A look back at last year!
Thirty heads of state and government leaders attended the 3 September 2015 parade in Beijing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The foreign leaders included Russian President Vladimir Putin, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Former Taiwanese Vice President Lien Chan also attended.

(Most pics from the media and WeChat, except the last ones)
The parade included some 12,000 soldiers, 50 generals, 500 pieces of military hardware and nearly 200 aircraft. Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over the parade ceremony, flanked by his two predecessors, Jiang Zemin, 89, and Hu Jintao, 72. Three former Premiers – Li Peng, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao – also turned out for the event. In a speech at the parade, Xi said the numbers of the PLA’s forces would be cut by 300,000 by 2017.
Oh well, it was a parade strictly to watch on TV. No people allowed on the streets. No enthusiastic citizens waving Chinese flags for the soldiers. Except for the “selected” foreigners and others who suffered hours and hours to be on Tiananmen Square. I was happy not to be invited and preferred to watch the planes fly over Guomao and watch CCTV.
Security measures were massive, including in Sanlitun and the main shopping areas. Beijing lockdown with many streets blocked: I went home quickly during the rehearsals and the parade days because I had the risk I could not go home at a certain point (it was actually a bit scary…). Most restaurants closed, and many shops. Yeah the sky was blue, after APAC blue now Parade blue after shutting down industry and social life. Beijing nearly became a ghost town except for the rumbling of the tanks and other heavy vehicles that I could hear in Julong Garden.
Draconian measures out of fear for “incidents” and to control pollution.

As usual some people told me the turnout would be minimal as it was just before Chinese New Year. And as usual, they were wrong (I never dare myself to make a prediction…).
So, we ended up 27 in total, a nice mix as usual.

On another very sad note, I must inform that one of our members is no more.
Our Dutch friend Willem van Kemenade passed away on 8 February while on holiday in The Netherlands. He was well known in the local community and we regularly had a chat. RIP my friend.
Do note that due to overseas trips the dates for the upcoming lunches have been changed to Wednesday 9 March and Friday 8 April.

We can say in some way that the dinner at In & Out (Yunnan Restaurant, see my earlier comment) on 14 January was the start of the BBC, our new Beijing Belgian Club. There were some preparatory meetings in the previous weeks to brainstorm on how to set it up.
See: In Out Yunnan Food

There were some initiatives in the past, more than ten years ago, with Michel Lens organizing the “Blue Lotus”. But at the time, response was rather lukewarm – my own experience is that the Belgian community in Beijing is hard to mobilize, while in Shanghai that is not an issue at all.
But now we have some enthusiastic volunteers and we hope we can look ahead to a nice gathering of Belgians here in the capital! A first idea for the website was planned and the domain name reserved.
Since then the name has been changed to “Belgians in Beijing” (BiB). A logo will soon be chosen. See the new website: http://www.belgiansinbeijing.com/
The next “official” event will be on 11 March in the Belgian Embassy.