14 September 2021 dinner

Architect John van de Water talked to Rotary during our dinner in Schlinders Tankstelle; a very interesting presentation on the topic: “What Design Can Do”.

Dutch architect John van de Water is co-founder of NEXT architects Amsterdam [in 1999] and NEXT architects Beijing [in 2004]. Over the years, NEXT projects has cultivated a strong name in contextual and innovative design. John has received numerous awards, such as the biennial ‘Top 100 most influential architects in China’ by Architectural Digest magazine in 2017 and 2019. In his talk: ‘What design can do?!’, John questioned the concept of sustainable design for China. What kind of design could that result into for existing and future cities?

See the China Rose Museum, now closed that was the main venue for the ‘World Rose Convention 2016’. It is located exactly on the Beijing Central Axis.

The “chicoree salad” was disappointing (chicoree? where? is it supposd to be endive?) but the pork escalope was very good. And by the way, try their pork ribs, the best in Beijing.

More about John van de Water from NEXT Architects

In 1999, four fresh out of school young Dutch architects, after four months of traveling and research, inspired by the architectural and structural innovations in many major cities, set up an architectural firm, NEXT, in Amsterdam, with a mind to create the next generation of architecture. While the young architects explored and experimented with building and furniture designs in its early days, a 2004 email to invite this young architect firm to participate in the forthcoming Beijing Olympics, changed the fate of the young firm, as well as some of the city landscapes in the following 17 years in China.

In his insightful talk, John recounted the cultural clashes, the bewilderment, the encountering, and then navigating within alien culture and business practices. On his arrival in China, John was awed by the long history of the cities he traveled to, like Luoyang, and also by the massive transformation from rural villages to metropolises at breakneck speed, like Shenzhen. In the end, it was a narrative of his eventually adopting and integrating the alien cultural and business practices with his western training and methodology. By sharing many of his design concepts, John demonstrated that architecture was more than just designing and constructing buildings, but it was a process of exploring space and its surroundings, incorporating functionalities and utilities, creating conveniences for and accommodating the habits of the human occupants, and eventually a sustainable design concept that can embed local cultural characteristics.

See: http://www.nextarchitects-china.com/ (under construction)

17 August 2021

Here Rotary Beijing in Summer part 2! Back in Kempinski Hotel for our Tuesday lunch meeting. with a remarkable set of speakers, Charles and Kate Wang on the topic: “An Amputee’s Road to Full Recovery: A Personal Story”

This moving speech was about two people, who through personal experiences, witnessed and understood the challenges facing the amputees in China and took it upon themselves to provide the needed help. Charles, originally from China but sent away to the US at an early age, became a specialist in prosthetic rehabilitation, after received training from Duke and Northwestern University and worked at the Veteran’s Affairs Hospital in the States. Upon his return to China, he saw few people with disabilities, but the statics betrayed the true story of 3-5 million amputees.

Many were fitted with subpar prosthetics, and many of the younger amputees numbered 100,000, were fitted with ill-fitted adults’ components. There were no programs to help those amputees to regain their mobility or psychological counseling to deal with the aftermath of being amputated. They had been shunned and tucked away, neglected and ignored. Most of those amputees, after being deprived of their limps, were also denied education, jobs, or a normal life. So Charles teamed with Georg Hoffmann-Kuhnt, the prosthetics specialist from Germany and a long-time Beijing resident, to set up Morning Star to provide full-body rehabilitation, a facility very much lacking in China.

Kate, Charles’s wife, a native of Sichuan, was a teacher and trained as a dancer before losing both of her legs, as a result of having been buried under the rubbles for 30 hours during the Wenchuan Earthquake. After she recovered, Kate started a long journey of rehabilitation. While Kate recovered from the amputation, she found that many children were not so lucky. Many of those young children had difficulties adjusting to a life with disabilities and they could find no help, from the adults around them or society at large. There were no systematic programs in China to help people with disabilities to return to society, and Kate recounted many stories of the systemic prejudice and inconveniences many of the amputees faced. Kate was sent to Canada where for the first time, she was shown that being an amputee with well-fitting prosthetics, she could be who she wanted to be and do what she wanted to. She could swim, ski, run, and to her delight, even be taller, from having a height boost from her new legs!

The most important part of a leg prosthesis is the part that contacts the body, and this has to be handmade and fitted individually. At Morning Star, amputees, both adults, and young children are given professionally fitted prostheses, and importantly, they are given a second life to enjoy swimming, dancing, and other playful pursuits.

The two couples, Charles and Kate, Georg and Michelle, with their understanding of what amputees face in this harsh and hard society, are now devoting their professional expertise to providing professionally-made prostheses and supporting programs to help the amputees to rehabilitate, and recover their lost meaning of life.

24 August 2021

A small but cozy fellowship in Morel’s Restaurant, as many members were away or busy.

Teddy and Eddy joined the happy evening

31 August 2021

Another Kempinski lunch, with the induction of our new member Ralf and as speakers Celyn Bricker and Faye Lu on the topic “Protecting wildlife while staying at home”.

See an overview of their talk.
I enjoyed the mushroom soup and the roulade. Well done.