Due to government regulations, Rotary Clubs in China, such as our club in Beijing, are not allowed to have Mainland passport holders as members. As a result, recruiting and keeping members is pretty difficult as potential members must be “of good standing” in the community, in other words, be of a certain level. Most expats are here for a short period, usually like five years. Long-term residents are rather few. Worse, recently we have seen an even larger turnover with people leaving because of the difficulty to have a visa/work permit, for the pollution, because of retirment or simply because they do not feel like staying longer.
So, pretty sad to see always good friends leaving. We had a farewell Peking Duck for our always-smiling Swedish lady. We will miss her, as many others.

New members join and finally I can take some rest from my near-permanent role as Sergeant-at-Arms, with James taking over. Now I can enjoy my lunch and put money in the Happy Box as everybody!
James, stick to your job for a while!

On Tuesday 24 June a busy Rotary lunch in our usual Kempinski Hotel.
It was the last official lunch chaired by our President Ruby, before the hand-over on 1 July when another lady – also of Chinese origin – will take over.
We had an interesting speaker, Dr. Christian Geinitz, the Business Correspondent of the German “Franfurter Allgemeine” and author of “Chinas verborgene Schätze – Wie wir am nächsten Aufschwung mitverdienen”, published in December 2013 (in German language only).
Christian gave an insightful view on the impact of the 3^rd Plenum, the changes and challenges of China’s industry, environment, labor force, as well as the impact on the world economy and what it can offer as opportunities. He obviously knows what he is talking about, unlike many other “China Specialists”. Several of the issues he covered have a lot in common with my own book (Toxic Capitalism) and with the topics I cover in recent seminars talking about the many challenges China is facing today.

Another part of the lunch was to award Rotarians and family members for their contributions over the year. My wife and daughter were present and received their symbolic “Horse” (it is the year of the Horse!), for their contributions through the Ball and other social events.
I also received my horsy, for my semi-permanent job as Sergeant-at-Arms.
Then came a surprise for me, such that I had to look it up what it actually meant…
I received the “Avenues of Service Citation for Individual Rotarians” from Rotary International and signed by the President of RI.
Whaw. Indeed, I found out (RI publications):

Selection Process
The method of selection is to be determined by the club president. Club presidents may wish to appoint a special committee to select a nominee, or may ask their board of directors to carry out this responsibility. Club nominations are to be submitted by the club president to Rotary International, with an information copy to the district governor.

Eligibility
• The nominee must have consistently demonstrated support of the Object of Rotary through participation in service activities in each of the five Avenues of Service: Club, Vocational, Community, International, and New Generations.
• An individual may only receive this award once.
• The nominee must be an active Rotarian in good standing.
• Rotarians who are ineligible:
current club presidents
current, incoming, and immediate past district governors
current, incoming, and past RI directors
• Only one nominee is eligible per club per Rotary year.

On top of that I found out that in China only a total of 4 such awards were ever given:
Beijing Rotary Club: Carl-Ludwig Doerwald and Regula Hwang Ma.
Shanghai Rotary Club: Frank Yih and Randal Eastman.
So, a real unexpected honor in recognition of, among others, my close work with Rotaract.
Thank you, Beijing Rotary Board!

As announced earlier, on Saturday 7 June starting at 18:00 we had our Ball in the Kempinski Hotel. It was a Black Tie event (or RED RED!!!). And yes, red it was.
I won’t try to give a full report. I only can say the ball room was pretty full, and I left around midnight. I had brought the Diamond Sponsor, Jiamei Dental. Jiamei had its table chaired by the chairman, Mr. Liu Jia, along with some of beautiful staff. We had another two tables dedicated to China State Grid, another of our main clients. We were honored to have diplomats from South Africa and Senegal.
There were many shows and performances, some you can see in the pictures. I was proud to have our Beijing Rotaract members in full action. Looking at the pics you can understand why I love to work with them… They successfully operated the PhotoBooth and helped out whenever needed.

The pics are just my personal choice! Biased, obviously!
Well looks like most people had big fun, that was the idea!
I finished the late morning in my karaoke, along with some of our clients and friends…

Call that a full day!