Life in the city

Rotary Club of Beijing is active

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Picking up speed again, except Rotaract

As life in Beijing is basically back to normal, our Rotary Club of Beijing is active thanks to the efforts of PE Didier.
The club is also trying to attract new blood and I am happy to see we have more interest from people from Latin America, among others.
Rotaract is still struggling as many of its members can’t yet return to Beijing, but we try our best under the conditions.

We look back at times like when we had a well-attended hotpot with the Rotaractors on 18 December 2019, in Ritan Dong Lu.

Last year we kept in touch with the Rotaract Club of Beijing West by ZOOM. They still organize this year online events. The Sanlitun club has restarted meetings, like this one in SOHO Sanlitun.

On 22 December 2020 we had our Rotary dinner in Morel’s Restaurant and our Rotaractors Kien and Trefyn also joined.

Rotary lunch 2 March

Our lunch of 2 March 2021 in Kempinski hotel was presided by PE Didier, our President Elect. It was his first event as Club President filling in for Rtn Danny, our 2020-2021 President, who is relocating to Nanjing.
No speaker but Didier gave some feedback to the members present, as well as new potential members, after yesterday’s Club Board meeting.
The project HOPE, introduced by Rtn Helen was approved. As a result the active projects of our Club are HOPE and hypospadias. The Bethel project is still waiting for better times. A project to teach English in Hebei schools is being considered where members of Rotary and Rotaract could act as volunteers.
HOPE is an initiative to help children with mental disabilities to improve their mental and physical condition through special riding lessons. The specially trained horses and the qualified therapists use the horses for the children to open up. The contact with the animals have a proven therapeutic effect.

Didier also appealed for members to come forward and help in taking up roles in the different committees of the Club. Several positions need to be filled such as treasurer and membership chair. New committees are in the pipeline such as events committee (includes the speaker program). On the Rotary International website we can find the job description of most common positions and committees.

More details about hypospadias, see this earlier post with the details: https://www.beijing1980.com/2017/04/13/hypospadias-surgeries-need-support/

Rotary dinner 9 March

Tuesday 9 March at 7 pm we met in Morel’s Restaurant and we had an interesting speaker Tilman Rieger. He is a Shanghai Rotary Club member and also introduced Tilman Tillmann to our Club.  He is the founder and CEO of 8C Consulting, Executive Coaching and related.

He talked about Conflict Management in Relationships. “Know yourself, understand your counterpart, communicate more effectively!”

Old China Hands stars

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Our members are interesting figures

As mentioned in my previous post our Old China Hands stars come in different colors.
Here more about some of them, we have several other stars! Proud to have this community and sad each time one has to leave Beijing (like Kent).

Terry Crossman

You can call him the Hutong guy, well known around the Houhai area and featured in many media. He speaks Chinese fluently and sometimes I think he is more Chinese than American.

Many articles on the net with all the interviews he had. See this one from Haivision (Hainan Airlines magazine). I just was on Hainan Airlines but the Haivision on board did not have the article yet.

210403 TerryCrossman

Mark Levine

He is plastered all over the Chinese Internet and appears in all kinds of official meetings, often as a juror or something for English language competition and other.
See the article in China Daily of 1 April 2021. (Link)

He is a teacher (Minzu University and more) and musician, also a member of our foreign experts team (see: https://blog.strategy4china.com/2019/05/china-international-talent-exchange-foundation/).

I had the pleasure of being on a few assignments with him where he used his musical skills well as a bridge between the West and China. I was also one of the first to be in the audience for his public concerts.Article and video Introducing the documentary short film “Music Life” by Dr. Mark Levine, a foreign expert from Minzu University, here the full article, one other recent interview:

210401 MarkLevine_Minzu

Our hard rock (?) guy

Kent Niepert is one of our regular “Old China Hands” at the monthly lunch. He is also a painter, chef (loves to cook) and plays some great guitar, here with his two gifted sons who form a band. I missed his concert of 3 April 2021 but I hope to make it at his next one on 17 April 2021.

See a short video clip of his recent concert: https://youtu.be/e0z_xI4hA9s

You can see that Beijing’s (night) life is not exactly boring, even in these COVID times.
Kent has been constantly surprising us, bringing some great deserts to our lunches and handing out some “original” paintings of our members (like me). See earlier lunch reports such as this one.

Old China Hands 2 April lunch

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Start of the Tomb Sweeping holiday

We had our our Old China Hands 2 April lunch on what was actually Good Friday (nobody seemed to notice it). Many of our members were already away to take advantage of the long weekend for Tomb Sweeping. We were still near 30 to chatter away for hours while enjoying as always the food of Morel’s Restaurant (packed as always). But Easter was everywhere in the restaurant with the decoration of eggs, cute little chicks and flowers.

We also welcomed our youngest member, Oliver, son of Didier with well over ten years of China!
Our Belgian friend Benoit first thought to be alone at his table but some late comers ended his isolation.

Always something happening

Our artist member Kent presented his painting of Mark and Fu Han to Mark. Well done!
Sadly our artist/musician/chef Kent is planning to leave us for the USA to be finally reunited with his wife.
And I introduced a fellow author and long-time friend, Rainer Thomm, whose book “China Mission Impossible” I help to promote, see my book report here.
I hadn’t seen Rainer since ages as he left for Guangdong, far away from the mad crowd of Beijing.

In next post I will talk more about some of our famous Old China Hands members. We have a few remarkable and unique fellows really. Stay tuned!

Old China Hands 5 March

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Full house

Our monthly lunch for Old China Hands 5 March had again to fight to get enough seats in Morel’s Restaurant. Initially I got 30 seats… then up to 40… Giving a chance to the people on the waiting list!
We were 36 exactly, pretty impressive number.
While we had some concerns with the “Double Meetings”, it all went well. As usual the restaurant was fully packed…

Kent is leaving

One of our enthusiastic and regular members, Kent, is sadly leaving us soon. His has been separated from his wife (stuck in USA) for over a year. They finally decided Kent will leave Beijing for the USA. One more victim of the virus pandemic. Will miss him as well as his great deserts he brought us! Kent is talented…. painter, musician, cook, …

Kent wrote on Facebook (unedited):
“Due to my plans to leave China in May, today will probably be my last luncheon with my foreign expat friends. Every month on the first Friday about 35 of us gather from various countries and have a lunch together in a famous Belgian restaurant named, Morel’s, after it’s owner Chef Renaat Morel. Our organizer, Gilbert Van Kerchove, who is also Belgian and has lived in China over 40 years was also honored by me today. Instead of today being a going away party for me, I presented Renaat and Gilbert with a portrait done by me as gratitude for all of the great food and fond memories that they have helped cultivate for all of us that are part of the Old China Hands group.”
Thanks my friend (yeah my correct name is Kerckhove hehe).

Thanks for the painting! Though my wife said I should check a skin specialist for the suspicious growth on my face.
We even had (once more) a birthday celebration, our Aussie lady Rebecca.

A famous foreigner joined

We had also the famous Cao Cao joining us. I will write about that in another post. I already mentioned him here.

Next lunch

Next lunch is planned for Friday 2 April. Lucky it is not 1 April. And I hope I will not mess up (again) my invitation email… with the wrong date somewhere…

SKP the Beijing super mall

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Exploring total luxury

Finally I visited SKP the Beijing super mall, on 9 January 2021.
You could call it the temple of capitalism, luxury shopping, extravagant consumerism.
It houses about any famous international brand, clothing, shoes, kitchen ware, watches, jewelry, anything. Bring your credit card…

We had dinner in the Macau Taste restaurant, in the connected China Central Mall, through underground level 1. Nice food!
You also find around there an Apple store and many banks.
We did not visit SKP-S.

I also had the experience to buy a small kitchen knife. Indeed normally NO ANY SHOP sells knives. If you need knives for your kitchen in Beijing, good luck. Hey, it is a weapon!
I did find exactly what I wanted, though super expensive. I succeeded to buy it after filling out forms, contact data and copy of my Green Card. Tip from the shop: do not take the subway with it… We went by Didi…

About SKP and the new SKP-S (Select)

One of the most upscale malls in Beijing, SKP is filled with shops selling pricey designer goods. Shop in comfort then have lunch at one of the many restaurants, many in China Central Mall connected to SKP.
Located on Jianguo Road, West Dawang Road and near Dawang Bridge. See the maps.
See this website with many great pictures: https://superfuture.com/2020/01/new-shops/beijing-skp-s-mall-opening/

Says the website:
As the planet’s biggest luxury market, you’d say China is the holy grail for any self-discerning brand operating in fashion’s upper echelon. The SKP mall in Beijing has long been the home of glittering trophies from the realm of fashion and lifestyle, featuring a myriad of flagship stores of relevant brands from across the planet. Interestingly, SKP is state-owned, and it looks like the venture’s raison d’être is aligned with the harsh government crackdown on illegally imported luxury goods in recent years. As a consequence of local market conditions, SKP mall in Beijing is slowly transforming into a department store, aiming to offer a more cohesive shopping experience to the Chinese capital’s most discerning shoppers, and which is able to rival some of planet’s most prestigious shopping grounds along the way.

The opening of SKP-S (SKP Select), a distinctly design-led south wing is part of this newly adopted strategy. In a bold move, the company has teamed up with Gentle Monster, the Seoul-based eyewear brand known for its bold and highly evocative retail design, to create premises fit for today’s generation of digital-savvy shoppers.