Old China Hands

Old China Hands 6 August lunch

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A smaller group

Our Old China Hands 6 August lunch saw a bit less attendants, 27, still not too bad as it is right in the middle of the summer period, and midst a scare with new COVID-19 cases in Beijing and China. Two of our members are currently in a lockdown in their Wangjing compound. For 21 days, not funny and I think overdone by the authorities.
Quite a number are also away from Beijing.

Sadly it seems one of our most regular members, Terry, might not get his visa renewed. One more possible victim of the foreigners=disposable policies.
Thanks to Edwin I even have a pic of myself for once.
The most popular dish was the Belgian fricandeau dish! In English often called meat bread, meat loaf.Our next lunch, hopefully, is on Friday 3 September. We hope that by then the virus scare is toned down.

Old China Hands Lunch 1 June 2018 in Morel’s Restaurant

One of the unlucky lockedup at home is Greg who had made some interesting videos of our 5th anniversary. See the earlier post! I put them together and you can watch them on YouTube, yeah you need your backdoor.
See https://youtu.be/IvXaq8lIkkw

Thanks again Greg!

Old China Hands 2 July lunch

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Always well attended!

Our Old China Hands 2 July lunch again drew a full house with 37 attendants!
Renaat Morel and myself made a frame of the previous celebration, one frame above the fish tank in the restaurant and one frame in my office.

This time no special performance, we all simply enjoyed each other’s company, and the food.
Later in the day the restaurant gave me this BIG “hongbao” for my support to the restaurant. Hm I am rich?

Next lunch

Next round planned for Friday 6 August, right in the middle of Beijing sauna week. Hopefully not flood week. The disastrous floods in many regions were really horrible but also showed so much solidarity.
Hopefully Beijing will be spared, I still remember the deadly floods here years ago.

Old China Hands 4 June lunch

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Full house for an anniversary

For our Old China Hands 4 June lunch we again had some surprises, celebrating our 8th anniversary with a group picture and an unplanned musical performance.
Actually the lunches started in April 2013 but we were too busy in the previous lunches and wanted the celebration to be the main focus. Again with team work we got a banner that we used for the group picture. Some new faces but happy to see again our Aussie friend Geoff back and out of quarantine.

As Morel’s Restaurant had some staff issues I had to be the cashier at the door and forced to have part of my lunch while raking in the money.
And mobilizing the gang for the group picture demanded some calls to order, made easy as I am the Sergeant-at-Arms in Rotary. We were 35 exactly with a special table for the Flemish gang.

Impromptu performance

Our member Peter has some remarkable talents in shooting music videos. He surprised us by setting up a short trio performance. He has his own band, music studio and video company (more than 100 songs where he did composition and Chinese lyrics). He certainly has a very interesting professional background too…
See the vimeo clip, need VPN in China.

Our lunches are never boring!

Another author among our members

Our (new) member Caroline surprised me with her book: “Les trente glorieuses chinoises de 1980 à nos jours – Caroline Puel”. See here: https://www.france24.com/en/20110120-caroline-puel-journalist-author-30-years-that-changed-china

I promptly bought the book and I started reading it – looks very interesting. So few people know about the real history of modern China.

And yeah back back again

Honestly, a bit too much of Morel’s Restaurant?

The same evening back, to have dinner with friends. I had the spaghetti, the best one in town, really. And see what else came on the table.

Old China Hands 7 May lunch

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Always something special

Our Old China Hands 7 May lunch was again in an unusual week: though a “working day” it was for many still in the middle of the May 1 holiday week. Others were just back at work and super busy but we were exactly 29 total.
We surprised Tibor with a Happy Birthday mini-firework…
The previous day Luc and me had our second vaccine shot; a Dutch friend who had it too was too unwell to attend the lunch. Everybody has different reaction to the vaccine…

Saying bye to Kent

I had prepared a special gift for our friend Kent (musician, chef, painter) who is leaving Beijing soon to be reunited with his wife in USA.

As always a happy crowd in the fully packed Morel’s Restaurant.
Next lunch planned for Friday 4 June.

Old China Hands stars

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Our members are interesting figures

As mentioned in my previous post our Old China Hands stars come in different colors.
Here more about some of them, we have several other stars! Proud to have this community and sad each time one has to leave Beijing (like Kent).

Terry Crossman

You can call him the Hutong guy, well known around the Houhai area and featured in many media. He speaks Chinese fluently and sometimes I think he is more Chinese than American.

Many articles on the net with all the interviews he had. See this one from Haivision (Hainan Airlines magazine). I just was on Hainan Airlines but the Haivision on board did not have the article yet.

210403 TerryCrossman

Mark Levine

He is plastered all over the Chinese Internet and appears in all kinds of official meetings, often as a juror or something for English language competition and other.
See the article in China Daily of 1 April 2021. (Link)

He is a teacher (Minzu University and more) and musician, also a member of our foreign experts team (see: https://blog.strategy4china.com/2019/05/china-international-talent-exchange-foundation/).

I had the pleasure of being on a few assignments with him where he used his musical skills well as a bridge between the West and China. I was also one of the first to be in the audience for his public concerts.Article and video Introducing the documentary short film “Music Life” by Dr. Mark Levine, a foreign expert from Minzu University, here the full article, one other recent interview:

210401 MarkLevine_Minzu

Our hard rock (?) guy

Kent Niepert is one of our regular “Old China Hands” at the monthly lunch. He is also a painter, chef (loves to cook) and plays some great guitar, here with his two gifted sons who form a band. I missed his concert of 3 April 2021 but I hope to make it at his next one on 17 April 2021.

See a short video clip of his recent concert: https://youtu.be/e0z_xI4hA9s

You can see that Beijing’s (night) life is not exactly boring, even in these COVID times.
Kent has been constantly surprising us, bringing some great deserts to our lunches and handing out some “original” paintings of our members (like me). See earlier lunch reports such as this one.