art and culture

Huge statue in the Beijing Olympic Green

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Biggest statue?

The huge statue in the Beijing Olympic Green is not really the biggest statue in Asia, that title goes to “Statue of Unity” located in Gujarat, India with a height of 182 m, the World’s tallest statue.
The Athletes Alley, a work of Belgian artist Olivier Strebelle is certainly one of the biggest in recent history and of its kind.

It is a stainless steel sculpture of 100 m long, with a highest point of 20m and average height of 14.5m. The total weight is around 130 ton.
The sculpture was built to the north of the Olympic Village, in the southwest area of the Olympic Forest Park. It was created by the Belgian sculptor Olivier Strebelle, using five different groups of stainless steel sculptures. Each group is of a different height. They form a three-dimensional and can be admired from different angles. Each sculpture set is a piece of individual abstract artwork. The true meaning can only be seen from a specific point from the front: the sculptures then form five athletes to hold up the five Olympic Rings.

The story

It all started during my visit to Brussels when the Belgian Olympic and Interfederal Committee (BOIC – Piet Moons) asked me to visit the atelier of Olivier Strebelle, along with Baron Simon-Pierre Nothomb on 11 May 2004. Olivier had this old dream to build a statue for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Reluctant at first we started working on the idea. It was rather “Mission Impossible”, as the Beijing Government declined all proposals to donate some art work for the Olympic Green. As we were pretty good in navigating Chinese administration and bureaucracy, we really succeeded. It was very difficult. We had to convince Olivier to change his design, we involved Prince Philippe (Belgium), we changed the funding to a gift from the Kingdom of Belgium. The Belgian side was often uncooperative, tried to eliminate us from the discussion but finally was told, you go through Gilbert or there will be no statue. We did not however get the full agreed compensation.
It is a long and complicate story and has been the subject of many of my seminars as an example on how to navigate the bureaucracy.
The Belgian technical team was extremely professional, the erection was incredibly complicated.

Top management left a lot to desire. At one point Eric Domb was named general manager but he soon left to fulfill his dream bringing pandas to Belgium – the famous Pairi Daiza Zoo.

In June 2007, the vice-chairman of BOCOG, Mr. Wang Wei and Prince Philippe of Belgium, jointly signed the first tube of the sculpture along with the artist Olivier Strebelle. That was all our idea.

It was officially inaugurated on 23 May 2008 in the presence of Beijing’s Vice Mayor Chen Gang, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht and many other Chinese and Belgian VIP guests.

Inaugurated and abandoned

Olivier was planning to complete the Athletes Alley by placing a huge rock he had already selected to mark the viewing point, and to add a wall in stone with the list of all donors. Nothing was ever done. We stopped our assistance as we were not getting paid.

Olivier also had the idea to make a movie about the project and I was to help as I have a vast amount of pictures.
Sadly Olivier passed away on 29 July  2017 (age 90 years) in Brussels. We did not get any notice. We lost a dear beloved friend.
I tried to contact his foundation, his relatives and the government of Uccle in Brussels. Zero replies. So I still have a huge collection of documents, pictures and his books. Nobody cares. The Wikipedia post contains errors. The original websites are gone or damaged.

In the past the local Uccle government website had issues and the listed emails did not work. I tried again and it seems the mail service works now. Waiting for their reply.

Our visit 7 November 2022

As part of a major movie being shot about me by CCTV4, we also visited the Olympic Green to see the Athletes Alley.

A real disappointment. No adequate signage, a damaged explanation panel with mistakes, some pipes that require cleaning and  totally wrong gardening.
The planted bushes hide the pipe signed by Prince Philippe, I had to dig through the bushes to locate the pipe.
Who knows about our Belgian statue? Very few and nobody cares.
Rest in Peace Olivier. We will not forget your legacy.

Tamil New Year in Beijing celebration

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Tamil community

On 14 April 2024 my friend Raja invited me to join the Tamil New Year in Beijing celebration.
Location was Hotel Mercure close to Ritan Park.
There are currently estimated to be at least one-hundred million Tamil people spread across distant seas, living in more than 70 different countries and islands. Among these are many thousands living in various parts of the world as refugees and asylum seekers.
More about the Tamil diaspora here.
See here the Tamil population by nation.
There are about 300,000 Tamils in the UK, of whom 200,000 are Sri Lankan while the rest are from India, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius and other countries.

Discovering Tamil culture

The Tamil community showed an love for their culture by performing dance, singing, video clips, and praying. And of course Indian food. If the performances were not so “professional”, all showed unbridled enthusiasm.
When abroad it is interesting to observe how different expat communities respect and celebrate their country’s culture. My take on Belgians abroad: we mostly shine by being very low key…

Happy to meet some of my friends of our Old China Hands Lunch.

China National Opera House

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Concert in the new Opera House

On 10 December 2023 I visited for the first time the China National Opera House, located near my home near Worker’s Gymnasium. The address: 115 Dongzhong Street, just south of Fuhua Building near the Second Ring Road.
The concert was performed by the Beijing China Philharmonic Orchestra (北京华夏爱乐乐团) and featured the themes of famous movies, my favorite being the James Bond theme. See the program in Chinese with an online translation.

The opera house is impressive, great architecture, modern and super clean. The acoustics are simply astonishing.
See the inside.
At first it seemed a bit empty but later many spectators filled the house and they were enthusiastic listeners. I was the only foreigner …
See part of the performance with the enthusiastic public.

China National Opera House background

The China National Opera House is affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. It was founded in 1952 and was formerly known as the Yan’an Central Orchestra and the Luyi Art Troupe.
On April 20, 2022, a press conference was held at the newly built Opera House. The total construction area of the theater is 41,000 sqm.
On May 1, 2022, the National Opera House officially opened to the public.
On the evening of July 6, 2022, the opening concert of the National Opera House Theater was performed.
See some screenshots of the online articles about the House, in Chinese.
See also Wikipedia.
If you are in China, some of the links above need a backdoor…

Yingjie Museum of Stone Art

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A unique museum

The Beijing Yingjie Museum of Stone Art is located in “A.C. Museum Hotel” in A.C. Embassy Hotel on Dongzhimenwai Avenue, pretty close to the well-known Paddy O’Shea bar.

The complete hotel is pretty much like an art museum but the Yingjie Museum of Stone Art is a pretty unique attraction in the basement of the hotel, accessible through an elevator.
It is not well known, which is a pity. The Yingjie Museum of Stone Art is dedicated to art in stones, most straight from Mother Nature. The “paintings” you see are thin slices of natural stones but they look like paintings of forests, rivers and anything according to your imagination.
Near the hotel lobby there is even an “Art Stone Bar”. Nearby more galleries with paintings and other art.

The website mentioned in their leaflet, www.acartmuseum.com,  actually goes to this website, no English. There are many pictures and videos but all in Chinese.

A lot to admire

We were invited to a VIP tour on 14 September 2023 and we were very impressed.
Most of the exhibits are related to natural stones, artwork with inlaid stones, statues, stalagmites, but also paintings (one from a Belgian artist), African art, Chinese antiques, European antique furniture and more.

Even the walls and the floors are pieces of art! Everything is of superb quality and craftmanship.
There is a section not open to the public where repairs are made, among other activities.

Huge Daliushu market in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A real surprise

A friend took me to explore the huge Daliushu market in Beijing. I never heard about it, I knew about Panjiayuan, Hongqiao, Pearl Market, Silk Market and some other smaller and less well-known markets. Daliushu – see the map – is in the South East of Beijing between de 4th and 5th ring.
The market is open during the day, till late afternoon and is just simply huge, several buildings and several floors. Prices are incredibly cheap, see the pictures of the clothes where they sell each piece like for 20 and 30 RMB. Immense sections selling textiles, shoes, jewelry, decoration, electronics, kitchenware, professional kitchen equipment, small shops (a lot of Russian imports), birds, crickets, name it.
We also found some real antique shops, in one we chatted for a long time with the owner.

On Tuesday evenings, starting around 4 to 5 pm, there is a vast, mainly outdoors flea market, where you find about anything, antiques, old electronics, camera, watches, old tools, decoration, toys, whatever.
We chose the right day, arriving on a Tuesday afternoon and sticking around to see the evening market. It’s also called “The last ghost market”.

For the whole duration of the visit I was the only foreigner, and no, no any Africans shopping…

I bought boots

Except some Russian dark chocolates I bought nice leather boots, 550 RMB. Those normally sell for way over 1,000 RMB.

Panjiayuan is the most well-known “antique market” (or called flea market or curio market) in Beijing, on the southeast 3rd ring road. I haven’t been there since maybe 15 years. The stores in the market open every day while the street stalls just open on weekends according to Travelchinaguide. More about that market here.