Meeting a Nobel Prize winner! Yes, in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

On the occasion of the visit to China of Professor François ENGLERT (ULB), the Nobel Prize Winner for Physics 2013 together with Peter HIGGS for the discovery of the Higgs mechanism H.E. Michel MALHERBE, Ambassador of Belgium to China and Mr. Philippe NAYER, Delegate of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and of Wallonia invited us for a reception on Wednesday June 4th at the Embassy of Belgium.

Well, not everyday you meet somebody like that, so my daughter Valerie insisted to witness the unique event.
The professor was pretty friendly and talkative and made it, along with a cool breeze, a nice evening. Even better as Renaat Morel spoiled us with another great buffer and Belgian beer.
Great event and I met the ambassador of Malta who turned out to be a real “Old china Hand”!

Note: some content and pics removed.

Old China Hands Lunch 6 June

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Yes, another round of our monthly gathering and it seemed all were pretty happy chatting with each other, so I had to ask them to sit down and order…

Always a good sign!
Some got stuck in the thunderstorm or in meetings or somewhere enjoying a beach.
Next lunch is 4 July! Same place as usual, Morel’s Restaurant on Gongti Bei Lu.

The 2014 Beijing Rotary Ball was RED HOT!

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove
in Rotary

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!

The 2014 Beijing Rotary Ball: RED is coming

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove
in Rotary

As we are all expats and “Old China Hands”, we also have to make our contribution to be part of the community and “give back”.
This can be done in a fun and sparkling way: THE BEIJING ROTARY BALL!
The full story: 2014 Beijing Rotary Ball

See here the main data:
Saturday 7 June starting at 18:00 – Kempinski Hotel
Black Tie (or RED RED!!!)
Individual tickets: RMB 1200
Orders & payment:
ticket[at]rotaryclub-beijing.org and/or admin[at]rotaryclub-beijing.org

We already have a series of embassies & ambassadors confirmed, such as Senegal, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Portugal, Sweden, Benin and others. We also have major corporations lined up such as HSBC, Audi, Daimler, Allianz, BASF, Deutsche Telekom, and more.
Join us all for an evening of red fun and entertainment!

The Old China Hands in action!

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

One other lunch in Morel’s Restaurant on 9 May. Normally it is on the first Friday of the month but because of the May 1st holidays, one week later.


While our mailing list is now a bit over 100 registered “members”, our Old China Hands are rather a bunch of busy people, stuck in meetings, travelling abroad or within China. Our attendance rate is thus always unpredictable but somewhere between 20 and 30%: a pretty good number allowing much interaction.
Our next lunch is 6 June.
I have also created a new group on LinkedIn: the “Beijing Monthly Old China Hands Lunch”: http://lnkd.in/bnzH-Z4
Welcome to join if you are an expat with at least 10 years of China!