Happy Year of the Rabbit! A very full January, including Jesse FINALLY Visiting Beijing!

Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for returning to my Astronomer in Beijing blog. I hope you’re all doing well and staying safe and healthy. For those of you that celebrate the Lunar New Year, I hope that you had a joyous celebration. While I didn’t partake in any traditional celebrations, I have gotten to enjoy all of the decorations and even went to the Temple Fair at the Old Summer Palace, which was a lot of fun!

Before I dive into what become a much more exciting January, I just wanted to note that you’re receiving this blog a week late because, as the title suggests, Jesse was FINALLY able to come and visit me in Beijing and I wanted to spend as much time hanging out with him as possible (more on his visit below). While Jesse’s visit was the big news for me, obviously Beijing has been in the news for lots of other “balloon” related reasons. For those of you who reached out to me directly or to my parents, thank you so much for thinking of me. While I haven’t been impacted in any way, the news coverage here has been unsurprisingly biased towards US aggression. I’m hoping things calm down a bit, but who knows. I do know from friends who work in the US Embassy in Beijing that things were incredibly chaotic for them, so I hope they’re all not too stressed.

Additionally, I wanted to update you all on the current COVID situation in Beijing. It appears that things have returned to normal (or even pre-COVID normal to some extent). The government reported that ~ 90% of Beijingers got COVID in December and January (somehow, I’m still healthy) and the run on ibuprofen seems to have subsided for now. While there are still grave concerns about the medical infrastructure for rural communities, Beijing has appears to have weathered the first wave of COVID post-COVID-Zero. I will say that the death toll that has been released for China as a whole is scary (~ 60,000 deaths from COVID in hospitals alone and there was an article in the NY Times highlighted a rather high number of deaths among Chinese academics in November, December, and January). As that number only reflects those who died in a hospital, I’m sure the actual number is higher and I hope that in the future, the government does a bit more to prepare people for future waves of COVID (e.g., vaccination!, although given the wave of COVID, most people are considering themselves ok for the next 6 months – experts are predicting a second, smaller wave in the summer, but it’s still unclear if there will be more rounds of vaccination). In terms of daily life, while masking is still required on public transportation, it’s now far more relaxed in stores and outside in general. I’m still pro-masking because masking is super effective at curbing disease transmission and other than the nose irritation, it doesn’t really bother me (and sometimes it helps stay warm when it’s cold outside ). I’m cautiously optimistic that we won’t see a surge in cases in the coming weeks as schools start to reopen after the long Lunar New Year holiday (given the high fractions of people who’ve already gotten COVID, that seems low).

Beyond all that, with the emptying of Beijing for the Lunar New Year holiday and the decrease in the overall number of cases, I was able to venture out and do a lot of fun things this month. (Spoilers, this is a really long post – but it’s a lot of pictures, too!)

Jesse’s Visit – (The Drum Tower, Bell Tower, Ice Biking at Houhai, the Lama Temple, and the Forbidden City!)

As the title of this post suggests, Jesse was finally able to visit Beijing this month! Although the travel restrictions for entering Beijing ended when COVID-Zero was disbanded, Jesse and I wanted to wait a bit for the number of COVID cases to go down before he visited. Before talking about what we did, I wanted to say that it was so nice to see Jesse in person! Obviously we talk on WeChat and FaceTime all of the time, but I hadn’t gotten to see Jesse in person since I left Shanghai early in September 2021. Given that the bullet train from Shanghai to Beijing is only ~ 4 hours, 17 months is way too long to go without seeing each other. The plan going forward is to try to visit each other ~ once a month while Jesse is still in China. While I’m excited to hear and see what Jesse thought (see his next blog post), here’s my version!

FRIDAY

Jesse arrived at the Beijing South Railway Station around noon on Friday. Once we made it back to my apartment, he got to meet Goldie (I have pictures of the two of them in the Goldie section)! I was a bit unsure how Goldie would react to the two of us being together, but she immediately took to Jesse! It probably helped that he smells like cats and he knows how to interact with a cat. Once we got situated, we had to deal with getting Jesse registered with the police (one of the annoyance’s of being a foreigner in China is that anytime we go to a new city – or move within the same city – we have to register with the police – if you stay at a hotel that allows foreigners, they’ll do this for you). Unfortunately, the online app wasn’t working, so we had to trek out to the police station where I registered. Thankfully, it didn’t take too much time to get him registered (though there was confusion between my name being on my lease and his name on his passport – I got a phone call yesterday from the police station and thankfully the officer spoke English, so I was able to clarify that I’m still in Beijing and that Jesse left). After that, I wanted to show off Beijing. Given the time and our location, we decided to go to the Shichahai Lakes and see all of the decorations and festivities set up for the Lunar New Year and Lantern Festival. As you can see, the ice skating was still happening on the lakes (I think that weekend was the last day – as you can see from the ducks in the photos below, the lakes are starting to thaw) and I was able to convince Jesse to do it (see pictures from Saturday). While the Shichahai lakes are always magical and fun to explore, they are an iconic part of winter in Beijing, so I’m glad Jesse was able to see them with all of the New Year’s lanterns and decorations.

While I’d walked around the lakes during the New Year festivities before, it was fun to do it at night and see all of the lanterns and light displays lit up! We also got to enjoy some delicious sugar covered strawberries (they’re like candy apples, but with strawberries).

SATURDAY

Although visiting the Forbidden City was the top of the list of things to do with Jesse (we went on Sunday), I also wanted to show Jesse some of the cool historical sites right by my hutong. On Saturday morning, we got up early and decided to visit the Drum Tower and Bell Tower. While I’ve visited both before (and go into a bit more history in my previous posts), these are two iconic Beijing sites that highlight ancient methods of time keeping (bells and drumming). The traditional Chinese method of time keeping divided the day into twelve blocks, each two hours, and the drumming and bell tolls were used to tell time. Before we went to the Drum Tower, we got to see some of the cool dances with the long flags/kites. I’d seen this a number of times when I was getting regular COVID tests at the Drum Tower (that testing site is still active, although there are no lines), so it was nice to see it in a far more relaxed setting.

Although the first picture of the Drum Tower below was taken on Sunday evening, we had a great time getting to visit the Drum Tower and see all of the drumming. As you might remember from my last visit, the stairs up to the tower are REALLY steep, but once you get to the top, it’s totally worth the climb! You can see a mix of new drums (those in red) with an ancient drum (which obviously is no longer in use). We also got to see a drumming presentation, which was really cool! It’s kind of like taiko (I posted a video in one of my earlier posts and I think Jesse took a video, too!). It’s really cool that the Drum Tower is so close to me. Also, the view is pretty spectacular! Something that you may be able to see if you squint hard enough is that the Drum Tower and Bell Tower lie along a line directly connecting them to Jingshan Park, The Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square (highlighting the importance of the Drum Tower and Bell Tower). On the top of the tower and in the museum at the base, they also have some really cool exhibits on ancient astronomy (particularly for time keeping) and show different calendars and time keeping devices!

After the Drum Tower, we made our way to the Bell Tower (it’s on the opposite side of the same plaza). While the Bell Tower is no longer in use, use can see what is referred as the “King of Chinese Bells”, because the Beijing Bell Tower hosts the largest Chinese iron bell as well as the first! It’s an amazing site to behold! The view from the top of the tower is amazing, but the stairs up are equally as steep to the Drum Tower, though with far less fanfare (since there are no live performances). I do like how the Bell Tower includes lots of signs in English and Mandarin outlining the history of the tower! One thing to note is that while both sites date back to the 13th Century, neither is the original as both have burned down and been rebuilt at least once.

After we visited the Bell Tower, we made our way back to Shichahai for the express purpose of going out on the lakes. I’ve been wanting to do this since I saw it last year and I’m glad that Jesse wanted to, too! Richard and I had tried multiple times, but the first time we got their too late and second time we didn’t realize we had to purchase tickets ahead of time. It was definitely a fun experience. While there is traditional ice skating on parts, Jesse and I were pretty sure that they wouldn’t have skates our size given the difficulties buying shoes here. Also, given the quality of the ice (imagine an ice hockey rink where they don’t run a zamboni all winter and that’s pretty much what you have), we thought staying lower to the ground would be more fun. Instead of skates, we tried out first ice chairs (see below), where you use small ski poles to propel yourself forward. However, what we were really excited about was the ice bikes! As you can see in the photos, they’re sort of like a stationary bike crossed with a snow mobile and a toboggan. There are blades (and brakes, which don’t work that well), but you can maneuver and change directions. We rode from one end of the lake to the other and it was a ton of fun! It was also a bit surreal to be in the middle of the lakes after running and walking around them for so long! I’m so glad I got to do it and that Jesse and I could take part in an iconic Beijing tradition!

And so you can get a sense of what it’s like to bike on the ice, here’s a video of me below (thanks for taking this Jesse!)!

After our adventure on the lakes, Jesse and I decided to head to the Lama Temple (Yonghegong in Mandarin), which is the only functioning Tibetan Buddhist Temple in Beijing. Since we were visiting during the Lantern Festival, we weren’t really sure what to expect in terms of crowds and decorations, but we weren’t surprised that the temple was packed! While there weren’t too many decorations, there were an interesting array of flags strung up over the entire complex. These weren’t there when I visited over the summer, so I assume they must be for the Lunar New Year/Lantern Festival, but I’m not sure (If any of you are more familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, please let me know). There were also a ton of people burning incense (see photos below) and interestingly the lines at the giftshop were hundreds of people long (Jesse and I assumed people must be buying some kind of gift for the New Year, but we weren’t really sure). Although I think the Lama Temple is aesthetically beautiful and a really cool place to visit, I’m always partially conflicted to visit because so many people are actively praying and burning incense. Obviously it is a tourist site and Jesse and I were not the only tourists present, but it’s hard to divorce the active prayer and feeling like you are intruding a bit. I know Judaism is different, as most synagogues (at least in the US) only have active services on Shabbat, but it still feels a bit weird. In terms of the complex, you’ll see, especially in compared to the Forbidden City below, the aesthetic similarities. The Lama Temple was originally one of the prince’s palaces and after that prince became the emperor and then later died, it was converted into a Tibetan Buddhist temple. Thus, you should see a lot of similarities in terms of the coloring of the golden roofs and ornate decorations on the edges. While we’re not allowed to take photos of the progressively larger Buddhas throughout the multiple temples (including an 26m wooden Matreiya Buddha, which is amazingly large and awe inspiring) or of the practicing monks out of respect, I hope the images of the grounds below do it justice. I will say one of the things that I most like about the temple is the transformative nature of the grounds. The temple is surrounded on one side by the 3rd Ring Road (Beijing is a ringed city, with 5 large highways – ring roads) and hutongs on the other three, but when you are inside the grounds, the high walls mostly prevent you from seeing the modern world. Also, one of my favorite statues in all of Beijing is at the Lama Temple. It’s of a Dragons head and inside of a small pagoda (there’s multiple photos below, including a selfie of Jesse and me) and I’m working on a drawing loosely inspired by it now!

While we couldn’t take photos of the Buddhas, the Lama Temple also houses two smaller museum exhibits on both the history of the temple and the many religious artifacts. While a lot of the descriptions were in Mandarin, it was really cool to see all of the Buddhist ritual art, in particular all of the little statues of the different Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

SUNDAY

On Sunday morning, Jesse and I started our day by walking to Tiananmen Square (if you remember from the pictures at the Drum Tower, although it is an ~ 2 mile walk, it’s a straight shot). As I said when I visited Tiananmen last time, it’s a very different place to visit as a Westerner. While the Forbidden City is full of fanfare and a fun place to visit, Tiananmen has a much more solemn connotation for those from the west. However, the contrast of having Chairman Mao’s mausoleum on the grounds makes for an interesting discord as there are many people taking selfies as if it’s a normal tourist site. I don’t really know how to rectify the two in my mind as I can’t help but think of the tragedy when I visit. Additionally, although actually walking through Tiananmen Square only takes a few minutes, the entire visit becomes quite a production because of how crazy the security is. Jesse and I must’ve spent ~ 40 minutes in line just waiting to go through security. Thankfully, this time they didn’t have any issues with what we had in our backpacks (when Richard and I visited they were very concerned with the contents of his Physics notebook), so once we got through that, we were able to go to the Square.

After exiting Tiananmen Square, you immediately see the grandeur of the Forbidden City. While I don’t know that I’d recommend everyone go to Tiananmen given how quick a visit it is, the Forbidden City is a must do in Beijing, so I’m so glad Jesse was able to go! At the Forbidden City, Jesse and I met up with Pablo and Daniele, so it was really nice to have Jesse meet some of my friends (Richard and Tom are both currently out of the country) and to hang out together and explore! I have a ton of pictures below and I can’t go into every detail, but I hope that I capture the size and grandeur of the Forbidden City (I still want to visit the Forbidden City when it’s warmer as, ironically, I seem to only visit it in winter). When you walk through the gates (that seem impossibly large), it’s easy to forget that Wangfujing, one of the largest commercial areas in Beijing, is right next door. In some ways, I’m sure this is part of the design, as the city was essentially a world unto itself for the Emperor and his court. In having a moat and large dividing walls, you can essentially remove yourself from the every day life in Beijing. The gateways open to the first of a number of massive stone courtyards. It’s easy to imagine lavish offerings or whole armies assembled inside of the gates. As I think I wrote in my last post about the Forbidden City, the entire palace feels like a triumph of man over nature. While there are gardens at the north end (see later photos), throughout much of the palace it is all intricate stone and wood carvings and buildings. In terms of the aesthetics of the Forbidden City, I love the red walls with the golden inlays on the roofs. Apparently, the number of little figurines on the roof indicates how important the person living inside is. It should come as no surprise that 10, the maximum number allowed, was reserved for the royal family. Throughout the Forbidden City, there are a number of stone stairwells featuring dragons. As the dragon is the sigil of the emperor, these show the dragon/emperor descending from the heavens. You can also see multiple dragon motifs throughout the palace. I’m especially fond of the water drains featuring dragons heads for decoration. Other than dragons, if you look closely, you’ll also find decorations showing a dragon and a phoenix. The phoenix represents the Empress, so when you see the sigil of the dragon and the phoenix, that implies that this palace was used by both of them. Also, throughout the Forbidden City, there are a number of people in various kinds of historical dress. Since the Forbidden City dates back to 1406, there are a number of different eras that the Palace was actively used, so you can see a variety of different styles (and you can see them in a few of my photos). However, these are not historical re-enactors. Rather, they are primarily couples taking wedding photos, or women doing photo shoots. I think the only downside of the Forbidden City (and it’s a small one) is that you can’t enter most of the buildings (or even get that close). While I understand it from a historical preservation standpoint, it would be cool to get a better view at the throne rooms (though I do have some good photos – I think Daniele took the one of the throne below with the giant gold lettering).

The last portion of the Forbidden City features an ornate stone garden (with some actual trees, too! – Again, I’d like to see the garden in the spring). I love this part of the palace because I’ve always been a fan of this style of stone artwork. Although there are a number of cool small pagodas (including the ornate ceiling shown below), my favorites are the large semi-carved stone walls, some of which are built into the foundation of the palace wall as a whole! These carvings transport me to the middle of nowhere and it’s really cool to see that they are carvings and there is intention to them and that they are not merely rocks. Again, I’ll let the Palace speak for itself and I hope you enjoy the photos below!

While we didn’t have time to visit Jingshan Park after the Forbidden City (we were all pretty hungry and wanted to get a late lunch/early dinner), you can see the park upon exiting the Forbidden City! All in all, this made for a wonderful visit and I’m really glad that Jesse could come and I could show him a bit of Beijing. While hopefully he’ll be up a few more times, I’m so glad we were able to do some much (we walked over 60,000 steps in the three days) and have such a great time! I’m looking forward to visiting Jesse in Shanghai next month!

The National Museum

Although I’m presenting this post a bit out of order, this was actually the first big outing I did after basically staying home for all of December and the first half of January. Before I dive into the museum, which was really cool (and definitely VERY crowded), I want to say that it was so nice to get to see Tom, Pablo, and Daniele in person (unfortunately, there was an issue and somehow Tom’s ticket got canceled and he wasn’t able to join us in the museum, which was a bummer)! I really had missed just hanging out with all of them. The National Museum is situated on the opposite side of the street of Tiananmen Square (if you walk through the Square, as I did with Jesse, you end up at the Forbidden City) and I think the closest thing I can think of in terms of comparison is the Smithsonian (but if you combined the American History Museum with the Natural History Museum). It’s a behemoth of a museum and although we spent most of the day there, we only saw a small fraction of the exhibits. Interestingly, in the main plaza, they had a number of displays of rockets, but none of us could figure out the context.

We started with the major permanent exhibit in the museum, which is a history of Ancient China, which they define as pre-history to 1911 (all of us felt 1911 was a bit of late date to define as “Ancient” especially given our more European view of history, where ancient would probably end by the Renaissance at the latest, but the definition seems to encompass the entirety of Imperial Rule in China). I’ve divided this exhibit into two sections based on when the art objects start to look more aesthetic Chinese (they did have a timeline throughout the exhibit, but I didn’t take photos of that, so I don’t have the exact eras). The exhibit opens with relics of early man, including human bones, tools, and carvings. One thing that I found interesting here is the emphasis on them being Chinese. Maybe it’s because the US is made up of immigrants and we’ve severely marginalized the native population, but I don’t remember museums in Europe emphasizing ancient civilizations that existed in the same physical location as being part of the current nation’s history. Still, it was really cool to see all of the different “wine carrying vessels” (almost everything that wasn’t either a weapon or jewelry was called a wine carrying vessel). I really loved the jade carvings of animals and was particularly taken by the various masks (though they almost reminded me of something out of South America more than China). I also loved the oddly spade shaped jade (see below) specifically because that was actually a form of currency!

At this point, the statues and pieces of art started to look more in line with the art and decorations that I’ve seen at the Forbidden City and the Lama Temple. I loved all of the different animal carvings and all of the not quite human sized terra cotta-esque warriors (I don’t believe these are the same as those in Xi’an, but I’m not sure). Additionally, I also liked that there was an acknowledgement (at least to a small extent) of Buddhist influences – there was a whole exhibit of Buddhist statues that we saw later, too. I particularly was taken by the lid coverings with the ornate city-scape designs on them! I also really liked the ink paintings of the monks that almost looked like Renaissance paintings given the perspective used and the ink landscapes seen at the end of this photo block. As you can see, there were also a number of stone statues of horses and other animals as well as some ornate weapons and tools. You can also see some imperial relics as they have carvings of a dragon on them.

Once we finished the main exhibit, Pablo, Daniele, and I wandered around the museum looking for a place to sit down and figure out what other exhibits we wanted to see. While doing this, we stumbled upon a series of interesting modern art statues, some more abstract, and others more a direct representation of modern life.

Although not shown, we also viewed an exhibit on the history of the People’s Republic of China. Not surprisingly, all of the signs were only in Mandarin, so outside of a few photographs, it was hard to grasp the context of the different displays. However, one of the other main exhibits that we visited was a science exhibit, focusing on the work of Chinese scientists dating all the way back to ~ 500 CE. I really loved the display of the Chinese zodiac in the constellations. Pablo, Daniele, and I were joking that since they’re currently figuring out the decorations for our new office building, that this kind of display would be cool. Unfortunately, most of the descriptions of this exhibit were in Mandarin, so outside of the astronomy material, it was a bit of a guess as to what everything was. However, there were some really cool displays of clocks, arrows, cell phone technology, molecules, and rockets. The one thing we all thought was odd for the rockets was that all of the parachutes shown in the back are red, white, and blue, making them far more reminiscent of the USA. Given that the US and China are not on the friendliest of terms, especially involving space travel, this seemed a bit peculiar.

The last major exhibit we visited was an exhibition of hundreds of Buddhist statues from China. I really liked seeing all of the small Buddhas (many could easily fit on a counter) and all of the different poses and styles. Since I’ve taken some courses on Japanese Buddhism, I was a bit disappointed that all of the descriptions were in Mandarin, because although they are different, it would have been exciting to be able to see if I remembered anything or could make any connections. However, I also really liked how you could see a shift from more Indian influences to Chinese influences throughout the exhibit!

While we only had time to see a small fraction of the art and exhibits, we did also wander by a number of other cool statues and paintings that I wanted to share, too!

Lunar New Year at the Old Summer Palace & a Homemade Italian Lunch!

On Monday after the Lunar New Year Holiday, Daniele, Pablo, and I met up to go to the Old Summer Palace. Although I’ve been before, we went this time specifically to go to the Lunar New Year Celebration/Temple Fair at the Palace. As you can see from the pictures below, the Old Summer Palace grounds are decorated with thousands of red lanterns! Although we were expecting the decorations, what we weren’t expecting were the cherry blossoms! Now, spoiler alert, they are fake (real trees, but fake branches connected with string). We all found this to be aesthetically pleasing (I took a lot of photos, obviously), but a bit odd in general. While Japanese aesthetic culture is not Chinese aesthetic culture, one of the things that is praised in Japan about the cherry blossoms is their impermanence (part of the wabi-sabi aesthetic), so the idea of having fake blossoms felt a bit strange.

As I’ve visited the Old Summer Palace twice before, we were able to focus primarily on the Temple fair festivities. However, I did want to share some photos of the rest of the grounds frozen over for the winter. Like Shichahai, they have ice skating on the various lakes. However, unlike the ice bikes Jesse and I rode, here they have ice-sleighs, complete with stuffed animal dogs so you can feel like you’re mushing in the Iditarod. While it took a bit of time to figure out what the dogs were, it’s cool to see the different styles of ice skating here in Beijing (and there were lots of skaters and lots of different ponds). Beyond the ice skating, the grounds themselves are still marvelous in the winter! Additionally, though we didn’t visit the ruins of the main palace, we did see a display of a number of the original stone lions and other carvings from the Palace.

As you can see from the photos, the winter festivities were in full effect! The Temple Fair was amazing to go to! It reminded me a bit of the 4th of July in the US crossed with Water Fire in Providence and a street fair. There were tons of different vendors selling toys, trinkets, candy, and lots of other interesting foods. While there were a ton of different things that I wouldn’t eat (e.g., toppenyaki – Japanese fried octopus – that’s what Daniele is eating, and all forms of fried meats and skewers), there were also foot long fried potatoes (what Pablo is eating – I had a bite and it was just like a big French fry), the sugar covered strawberries (Really delicious!) , and even ice cream (though it was far too cold for ice cream). There were also tons of fun games and activities for little kids! Although it was cold, it was really a ton of fun to go to!

Beyond the temple fair activities, the Old Summer Palace also put on an ice show during the festivities. Although I couldn’t tell you the exact story beyond that there were multiple factions seemingly engaged in battle, it was really cool to see!

Because most restaurants are closed during the Lunar New Year, we all went to Pablo’s apartment and Daniele taught us how to make fresh Italian pasta. I’d never rolled pasta dough before and it was quite fun! We hand cut all of the noodles and Daniele made some delicious fried eggplant fritters to go with the pasta (we added fried eggplant slices to the sauce and it was delicious)! I was in charge of dessert and I made the big chocolate brownie (the circular one in the vegan food section below), which was a big hit! We definitely plan to do some more cooking afternoons in the future!

Lunar New Year Decorations – Happy Year of the Rabbit! (including a visit to Ditan Park!)

Although I had a blast visiting the Old Summer Palace for the Lunar New Year, I also wanted to visit Ditan Park. Prior to COVID, Ditan Park (which houses the Temple of Earth) was known for hosting the best Temple Fair in Beijing. While COVID put a halt to those festivities (and they didn’t schedule it for 2023), they did have decorations up in the park this year. Since Ditan Park is only ~ 30 minutes from my apartment, I wanted to check it out. While I visited in the summer, it was cool to see all of the lanterns and other decorations (and even see parts of the park that I missed last time, which seemed to focus on Chinese medicine and Buddhist aesthetics). I especially loved the tunnels of lanterns and the Rabbit displays! Like the Old Summer Palace, they also had the fake cherry blossoms, so clearly this is a popular thing here in Beijing.

Outside of Ditan Park, I also saw a ton of Lunar New Year decorations to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit! I hope you enjoy them! Some of these are near the Shichaihai lakes and others are just around the city. It’s cool to see how the aesthetics and representations are different for each animal in the Zodiac (last year was a tiger, this year a rabbit, and next year a dragon)! I especially liked the giant Rabbit display that’s right by my apartment near the subway station that I usually take to go to work (the big rabbit priest with the large circular displays in the back).

Astronomy Life

While I spent January working from home, I did make a lot of headway on a couple different Astronomy projects. The main focus has been handling the edits for Project Radio, my study of the radio properties of bent, double-lobed radio sources inside and outside of clusters. I sent the paper out to my co-authors at the beginning of January and am happy to report that I got very positive feedback from everyone. Everyone really liked the paper and was happy to see all of the work come together. Since this is the first big project I completed as a postdoc (I technically started the Project Morphology first, more on that later), it’s really nice to have it almost done. While the comments were very positive, everyone did have a number of comments, so it’s taken a bit of time to compile all of the updates. It doesn’t help that it’s a long paper (~30 pages, with a ton of figures and tables). That said, I should be submitting the paper to ApJ on either Monday or Tuesday of this week (so I hope you’ll all enjoy hearing about that next month).

Beyond Project Radio, I’ve gotten back to working on Project Morphology. If you remember, Project Morphology is a study of the shape of protocluster galaxies in three MAMMOTH protoclusters observed with Hubble. While it had gotten stalled over the summer, I now have Galapagos up and running on the Tsinghua server. However, running Galapagos isn’t as straight forward as I hoped, so I’ve been doing a ton of trouble shooting and corresponding with the scientist who wrote the Galapagos code to figure out both what I’m doing wrong and how to best use my data. While it can be a bit frustrating to not get a result immediately, I am confident that we’re moving in the right direction.

I’ve also spent some time working on Project Low-Z, my collaboration with Jesse. While I’ve mostly been doing a comparison of matching to verify that the host galaxy we identify each radio source with appears correct, we have some intriguing new results and I’m planning to try to work on this one every day to make progress (there are ~ 300+ radio sources to check, so it takes a bit of time to do visual inspection). Additionally, I have two new projects in the works with members of Zheng’s group (one current postdoc – Pablo – and a former grad student who is now a postdoc at Peking University – Kai). While both projects are in the early stages, each is looking at different aspects of galaxy quenching in cluster galaxies (the stopping of star formation in galaxies) and I’m excited to do more with galaxy evolution as a whole! Additionally, I had a really great meeting with my PhD supervisor to talk about some future projects and my current work. It was really great to get some very positive feedback from her and to get to catch up and tell her about the science I’ve been working on (outside of Project Radio, since she’s involved in that project).

Vegan Food

While I didn’t do a ton of eating out early in the month, Jesse and I visited two great vegetarian restaurants when he visited. After visiting the Lama Temple, we went to Woye Oii, which is a cute little Japanese vegan restaurant and got some delicious hot pots. While traditional hot pot allows you to pick all of the veggies yourself, these were more curated hot pot bowls, but equally delicious (the first had a soy milk and miso broth, while the second had a spicy broth flavored with lots of Sichuan peppers). We also got delicious hawthorne juice.

After the Forbidden City, Pablo, Daniele, Jesse, and I went to Fu Hui Ci Yuan, which is probably my favorite vegetarian restaurant in Beijing! After walking around all day and being out in the cold, it was lovely to enjoy a warm and delicious meal. Everything was great! I got a fresh peach juice and a lovely South African black tea to drink (the tea came with a super artistic fruit platter). We then enjoyed kaofu (the spongy seitan), fried mushrooms (which would make for a perfect Super Bowl snack), a spinach and black mushroom stuffed toon cake (sort of the Chinese version of a quesadilla, but without the cheese), a spicy mushroom dish, a curry soup with noodles, seaweed, and mushrooms, mustard mushrooms (which were surprisingly good – I don’t think of mustard as particularly Chinese, but these were great), baked tofu with a spicy relish, fried eggplant in an eggplant (the eggplant just melts in your mouth, crunchy on the outside and then it just melts on the inside), and spicy dry pot with lotus root. Also, we got two desserts! While Chinese desserts are not the super sugary desserts of the west, these were really good. One was tangyuan, a traditional glutinous rice ball served on the Lantern Festival (we visited on the Lantern Festival) filled with a peanut/sesame filling, and a fried glutinous rice flour stick topped with a sweet glaze! It was a delicious way to top off the fun day visiting the Forbidden City!

Beyond our delicious lunches, we also got some yummy vegan snacks. After visiting the Lama Temple, Jesse and I went to Silence Coffee, a local coffee shop run entirely by deaf baristas. We enjoyed a “Wizard of Oz” matcha tea and got some delicious vegan cookies from Small Batch Cookie Co. Additionally, we enjoyed some yummy sugar covered fruits. These are a staple of Chinese snacks, especially in the winter. They’re kind of like candy apples, but instead of apples, we got strawberries (with some hawthornes – kind of like a crab apple – and oranges, too). The strawberries are definitely my favorite.

I also did a fair amount of my own vegan cooking this month. Because it was the Lunar New Year, I wanted to make some of the recipes that I’ve learned to make at the Vegans of Beijing cooking classes. This month, I made fried potatoes with mushrooms (a kind of Chinese version of French fries), Mapo Tofu and Mapo Tofu Baozi, Fish-flavor mushrooms (no fish were harmed in the making of this dish, but the style of spicy sauce is commonly used in fish), sword beans (one of my favorite Chinese dishes!), dan dan noodles (I was able to buy fresh noodles from the grocery store and made the spicy sauce to go on top), and Dongpo tofu (a Buddhist style pan fried tofu with mushrooms and bamboo).

Outside of Chinese food, I also did a fair amount of other vegan baking. This month, I made Baked Gobi Manchurian (a Indo-Chinese spicy cauliflower dish), two loaves of bread (I really enjoy making my own bread), a delicious vegan chocolate brownie (these are the ones that I made for my Italian lunch with Pablo and Daniele – I only have a circular pan, hence why it looks like a giant cookie), a cauliflower chowder, two different types of tomato soup, chocolate brownie cookies, spicy tex-mex veggie burgers, baked tofu nuggets, and black bean soup.

Goldie!!!

Since I was working from home, I got to spend a lot of quality time with Goldie. She really does help keep me safe and sane. Most of the time, she’s curled up on the couch next to me while I work. She really doesn’t like it when she’s napping and I move locations and then she wakes up and I’m not there, so I try to stay by her side if I can. Here’s some pictures of her cuteness in all of its glory!

This was a big month for Goldie. No major life changes, but she met new people for the first time! Obviously Jesse stayed with me and Goldie really enjoyed having us both here. She would crawl all over both of us and sit between us on the couch (and even tried to get Jesse to feed her in the middle of the night). She also really seemed to love Jesse’s backpack, which I assume is due to the smell of his cats (Scottie and Charlie). Additionally, Pablo and Daniele came over the weekend before and while she was a bit timid at first, she seemed to get along with them, too!

Beyond people, she also saw multiple cats hanging out on the skylights, so now every time we hear a thud, her head perks up and she is convinced a cat is near. I feel bad because she clearly wants to play with other cats, but there is no way I’m letting her outside!

Outside of that, she really does enjoy being my constant work companion. She spends a ton of time sleeping next to me on the couch and at the foot of my bed (though she has started to snuggle a bit at night)! She’s also started to burrow into all of my blankets and although it sometimes seems like she can just disappear, she’s usually just sleepily wrapped up in blankets. She seems to do this primarily after I’ve spent some time outside my apartment, so I think she likes to burrow when she’s alone so that blankets make her feel warm and safe. Even when it gets warm, I’ll leave the blankets out so that she can snuggle.

Exploring Beijing

With Jesse visiting and a return to doing more socializing in person, I did a lot of walking around Beijing! While I’ve already shown a lot, here are a few more cool things that I saw around the city that I wanted to share.

Although I’ve highlighted the lakes a lot in this post, I had a few more photos showing how beautiful they are when everything (well, almost everything, is frozen over). It really does make for a magical time of year.

Jewish Life in Beijing

There isn’t too much to report on the Jewish life front. For all of January, Jesse and I co-lead virtual Shabbat services for Kehillat Beijing and Kehillat Shanghai (it was really nice to get to sing together last Friday!). While the improvement in pandemic situation may have allowed us to start in person services sooner, we’d been waiting because the Lunar New Year holiday meant that a lot of people were still either outside of Beijing or abroad and thus the attendance would be pretty low. Despite the small crowd, it’s still a great way to cap off a week. However, the current plan is to return to in person services next week!

Animals of Beijing

While Goldie is my favorite cat in Beijing, I got to see a number of neighborhood cats this month. It’s always fun to wander upon a friendly kitty (although I hope that they all have some place warm to sleep). Jesse and I even saw some rather domesticated geese and ducks!

China Drawings

This month, I tried to broaden my stylistic horizons with the drawings by focusing on shadow and texture. I hope you like them. They’re some of my favorites! Let me know what you think!

What Was I Reading/Watching?

As I was working from home for January, I had lots of times in the evenings to watch some tv and read some fun comics and books. On the tv front, I finished season 2 of Jack Ryan on Amazon. While the show is a bit overly patriotic and action-hero-y at times, I really do enjoy spending time with John Krasinski. The third season was just released and I just started that! I also watched seasons one and two of Criminal: UK. Like the other installments of Criminal, it’s a very intriguing one-ish room interrogation drama and I really enjoyed this one! The guest stars alone were great, but across the 7 episodes they had a pretty crazy array of stories. I also finished season 2 of Leverage: Redemption on Amazon Freevee. I was a big fan of the originally Leverage show when it was on when I was in high school and the cast is so fun to see together. While the show isn’t anything profound, I really enjoy it. I also watched the first half of season one of Break Point, Netflix’s Professional Tennis documentary season. As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I’m a big tennis fan and I have to say, overall the show was incredibly disappointing. For those of you unfamiliar, the show presents itself as the story of the 2022 Tennis season, but because they aren’t telling the story of the ATP/WTA tours, but rather the players who signed on for the show, it presents a sort of quasi-made for TV reality version of events. While I enjoyed aspects of the show (particularly the portions on Matteo Barretini, Ajla Tomljanovic, Ons Jabeur, Felix Auger-Alliasime, and Casper Ruud), the glaring omissions of the show on major points of the tennis season are incredibly frustrating. In particular, as a Rafa fan, they gloss over the Australian Open final (because neither Rafa or Danil Medvedev were featured) and make no mention of his foot injury that was a major concern last year. Additionally, on the Men’s side, they don’t include Sasha Zverev’s horrific injury in the French Open, which was a major story. On the Women’s side, it’s even more frustrating as Ash Barty’s Aussie Open win and sudden retirement are not mentioned at all. Additionally, Iga Swiatek is barely mentioned and she was the hottest player, winning 37 matches in a row, including the French Open. I wish the show presented itself as following specific players instead of trying to pretend it is telling the story of the season. For those of you who remember NFL films, it’d be like telling the story of the 2022-2023 season following the Bills and Vikings (sure, both teams made the playoffs, but ultimately neither won the Super Bowl, so you wouldn’t get a complete sense of the season).

This month, I also finished two anime/anime-adjacent tv shows. I watched both seasons on Samurai Rabbit on Netflix, which is a very loose adaptation of Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic animal epic Usagi Yojimbo. While the comic is set in feudal Japan, the tv show is set in a futuristic world and though not the comic, still a lot of fun. Also, I finished watching all 328 episodes of the anime Fairy Tail. I read the manga (63 volumes) throughout high school, college, and grad school and started watching the anime in December 2020, so it was really awesome to revisit it since it’s one of my favorites.

On the reading front, I’ve really been enjoying Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. While I still have a couple hundred pages left, it’s definitely a great read! I also finished reading the manga series Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui. It’s a fun story of what happens when an ordinary middle school class is taken over by an alien monster who teaches the class and also tries to get the students to save the world by assassinating him. I’d previously watched the anime, but really enjoyed revisiting the series by reading the manga! Additionally, since Jesse was able to visit, I have more books to read! While digital books in English are far more accessible here, I really do prefer reading physically if I can and I’m excited to get to read more graphic novels physically and have enough physical novels to keep me well-read for the next year (if not longer)!

East Meets West

Although US-China relations are not in the greatest place right now, that hasn’t prevented me from spotting lots of Western influences when I’ve been out and about in Beijing. This month, I saw some fun Yellow Submarine socks, lots of Tom & Jerry, Disney, and NBA stuff. I also wandered past Wangfujing, where all of the big Western stores are. Enjoy!

Anime & Comics

No Astronomer in Beijing post would be complete without showing off all of the anime, manga, and US comic book paraphernalia that I spotted around Beijing (and this month I saw a lot). I saw lots of cool anime statues in stores, but also some cool stickers and decals on bikes and cars. It’s always fun to spot signs of fandom around Beijing! In terms of anime, I saw tons of figurines and stickers, including lots of DragonBall Z, Pokemon, One Piece, Doraemon, and Totoro!

In terms of comics, I saw a lot of cool Superman stuff this month, as well as some fun Marvel stickers and grafitti!

I know this was a very full Astronomer in Beijing post, so if you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed seeing what Jesse and I did when he visited Beijing and getting to explore the National Museum and Lunar New Year festivities through my eyes. I hope that the remaining weeks of February are good for all of you and that you continue to stay safe and healthy. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out (either directly here or via e-mail). It’d be great to hear from you all! For those of you in the US, I hope you all enjoy the Super Bowl and have a lovely Valentine’s day!

In Peace,

Emmet