Events

Diplomatic pouch >> With Mike peters

A crowd of Finlanders - embassy folk, businessmen and students - found their way to Beijing bars overnight as their country battled back from a goal down to thrash Sweden 6-1 to win the world ice-hockey title.

"Despite it being Monday in Beijing, most of the crowd stayed until the end of the game at 5 am," says Karl Long, owner of Paddy O'Shea's sports bar. He said the crowd of about 40 die-hards was mostly Finnish and most had flags and face paint. Ambassador Lars Backstrom was not at Paddy O'Shea's or at The Den, the capital's other all-night bar that was crowded with Finland hockey fans, but word is he was up early Monday taking congratulatory phone calls.

Britain's Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and the UK's Special Representative for Trade and Investment, was in Beijing last week to witness a 100-million-pound agreement between the UK's ASI Solutions and Huali, a wholly owned subsidiary of the China Highway Engineering Consulting Group Company. The British embassy said the deal "will support China's ambitious infrastructure development plans" with an ASI product that protects road-surface deterioration cause by weather and high traffic.

The Cultural Forum of the Austrian embassy in Beijing hosts a gallery opening in Beijing on May 22 for Austrian publisher Christian Thanhaeuser, which has recently published the work of Chinese poets Bei Dao, Ouyang Jianghe and Wang Jiaxin in German-language editions. Poetry reading at Bloom Gallery in the 798 Arts District will be followed by the opening of an exhibition of Thanhaeuser's woodcuts, which since the beginnings of his 20-year-old publishing house have served as a base for his books. The embassy says Thanhaeuser is making hand-crafted books, a tradition which is slowly dying out.

About 1,300 guests took advantage of a sunny afternoon on May 15 to stroll the grounds of the Danish Embassy in Beijing, taking in exhibits by 10 Danish companies - including a Kopenhagen Fur fashion show - and enjoying snack food and complimentary Carlsberg beer. More than 4,500 people had registered on the embassy's Sina microblog for the public open house, part of a series of embassy openings organized to celebrate the EU-China Year of Youth, and of those, 1,000 people were selected to attend.

Visitors were offered a guided tour of the residence of Ambassador Friis Arne Petersen, who was frequently seen posing good-naturedly with locals seeking a photo with him.

The 10 Danish companies at the open day were Kopenhagen Fur (Fur fashion), Lego (toys), Georg Jensen (jewellery, design), Pilgrim (jewelery), Menu (design), Carlsberg (beverages), Cobe (architecture), Evita Peroni (fashion accessories), Lindberg (eyewear design), Skagen (watches). More than 400 Danish companies are operating in the Chinese market, the embassy says.

The Swiss embassy will present the Think About Our Climate exhibition at the Dushu Lake Library of Suzhou from May 28 to June 10. The art part of the show involves a photo exhibition by Mathias Braschler and Monika Fisher titled Affected: The Human Face of Climate Change.

The May 28 opening also kicks off Suzhou Science and Techology Week, which will feature Swiss science counselor and University of Bern professor Gregory Greenwood in a Sino-Swiss seminar on climate change.

Embassy news can be sent to: mike.peters.cd@gmail.com