Beijing Life

Jiamei Dental: expanding fast

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

On 6 November 2013 I joined the chairman of Jiamei Dental, Mr. Liu Jia, for the official opening of their flagship clinic on Guanghua Road, across the street from Kerry Centre Hotel and World Trade Center Tower III.
The new clinic is one of the 30 in China, Beijing having 25. Other cities covered now are Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dalian, Hangzhou and Hohhot. By next year more provincial cities will be covered.
By the end of this year some ten more clinics will be opened in China. Other major expansion plans are in the pipeline and will be announced soon. Other flagship clinics are the recently opened in Oriental Plaza (Wangfujing) and the soon to be opened one in Finance Street.
The Guomao location is one their most modern ones.  The headquarter is in Xindong Road, Sanlitun, across the street from the Bentley – Rolls Royce dealer; another modern clinic.
Jiamei Dental Medical Management Group has a history of 20 years and counts 200 dentists and 400 nurses. Expansion of the team is ongoing. The Group has agreements with many national and international insurance companies for the treatment of patients covered by their health plans.


See the pictures of the new Guomao location that counts many treatment rooms, meeting rooms, special room for kids, a large meeting and training hall, and more. It also has the most advanced 3D dental imaging installation of China; after the machine takes the pictures, the doctors can look the patient’s head from any direction and zooming in. All digital files are kept in the database of the clinic. Impressive.
Our company works closely with Jiamei and I am also a director in the Group.
The large meeting hall is equipped with all audio and video facilities and is also being used for seminars to foreign visiting groups of MBA students.

Children die in traffic in China

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Have you ever seen children in special children seats in cars in China? How often do you see kids in the front seat and no one is wearing a seat belt? Or kids sitting in the back, right between the two front seats, ready to be thrown to the front?
Well, Chinese don’t care. They should.
Each year 185,000 children under 14 years die in traffic accidents according to the Ministry of Public Security. Parents use children seats less than 1% of the time.
Then, not even to mention that the vast majority of drivers and passengers never use a seat belt. They do not realize that even in normal city traffic that is a major risk.
As the public remains ignorant, only police enforcement would work. That is, if at least policemen would also use seat belts.

What is “InterNations”?

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Mission
InterNations is the first international online community for people who live and work abroad. As a network based on trust, we enable our members to interact with other global minds in a similar situation, with comparable interests and needs. InterNation users can keep in touch with friends and business contacts; they can exchange reliable information on expat-specific topics, both on a global and a local level.
Members
InterNations reaches out to the international community: diplomats, members of IGOs and NGOs, foreign correspondents, expatriates employed by multinational companies and their family members. We also cater to the interests of local residents with strong ties to this community (e.g. journalists).
Our network is represented by more than 390 local communities all over the world – the perfect platform to exchange opinions and information on local particularities.
Gilbert is a member since June 2008 of the Beijing Community. See here the presence in Greater China:

  • Beijing – 13,216 members (a large number are actually local Chinese!)
  • Tianjin – 275 members
  • Shanghai – 15,994 members
  • Chongqing – 164 members
  • Hong Kong – 16,141 members
  • Taipei – 3,352 members


Membership is strictly invitation-based: You may join the community only after receiving an invitation from a current member. In this way, InterNations will remain a network of personal trust, where data security and privacy protection are top priorities.
With InterNations you can:

  • Meet other global minds
  • Stay in touch with international friends
  • Receive advice from expats
  • Share your thoughts in the World Forum or the Town Talk
  • Help young people from a less privileged background

Founders
InterNations is the idea of Christian Leifeld, Philipp von Plato and Malte Zeeck. All of them have studied and worked in various foreign countries. During their stays they discovered, like many other expatriates, it was often difficult to find other like-minded people, to get around and to find the right locations in a foreign country. Building upon work experience in international management consultancies and media companies, Christian, Malte and Philipp decided to set up InterNations to make living abroad easier. Today InterNations is run by Malte and a team of dedicated global minds.
See the website for further details:
http://www.internations.org/about/internations?ref=fo_ab
More posts about InterNations, see my other blog http://www.beijing1980.com

Frustration with smoking ban: a different view

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

In a China Daily article, health inspectors express frustration with the smoking ban, for indoor venues such as restaurants and hotels. Well, they are not alone.
As matter of fact, things are very simple right now:
If you are a smoker, head to a Chinese-managed location. You normally can puff away as you like and simply ask for an ash tray.
If you are a non-smoker and want to avoid second hand smoke, head to a foreign-managed location. No smoking is strictly enforced (and so are a zillion other rules).
The reasons are straightforward: health inspectors always target foreign establishments, trying to find any reason to make problems. You won’t see them in a next-door Chinese place. They could care less (why? think about it…).
If you have any doubts, simply go around in Sanlitun (Beijing) and compare. You won’t find any smoker in Morel’s Restaurant. But feel free to do what you like in a couple of other very well known bars and restaurants, I won’t mention them here.
As usual, Chinese officials single out whatever is foreign. Excellent targets to be pestered.
See the China Daily article: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2013-08/23/content_16915115.htm
“Health inspectors express frustration with smoking ban”, 23 August 2013.
(this comment was also directly sent to China Daily)

The story of Charles J. Dukes (and his lady)

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

In the thousands of people I meet in Beijing (I have about 3,000 business cards), there are some colorful figures you learn to appreciate and who become good friends.
One is Charles, with whom I have long conversations on China, our ups and downs, on photography and whatever. And we can tackle very well a couple of beers. Charles is also a valuable contributor to my book Toxic Capitalism, through his pictures and his advice.
So I was impressed with part of his life story here:
http://www.sino-us.com/21/A-Vietnam-War-veteran-living-in-China.html
His wife, Wang Nanfei, is an exceptional lady, a remarkable artist, a bit shy and mostly too modest.
Here messages (edited) I had sent to Charles:
1 a.m. I’m sitting in my library. This black book is staring at me. What  is this: “The Fear of Overlook”?
Damn! It’s Nanfei’s book.
So dark, so troubling; I don’t like the style. But, still, it fascinates me.
‘Kiss’ So simple, yet so deep. ‘Warm Sun’ only I understand?
Nanfei is not of this world. Her style sometimes hurts the eye; still, you want to look again: very special, troubling, unique.
She is deep: too much of a knife cutting you, but you reluctantly stay for more.
Man, you don’t know what you have on your side. Maybe the world will one day discover her. Her problem is that most of her work … you don’t want to look at it every day (OK, that is in my case). It’s provocative and hurting.

Her book (not showing the so-called “troubling” pieces)

She is a genius.
I knew it when I saw her the first time. I looked into her eyes and saw a whirlpool, lava turning around. A very special lady. Believe me, I might be over-complex, but I can see what others don’t. Let’s have a beer sometime. Take care my friend. Send her my thoughts.”
Gilbert – Beijing, 30 July 2012