The Roots Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

New kid on the block

Above the well-known Paddy O’Shea’s Irish pub in Beijing Dongzhimenwai, The Roots Restaurant has opened recently.
In a previous post I mentioned a small event we held there for a Rotary Fellowship Dinner.
This time we organized a small party in the restaurant for the Rotary, a post about it is coming out very soon.

Small but nice

The French manager Antoine is providing a good service with excellent food in a cozy atmosphere. The place only sits some 35 guests, it was formerly a Japanese restaurant, apparently a victim of the pandemic last year. They prefer to keep it small to make it cozy. The vacant rest of that floor where once the Indian Ganges Restaurant was (it seems also a victim of the virus), is now being remodeled and there would be another Indian restaurant coming.

Mediterranean food

For our group Antoine made a buffet with a North African inspired menu, said to be much Moroccan. It was delicious. I am a big fan of the sausages and the “stewed beef and tomato”, among others.
See the pictures!
Prices are very reasonable.
Our group was very happy with the food, the red wine and the Belgian Vedett beer.

Antoine also used his colorful North African tableware.
Recommended!

New year for Beijing Rotary

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Safe Beijing

With the virus threat pretty well under control in Beijing, the new year for Beijing Rotary has brought a modest restart of the activities of the Rotary Club of Beijing. See about our January activities.
Our Rotaractors are still struggling to get their members back, with many foreign students abroad or not allowed to leave their campus.

At least our Rotaract Club of West Beijing has been able to induct new members, online.

Dinner 12 January 2021

On Tuesday 12 January we started our 2021 with a dinner meeting in Morel’s Restaurant.
Our US Peruvian Rotarian José gave us a speech on “Living as an immigrant in USA, Expat in Panama and a Laowai in China”. An exciting interactive talk as many of us have shared similar experiences.

José is a new member, recently inducted.

Lunch 19 January 2021

Back again for lunch at the Kempinski Hotel.
Rotarian Hans Diederen tried his best to explain the new and fascinating world of Bitcoin and Digital money.

26 January Fellowship Dinner

In the evening of January 26 Rotarians, Rotaractors and Friends of Rotary came together for a festivity evening with some Mediterranean fare at Roots Restaurant, a newly opened restaurant in Dongzhimenwai, above the well-known Paddy O’Shea. Over Sangria and Mojito, Rotarians connected with friends, and reconnected with other members.

 

2021 Year of the Ox

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Chinese zodiac

Learn here some details and background about 2021 Year of the Ox.
This overview is a compilation from multiple sources.
The name ‘Spring Festival’ (春节 Chūnjié)  is actually quite modern: it’s from 1912, when the Republic of China adopted the Gregorian calendar. The old name for the lunar new year (Yuan Dan 元旦 Yuándàn) was re-appropriated for January 1st and Sun Yatsen came up with the term Spring Festival for the Lunar New Year.

The 12-year Chinese zodiac determines which dates and years are auspicious or unlucky. Each lunar cycle has 60 years divided into 12 smaller cycles, each of which is represented by one of the following animals: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.
The Year of Your Animal Sign Is Not Your Lucky Year.
See here my “wishes” for 2021:

2021

2021 is the Year of the Ox according to Chinese zodiac. This is a Year of Metal Ox, starting from Feb. 12, 2021 (Chinese New Year) and lasting to Jan. 31, 2022. Ox is the second in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac sign. Years of the Ox include 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021, 2033…

And Oxen are…

Oxen used to be capable farming tools in an agricultural society, which attach to the symbol of diligence, persistence, and honesty. In Chinese culture, Ox is a faithful friend that made great contributions to the development of the society. Like the ox, people born in the Year of the Ox are industrious, cautious, hold their faith firmly, and always glad to offer help.

It is said that Ox ranks the second among the Chinese zodiacs because it helped the Rat but was later tricked by it. The myth goes that the Jade Emperor declared the order of zodiac signs would be based on the arrival orders of 12 animals. Ox could have arrived the first but it kindly gave a ride to Rat. However, when arriving, Rat just jumped to the terminus ahead of Ox, and thus Ox lost the first place.

With the dwindling birth rate in China, the Year of the Ox could be worse… See below why!
The 2021 Ox is also associated with the Earthly Branch (地支 / dì zhī) Chǒu (丑). In the terms of yin and yang (阴阳 / yīn yáng), the Ox is Yang.

  • Earthly Branch of Birth Year: Chou
  • Wu Xing (The Five Elements): Tu (Earth)
  • Yin Yang: Yin

Is it ox, cow, bull, buffalo or…

Ox (牛  Niú)
The main difference between Bull and Ox is that the Bull is a male individual of cattle and Ox is a common bovine draft animal. A bull is a not castrated adult male. Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle; castration makes the animals easier to control. Bad for birth rate!!!
In Chinese the character for cow and ox are the same.

Water buffalo (水牛 Shuǐniú)
The buffalo is the second animal symbol in the 12-year cycle of the Vietnamese zodiac, taking the place of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac. Water buffalo are industrious and patient.
The water buffalo, also called domestic water buffalo or Asian water buffalo is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China.
The domesticated water buffalo is the “living tractor of the East”. There are two types, river and swamp, each considered a subspecies. The breed was selected mainly for its milk, which contains 8 percent butterfat. Swamp buffalo more closely resemble wild water buffalo and are used as draft animals in rice paddies throughout Southeast Asia. Children ride them to their wallows after their labours and clean their faces and ears.

English Didi app is resurrected

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Confusing for sure

After my warnings about the app on the iPhone, the app finally crashed. But now the English Didi app is resurrected. See the earlier post: Didi app disappeared from App Stores, https://www.beijing1980.com/2019/05/15/didi-app-disappeared-from-app-stores/

The Didi people had made warnings that the app needed an update and it would not work anymore at some point.
It continued however to work pretty well while requests for “updating” always failed.
That stopped late last year with an update for the iOS. The app remained on my screen but could not be opened. Luckily I did not delete it on my iPhone.

The app was still on the ‘purchased list on my Belgian Apple store but the app itself had disappeared. All the more confusing as the store has a Didi Driver app, to recruit drivers.
As I used Didi regularly I tried other channels:

– through the Alipay app: problem, all in Chinese. Then it also did not to work well for me, getting strange error codes like “bad pol id”. Ugh… Selecting a more expensive ride than seemed to work but without the easy use of the original English Didi app;
– through WeChat: also a bit complicated to find it and to navigate when using it. Again without the easy use of the original English Didi app. (screenshots added 21 Feb 21)

I looked into other services but missed the Didi app. And while the app was “dead” I continued to receive promotion messages…

Out of the blue

Then a few days ago suddenly there was a new message with Didi news. When I clicked, I could not believe: the app was working again without an update from the Apple Store!
I had to try several times to convince me, yes, it was working indeed.

Finding the version of the app is a challenge. It is difficult to locate and even more difficult to read. With some photo enhancing, see finally the version I have: V5.2.51.
How they did it, no idea but I am happy again!

Update

See:
In this DiDi app update a review of the saga of this app, so important in China but downloading to your iPhone can be a nightmare. My latest findings

Old China Hands 5 February

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Restaurant overbooked

Our lunch for Old China Hands 5 February met for the first time a problem with Morel’s Restaurant. The reason: the restaurant has seen an intense flow of customers, mostly Chinese, who want to test European cuisine and have a good time as they cannot travel abroad or even within China. The online clip from a foreigner “Caocao” – pretty famous guy in the online media – drew some 10 million hits if I got it right. So the Chinese want to eat what he praised so much…. Result, the restaurant never sold so many steak béarnaise…
Interesting fact: Chinese customers spend much much more per head than foreigners in general. Look look who has the money these days…
The restaurant was forced to give us only 30 seats, many of our Old China Hands were disappointed as they were refused… Sadly some failed to show up, stealing away seats for the others. Poor attitude.
We ended with 28 people. We hope that the next lunch will not have the same limitation!

See some of the dishes that were on our menu.
When I apologized to other Chinese customers for our lively presence, they actually replied they found it very interesting!

Next lunch

Our next lunch is planned for Friday 5 March, the first for the Year of the Ox.

Hopefully the virus situation will remain under control…