted’s dogs). While it’s been wonderful to have Kehillat Beijing at Roberta & Ted’s home, it’s equally wonderful to see the puppies and watch them beg for food scraps!

Daily Drawings

I’ve continued doing my now daily drawings (instead of quarantine drawings) in August. Please let me know which you like! I’d love to hear from you. I really enjoy doing them, as they give me a chance to calm myself during the day.

This month, I had to purchase some new sketchbooks, since I finished the final small book that I had. Since one of my friends from Kehillat Beijing, Michael Cherney, is a professional artist here in Beijing, I was able to get a recommendation to check out the art stores near the National Gallery (ironically, this is right by where I took my vegan cooking class). While I don’t have any pictures, it was sort of surreal how much the store reminded me of Suave Faire in Saratoga, even down to the selection of pens, paper, and pencils!

What am I reading/watching?

In terms of physical books, I’m still reading Lady of Avalon. The book is broken into three sections focusing on different times in pre-King Arthur Britain. As I’m now on the third part, I can see a bit more of the parallels that build and the overarching themes of the book. While it isn’t the best book I’ve read here, it is an interesting read. Beyond that, I’ve mostly been reading lots of manga and comic books.

In terms of television, I finished watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2045 on Netflix this month, which is the sequel to the early 2000s Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series that many consider one of the best ever made. While it took a bit of time to get used to the 3D-style animation, I really enjoyed the sequel. Ironically, the show was divided into two parts and the first half was released early in the pandemic (~ April 2020), so it was one of the first things I watched in lockdown, while I finished the second part only a few weeks ago. While having an ~ 2 year break between 12 episode parts isn’t ideal, I really liked how the show twisted the tones/fears of techno-Orientalism (basically the fear from the early-90s of Japanese domination over the west – this was especially prominent in cyberpunk novels like Snow Crash, or movies like the Matrix) to show a fear of a dominant American Empire and perpetual war. While the ending was rather philosophical and just a bit confusing, I really enjoyed the series and what it says about humanity as a whole. Beyond that, I also finished For All Mankind on Apple TV. It’s an alternate history of NASA and the space race and I just really love the show. It might not be for everyone, but if you’re a space nerd and like seeing a lot of political intrigue (or were a fan of the Martian – they go to Mars this season), I think the show is great! It’s really interesting to see the twists they make in the world, especially one where NASA is going strong following Apollo 15, as opposed to the real world. Additionally, I finished Slow Horses on Apple TV. It’s a really interested police/crime procedural starring Gary Oldman as a fed up old spy and his team of less than stellar agents. It’s a bit of a slow burn, but it’s also got a ton of layers of political intrigue, much in the vain of John Le Carre. Additionally, I just finished HBO’s Watchmen show from 2018. While I have no idea what it’d be like for someone who hasn’t read the book, I enjoyed the show for the most part. While Watchmen, the comic, has never been one of my favorites, I liked how Damon Lindelof expanded on the mythology and added new layers to look at the social politics of the world (and the real world). However, I felt that the social commentary was the strength of the show, while the superheroics felt a bit of a let down. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I wasn’t a fan of the humanization of Doctor Manhattan, who is essentially a walking nuclear deity. In particular, and this is a stylistic quibble, I didn’t like that they showed Yaya Abdul-Mateen’s pupils when he was Doctor Manhattan. For me, it made it feel like he was a guy painted blue, and not a cosmic force. However, I think that the show really does add a unique layer of highly relevant social commentary on the rise of white supremacy in the US. Also, I forgot to mention it last month, but I finished watching Season 5 of the Last Kingdom. While there’s still a movie left to wrap everything up, I really enjoyed this season! It’s a great look at early England, pre-unification, and the times of Danes, Saxons, and Vikings.

I’ve also really been enjoying follow the US Open. While it’s a bit annoying that all of the day matches happen in the middle of the night here, as a Rafael Nadal fan, his night matches have been fun to watch every morning. He’s on to the 4th round and I hope to see his winning ways continue! Vamos Rafa! This is also (most likely) the final US Open for Serena Williams, so I’ve been following that as well. It was certainly a bummer to see her lose in the 3rd round, and it will really be the end of an era for women’s tennis. I’ve never been the biggest Serena fan, but her accomplishments speak for themselves and she’s certainly one of the greatest and most influential tennis players of all time. The game will be less without her.

East Meets West

In terms of American influences this month, most of what I saw was in the form of Disney. However, instead of Mickey Mouse, this month, I saw a lot of Winnie the Pooh and Toy Story! I also have seen a ton of Tom & Jerry and more Snoopy from Peanuts! Given the waning popularity of Winnie the Pooh and Tom & Jerry in the US, it’s always surprising to see less prominent properties over here!

I also stumbled by a book store and found a few English language books (though mostly classics and not popular fiction)! And I even found a poster featuring Charlie Chaplin!

I also saw some cool Apple Airpod ads! I love the stylized Apple designs!

Anime & Comics

No post in the Astronomer in Beijing blog would be complete without photos of all of the anime, manga, and comics stuff that I’ve seen this month! This month, I saw a ton of Pokemon decals on scooters, but also some other found anime including One Piece, Doraemon, and Dragon Ball Z.

I also saw some cool anime figurines and interesting appearances of Marvel and DC characters (on mugs and chocolate). I love wandering by stores and seeing an anime character or figurine display in the window! And I even spotted some different manga figurines, including JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Detective Conan, Doctor Slump, Lupin III, and Gundam Wing!

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading my Astronomer in Beijing blog! As you can see August was a pretty full month for me. I think that September might be a bit quieter, given the start of the semester in a couple of weeks and the High Holidays at the end of the month, but whatever I do, I’ll be sure to document it here for you all to see! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to reach out either here, or via e-mail. It’d be great to hear from you! I hope you all have a great, happy, safe, and healthy September!

In Peace,

Emmet