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.

Back to a distant past: the old Belgian embassy in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Well, to be honest I am still trying to figure out the history of that building, as well as of the entire compound on 9 Chongwenmen West Street. The compound is a collection of historical buildings dating from before 1949. See the shot of the old picture of the compound.
The central and most important building is now the office of Ms. Wang Yili, see:
http://www.wangyili.com/yw/yw-sy.htm
Ms. Wang in involved is many organizations, including the China Charity Federation.
I was invited for a lunch along with my friend Peter Ritzen and his wife Stella. Peter found a piano in the dining room and promptly gave us a private concert. Also joined was the Chairman of of Jiamei Dental, Mr. Liu Jia, with whom we work closely.

The building kept its charms from a bygone era. As far as I understand (and might be wrong), another building of the compound that housed the Société Générale de Belgique and the bank (later Fortis) was the location of a Belgian bank before 1949; presumably called Banque Sino-Belge (later renamed to Banque Belge pour l’Etranger). I remember visiting that building in the eighties and looking at old pictures of thee bank before 1949. Checking Google it became more and more confusing as there is little clear information of what was the Belgian diplomatic presence before 1949. Apparently the Belgian Legation quarters were somewhere else close to Saint-Michaels Church, adding to the confusion.
Before 1949 Belgian companies were actually very active in the industry, railways and urban public transport. One company was ACEC, the company I represented in Beijing 1980 to around 1988. A Belgian-French group was involved in building major railway lines in China.

Rotary China District Training Assembly in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

On Saturday 30 May 2015 we had our Rotary Training in Beijing.
It took nearly the whole day and we were fortunate to have the meeting room of BASF, thanks to our Rtn Joerg. We had a delicious lunch served, very creative salads.
Rotarians came from several locations in China. I was happy to see many of our Rotaractors to join the session too.

In the evening I organized a fellowship dinner in the Indian restaurant SWAGAT (Guanghua Lu SOHO), where many of the Rotarians and Rotaractors joined. Rtn. Nikola was so kind to foot the bill (unexpectedly) for all Rotaractors who were obviously more than happy.
As usual manager Nendu of SWAGAT did a fantastic job so all were happy with the food, including several vegetarians.
Afterwards the really young generation (me included) ended the evening in Heaven Supermarket, the well-know bar in Sanlitun.