The 5th China International Chongyang Festival

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The first four China International Chongyang Festivals were successfully organized and held in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012; due to budget restrictions and the call for saving money, 2013 was not held. I am in the Organizing Committee since the first one.
This year it was hosted as usual by the Managing Committee of China Aging International Development Foundation, where I also have a position. This event was held in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing on Oct. 12, 2014. The previous ones were all in the Great Hall of the People. Diaoyutai is certainly an improvement: better service, better food, less hassle to enter and certainly less austere.
Many ambassadors (Senegal, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, …), embassy delegates, foreign organizations and others attended. I invited several foreign “senior” citizens.
Ms. Peng Pei Yun was the highest invited guest from the government; she is Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the Chairwoman of the All-China Women’s Federation, and President of the Red Cross Society of China.

I gave my speech in Chinese and English, as representative of the foreign seniors.
As always the performances by the senior citizens’ Art Troup were impressive and charmed the audience. Some of the dancers (see the pic with Ms. Peng) were over 90 years old.
All my guests were pretty happy with the evening.
(And I was relieved nothing went wrong and my Chinese was declared ”ok”!)

Being a Rotarian in Beijing: not that easy

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove
in Rotary

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!

When the language barrier leads to misunderstandings

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove
in general

A recent headline in the SCMP read:
‘Hong Kong students beat us to it’: Benny Tai declares.
It reminded me of a misunderstanding with a so-called American Chinese lady, on WeChat. While she seemed well educated, her English proficiency wasn’t that good it seems.
In Sanlitun The Village there was an event with male models to promote the opening a new well-known brand. Many people posted pics on WeChat, so did she. I left the comment, well-intended. that others “beat her to the pics”. She was pretty upset about it, did not understand the expression, said she “did not know the others” etc. etc. That was the end of our WeChat connection.

Conclusion was again:

  • The vast majority of Chinese who lived abroad fail to properly assimilate a foreign language, while they are convinced “they are fluent”.
  • Don’t try to make jokes with Chinese people you don’t know really well. It usually ends badly.

I was left pretty annoyed and disappointed with the miscommunication, even trying my best to explain. In vain.

Old China Hands lunch: 3 October

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

In the middle of the holidays but we had still 19 participants, who took their time for a long lunch and chat. At Morel’s Restaurant as usual, with the direct supervision of Chef Renaat.
Some of the participants got lost however, looks like they went to another Morel’s. Sorry guys, no palm trees here.

Next lunch will be 7 November.
See you!

Old China Hands lunch: 5 September

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

It was the start of the intense month of September, so, many Old China Hands were busy with meetings but we were far over twenty anyway, with some special guests such as the Belgian and Swedish ambassadors, as well as a former Polish ambassador who beats us all as “Old China Hand”: he came here like in 1955. Remarkable!

Next round: 3 October, right in the middle of the holidays, for those who prefer a quiet Beijing. No meetings or traffic jams will be accepted as an excuse!