The first four China International Chongyang Festivals were successfully organized and held in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012; due to budget restrictions and the call for saving money, 2013 was not held. I am in the Organizing Committee since the first one.
This year it was hosted as usual by the Managing Committee of China Aging International Development Foundation, where I also have a position. This event was held in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing on Oct. 12, 2014. The previous ones were all in the Great Hall of the People. Diaoyutai is certainly an improvement: better service, better food, less hassle to enter and certainly less austere.
Many ambassadors (Senegal, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, …), embassy delegates, foreign organizations and others attended. I invited several foreign “senior” citizens.
Ms. Peng Pei Yun was the highest invited guest from the government; she is Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the Chairwoman of the All-China Women’s Federation, and President of the Red Cross Society of China.

I gave my speech in Chinese and English, as representative of the foreign seniors.
As always the performances by the senior citizens’ Art Troup were impressive and charmed the audience. Some of the dancers (see the pic with Ms. Peng) were over 90 years old.
All my guests were pretty happy with the evening.
(And I was relieved nothing went wrong and my Chinese was declared ”ok”!)