I see here an endless coming and going of ministers, presidents and celebrities. Belgium being a huge country we of course are blessed with a never ending amount of ministers coming to China (As far as I know, Belgium has more ministers than China, or?)
It was nice to meet again Jean-Luc Dehaene who came as a member of a EU parliamentary delegation. On 22 November I joined him in his visit to BOCOG, the exhibition hall with the Olympic scale models and the National Stadium in the Olympic Green. We also had a private meeting to review the project of the famous Brussels artist Olivier Strebelle.

Note (1): Chairman of the Delegation for Relations With the PRC – European Parliament
Note (2): Vice Chairman
It is the second time I meet him, on 5 November 1998 I had the pleasure of chairing a dinner in Shanghai in his honor when I was the president of the Belgian Luxembourg Business Association. At that time, Jean-Luc Dehaene was Prime Minister of Belgium and he at least can be counted as one of the nice politicians to receive here.

He came after Lionel Jospin who visited my office in Shanghai on 25 September 1998, together with French ministers and the then Shanghai vice mayor Chen Liangyu (now under house arrest for corruption…).

Jospin went straight to my office, made himself comfortable and kicked everybody out to have a conversation with Alstom’s president Pierre Bilger (yeah, asking him if that crazy Gilbert really was getting the project of Shanghai metro Line 3). All in all, he was nice too.
Note here: (www.answers.com): “Formerly one of France’s top business leaders, Pierre Bilger stepped down earlier than planned from his post as chairman of the international, French-based ALSTOM engineering conglomerate. Under his stewardship, the once-giant company eventually found itself on the brink of bankruptcy.” – “ALSTOM’s board awarded Bilger a EUR 4.1 million severance payout that many called a “reward for failure.” The payout enraged French investors, most of who blamed the company’s collapse on Bilger’s ambition and reckless leadership.” – “On August 14, 2003, in an entirely unprecedented move, Bilger sent a letter to his successor stating that he would return the payout—the first time an executive had returned a payout to a French corporation.”
I have (of course) my own point of view on that. And not so positive. Maybe Bilger and Chen Liangyu could sit together and compare notes on raising stars that fall deep.

Julong Garden where we stay has a typical poor Chinese management. Totally hopeless. They constantly repair stuff everywhere without a clue so it has to be repaired again the next year. They spent money on painting the rain drain pipes. As it turns out, they chose cheap paint not suitable for the zinc pipes so after some months it starts peeling off. Ugly, would be better not painting at all. I can guess some people make a business out of it.
In 2004 we even had a revolt in the compound, many owners tried to bring in a new management and it turned out real ugly. Two management teams were here at the same time, the “security guards” facing each other so the riot police was brought in. Of course, the original management has its “friends” in the police (need I explain why???) who supported them as the management had warned and it all ended in frustration and status quo. Of course, as usual the “Chinese side” has mountains of excuses, lame as usual, such as that the case even went to court. Not even worth commenting on.
Foreign real estate management have lots to do here.


Some pics of the rallies, confrontations, nicely supported by the useless “police” (coming in several vans), one was shooting a movie about the “disturbance” and we both ended up with our own little confrontation. Don’t be surprised and confused: police and security teams all look alike with their uniforms.
Tenants here have no rights. Just pay, shut up and continue with the bad service. Plain corruption, must be one more of the sources of all those nice cars driving around in Beijing, thanks to foreigners being milked, from day one through grossly inflated sales prices for the biggest junk apartments, badly designs, badly built, badly maintained up to the extent it would make a nice case study. Not to wonder that most tenants (like us) just brake down the buildings to the concrete structure and then start again from scratch: the compound is a continuous construction site. We actually “invented” chimneys here: there were none, so ventilation of the kitchen, bathroom, toilet piping etc. was going nowhere (read: smell it everywhere). After I argued for many months, my super engineer Sun agreed to drill the concrete ceiling and install piping plus chimney. Voila, we have the best and biggest chimney. Others saw and copied.

Well at least they now admit they are satanic. This compound is “foreigner” but they even lack the good sense to ask some to check their nonsense posters.