Qingming holiday

Our Old China Hands Lunch 4 April was on the first day of the Qingming holiday, so the attendance of 24 was still pretty good.
The menu:

• tomato stuffed with North Sea fish salad OR poached eggs with Delirium beer sauce OR fresh daily soup
• chicken schnitzel with mixed salad and potato salad OR spaghetti bolognaise OR waterzooi of fish with boiled potatoes
• daily desert

The following lunch will be on Friday 9 May, due to the May 1 holidays, as the restaurant expects another overbooking…

The restaurant was totally overbooked and we asked to leave by 2 pm, for the next round of guests. Thanks to all for cooperating! Some decided to continue their chats outside,! While we lose members leaving Beijing, new members receive a warm welcome.

Our star: Peter Ritzen

Peter Ritzen is a Flemish pianist composer and conductor. He is a close friend and attends our lunches regularly.
Peter studied piano and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of his native city Ghent. He continued his training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He graduated with the Diplôme Supérieure d’Exécution for Piano from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris ‘Alfred Cortot’. As a concert pianist, Ritzen has played throughout Europe, Asia and the US. He cooperated as a soloist with many well-known orchestras and ensembles. He is an acclaimed interpreter of Franz Liszt & Theodor Leschetizky. His contact with the Chinese Culture resulted in a whole repertoire of own China related compositions.
He has conducted all over China, while residing In Beijing and Chongqing.
He also performed in the Belgian embassy during the visit of Belgian PM De Croo,

240111 PeterRitzen_anthem

He is also a foreign member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. Some pictures from 2023, 2024 and 2025 showing his concerts and more.:

Peter Ritzen ON YOUTUBE: Chinese Rhapsody
Peter Ritzen: Chinese Rhapsody Love for the Motherland, Chongqing Festival Orchestra, Fan Jingma, tenor, Peter Ritzen, conductor.
More about Peter: see Wikipedia. The article needs updates.

Animated lunch

The Old China Hands Lunch 7 March was attended by 26 friends in total. I even had the pleasure of having an old friend attending who had just arrived from Belgium in the early morning.

The menu, see the pictures:

• Russian egg salad OR salade Niçoise
• pork piccata provençal style served with grilled tomato and pan-fried potatoes OR thin sliced beef tenderloin with wine merchant sauce served with market vegetables and Belgian fries OR pan-fried snapper with mustard sauce served with daily vegetables and mashed potatoes
• daily desert

Lively discussions as always. Even outside on their bikes – seems this picture has been making the rounds on local media…

At the end we had a mix-up with backpacks. After a frantic search we found the one who had grabbed the wrong one… he was having a nap! They ended up exchanging the backpacks later in the evening.

Next lunch is planned for Friday 4 April 2025.

Gilbert on CGTN Dialogue

CGTN Dialogue, interview in my Julong office done on 24 February 2025, first on air on 6 March 19:30.

250224 CGTNweb

The interview is on a couple of platforms. Best is on Youtube by myself.

The original from CGTN is also on Youtube. We added the subtitles.

Nice turnout

The Old China Hands Lunch 7 February 2025 saw a nice turnout of over 30 participants, despite some calling of sick, family issues, mixing up lunch/dinner and more. And icy weather! Otherwise we would have been close to 40!

Gilbert became an Eskimo! Fully equipped for the freezing weather.

Food was great as usual, see some in the pictures:

• chicken curry salad OR Morel’s chef salad (ham, blue cheese and pan-fried chicken, beef on lettuce) OR f fresh daily soup
• farmer’s pork sausage with onion sauce served with red cabbage and hotchpotch potatoes OR mini steak minute with blue cheese sauce served with daily vegetables and french fries OR pan-fried snapper with mustard sauce served with daily vegetables and mashed potatoes
• daily desert

Very lively discussions and the speech by our Chinese Dutch friend Phoa.

Drinkable Rivers with Li An Phoa

See on Spotify

“The sign of a healthy economy should be a drinkable river,” these are the words of Li An Phoa, an environmental activist and our guest for this episode. In 2005, Li An Phoa canoed the full length of the Rupert, a river in Canada. All along the way, she was able to drink water straight from the river. When she returned three years later, this was no longer the case. The river had been poisoned from dams, mining, and industry. Fish died, people got ill, and the delicate balance in the ecosystem was destroyed. Realizing that drinkable rivers are not just a key indicator of ecological health, but community vitality and resilience as well, and that rivers can only be drinkable when economic systems are post-growth, truly democratic, place-based, and respectful of the commons and Indigenous peoples, Li An decided to dedicate her life to re-cultivating drinkable rivers.
Since then, Li An founded the Drinkable Rivers organization and Spring College  and has walked many rivers, using citizen science to test the water quality, training others to do the same, and intervening when a river has been contaminated or is off-balance. Her 1,000-kilometer walk along the river Meuse in Europe was the subject of the documentary Long Walk for Drinkable Rivers. Most recently, she and her partner Maarten van der Schaaf wrote the book Drinkable Rivers: How the river became my teacher.
In this conversation, Li An goes upstream to explain why rivers are no longer drinkable, she offers her vision of a world with drinkable rivers, shares her process for galvanizing communities to care for their watersheds, and suggests invitations for how all of us could contribute to healthier rivers and healthier eco- and economic systems around the world.

Introducing Li An Phoa

Our friend Phoa gave an emotional speech, also introducing his daughter and her book. Proud father!
Happy to receive a copy, In return I gave a copy of my book Toxic Capitalism, about environmental issues.

Our Chinese Dutch friend telling his personal story and introducing his daughter and her book, see the video clip on VIMEO.

Pretty good attendance

Despite last minute cancellations – several people sick, the Old China Hands Lunch 3 January 2025 had 21 participants, not bad as many people were still away.
The menu, see the pictures:

• vegetable quiche OR Morel’s chef salad (ham, blue cheese and pan-fried chicken, beef on lettuce) OR fresh smoked  salmon croquettes  OR fresh daily soup
• beef tenderloin stroganoff served with market vegetables and steamed rice OR meatloaf with black pepper sauce served with market vegetables and mashed potatoes OR red snapper provençale style served with vegetables and mashed potatoes
• daily desert

Thanks to Khee Liang for the extra pictures.
It was our first lunch in 2025. Next lunch is on Friday 7 February at the start of the Year of the Snake. Chinese New Year is on 29 January, public holiday is from 28 January to 3 February.

The benefits of our monthly lunch

Our lunch combats a change in society that affects Americans, as well as other nations. See here copy of interesting article. Our lunches bring people together – again.
In The Atlantic‘s latest cover story, “The Anti-Social Century” Derek Thompson illuminates America’s loneliness epidemic.
The big thought: Loneliness is no longer a temporary problem in America. Staying home and being alone has become a way of life.
Some eye-popping stats:

• Americans’ time spent socializing in person dropped 20% between 2003 and 2023, per the American Time Use Survey. Among people younger than 25, it plummeted more than 35%.
• In that same time, the share of U.S. adults having dinner or drinks with friends on a given night has declined 30%. And the National Restaurant Association says that 74% of 2023 restaurant traffic came from takeout and delivery.
• A typical teen spends 270 minutes on weekdays and 380 minutes on weekends looking at a phone screen, according to Digital Parenthood Initiative. That’s about 30% of the time they’re awake.

The bottom line: “Practically the entire economy has reoriented itself to allow Americans to stay within their four walls,” Thompson writes. “This phenomenon cannot be reduced to remote work. It is something far more totalizing — something more like remote life.”