Surviving is hard but oh so much fun (sometimes)
On 22 May 2015 Rtn Piper, President of the Beijing Rotary Club, invited some members for a private dinner with Rotary International President Gary Huang and his wife. The idea was to brief Rtn Gary on new developments in China and also to introduce Ms. Wang Yilin who was to attend our Rotary Ball along with some VIPs.
Thanks to Piper for a nice and relaxed dinner!
On Saturday 20 June, the same day our King and Queen landed in Wuhan, our friends from Vandergeeten & EG DistriSelecta launched a Belgian Beer Culture week in China. I was asked to say a few words in the Beijing opening party, done in the new Belgian bar “De Refter”, in Sanlitun. Vandergeeten, as it is mostly known, is one of the pioneers of importing Belgian beer (and more) into China. Their beers can be found all over the country.
De Refter is one more Belgian bar (and restaurant), joining the ranks of several others such as Beer Mania, The Tree, Morel’s and others that serve lots of Belgian beers.
I asked my friend James to join me to say a few words too as the “Chinese side” of the Sino-Belgian cooperation.
Before heading to De Refter we had a dinner next door so to speak, in Homeplate BBQ, I love their food, The meat is slowly cooked to become oh so tender; see the special oven they use. The place is always packed. The also have home-made beer.
I had a great time and discovered again some new Belgian beers. They are now part of my collection I have at home, all in my kitchen that is becoming too small to host the now about 100 different beer bottles. All bought and empties in Beijing. See the new add-on and part of the gallery of bottles. We are for sure happy to have so many beers from Belgian here.
Thanks to Mercedes and Bowen for the hospitality and the nice evening.
Beer, along with chocolate and diamonds are probably the best known features of Belgium around the world (maybe along with Manneken Pis…)
I have more than 100 members on the email list but OCH are busy people and attendance is overall unpredictable. This time we were around twenty but conversation is always lively, the least to say.
Next round is 3 July just before I skip away for a week to “cool down” in Thailand. The lunches will continue over summer, it does not mater if we are just a few. It is always fun!
Rotary is one of the world’s largest international service and charity organizations. Its 1.2 million members are business and professional leaders, in over 34,000 clubs in more than 200 countries. The Beijing Club has carried out many charitable projects in China.
Every year the Rotary Club of Beijing holds a charity dinner to raise funds for public welfare projects. Its charity event is Beijing’s most international ball; participants are diplomats and executives from foreign companies, as well as Chinese friends and officials.
This year it was held on Saturday May 23 at 6:00 pm, in the Kempinski Hotel with the theme “Broadway”.
The over 300 Chinese and foreign participants enjoyed the dinner, the performances, dancing, lucky draw and much more.
The program: welcome cocktail; welcome speeches by Gary Huang (World-President of Rotary International), Piper Tseng and Daniel Albrecht.
Performances: acrobatics; Charleston dancers; Jazz dance; music and songs by DJ Juliana Lima (Brazil) & singer Daria Yurchenko (Russia).
As for myself, we had two tables to accommodate our friends from Jiamei Dental and many more. As Rotaract Liaison I was happy to see nearly 20 Rotaractors helping out and enjoying their evening.
See here some of the pics, mostly taken by myself, some collected from others. Not meant as an official photographer’s report – just my personal choice. And just people crossing my path! Most of the pics are downsized for the web, original sizes with me.
Overall the Ball was a success despite the enormous competition: the same evening there were several other balls in Beijing, with one heavyweight: AMCHAM.
For our Beijing Club it was a great honor to have RI President Gary and his wife attending this event.
On Thursday evening 14 May 2015 at The Bookworm we had our Young Professionals Networking Event, organized by Beijing Rotaract. It was a chance to meet young professionals in Beijing and give to charity at the same time; proceeds went for earthquake relief in Nepal, through Shelterbox – we raised RMB 1245, a modest sum as unfortunately few Rotarians turned up.
Guest speaker was Daniel Mulroy who spoke about the art of coping with cultural differences and leveraging multicultural workforces to get things done and even achieve higher output. Daniel is currently the Director of Research & Development at the Leithon Consulting Group. He has more than 18 years of experience in entrepreneurship and business planning.
Thanks to Rotarians Daniel, Apithy and Marc-Philipp for their support.
I also had the chance to introduce Mr. Li Wei who is deeply involved with the local Chinese charity “OpenDoing”. Some of my friends are volunteers there and regularly visit retirement homes and schools for children with disabilities.
See: www.opendoing.com
It is a proof many Chinese people start to actively participate in charity, something rather new in China.
And one pic is a view of the new building under construction of SOHO Sanlitun, to be a hotel.