Visit to 798 Art Zone, discovering the Ullens Center

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

On Sunday 28 June I had to go to 798 for the opening of the Israel Center. I hadn’t been there since long as it is too far by bike. I arrived well ahead of time to walk a little around the Art Zone that has become a real small city. One needs more than one day to go around and explore the many corners, with galleries, shops, cafés, restaurants and even offices.

So I finally visited the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), set up by the Belgian couple Ullens in 2007. It is pretty well known around the world by now. The outside is rather “factory” as the Art Zone actually is, but the inside is pretty modern and nice. I also liked the shop.
The sky was grey, the weather like a sauna but I did take a few pictures along the 798 road, like of the coffee shop hidden within a huge tree and the railway museum part (great old locomotive).
I will really need to visit the area more, I probably need first to buy a better bike…

Beijing Rotary lunches in Kempinski Hotel

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The Rotary Club of Beijing has its regular lunch every week on Tuesday in Kempinski Hotel, in a private room, starting around 12:30 and finished 2 pm sharp.
Visiting Rotarians are always welcome and we see people attending from all over the world. As we are the only club in the region, we are kind of unavoidable. Guests are welcome but must be invited by a Rotarian. No walk-ins admitted.

See here some pics from lunches this month, on 16 and 23 June.
I was happy to see again Rtn Norbert, an old friend who worked in Beijing in the past and whom I introduced into Rotary. He is now back to Germany where he has joined a local Rotary club (Leverkusen-Opladen). He exchanged banners with our club.
Attendance is now low with summer coming. As usual I have to jump in as Sergeant-at-Arms, a kind of permanent title I have.
Nice to get a personal mug… here dedicated to my involvement with Rotaract.

Visit of the King and Queen of Belgium in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

I met the then Prince Philippe several times in the early 2000, he also decorated me. Now very pleased to meet him and his lovely wife in Beijing. For me, in the over 30 years I am in Beijing I met 3 kings and queens, King Baudouin (and Queen Fabiola, with whom I had a long talk in 1981), the King Albert II (brother of Baudouin) (and Queen Paola), now King Philippe (and Queen Mathilde).
The reception was in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on 24 June. We first passed Tiananmen where the Belgian flag was flying along the Chinese one. The King and his big delegation of officials and especially businesspeople are visiting Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. I must admire people like our King having the patience to greet so many people, all this during a grueling schedule. I wonder how they do this.

There were some 680 guests with tight security, little or no food but lots of Belgian beer.
In the delegation was also Foreign Minister Didier Reynders (I also met him years ago). And of course our Ambassador Michel Malherbe who is doing a great job with a permanent smile, along with his team that is working with little sleep…
I did not try to squeeze through the crowd to see the King for some seconds, I don’t like that so much. Anyway, I had the pleasure years ago to be with him many times. I preferred to take some pictures instead, meet old friends (Jan Hu, Bernard Dewit, Gwenn Sonck, …) and have a good beer. And of course many of the Belgian community in Beijing.
Also good to see again Hans-Dietmar Schweisgut, the Ambassador of the European Union to China and former Ambassador of Austria in Beijing – we met many times in the past. He was the only ambassador invited.

Private concert by Peter Ritzen and Marenzi couple

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

On 17 May Mr. Liu Jia, chairman and CEO of Jiamei Medicl Management Group organized a private concert in his mansion near the airport. He also played the piamo and invited the guests to sing along.
The concert featured: Peter Ritzen (pianist, composer, conduxtor), Stella Chang (soprano), Lorraine & Angelo Marenzi (soprano & tenor).
In the audience the ambassadors from Belgium and Canada and many of our friends.

The concert was wonderful as always and was followed by a buffet dinner.

Why we can’t survive without Google (and sex is good for seniors)

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The Chinese dinosaurs want to isolate the brainless Chinese (that is at least what they think about our friends) from the international Internet. Yeah, they need to remove “foreign influences”. Sorry but your Baidu and others do not give us the needed results to do our jobs. A survey done recently by the European Chamber confirmed that business feels poor Internet and all the censorship do seriously affect business.
Who can survive without Google? That is what we need for search, maps, pictures, cloud back-up and so on. The Chinese Internet becomes more an Intranet. Forget cloud services.
Follow some examples of what Google search does for us.

1.
One morning we had a power cut in the office. When power came back I noticed my external USB hub (providing 4 USB ports with external power) was dead. As I had problems in the past with those hubs I thought, oh well, the power cut busted it. I changed the hub to no avail. Then found out one of my USB ports on my MacBook Pro was dead and the hubs were all fine. I thought, well I better go to Apple Shop to get it fixed. But then, hey, better ask Google. And the replies cam in after 1 minute of search:
“After the first two weeks, my USB Ports stopped working. Just a while ago I’ve tried PRAM Reset, and it all worked out. For that:
Restart Hold the keys Command + Option + P + R (holding the keys when the Apple sign doesn’t appear yet on the screen). After the restart all USB ports started working again.”
So, no need for repair!

2.
One of my precious antique clocks got stolen, still trying to figure out what happened and where (long story). As it is a unique piece (belonging in the Forbidden City Museum) I was thinking of registering the theft so it would be known internationally for auctioneers and others. But how to do? Go to the police? Where? How?
Ask Google!
Two minutes later I had found the website of “the Art Loss Register” http://www.artloss.com/en.
And I have already registered the clock with all details.

3.
Discussing with Chinese friends, the topic came up that seniors should avoid sex after 50 and with age should go down to, well, never do it, as it is “bad for the kidneys”. Is that true? Obviously not, but once you Google it and dig deeper you can find both the Chinese and Western opposing views. Obviously seniors can and should have sex whenever they can.
See here one of the many search results:

Government of Canada’s Role:
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada work together to promote, improve, maintain and protect the health of Canadians. Together, they gather and disseminate information on healthy, balanced lifestyles – including the sexual health of Canada’s seniors.
http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/health-sante/sexual-sexuelle/senior-aine-eng.php

And the TCM view:
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are various ideas about how often an individual can “safely” engage in sex without damaging his or her essence and thereby contributing to premature aging and sexual dysfunction. Dr. Sun Si Miao, a physician and Taoist of the Tang Dynasty who lived from 580 to 682 (101 years), gives the following guidelines for a healthy amount of sexual activity. TCM recommendations given over 2500 years ago:

  • Teens:  Contrary to what the media pressures us to believe in today’s society, in Ancient China it was thought that teenagers didn’t have enough strong, mature energy to engage in sexual activity yet.
  • 20′s: It is healthy to have sexual intercourse once every 4 days.  Engaging in sex more frequently at this age runs the risk of prematurely depleting Kidney essence.
  • 30′s: Once every 8 days
  • 40′s: Once every 16 days
  • 50′s: Once every 20 days
  • 60′s: Once a month, if the individual is fairly healthy.  If the individual had a history of health disorders or generalized weakness, then only occasional sexual activities was recommended.
  • 70′s: Whether healthy or not, sex would use up too much energy therefore sex is not recommended at all.

Obviously following those “tips” from some people who lived thousands of years ago explains it all… As if humans did not evolve.
In other words, if one needs information about health, medicine and related Google gives you a broad picture.

150624 baidusearch

Now Baidu, what do you have to say? Well I tried but while some search results do pop up in English, Baidu remains too Chinese and one has to go through lots of crap to find relevant information. The screenshot is from page 5 or something. And I wonder how many of those links do actually work without a VPN, another major issue.