After the Dragon Boat Festival

The Old China Hands Lunch 6 June had a turnout of 25, with many members unable to attend due to travel and workload. As usual lively conversation.

See the menu, most dishes in the pictures:

• ham salad andalouse OR puff pastry with chicken curry Indian style OR fresh daily soup
• veal sausage with curry sauce served with salad and Belgian fries OR sliced roast beef with gravy served with cauliflower and pan fried potatoes OR pan-fried snapper Meunière served with daily vegetables and boiled potatoes
• daily desert

Next lunch Friday 4 July.

Renaat Morel, the Chef

Morel’s Restaurant and Café has become a real institution in Beijing, the only real Belgian restaurant and with a solid track record of 25 years.
My first visit to the restaurant was in February 2000, just after returning to Beijing after nearly five years in Shanghai.

Renaat is an incredible story teller with an impressive memory. But writing is not his strong point, so I help him time to time to play secretary and to record bits and pieces of his past.
Renaat has an imposing career and I still record new facts about his memorable adventures as a top chef.
See here my latest update: Renaat Chef
Before landing in China, Renaat worked in major five-star hotels in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Holland such as:

• Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo – Monaco
• Hotel Barrière Le Majestic Cannes and Sporting Club of Cannes
• InterContinental Carlton Cannes – Cannes
• Le Cap Estel – Eze Bord de Mer (between Nice and Monaco)

He served an impressive list of famous people, see the PDF.
On top of his 3 Michelin Stars he accumulated an endless list of titles and awards and he has been interviewed by many Chinese and foreign media.
Before setting up his restaurant in Beijing Renaat was executive chef in Beijing Air Catering Company, Crown Plaza Xiamen Seascape, Henan Zhongzhou Crown Plaza Hotel and Beijing Kunlun Hotel.

May 1 holidays

As the first Friday was 2 May, the Old China Hands Lunch 9 May was a week later to avoid the overbooking in Morel’s Restaurant. Still, many of our members were on the road or tight up in meetings. Anyway the 22 participants were happy as always, despite the rainy day. We also had the honor of having our Belgian ambassador joining us.

See the menu, most dishes in the pictures:

• ham salad andalouse OR puff pastry with chicken curry Indian style OR fresh daily soup
• veal sausage with curry sauce served with salad and Belgian fries OR sliced roast beef with gravy served with cauliflower and pan fried potatoes OR pan-fried snapper Meunière served with daily vegetables and boiled potatoes
• daily desert

Next lunch Friday 6 June.

Gilbert, a rising star in the Chinese media

It all started not long ago when I tried to post my restaurant videos as a food vlogger on WeChat Channels, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu (Red Book). The feedback was better than expected and many people I meet talk about my videos.
Just recently I also started posting on TikTok and Douyin. I am also active on Dianping, the famous platform for restaurants, where I am Level 7, one of the highest.
I love food and exploring the cosmopolitan food scene of Beijing is fascinating.
But a very few days ago we had a shock. A new post became a huge hit.

I made a short video about the story of my four “Green Cards”, and a look back to earlier documents for foreigners in China. Posted on Douyin (Chinese Tiktok), WeChat channels and other, the results were astonishing. As for now way over 200,000 hits on Douyin and way over 70,000 on WeChat, and growing. See the impressive progress over time. Hundreds of comments on Douyin, many praising my track record, many digging up stuff about me and posting it. Comments on WeChat were mixed, a bit more silly and many asking me to help to get the Green Card, now officially called the Five Star Card. And none clever enough to identify me. If interested, you can watch the video on TikTok.

Some people ask me, why I do it. Not for money, I refuse payments from the restaurants.
Many are asking to post more about my China stories. I started to make some videos, tried to post on Douyin but all got censured. Welcome to China. The videos cannot mention the names of high Chinese officials, cannot mention the word “Chinese government”, and so on. As such Douyin and Deepseek share the same automatic draconian censorship. I cannot say “This is Beijing Mayor XXXXX giving me the Great Wall Friendship Award. And of course I cannot show his picture.
So sad. The video could not be used. I plan to upload it to TikTok and YouTube. We started making “cleaned up videos”. Self-censorship.
King Kwesi interviewed me in my office with me showing the pictures. That is not allowed on Chinese media. This is the link to the office video.

Qingming holiday

Our Old China Hands Lunch 4 April was on the first day of the Qingming holiday, so the attendance of 24 was still pretty good.
The menu:

• tomato stuffed with North Sea fish salad OR poached eggs with Delirium beer sauce OR fresh daily soup
• chicken schnitzel with mixed salad and potato salad OR spaghetti bolognaise OR waterzooi of fish with boiled potatoes
• daily desert

The following lunch will be on Friday 9 May, due to the May 1 holidays, as the restaurant expects another overbooking…

The restaurant was totally overbooked and we asked to leave by 2 pm, for the next round of guests. Thanks to all for cooperating! Some decided to continue their chats outside,! While we lose members leaving Beijing, new members receive a warm welcome.

Our star: Peter Ritzen

Peter Ritzen is a Flemish pianist composer and conductor. He is a close friend and attends our lunches regularly.
Peter studied piano and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of his native city Ghent. He continued his training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He graduated with the Diplôme Supérieure d’Exécution for Piano from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris ‘Alfred Cortot’. As a concert pianist, Ritzen has played throughout Europe, Asia and the US. He cooperated as a soloist with many well-known orchestras and ensembles. He is an acclaimed interpreter of Franz Liszt & Theodor Leschetizky. His contact with the Chinese Culture resulted in a whole repertoire of own China related compositions.
He has conducted all over China, while residing In Beijing and Chongqing.
He also performed in the Belgian embassy during the visit of Belgian PM De Croo,

240111 PeterRitzen_anthem

He is also a foreign member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. Some pictures from 2023, 2024 and 2025 showing his concerts and more.:

Peter Ritzen ON YOUTUBE: Chinese Rhapsody
Peter Ritzen: Chinese Rhapsody Love for the Motherland, Chongqing Festival Orchestra, Fan Jingma, tenor, Peter Ritzen, conductor.
More about Peter: see Wikipedia. The article needs updates.

Animated lunch

The Old China Hands Lunch 7 March was attended by 26 friends in total. I even had the pleasure of having an old friend attending who had just arrived from Belgium in the early morning.

The menu, see the pictures:

• Russian egg salad OR salade Niçoise
• pork piccata provençal style served with grilled tomato and pan-fried potatoes OR thin sliced beef tenderloin with wine merchant sauce served with market vegetables and Belgian fries OR pan-fried snapper with mustard sauce served with daily vegetables and mashed potatoes
• daily desert

Lively discussions as always. Even outside on their bikes – seems this picture has been making the rounds on local media…

At the end we had a mix-up with backpacks. After a frantic search we found the one who had grabbed the wrong one… he was having a nap! They ended up exchanging the backpacks later in the evening.

Next lunch is planned for Friday 4 April 2025.

Gilbert on CGTN Dialogue

CGTN Dialogue, interview in my Julong office done on 24 February 2025, first on air on 6 March 19:30.

250224 CGTNweb

The interview is on a couple of platforms. Best is on Youtube by myself.

The original from CGTN is also on Youtube. We added the subtitles.

Nice turnout

The Old China Hands Lunch 7 February 2025 saw a nice turnout of over 30 participants, despite some calling of sick, family issues, mixing up lunch/dinner and more. And icy weather! Otherwise we would have been close to 40!

Gilbert became an Eskimo! Fully equipped for the freezing weather.

Food was great as usual, see some in the pictures:

• chicken curry salad OR Morel’s chef salad (ham, blue cheese and pan-fried chicken, beef on lettuce) OR f fresh daily soup
• farmer’s pork sausage with onion sauce served with red cabbage and hotchpotch potatoes OR mini steak minute with blue cheese sauce served with daily vegetables and french fries OR pan-fried snapper with mustard sauce served with daily vegetables and mashed potatoes
• daily desert

Very lively discussions and the speech by our Chinese Dutch friend Phoa.

Drinkable Rivers with Li An Phoa

See on Spotify

“The sign of a healthy economy should be a drinkable river,” these are the words of Li An Phoa, an environmental activist and our guest for this episode. In 2005, Li An Phoa canoed the full length of the Rupert, a river in Canada. All along the way, she was able to drink water straight from the river. When she returned three years later, this was no longer the case. The river had been poisoned from dams, mining, and industry. Fish died, people got ill, and the delicate balance in the ecosystem was destroyed. Realizing that drinkable rivers are not just a key indicator of ecological health, but community vitality and resilience as well, and that rivers can only be drinkable when economic systems are post-growth, truly democratic, place-based, and respectful of the commons and Indigenous peoples, Li An decided to dedicate her life to re-cultivating drinkable rivers.
Since then, Li An founded the Drinkable Rivers organization and Spring College  and has walked many rivers, using citizen science to test the water quality, training others to do the same, and intervening when a river has been contaminated or is off-balance. Her 1,000-kilometer walk along the river Meuse in Europe was the subject of the documentary Long Walk for Drinkable Rivers. Most recently, she and her partner Maarten van der Schaaf wrote the book Drinkable Rivers: How the river became my teacher.
In this conversation, Li An goes upstream to explain why rivers are no longer drinkable, she offers her vision of a world with drinkable rivers, shares her process for galvanizing communities to care for their watersheds, and suggests invitations for how all of us could contribute to healthier rivers and healthier eco- and economic systems around the world.

Introducing Li An Phoa

Our friend Phoa gave an emotional speech, also introducing his daughter and her book. Proud father!
Happy to receive a copy, In return I gave a copy of my book Toxic Capitalism, about environmental issues.

Our Chinese Dutch friend telling his personal story and introducing his daughter and her book, see the video clip on VIMEO.