Old China Hands Lunch 6 June

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

After the Dragon Boat Festival

The Old China Hands Lunch 6 June had a turnout of 25, with many members unable to attend due to travel and workload. As usual lively conversation.

See the menu, most dishes in the pictures:

  • ham salad andalouse OR puff pastry with chicken curry Indian style OR fresh daily soup
  • veal sausage with curry sauce served with salad and Belgian fries OR sliced roast beef with gravy served with cauliflower and pan fried potatoes OR pan-fried snapper Meunière served with daily vegetables and boiled potatoes
  • daily desert

Next lunch Friday 4 July.

Renaat Morel, the Chef

Morel’s Restaurant and Café has become a real institution in Beijing, the only real Belgian restaurant and with a solid track record of 25 years.
My first visit to the restaurant was in February 2000, just after returning to Beijing after nearly five years in Shanghai.

Renaat is an incredible story teller with an impressive memory. But writing is not his strong point, so I help him time to time to play secretary and to record bits and pieces of his past.
Renaat has an imposing career and I still record new facts about his memorable adventures as a top chef.
See here my latest update: Renaat Chef
Before landing in China, Renaat worked in major five-star hotels in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Holland such as:

  • Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo – Monaco
  • Hotel Barrière Le Majestic Cannes and Sporting Club of Cannes
  • InterContinental Carlton Cannes – Cannes
  • Le Cap Estel – Eze Bord de Mer (between Nice and Monaco)

He served an impressive list of famous people, see the PDF.
On top of his 3 Michelin Stars he accumulated an endless list of titles and awards and he has been interviewed by many Chinese and foreign media.
Before setting up his restaurant in Beijing Renaat was executive chef in Beijing Air Catering Company, Crown Plaza Xiamen Seascape, Henan Zhongzhou Crown Plaza Hotel and Beijing Kunlun Hotel.

Honduras and Belgian embassies events

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Honduras Embassy event

There is a common link between the Honduras and Belgian embassies events: a Belgian Princess.
Thanks to Ms. Leyla I attended the reception in the Intercontinental hotel Sanlitun.
The theme: “The night of the Feathered Serpent: Celebrating Friendship. In the Year of the Wooden Snake, we commemorate the Second Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations between Honduras and China, inspired by the Feathered Serpent-a symbol of wisdom and renewal in Mayan culture, bridging our histories and traditions.”
Guest of Honor: Honduran Minister of Tourism, Ms. Yadira Esther Gómez.
Impressive performance of the national hymns and interesting presentation of Mayan legacy.

Ambassador Salvador Moncada, who is married to the Belgian Princess Esmeralda (Marie-Esméralda – Lady Moncada)), who could not attend.
Princess Marie-Esméralda is the youngest child of the late Leopold III of Belgium and his second wife, Lilian Baels, Princess of Réthy. She is a journalist, author, documentary-maker, environmental activist and a campaigner for the rights of women and indigenous people.
Sir Salvador Moncada is a Honduran-British pharmacologist who was supposed to receive the Nobel Prize, did not get it and was instead decorated by Queen Elizabeth II.
See here more details about the Princess in Dutch and English: 231018 Esmeralda
Also happy to meet HE Paulette Bethel Ambassador of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and HE Martin Mpana ambassador Cameron

Trio Zadig in Beijing

Belgian Trio Zadig performed in the Belgian Embassy in Beijing on 22 May 2025. Watch here a short video of their performance.
This concert marks the kick-off of the exciting event series, “A Sense of Europe”, with a focus on a Steinway Grand Piano currently residing at the Embassy. (on loan from Peter Ritzen).
Miclen LaiPang, the violinist, Marc Girard Garcia, the cellist and Guillaume Vincent on the piano captured the essence of Mendelssohn and Piazzolla.
The Trio brought exceptional instruments with them: a “Charles Castleman” Antonio Stradivarius c. 1707 violin (on generous loan by the esteemed Belgian academic institution Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel) as well as an Andrea Guarneri c. 1675 cello, both accompanied by the embassy’s Steinway Grand Piano Model B.

The performance was really top level and impressive. We were served drinks and a buffet.
I finally met Princess Esmeralda with her husband HE Sir Salvador Moncada, ambassador of Honduras.

Huge statue in the Beijing Olympic Green

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Biggest statue?

The huge statue in the Beijing Olympic Green is not really the biggest statue in Asia, that title goes to “Statue of Unity” located in Gujarat, India with a height of 182 m, the World’s tallest statue.
The Athletes Alley, a work of Belgian artist Olivier Strebelle is certainly one of the biggest in recent history and of its kind.

It is a stainless steel sculpture of 100 m long, with a highest point of 20m and average height of 14.5m. The total weight is around 130 ton.
The sculpture was built to the north of the Olympic Village, in the southwest area of the Olympic Forest Park. It was created by the Belgian sculptor Olivier Strebelle, using five different groups of stainless steel sculptures. Each group is of a different height. They form a three-dimensional and can be admired from different angles. Each sculpture set is a piece of individual abstract artwork. The true meaning can only be seen from a specific point from the front: the sculptures then form five athletes to hold up the five Olympic Rings.

The story

It all started during my visit to Brussels when the Belgian Olympic and Interfederal Committee (BOIC – Piet Moons) asked me to visit the atelier of Olivier Strebelle, along with Baron Simon-Pierre Nothomb on 11 May 2004. Olivier had this old dream to build a statue for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Reluctant at first we started working on the idea. It was rather “Mission Impossible”, as the Beijing Government declined all proposals to donate some art work for the Olympic Green. As we were pretty good in navigating Chinese administration and bureaucracy, we really succeeded. It was very difficult. We had to convince Olivier to change his design, we involved Prince Philippe (Belgium), we changed the funding to a gift from the Kingdom of Belgium. The Belgian side was often uncooperative, tried to eliminate us from the discussion but finally was told, you go through Gilbert or there will be no statue. We did not however get the full agreed compensation.
It is a long and complicate story and has been the subject of many of my seminars as an example on how to navigate the bureaucracy.
The Belgian technical team was extremely professional, the erection was incredibly complicated.

Top management left a lot to desire. At one point Eric Domb was named general manager but he soon left to fulfill his dream bringing pandas to Belgium – the famous Pairi Daiza Zoo.

In June 2007, the vice-chairman of BOCOG, Mr. Wang Wei and Prince Philippe of Belgium, jointly signed the first tube of the sculpture along with the artist Olivier Strebelle. That was all our idea.

It was officially inaugurated on 23 May 2008 in the presence of Beijing’s Vice Mayor Chen Gang, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht and many other Chinese and Belgian VIP guests.

Inaugurated and abandoned

Olivier was planning to complete the Athletes Alley by placing a huge rock he had already selected to mark the viewing point, and to add a wall in stone with the list of all donors. Nothing was ever done. We stopped our assistance as we were not getting paid.

Olivier also had the idea to make a movie about the project and I was to help as I have a vast amount of pictures.
Sadly Olivier passed away on 29 July  2017 (age 90 years) in Brussels. We did not get any notice. We lost a dear beloved friend.
I tried to contact his foundation, his relatives and the government of Uccle in Brussels. Zero replies. So I still have a huge collection of documents, pictures and his books. Nobody cares. The Wikipedia post contains errors. The original websites are gone or damaged.

In the past the local Uccle government website had issues and the listed emails did not work. I tried again and it seems the mail service works now. Waiting for their reply.

Our visit 7 November 2022

As part of a major movie being shot about me by CCTV4, we also visited the Olympic Green to see the Athletes Alley.

A real disappointment. No adequate signage, a damaged explanation panel with mistakes, some pipes that require cleaning and  totally wrong gardening.
The planted bushes hide the pipe signed by Prince Philippe, I had to dig through the bushes to locate the pipe.
Who knows about our Belgian statue? Very few and nobody cares.
Rest in Peace Olivier. We will not forget your legacy.

Old China Hands Lunch 9 May

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

May 1 holidays

As the first Friday was 2 May, the Old China Hands Lunch 9 May was a week later to avoid the overbooking in Morel’s Restaurant. Still, many of our members were on the road or tight up in meetings. Anyway the 22 participants were happy as always, despite the rainy day. We also had the honor of having our Belgian ambassador joining us.

See the menu, most dishes in the pictures:

  • ham salad andalouse OR puff pastry with chicken curry Indian style OR fresh daily soup
  • veal sausage with curry sauce served with salad and Belgian fries OR sliced roast beef with gravy served with cauliflower and pan fried potatoes OR pan-fried snapper Meunière served with daily vegetables and boiled potatoes
  • daily desert

Next lunch Friday 6 June.

Gilbert, a rising star in the Chinese media

It all started not long ago when I tried to post my restaurant videos as a food vlogger on WeChat Channels, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu (Red Book). The feedback was better than expected and many people I meet talk about my videos.
Just recently I also started posting on TikTok and Douyin. I am also active on Dianping, the famous platform for restaurants, where I am Level 7, one of the highest.
I love food and exploring the cosmopolitan food scene of Beijing is fascinating.
But a very few days ago we had a shock. A new post became a huge hit.

I made a short video about the story of my four “Green Cards”, and a look back to earlier documents for foreigners in China. Posted on Douyin (Chinese Tiktok), WeChat channels and other, the results were astonishing. As for now way over 200,000 hits on Douyin and way over 70,000 on WeChat, and growing. See the impressive progress over time. Hundreds of comments on Douyin, many praising my track record, many digging up stuff about me and posting it. Comments on WeChat were mixed, a bit more silly and many asking me to help to get the Green Card, now officially called the Five Star Card. And none clever enough to identify me. If interested, you can watch the video on TikTok.

Some people ask me, why I do it. Not for money, I refuse payments from the restaurants.
Many are asking to post more about my China stories. I started to make some videos, tried to post on Douyin but all got censured. Welcome to China. The videos cannot mention the names of high Chinese officials, cannot mention the word “Chinese government”, and so on. As such Douyin and Deepseek share the same automatic draconian censorship. I cannot say “This is Beijing Mayor XXXXX giving me the Great Wall Friendship Award. And of course I cannot show his picture.
So sad. The video could not be used. I plan to upload it to TikTok and YouTube. We started making “cleaned up videos”. Self-censorship.
King Kwesi interviewed me in my office with me showing the pictures. That is not allowed on Chinese media. This is the link to the office video.

ARAMITH an unprofessional company

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Zero answers

ARAMITH an unprofessional company that ignores any contact. Much like SOCIETE TRANSVINS , see my previous post.
A Chinese friend asked me to contact this Belgian company on behalf of a potential buyer.
Aramith sells billiard balls; they are used for billiard, snooker, carambola. They are supposed to be a world leader. Maybe their business is too good so they don’t care to do anything.
Their contacts:

https://www.saluc.com/
https://www.aramith.com/
https://www.aramith100.com/fr/
To contact:  https://www.aramith.com/contact-us
Rue de Tournai, 2 – 7604 Callenelle – Belgique.

I know they received my email, see below the edited message. I had to confirm I was not spam and approved by Arthur Broudehoux of Saluc.

I informed AWEX. I will refrain from commenting on their follow-up, although they finally informed me ARAMITH does have a local representative, supposedly also difficult to contact. So why did ARAMITH not reply with that simple information?
The attitude of that Walloon company is deplorable and totally unprofessional.
It will teach me, to never try to help exports from companies from Belgium, France and others. Even considering I do it as a goodwill gesture. So, don’t ask for help. I would rather help a Chinese company.

My email

Subject: ARAMITH Tournament BLACK pool ball
11 February 2025
To: contact@aramith100.comSaluc
CC: info@saluc.com
Monsieur, Madame,
CC: Economy, Commerce, and Technology for the Walloon Region, Embassy of Belgium in Beijing AWEX
Je suis Gilbert Van Kerckhove, belge et résident de longue date à Beijing.
Une dame m’a demandé d’aider une société chinoise de vous contacter. Je crois ils ont essayé mais ils ont mal formulé leur message.
J’ai expliqué en détail vos produits et votre site Internet.
La société “666 Billards Club”  a le siège au Fujian et a un chiffre d’affaires de 120 millions de RMB … (introduction de la société)
Après analyse de vos produits ils sont intéresses dans vos “ARAMITH Tournament BLACK pool ball set with Duramith™ Technology”.

Leur plan est d’acheter 10.000 à 20.000 sets de 16 boules avec une première commande de 5.000 sets.
Avez-vous un distributeur en Chine? Si non ils sont intéresses dans le futur de devenir distributeur.
Nous souhaitons établir un contact direct avec votre société pour:
– communication avec la personne en charge
– vos possibilités de livraison
– prix, conditions de vente et paiement.
Une fois le contact établi je ne serai plus dans la discussion,
Dans l’attente de votre réponse,
Bien à vous,
Gilbert à Beijing

Snooker is big in China

Snooker’s popularity has boomed in China in the 21st century. It has been estimated that 50 million people play the sport, up to 350 million watch it and China has 300,000 snooker halls.

Ad on a Beijing street for a snooker hall

Rising Local Talent
Ding Junhui, who became a snooker star in the mid-2000s, is widely credited with sparking a snooker boom in China. His success on the international stage inspired many young Chinese players and fans. Other rising Chinese stars like Zhao Xintong (now world champion!), Yan Bingtao, and Zhou Yuelong have kept interest strong.
Snooker enjoys extensive TV coverage in China, often airing on major sports networks like CCTV-5. Major tournaments are broadcast live, drawing millions of viewers.
The establishment of snooker academies and training centers, such as the World Snooker Academy’s branch in Chengdu, has provided structured pathways for talent development.
Cultural Alignment: Snooker’s emphasis on strategy, precision, and discipline resonates with Chinese cultural values, further cementing its appeal.