Author: Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Dinner and show in Mango Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Mango Restaurant and Club

On 22 June 2021 I organized for some friends a dinner and show in Mango Restaurant. See my previous post about Mango: https://www.beijing1980.com/2021/06/15/mango-restaurant-and-club/
I prepared the menu and drinks and I think everybody was pretty happy. Very reasonable price!

The show that started 8:30 pm was well received! I had never seen the pole dancing as it comes much later, well after 10 pm, this time a few of us were still there and we could watch it. Pole dancing is now very popular in China and is considered as a new workout, with many gyms organizing lessons. Years ago I was in the Hilton Hotel where I watched a pole dancing competition. It is certainly not easy and requires dexterity and a flexible body! At one point belly dancing also became very popular, even our daughter took part in it in the gym. Others prefer flamenco,  salsa, tango and other dances. Often just as a pleasant way to exercise. Sadly many people look at it as “sexy stuff”. Chinese don’t. In Mango many families with kids come to watch the shows…

Our musicians

I could organize the floor for our two musician friends. Great performance by Kevin and Brian, real professionals. It took some work to get them wired but they brought most of the equipment so, all went perfect. They got an extra pizza to reward them.

See a few short clips of our musicians and of the late-night pole dancing. Need VPN in China to access Vimeo.

Rotary Club of Beijing memories

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Cleaning up my paper mountain

As many friends know, I have this annoying statement since a few years that I am trying to clean up the mountain of files in my office. Annoying because I always mention it but failed to make any progress. But I am discovering a lot like Rotary Club of Beijing memories, among many other. It seems like a huge jigsaw puzzle as papers are all mixed up, sometimes with no date stamp. But yes I am making progress and my tricycle recycling friend has more waste paper to collect.
But sometimes I am left puzzled about those hazy memories.

A gold medalist

I stumbled on this small newspaper clipping:

I think the small article is from China Daily. I found the longer version here:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-08/18/content_6945218.htm

I had nearly forgotten about it. I found back the old post on my website, see here the updated version:
Sergey Bubka, the IOC and Beijing Rotary Club, https://www.beijing1980.com/2013/08/20/sergey-bubka-the-ioc-and-beijing-rotary-club/

Few of our present members ever heard about Sun Children Village… One of the projects we supported. We even had a Rotary Villa there…

GSE 2008

GSE is “Group Study Exchange”. We did that in 2008 when we sent a Chinese team to New Zealand and we then received their team in Shanghai and Beijing. It was a difficult and complicated organization with our Kiwi friends staying all over the city in different locations and changing then from one family to the other. One, Jo, stayed with me and I found back her note, see the pic. I had also organized for her a meeting with one of the most important pharmaceutical companies involved in diabetes medicine; Ms. Joana Young BSc, PG Dip SCi was doing her PhD – Clinical Scientist, Lipid and Diabetes Research Group, Christchurch Hospital.

We had a very varied and full program for the group, but also filled with fun: I took them to a big lesbian evening where we had a great night. To say farewell to our New Zealand GSE team we organized a dinner on Friday 25 April 2008 in Restaurant Sahara (long gone, close to Salsa Caribe, also gone). We had a large VIP room with our own buffet of Middle East cuisine plus belly dancing in our room.

See some of the many pics (never published). One is during our Rotary lunch with the whole team presented; one in Pipe Cafe, long gone and razed, gongti nan lu, that time the biggest lesbian bar where I had privileged access; one in Sahara Restaurant.
Overall it was a big success but it also proved to be too much work for the Club.

Mango Restaurant and Club

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Normally called “Russian”

Mango Restaurant and Club, aka Golden Mango Russian and MangGuo EShi Restaurant is located at 6 Ritan Beilu (Chinese: 金芒果餐厅俱乐部 – 日坛北路6号).
Serves Russian food, with a drink list including Baltika, Russian sparkling wine and various bottles of vodka and wine.
Besides the basement there are 3 floors: the 1st floor with the bar and the dance floor for the shows. The 2nd floor has several semi-private areas with large windows that give a good view of the dance floor. The 3rd floor is the open terrace with several nice corners plus another bar.
The menu is extensive, with Russian and Mexican dishes plus pizza, hamburgers, steaks, pork knuckle and more. The Russian honey cakes are really nice. Water pipes available (hookah, here often wrongly called “Shisha” being the tabacco, not the water pipe).
Prices are reasonable. I like the Russian beers.

See the pictures of the three floors, some of the dishes I had and some pages of the menu.
First floor is usually packed with Chinese, including families with kids. Third floor mixed public, Chinese and foreigners. Often private parties on the 2nd floor.

The show

See some pics of the show.

Tuesday to Sunday performances (8.30 pm the most popular) from Cuban and Russian singers and dancers. Looks like always the same group but with different costumes.

See the short clip on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/563062594)(need VPN in China).

Beijing Rotary in June

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Kempinski Hotel 1 June

Beijing Rotary in June started on 1 June with a lunch for members and potential members only, to discuss internal issues.
Rotary 2021-22 President Didier opened the meeting by welcoming the club guests and introduced his team of 2021-22. In presenting his vision and course of action, he first emphasized diversity as the guiding principle in growing the club membership. He further stressed Service as an integral part of the Rotary spirit and the driving force for achieving that spirit: Fellowship and Programs. To put them in order it is Fellowship, Service, and Engagement.

Didier also referred to the briefing he organized in his residence on 23 May (see the pics) for present and future board members and committee chairs.

Several of the directors and chairs briefed us about their activities.

Encuentro dinner 8 June

I have been a few times to Encuentro, the new place replacing Red Rose, see https://www.beijing1980.com/2021/06/13/exploring-encuentro-replacing-red-rose/

The Rotary Club of Beijing has held several dinners there to the general satisfaction, see also this post: https://www.beijing1980.com/2021/04/30/rotary-club-of-beijing-in-april/

Iris Bula, a friend of Rotary who attended several of our meetings is the new chef! She prepared for us an excellent buffet all included with wine, beers and other drinks. We had a large private room, very convenient.

Our speaker was John Sze Ming Khor, the President of the Shanghai Rotary Club Lujiazui who is on a visit to Beijing. He talked to us about the start of his Education company after being a volunteer teacher and exploring in particular the poor rural areas. He is the founder and CEO of KERU – Shanghai, a social enterprise that provides consulting services to companies in the social sector and offers educational experiences for ambitious student leaders.
He has an impressive background both professionally and for community service.
More about his company: https://www.keruknowledge.com/

Rtn Piper thanked the speaker for his well-received talk.

Foundation Project Update – Hypospadias

From April 7th to 9th, the Rotary/Hebei Children’s medical van made the trips to Xingtai, Neiqiu, and Shahe counties, to provide free checkups to rural children, and training to the county doctors. This was the first such medical mission since the lockdown in Shijiazhuang late last year and the travel restrictions imposed after the lockdown. This Rotary/Hebei Children outreach program transports medical experts to the rural counties, from where to reach the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang often involves all day journeys and lost work and wages for the rural families.

With the medical mission resuming, the Shijiazhuang urology experts were able to examine and provide diagnosis to the rural children again. In recent months, 10 Hypospadias surgeries from the current grant have been performed. The pandemic has caused delays and sometimes stoppage to the grant surgeries.
About Hypospadias: https://www.beijing1980.com/2017/04/13/hypospadias-surgeries-need-support/

Exploring Encuentro replacing Red Rose

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Again a change

On 4 April 2021 I went exploring Encuentro replacing Red Rose. It’s the new restaurant on Beijing Gongti Bei Lu, Encuentro, basically South American food. Just in front of the North Gate of Worker’s Stadium, in the small alleay. Our friend Rtn Jose had suggested it, the place had just opened on the location of a former Muslim restaurant, then followed by another restaurant, Red Rose, American cuisine.

I tried the ensalada de tofu (nice), the ropa vieja cubana (very good) and the picarones peruanos (can be improved). Rather soft opening without a full a la carte menu.

The former Red Rose Restaurant

Beijing is not a good place to run a restaurant. Sky-high rents, unreasonable landlords and annoying government “inspections” to make life miserable – often only targeting foreign restaurants: reason why restaurants open, go bust, other open, restart the cycle. Chinese restaurants generally less bothered. Inspectors always find a new reason to mess: need other electric plugs (the safety ones have the wrong color), the gas pipes should be moved and painted in a different color, the trash cans are not OK (while a few hundred meters away trash litters the street with stinking trash. (un)Welcome to Beijing.

See a visit to the former Red Rose Restaurant with friends, July 2019. The place was actually very nice, food at first so-so, later improved a lot and I started liking it. A pretty ugly kind of bulldog was always around to check us out, in a very friendly way. I guess it closed, victim of the virus economy.

I fail to understand why new tenants always must break down everything and remodel. Like in this case, there was nothing wrong with the design. Screw the environment! (see my book Toxic Capitalism).