China views

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.

Sun Bingwen, Zhu De and Liu Ding

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Statues near the river side

In a previous post I mentioned the history of Zhu De and Sun Bingwen. On 21 March 2024 a ceremony was held honoring the legacies of Sun Bingwen, Zhu De and Liu Ding. Two groups of statues are located on the river side at Nanxi City.

One location is with the statues of Zhu De and Sun Bingwen, the other is the statue of Liu Ding.
Sun Bin, as the granddaughter of Sun Bingwen and myself paid respect to the grandfather.
Liu Wenshi and Liu Wenshan, sons of Liu Ding the “military industry leader and united front hero” paid respect to their father.

The museums

We visted the Nanxi Museum and then the old residence of Zhu De in Nanxi.
Some of the pictures in the museum were donated by Sun Bin. Pictures feature Zhu De, Sun Bingwen. Sun Yang and Sun Weishi.

When we left the former residence, three young pioneers greeted Sun Bin, Liu Wenshi and Liu Wenshan.
Near the museum I spotted some interesting mural decorations…

Who is Liu Ding

Liu Ding (1902 – 1986) was a native of Nanxi, an older generation revolutionary activist of the Communist Party of China, a loyal communist fighter, and a famous military industrialist. He was an expert in the machinery industry, the founder and outstanding leader of my country’s military industry, and the first president of North China University. He is known as the dean of China’s military industry. In 1924, he joined the Communist Party of China after being introduced by Sun Bingwen and Zhu De. In 1924, he went to Germany for a work-study program and served as secretary of the Youth League branch in Germany. In 1926, he went to the Soviet Union for further study. Graduated from Moscow Oriental University in 1928. In 1929, he was transferred back to China and served as deputy section chief of the Second Section of the Special Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. He has been engaged in underground intelligence work for a long time and made great contributions in the Xi’an Incident.

In 1952, in order to prepare for the trial production of standardized weapons he established a number of basic research institutes to serve the ordnance industry. They are the earliest technological research institutions established in New China.
His background in Chinese can be found here.
See here a transcript of the information in Chinese with partial translation: LiuDing_bio

A forest with Taxus Chinensis

On 22 March 2024 we crossed the Yabgtze River and went up to a mountain to check on the culture of a special plant called Taxus Chinensis, also called Chinese Yew.
In our delegation some participants are interested in the plant, used to produce medicines for cancer treatment, including Paclitaxel and Taxifolin. It can also be used in many other ways and is protected under Chinese and international law. Currently, the species is suffering the consequences of its economic and scientific exploitation for the production of the aforementioned anticancer drugs.

See more here: Taxus chinensis

We had a lunch with very local food on the mountain top.

Nanxi City in Sichuan

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The laojia

An official trip to the “laojia” of my wife, Nanxi City in Sichuan,famous because of Zhu De and Sun Bingwen.
On 20 March 2024 we flew to Yibin Wuliangye Airport and then went by highway to Nanxi. This is part 1 of our trip report.

Laojia (老家) is a special term in China, supposed to be the hometown or birthplace. In the case of my wife her “laojia” is Nanxi while she was actually born in Beijing where she spent most of her years. So it refers to her parents and grandparents.

See the Biography of Zhu De. Chinese Edition by Jin Chong.
This book is mainly based on more than 5000 manuscripts, telegraphs, letters and speeches about Zhu De preserved by Central Archives of China – a lot of his work notes, as well as Autobiography of Zhu De in nearly 80,000 words dictated by Zhu De in 1937 and recorded by his secretary Sun Yang.
Sun Yang is the father of my wife Sun Bin and the son of Sun Bingwen.
Sun Bingwen (1885–1927) was a Chinese Communist revolutionary who was executed by the Kuomintang. He met Zhu De in 1917, and served as chief of staff of a brigade. In September 1922, he and Zhu De went to study in Germany and in November of the same year, he joined the Chinese Communist Party in Berlin.
He was arrested and executed by the Kuomintang in Shanghai during the Shanghai massacre of 1927. After his death, his daughter Sun Weishi was adopted by Zhou Enlai, later Premier of China.In Nanxi the memory of Zhu De and Sun Bingwen is important, as shown in the introduction of the city.

Nanxi City is key industrial center and modern city

Nanxi City in Sichuan is a district of the city of Yibin, a prefecture-level city in the southeastern part of Sichuan province. Its population was 4,588,804 inhabitants, according to the 2020 census,

The largest employer in Yibin is Wuliangye Yibin, a company best known for Wuliangye, a brand of sorghum-based distilled spirits known as baijiu. The Wuliangye Group grew from a small company employing just 300 people in 1977 into a large company employing over 20,000 on a seven-square-kilometer plant.
Nanxi has a website but only in Chinese.
Wuliangye started in Nanxi City and later moved to Yibin.

Nanxi has a Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit system, guided by markings on the road. Impressive! More details here.

The city is very modern with excellent infrastructure. Yes, you can say – rich. The apartments have often large balconies.

Major industries and investments

We visited most of the key industries and other on 21 March 2024, more details later.
We were in the Jinjiang Hotel in a large suite, nice. No foreign TV channels of course.

 

Impressive reception dinner in the hotel in the evening of 20 March. Surprisingly the food was not so spicy during our stay!

Officially we headed a large business delegation, all Chinese contacts, to explore projects in the region. On 21 March in the afternoon we had the official meeting with the city to present our delegation and their projects, followed by another impressive dinner.

 

Beijing is ready for Spring Festival

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Mass migration

Beijing is ready for Spring Festival while the biggest world mass migration starts with Chinese people traveling to celebrate Chinese New Year with their families, or simply going on vacation.

I never leave Beijing during the “Golden Week” of October 1, May 1, Spring Festival (the holiday period for Chinese New Year). Railway stations and highways (certainly), and airports (sometimes) are plain chaos. Meanwhile Beijing is ready for Spring Festival for those clever people who stay and will enjoy a quiet city.

Fairs Open with Festive Shopping Experiences in Beijing

Shopping for festive goods at fairs is an essential part of this holiday. Beijing offers a variety of options, combining both modern and traditional fairs to explore.
Over 300 merchants at the Workers’ Stadium are offering a diverse array of products till 6 February. These include a wide range of traditional festive goods like bacon, dried fruits and nuts, as well as tea and even furniture. There are also specialties hailing from various regions across China, such as rice from Wuchang, oysters from Rushan, coconut powder from Hainan, beef jerky from Inner Mongolia, as well as exotic products like Russian chocolate, Ugandan coffee, Ghanaian cocoa butter, and Moldovan red wine.

Both my wife and I went exploring the market. I tasted the BBQ skewers at the stands outside of the covered market. My wife bought a full trolley of sausages, seaweed, and pressed donkey head (my daily breakfast).
Another famous fair is at the National Agricultural Exhibition Center, also until 6 February, I did not visit as I guess it is pretty similar.
The traditional “Beijing New Year Goods Fair” is a treasure trove of agricultural and other products, ranging from dried mushrooms from northeastern China to seafood delicacies from southern China, and from beef and mutton from Inner Mongolia to tonic products from Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan. And also nuts, snacks, sweets, pastries, tea, seafood, and more from various provinces and cities across China.

Festive decorations

Taikooli in Sanlitun is featuring Legoland and yes there is a Lego Dragon!

Our Worker’s Stadium Avenue has festive decoration including images of leaves projected on the sidewalks.

That is in the Chaoyang section, the Dongcheng section seems to have a smaller budget… and less lights…

Yingjie Museum of Stone Art

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A unique museum

The Beijing Yingjie Museum of Stone Art is located in “A.C. Museum Hotel” in A.C. Embassy Hotel on Dongzhimenwai Avenue, pretty close to the well-known Paddy O’Shea bar.

The complete hotel is pretty much like an art museum but the Yingjie Museum of Stone Art is a pretty unique attraction in the basement of the hotel, accessible through an elevator.
It is not well known, which is a pity. The Yingjie Museum of Stone Art is dedicated to art in stones, most straight from Mother Nature. The “paintings” you see are thin slices of natural stones but they look like paintings of forests, rivers and anything according to your imagination.
Near the hotel lobby there is even an “Art Stone Bar”. Nearby more galleries with paintings and other art.

The website mentioned in their leaflet, www.acartmuseum.com,  actually goes to this website, no English. There are many pictures and videos but all in Chinese.

A lot to admire

We were invited to a VIP tour on 14 September 2023 and we were very impressed.
Most of the exhibits are related to natural stones, artwork with inlaid stones, statues, stalagmites, but also paintings (one from a Belgian artist), African art, Chinese antiques, European antique furniture and more.

Even the walls and the floors are pieces of art! Everything is of superb quality and craftmanship.
There is a section not open to the public where repairs are made, among other activities.