Attending a meeting in the US Embassy in Beijing on 5 May I was also invited to the Marine House, the private club of the Marine detachment, a nice setting within the high-security compound that the Embassy has become recently. All a bit sad because the embassy area has a special charm and was nice to walk and jog. With all those North Koreans jumping walls, terrorist threats and (not-so-spontaneous) protests, the Sanlitun embassy has become very uninviting area with guards, barbed wire, fences all over. With the detours to get to the compound – imposed by the road blocks – it was a bit confusing to remember at first the spot where I came so many times in the early eighties. Indeed, the US Embassy was one of the four embassies who in turn opened their doors every Friday evening for “TGIF” (Thank God It’s Friday). All foreigners could attend and the ambiance was great, anyway there was nothing else to go to, so for all poor expats like me it was the most important event of the week. And we sure had lot of fun and booze.
I did not find back the room where it was held that time, the compound has changed quite a bit since then. The US is currently building a new embassy close to the Hilton Hotel, to be ready by 2008.
Enjoying the chili con carne with a beer I met an old acquaintance of those old times, a bit of a (happy) shock. He did not recognize me at first – I had the advantage seeing him regularly on CNN and CCTV when he is doing his job. He then introduced his wife and it was like – wait a moment – we know each other – and then the door to memory lane went wide open. We quickly pieced it all together, talking in our secret language. Many memories of the tumultuous times of the eighties, of jobs, love stories, marriages, separations and the hardships of the time (like waiting in the bitter cold at the door of the embassy, trying in vain to call for a taxi that maybe would come).
I walked back through the road blocks to Ritan Nan Lu, lifted an arm and in 5 seconds had a taxi. Beijing 2006. The taxi driver was of the super social type and rattled on till I got home, testing the very limits of my bu-hao Chinese. Pity I cannot talk more with them – they are sometimes real funny and full of interesting small talk about the city…

8 May 2006
The Belgian Embassy has gone through many activities during the 25 years I go there, most in the large historical room. Having a rock concert there is certainly something new. The performance on 4 November by the Belgian group “Sioen” – from my hometown Ghent – was a successful event attended by closer to 90 people, not too bad considering the May 1 holidays with so many people out of town.
Sioen came to China for the first time but gave 4 concerts in Beijing this week, including the one in the embassy. They will be back in September for a grand tour in China to several cities.
I admit I did not know Sioen but it seems they are a big hit in Belgium, quite understandable when you here them play. As our friend David commented – the band should be called “The Deng Xiaoping Band” – small but full of energy… Their website: www.sioen.net.

I could not resist buying their DVD/CD “Ceci n’est pas un film”, even the price was ten times what we usually pay in the back streets of Beijing. Even got a nice poster.
The public seemed to be very pleased and the food served by our friend Renaat Morel could only make it even better.
Thanks again to our ambassador Bernard Pierre – cool to see so many different activities for the Belgian community in Beijing.

Sioen / the public / Valerie and Mrs. Karin Pierre
I don’t know if it is a coincidence – import from Ghent? – but we also had our first rain that day, so Sun had to look for her “heating”… and watching her holding the dangerous glass of beer…

2 May 2006 – yeah yeah, holiday?
Seems not all Chinese are born equal. If one has too much money, some tips on spending it: Shanghai has some expensive villas for sale in Shimao Sheshan. The top one goes for US$ 31.25 million or RMB 250 million. “Smaller” ones go for RMB 50 million. Four years ago a similar one was sold at RMB 140 million. The record goes to one in Xijiao – 150 million. Shanghai saw sales of villas in 2005 at a rate of 6,308 units, good for 1.54 million sqm. The buyers: mostly Shanghainese or Hong Kong businessmen.
How to spend the “Golden Week” here for the May 1 holidays (May 1 to 7)? Just trying to catch up with work and working on the MAC – back-up, cleaning up files and folders. Hopefully I will be able to update some of the software.
The workers next door at the always-under-construction building also decided to work even harder and started banging and dropping metal pipes at 6 am. Hard workers those guys. Pity they always drop pipes. Maybe it’s a sport or they are slippery. Never found out what they are actually doing.
Our friend Xiao Yu (Ms.) has moved into her new apartment, above our new one. Hers is already looking good – ours still needs some final touches. So, the girly gang is shopping till-you -drop-dead.
We have experimented with some of the new restaurants around us, one Korean (in our Julong compound) and a Chinese one with Yunnan food across the street. I had enough courage to taste the fried worms (bon appetit!) but Xiao Yu apparently wasn’t as Chinese as I am… The worms are crispy, good for the health (all food in China has some health benefits it seems, the weirder the better).
The weather has changed from sandy and dusty to plain dusty and warm – over 25C. The “stick trees” that Sun brought into our compound are starting to grow. They are, well, like big sticks, over 4 meters high. Sun came in with two trucks of trees and other plants – about 100 in total. Ten of them mysteriously disappeared when left alone – stealing here becomes rather common. Our “security guards” of the compound had of course not seen anything (why am I not surprised?). That’s our contribution to the “Greening of Beijing”.
Talking about money: There’s More to Gain from Binary Trading

Our SOHO – small office home (well, not that small – over 450 sqm) is located right in the area largely preferred by foreigners, close to Sanlitun, the area between the 2nd and 3rd Ring Roads in the east of the city. Next to us are the Workers’ Stadium and Workers’ Gymnasium. Our street in Chinese is called “Gongti Xi Lu” – Workers Stadium West Road. Five minutes walk and we are in Morel’s Restaurant ( the “old” one), our usual restaurant to enjoy Belgian fries, mussels, steak, waffles and all the other goodies.
Sanlitun has remarkable concentration of restaurants, discos, bars, sauna houses, gyms and all you can wish for entertainment – including Poly Theater where many top performances are held (ballet, classical music, …).
No need to have car, we can just walk to any place.
Some years ago Gongti Xi Lu was a rather quiet street with the only landmark being “Gongti 100” – the world’s largest bowling center, 100 lanes in one single space. In the evening the gates of the stadium and gymnasium are used by groups of retired locals to practice “fan dancing”, classical dancing and others; a regular group of kids also train kungfu style moves.
Restaurants came and disappeared, mostly large Chinese eating halls. The street also has some foreign restaurants, one Italian (Metro – good pastas) and a crêperie (Celtic pancakes).
Night life was limited and a Latin “Club Flamengo” nightspot quickly disappeared.
Discos came to the Stadium area and became successful – Vics and Mix and others.
Babyface changed it all – a huge disco (two separate dance floors), high-tech, luxurious and with the latest techno music. Not for talking – you can hardly order, once I ordered a beer and got a gin tonic instead. The crowd is overwhelmingly Chinese who consume red wine mixed with soft drinks as well as Chivas Whisky with green tea (a lethal combination).
Bellagio, Green T. House and Le Quai (a 250 years old wooden Chinese house brought over from Jiangsu Province) became a hit. Then the rest followed – Cargo Club, Coco Banana, Cutie Club, Angel, Big Echo and the gay hangout Destination (now expanding – business seems great). Most regularly host foreign DJs. After 10 pm the traffic in “Gongti Strip” becomes gridlocked and cars are parked anywhere.
New restaurants are opening up – one I tried just a couple of days ago is called “Three Guangxi Men” – hot and spicy, as well as some creative hotpots.
The street is now being enlarged, trees have been cut, the nice park lovely installed last year bulldozed. Huge pipe ducts are installed – looks like power lines and telecom. No clue yet what they are up to. Looks like the city planning has no clue either because they “repaired” the whole street barely a year ago. What a waste of money… We sure miss all the nice old trees that made the street so charming. Is it because of the “Strip” or preparing for the 2008 Olympics? Both the Stadium and the Gymnasium are being modernized, they will be used during the Olympics for boxing and football.
The Gongti venues will be used in 2008
What a change, I for sure could not find something similar in Belgium. Now we can drink and party all night and get safely home as long as we manage to cross the street. Our SOHO does not suffer from the noise – we are isolated by two large buildings, one is under construction/demolition/construction since ten years and will become a complex of luxury serviced apartments, offices and shops. For the moment it makes sure I don’t oversleep – they start banging and drilling latest at 7am every day. The other is the well-guarded State Banking Regulatory Commission – two soldiers stand guard day and night.

The building under permanent “construction” seen from our other place in Julong (see the rubble from the construction), you can see at the left corner the red colours from Babyface

Our “SOHO” – Julong Garden, next to Gongti area