Research update!

With all of our adventures, it's easy to forget that I am here to research. So, as our time in Beijing starts winding to a close, I wanted to update y'all about what I've been up to.

The main update is that I'm going to Portugal on May 4th to give an oral presentation about one of my projects: basically, how we used a study population of over 30,000 women to predict how common HPV and pre-cancerous lesions (for cervical cancer they're called CIN 1-3) are in China. That paper has been the death of me all year (no joke, I have 100s of revisions), but we are sending it to get the final feedback of all the co-authors this week, and Dr. Zhao promises it will be submitted before we go to Portugal!

The paper that has been rejected by Lancet and JAMA is STILL under review at JNCI (another 2.5 month review. Oy). But I was asked to give a presentation on it (as a foreign EXPERT! hahahaha) at the National Symposium for Cervical Cancer. It's about the diagnostic accuracy of HPV DNA testing of self-collected cervicovaginal samples for pre-cancerous and cancerous cervical lesions. Shangying, my Fogarty twin, will actually be translating for me, and she is more nervous than I am (which makes sense if you think about it--if I get flustered, I can just speak quickly and no one will understand me, but she can't get away with my tricks. Also, if I get nervous, I will focus on what is truly important: how dead sexy I look in my new tailored suit.)

My own research projects have also been about self-collection. I'm virtually done writing up a short article about the attitudes of 500 rural woman towards self-collection that will be submitted before I go to Portugal (nothing like using the promise of a vacation to work yourself to the bone, right?), and data has been collected for 2500 women the last few months. I originally thought I could write up this paper too, but it's just too demanding; I'll have to work on it when I get back home or even pass it on to the next year's Fogarty.

Jennifer Smith, my UNC mentor, and I on the cusp of submitting a paper describing rates of antibodies (indicating past infection) and DNA (indicating current infection) for the 4 HPV types that are in the Merck HPV vaccine. Fingers crossed that they accept that one quickly because I won't have as much time as Dr. Smith thinks I will when I return stateside.

Finally, with Sarah's Fogarty twin, LiRong, I've been work on two papers about another cervical cancer screening method called VIA (visual inspection with acetic acid). Those will go to an English-language Chinese journal, so they are very important for her career.

So in a nutshell, I've done tons of work, and it looks like many projects are wrapping themselves up, just in time for us to go back to Beautiful Land/Kingdom (what Chinese call America).

Most importantly, happy first day of Passover!!! As I write this, Alison has just set up our table with (from left) her mom's mashed cauliflower recipe, matzah, homemade hummus with veggies, matzah, and her homemade charoset for our Chinese Seder! Thanks, M&P for the matzah! Tomorrow, we're going to Kehillat Beijing for the second day Seder with Jeremy and Claire. Hopefully it's as fun as the seders we had growing up at my house and in NYC at the Bernstein's!

Miss you guys!

Just when we thought Beijing was old hat...

Caveat: My apologies for the lack of pictures, but Alison and I had gotten so used to navigating Beijing's hustle and bustle that we had long abandoned our habit of carrying around a camera with us wherever we go. We thought we were pros, but last Sunday taught us we've still got a lot to learn.

Background: We needed to buy a lot of silk fabric for top-secret reasons. Our friend the tailor asked us where we bought the prior silk we used and how expensive it was, and when we responded, he laughed and told us to go where he buys his fabric...and gave us a business card with a store name on it, completely in Chinese.

So last Sunday, Alison and I headed to what we thought would be a wholesale silk and cashmere store in southern Beijing. We took the subway to the general vicinity and then got in a cab. After the cabbie drove for 25 minutes, he dropped us off at the side of the road in a really old part of town we'd never been to before.

We were confused to see that, instead of a store, we were in front of an open air market. Before we got anxious though, we quickly realized that we had stumbled upon where the world buys fabric wholesale. You know that I tend to exaggerate, but honestly, if you can think of it, we saw fabric to make it. Some highlights were:
1) pre-faded denim to make trendy jeans
2) car upholstery
3) animal skins (with heads) to make fur coats...if you're Russian...or from Long Island
4) waterproof fabric for raincoats
5) sheets and linens
6) material for baseball hats

Of course, three hours of adventuring, including going into about 100 stores (often with a crowd of people following us as we were the only foreigners around) was all for naught as not a single silk store had what we were looking for (all patterned, mostly Chinese...luckily Alison was there to reign me in because after a while, some of it started too look nice). They also had silk for women's dresses, and I was really excited to see the fabric of the dress my mom wore to Emily's wedding!

Rubbing salt on the wound, we could not find a bus stop and there were no taxis. So we started walking down the smaller street to the main one and passed a side street where people were selling puppies and rabbits in small cages. We took a look to try to cheer ourselves up, but seeing dozens of parakeets crammed into a single small cage was almost as depressing as the poor golden retriever puppies crammed two to a small crate. So we booked out of there fast.

It was a very surreal afternoon.

Last day in Shanghai

I'm sorry for the blog silence--we still had another day in Shanghai with Mama and Papa! We've been having beautiful weather in Beijing (We're convinced M&P brought it with them from Phoenix because it's been warm since their arrival). Everything is in bloom, the sun has been shining, and the smog has only been slightly unhealthy most days. It's so refreshing after a long and cold winter. (Basically this means the last time you'll see me in that green jacket is in the pics below because we weren't so lucky with weather in Shanghai).

We had a relaxing morning at the hotel before setting off for the Shanghai Museum. M&P found a beautiful bamboo painting to bring home, and Adam and I can't wait to see it in their new house! Then we set off to look for the old synagogue. We stopped for lunch and turned out to be eating "where the workers eat" (Papa's words); a great decision, as they know what's tasty and hearty. We also enjoyed delicious Shanghai-style dumplings.

We knew the synagogue was on a particular block, but we had trouble finding the sign. We did, however, find a post that confirmed we were on the right street:

(Look on the bottom right side). After a bit more wandering, the beard and dress of this man gave it away, and we knew we had reached the synagogue.

It is now the home of the Garden Unit of the Shanghai Municipal Afforestation Commission. Who woulda thought??

We then looked for the Liza Hardoon Building, named for the mother of M&P's former client who became a close friend. He was born into a poor Jewish family in Harbin (home of the coldest ice festival on Earth) and then adopted by one of the wealthiest Jewish families of the day, the Hardoons of Shanghai. While the architecture is intact, it is now an ICBC, one of the biggest banks in China. 

It's strange how there's so much history in these buildings that have been turned into ordinary property for everyday use. I remember feeling this way after a trip to Poland when I studied abroad in college; the old synagogues and other buildings that were the center of a lively community had become a mundane part of the local government. It makes sense because that community has moved on, but it was strange to feel this way for the first time since being in China. It's probably because Shanghai was so much more western than the rest of this country.

And thus ends the reflective portion of this post!

The Liza Hardoon Building/ICBC was near the Bund, so we walked along the river and took more pictures 

before settling into a coffee shop to escape the cold and to relax before our evening flight.

When walking across a bridge to our hotel later that afternoon, we passed not one, not two, but THREE bridal photo shoots. 

Just like the ones we often see in our neighborhood, these consisted of women in bridal gown with jeans underneath, men in ill-fitting tuxes, and photographers setting everything up. A timely reminder that while it looked and felt like Europe, Shanghai still Chinese at heart.

We were sad to come home and pack with M&P, but we all agreed that this was a fantastic, fantastic visit and we look forward to many more in Phoenix, NY, and wherever the next few years take us.

Suzhou

I joined everyone in Shanghai late Friday night (someone's gotta bring home the chicken feet!). We started off our Saturday by going to the train station and buying tickets to Suzhou, a nearby water town. While waiting for our train, we witnessed many latecomers running over the gates. Instead of showing tickets and walking through, they climbed up and over and continued running! This happened often enough that Adam eventually took out his camera and caught someone mid-jump:

We boarded our bullet train and settled in for the ride,

which ended up being the smoothest 30 minutes at 320 km/hr ever. The train was incredible! Upon arrival, we found an adorable noodle shop and refueled for a day of sightseeing.

 

(I swear I change my clothes, but that silly green jacket has been in every picture for the past few months! Adam's side note: it now has enough stains on it to make me wonder if I'm marrying a bag-lady-in-training)

We were initially surprised by how metropolitan Suzhou seemed, as it's known for historic gardens and waterways. Then we read the guidebook and learned Suzhou has a population of almost 6 million people...so it was not really an ancient town enveloped by modern city (like Pingyao or Lijiang) but more like pockets of old in the midst of modern buildings. Anyways, we picked a garden to visit, and were dropped off in front of a long "shopping street" (tchotchke heaven!). Weird. After hurrying through, ignoring the shouts of "hello!" and "look, look!," we came to the entrance of Master of the Nets Garden.

The first thing was saw was a scraggly tree in the courtyard. Strange but beautiful:

We then walked through a few aptly named buildings (ex: Room of 10,000 Books used to hold 10,000 books) and into gorgeous courtyards. Some were filled with bonsai trees,

others had rocks and trees,

while others had flowers.

The central garden stood out, with the contrast of pink, green, stone, and water.

We came at the perfect time--everything was just beginning to bloom!

Perfect opportunity for a window picture, looking into the central garden.

After leaving the garden, we had time for one more sight before our return train, so we chose the Silk Museum. While it was not as interesting as we hoped, we did learn about how silk is made and saw women in the process of weaving.

If you look closely, you can see the silk threads on the left and the intricate pattern they have been woven into on the right, wrapped around the log.

Mama acquired a beautiful scarf at the silk shop next to the museum, so it wasn't a total bust :)

We had a yummy dinner when we got back to Shanghai, and then Mama and Papa went back to the hotel while Adam and I walked along the Bund. It was breathtaking and so alive, with tons of brightly colored lights, people, advertisements, music, etc. I definitely didn't feel like we were in China anymore!

European-style hotels and buildings:

Bridge between our hotel and the Bund area:

It began to rain, so instead of grabbing a drink at a nice European hotel, we opted for water and a warm bed to gear up for another day in Shanghai.

Overnight train to...Shanghai?

For M&P's last night in Beijing, we cooked our favorite dish (hand pulled noodles). Mama and I made the dough,
while Papa and Alison were in charge of the sauce.M&P and I then headed to the fanciest train station I've seen in Chinato take our overnight sleeper train to Shanghai!After checking into the Astor House Hotel, a landmark building in China, we went to the famed Shanghai Museum, which houses one of best regarded collections of Chinese antiques. We saw a lot of beautiful scrolls, calligraphy, and pottery:(Random Poll--do you think this pottery is beautiful and unique or looks like something you could get at World Market? Alison and I can't decide if we want to get something.) M&P and I were also interested to see that they had jade carvings from 100s (1000s?) of years ago that looked remarkably like Incan stone carvings:
By that time we were starving and left the museum to find lunch. We ate a local place that struggled with English translationsand then went back to the museum to finish looking at the exhibits.

The rest of the day was spent sightseeing around a city that alternatively reminded me of Buenos Aires,
Chicago,and even Cleveland, by the Clinic.
Nothing looked like China to me, and it was total culture shock. To make our day even more surreal, we went to a restaurant recommended by the concierge that looked like it belonged in Las Vegas, as evidence by the fake-gold-gilded lobby,and the shark you can eat in the restaurant fishtanks.The food was delicious, but our favorite part was the UNLIMITED ice cream.It wasn't until the sun set fully and the neon lights started flashing on the Bund that I truly felt I was in Shanghai. PS Alison joined us an hour after I took this picture...so we get to use her spectacular photography for the next few posts. Can't wait to see :)

Mama and Papa in Beijing

After a wonderful first day, Mama and Papa went on a full day tour of the city highlights. They took a few cute pictures of themselves at the Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace in bloom,
and the Forbidden City, by a 600 year-old tree.(Papa looks so trendy because he's borrowing my sunglasses, FYI). At the Forbidden City, Mama also took pictures of various iron metalworks that were historically used to make beautiful rubbings. As a wedding present, she and Papa plan to give us the rubbings at the Forbidden City that her artist friend had special permission to make when they were in China in the 1970s. Turns out these charcoal rubbings were banned by the government soon after Mama purchased them because making them was destroying the 3D aspect of the iron. We haven't seen them yet, but M&P showed us this picture of what one looks likeand we got extremely excited. Basically, it as the perfect present because we had wanted to buy ourselves a black and white Chinese prints to hang up in our future house...and these are even better! Thanks so much, M&P!

The next day, we went to the pearl lady, where Papa bought Mama and his daughters some beautiful necklaces:
We ate lunch at a delicious local restaurant, where the people around us were all staring at our table. I couldn't figure out why until the guy next to me pantomimed using chopsticks with his left hand and burst out laughing--and it hit me. All three of us are left handed, which is still not allowed in China, so the diners had probably never seen people eating with their left hands before...and the fact that all three of us were sitting by each other doing it probably ensured the crazy habits of Westerners became the topics of many dinnertime conversations.
We then went to the hospital, so they could meet my colleagues and have a tour of the facilities.
We finished the day with Mama modeling one of her necklaces over a delicious dinner of Yunnan-style fish.
(I swear that this whole-fish dish was much better than it looks)

The day after, I decided to play hooky (and just work overtime this week) so I could go with them to Mutianyu, the part of the Great Wall where I proposed. The last time I was there, I was obviously super nervous and didn't really remember anything about it. And, to set the stage for those of you on the Rosenberg side of the family, Papa may have a heart of gold, but he has (many) joints of titanium. So while he is literally game for anything and everything, I can't remember him climbing up or down too many stairs.

So imagine my chagrin when this is the first thing we saw,
which was followed by an enormous hill!(By the way, I angled the camera in a weird way so the hill is actually much steeper than it looks. Trust me, I was breathing hard..and Mama is happier than she looks--I hope)

I shouldn't have been very worried, though, because M&P handled the climb like champs (all 430 steps--which I counted!), and we made it to the top!
We then had a delightful picnic with a stunning view, and Mama and I proceded to climb the 10 two-foot steps to physically get ON the wall. I pointed out the backdrop of our engagement photo shoot
and took a wonderful picture of her looking out, imagining the proposal.
We made it down safely, all smiles
but pretty tired. All in all, an unforgettable few days!