Dear Min Jiezhang,
You may have heard about me from Mr Pu Lishun in Lijiang and from my friend Zhang Zhilan in Shanghai.
My name is Hans Zuurdeeg. I am the Vice President of the "Lions Club Allagnon Val d'Allier" in Central France."
I have made quite a few trips to China over the past 4 years and "fell in love" with your country. Having talked about China often to my friends, the Lions Club asked me to organize a trip to China in 2005 for some of the members and to find a "worthwhile humanitarian project" in China.
Through some Chinese friends I heard about your projects of building primary schools in small villages in Yunnan province. On my last trip late March I met Mr Pu Lishun, together with my friend Zhang Zhilan. Mr Pu Lishun told me about the project for the village Wa Yu where a school has to be replaced for a cost of 44.505 RMB.
I am very pleased to confirm through this message that our Lions Club has accepted this project and that we therefore accept full responsibility for providing the required funds.
As you may know, the Lions Club is a world-- wide humanitarian organization - 1.5 million members world wide - with Clubs in many countries (including Hong Kong and Taiwan, but not yet in mainland China). The Club of which I am a member is a new club founded in late 2003 and this is our first "big" project. The principle of our Clubs is that there are no "reserve funds" from which we can pay for projects. We first define a project - in this case the Wa Yu School - and then we organize different activities to collect the funds needed. This is also the reason that we need some time before we can transfer the funds to China.
We have planned different activities already and, like what I told Mr Pu Lishun, we will make sure that the funds become available no later than January 2005.
I am very pleased that we can do this and hope that, if this is successful, I will be able later to convince other Clubs to take on similar projects...
Beijing is one of the cities I have not yet visited. I will make it part of my next trip and would look forward to having an opportunity to meet you then.
Kind regards,
Hans Zuurdeeg
Vice President,
Lions Club Allagnon Val d'Allier
Dear Mr. Hans Zuurdeeg,
Thank you for your letter, your love for China and support for improving educational situation of poor areas in China. And thank you for your trust in me and Pu.
Four years ago, I spent 8 months in bicycling from Beijing to Xinjiang, Tibet and Yunnan. On the way I saw many poor places, which made me decide to build elementary schools in remote mountainous areas in Yunnan Province to give the poor children an opportunity to enjoy a better educational environment.
In May, 2004, the 10th elementary school, Da Di He School will be finished. The 11th school. Yong Gong Mu School will begin to be built in June, 2004, whose fund is ready and donated by a friend from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
According to our plan, Wa Yu School will be our 12th elementary school. As Yong Gong Mu School and Wa Yu School both are in the same town, the construction machinery and tents used in building the 11th Yong Gong Mu School will be easy to be transported to the construction site of Wa Yu School. If the construction fund for Wa Yu is scheduled to January, 2005, will it mean we keep Wa Yu for you till then? And if we get other fund before January, 2005, can we skip Wa Yu and build other schools first?
In building this school, we will carry out the plan carefully as usual and provide you with a detailed list of all the materials and money needed.
Welcome you and your friends to China in 2005 and do hope you can visit the school for real.
Hope to meet you next year!
France is a beautiful country with a long history too. I have long admired your friendliness and kindness and feel honored to enhance humanitarian friendship between our two countries.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Min Jiezhang
Dear Friend,
Thank you for your kind letter. I appreciate what you are trying to do for your country and for its young people. Education is the key to improve their lives and their future - as you well know.
I promise that the funds will be available for the Wa Yu School early January 2005 and would appreciate if you can keep that project for us. So yes, if you get other funds and can therefore build another school first, please do whatever is best in your planning. I am sorry we can not promise the funds earlier, but like I told you we first need to collect the funds through our different activities.
We had a meeting of our Club last night and discussed the group trip to China planned for July 2005. It now looks as though there will be about 20 people coming with me... and it will be very interesting and worthwhile if the group can visit Wa Yu at that time. However, this is still one year ahead of us so we will continue our preparations and I will let you and Mr Pu know about our plans.
Sincerely yours,
Hans Zuurdeeg
Dear Mr.Hans Zuurdeeg,
Thank you very much.
I went to Ninglang in Yunnan this June. Mr. Pu and I did a field study of six other mountaineous primary schools there. Wayu School will be kept for you and your club till 2005.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Yours truly,
Min Jiezhang
Dear Mr. Pu Lishun,
Sorry for not writing to you sooner after our meeting in Lijiang. It took me a while to obtain your address written in Chinese so that I could address an envelope to you.
First I want to thank you for the nice dinner in Lijiang for my friend Zhang Zhilan and my son. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to meet your family.
As you have already heard, my friends of the Lions Club have agreed to raise the funds to help you to build the school in Wa Yu. I will personally guarantee that the funds will be available to you in early January 2005 at the very latest.
In order for me to instruct my bank to make the payments to you, I will need the following information from you:
Name and address of your Bank
Bank account number and name of the account owner
A detailed schedule of the dates on which the amounts should be in your account
There is no hurry for this. If I have the information in the late November 2004 then I can arrange to have the payments started early January 2005 for the first date of your schedule.
A group of members of our club will be traveling through China in July 2005. We plan to come to Lijiang for a few days and will welcome the opportunity to visit Wa Yu at that time. As soon as I know the dates I will let you know.
My friend Zhang Zhilan, whom you met, does not always have the time to do things for me because of her studies. So do not be surprised if either Tang Liu or Gu Xian contacts you on my behalf, two very close young Chinese friends who both live in Shanghai. If you need to contact me, the easiest way will be for you to call Min Jiezhang in Beijing who can contact me through Internet in English.
My dear friend, I am really looking forward to this project and I am sure it will be a great success. I have great respect for what you and Min Jiezhang are doing and I hope to be able to provide you with more support in the years to come.
I am looking forward to meeting you again when I visit China, maybe later this year.
Kind personal regards,
Hans Zuurdeeg
Dear Mr.Hans Zuurdeeg:
Thank you very much for your letter.
On June First, International Childrens’ Day, Mr. Min Jiezhang and I did a field study of several other primary schools. We will build Yi Man Wa primary school and other schools when Yong Gong Mu school is finished. And we will keep Wa Yu school for your Club.
The following is about my bank account:
The funds for the prvious 10 schools were sent to my private bank account in China Agriculture Bank, which may not be available Internaitonally. There aren’t branch offices of China Agriculture Bank in France.
Another way of doing it is by sending a cheque in American Dollars through Bank of China Overseas to Mr. Min Jiezhang’s account in Beijing or to my account in Lijiang.
As a matter of fact, there isn’t a Bank of China in Ninglang County. If the fund is sent to me, I have to go to Lijiang to pick it up, which will take about 55 days for a complete transaction.
The fund for the 4th primary school we built was sent and withdrawn in this way.
Welcome to China for a visit and I do hope you come to Wayu School we cooperate. We are looking forward to seeing you here in Ninglang County! We Ninglang people do welcome you!
As I work in a very remote area, I cannot use the Internet. If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Min Jiezhang via Email. And he will let me know as soon as possilble.
My friend, thank you and your friends, for your support and loving heart for the poor mountaineous areas of China.
Thank you again!
Yours sincerely,
Pu Lishun
Dear Min Jiezhang,
I will be coming to China for a three week trip starting October 22nd. In the first part of the trip I will be travelling with my daughter and her her two sons - Shanghai, Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhou, from where she and her children will go back to France.
I will spend a few days with a friend in Haikou and then go back to Shanghai for some business. On Friday, November 5th I plan to come to Beijing - arriving quite late as the friend who will accompany me can not leave her office till 17.30pm.
If you are in Beijing that weekend, I would very much like to meet you so we can talk about the Wa Yu project and also about some other ideas I have.
My friend will fly back to Shanghai Sunday night and I plan to stay in Beijing for a couple of days sightseeing since I have not yet been to Beijing.
Looking forward to meeting you.
Kind regards,
Hans Zuurdeeg
Dear Mr. Hans Zuurdeeg,
Welcome to Beijing this November. I will try my best to meet you at that time and hope to exchange ideas with you then on building schools and helping the poor students.
We have been building schools this year and 3 more schools have been completed since this Feburary. There will be 2-3 more schools to build according to the order of time and fund-realization. Wa Yu School will be built in 2005.
Schools have been built this year and will be built this year are:
1)SHIGE LA School
2)DADI REVER School
3)YONGGONG MU School
4)YIMAN WA School
5)LAN WA School
6)PEI DE School
Schools will be built in 2005 are:
1)WA YU School
2)DONGBU DIAN School
The above schools are in our plan. We will make plan for other schools when the fund is ready.
Best wishes.
Yours truly,
Min Jiezhang
Dear Min Jiezhang,
As I wrote you some time ago, I will be in Beijing for a few days early November.
My plans now are to arrive in Beijing late on November 5th and leave again for France on Nov. 10th.
I would very much like to meet with you on either the 6th or the 7th. I will be with a young Shanghainese friend who will take care of further financial matters in China for me. I would like her to meet you too.
Early next week I will know in which hotel I will be staying and I will let you know. Could you give me a telephone number where I could call you? That would make communication easier...!
Looking forward to meeting you,
Kind regards,
Hans Zuurdeeg
PS:
GOOD NEWS! If all goes as planned, the money needed for the Wa Yu school project should be available to you early November when we meet.
Dear Hans Zuurdeeg,
Looking forward to meeting you in Beijing. I will be in Beijing on November 6th or the 7th.
My telephone number is 139***, please call me when you arrive in Beijing and let me know the hotel which you will be staying.
Best wishes.
Yours truly,
Min Jiezhang
Dear Min Jiezhang,
As we discussed during our meeting in Beijing, our Lions Club will be making two trips to China next year - one in July 2005 and another in September 2005.
During both trips we would like to visit the village of Wa Yu where the school will have been built by the time we come.
Our trips will be organized by a Chinese travel agency in Paris called C.T.S (China Travel Service) which is represented in China by C.I.T.S..
Since the village of Wa Yu is completely unknown to the travel agency, I have asked them to contact yourself and Mr Pu Lishun for more information about the exact location, possible hotels etc.
I gave your own telephone number and also Mr Pu Lishun's telephone number to the agency, so you may be contacted by Mr Shi Luc (mobile: ***), who is the Shanghai representative of the travel agent.
During our meeting you also asked me to let you know the exact wording of the name of our Club to be engraved on the plaque you wish to put in the school. The correct name would be:
Lions Club International - Allagnon Val d'Allier C France
I also confirm that the funds are available now on my account at the HSBC in Shanghai and that my friend Tang Liu whom you met can arrange for the payment as soon as you provide her with the necessary bank information.
Please contact me if you need any more information from me.
Kind regards,
Hans Zuurdeeg
Dear Min Jiezhang,
My friend Tang Liu whom you met at our meeting in Beijing early November told me you had not yet contacted her about the payment for the project.
As we are close to the end of the year we are wondering if there is a problem or a delay of some sort? We would like to hear from you soon what the situation is so that I can also inform the members of our Club about the status of the project.
Please give my regards to your Englsh teacher friend whose name I am afraid to have forgotten.
Kind regards,
Hans Zuurdeeg
Dear Mr. Zuurdeeg,
Sorry for this late reply of your two letters.
About Wa Yu School, I had sent the building contract to Yunnan three days after we met in Beijing. I was informed that as Wa Yu is located in a remote area, this contract has got all the necessary government stamps two days ago and sent off yesterday. I am waiting for the arrival of the contract. I will send the contract to Tang Liu after I get it. And that is the reason why I haven’t contacted Tang Liu yet.
The total sum of fund for building Wa Yu School is stated in the contract. I will contact Tang Liu to ask her to send half of the sum to me or Pu Lishun. The other half of the sum is due when the building of the school is completed.
We will begin to build Wa Yu School after the Chinese New Year Festival. The name Lions Club International C Allagnon Val d’Allier C France will be engraved on the plaque.
About your trips to China next year, I will be pleased to be contacted by Mr. Shi Luc to help arrange your accommodation.
Thank you for your regards to Xu Qing, my English teacher friend. And both she and Pu Lishun asked me to say hello to you too.
Best wishes,
Min Jiezhang
Liu.Tang
I have received the building contract for WaYu today. The contract has been agreed and signed by all the related government officials. Would you send me your mail address? I will send you the contract and you can remit the money to me after that.
The school account number is :
Title: ***
Number: ***
P.S. To Mr. Hans.vinzelles,
Thank you very much for what you did and welcome to Yunnan! And sorry for the late reply last time.
Dear Mr Min,
You could send me the agreements to my office. Below is the address:
***
In case of any question, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Best regards,
Liu
Dear Mr Min,
It was a great pleasure for me to meet with Mr. Pu a few weeks ago in Lijiang. He was very kind and took my friend and me around his beautiful area for a few days.
We visited Wa Yu where the building of the school financed by our Lions Club is progressing well.
He also took me to visit some other schools which need replacement very soon.
I have had to return to France very quickly as my mother passed away while I was still in Shanghai. For this reason I only returned home two days ago and have had no time to properly thank Mr.Pu for all the time he spent with me.
Can I ask you to relay my deepest thanks to Mr. Pu? I am very grateful for what he showed me and he convinced me that I need to make a great effort in the coming months to obtain financing for more schools in his area! I will do my best.
Please also tell him that I have had no time yet to work on the many pictures I took but that I will send him the pictures as soon as I can.
You can also confirm to Mr. Pu that in early July I will arrange to have an amount of 2.500 ? RMB transferred to him for the purchase of whatever the children of the Wa Yu School most need. This is a special gift to the school of the people of the small group that will travel with me to Wa Yu in September as Mr. Pu and I discussed.
Kind regards,
Hans Zuurdeeg
Dear Hans,
I am so sorry to hear about your mother's death. Please accept my sincere condolences.
I have passed your message to Mr Pu. He appreciated your compassionate donation and wants me to convey his best wish to you and your family through this difficult time.
During my trip to YunNan about ten days ago, I visited our Wa Yu school which is still under construction. I took some pictures for you. Please have a look at the pictures attached to this email. All constructions of Wa Yu School will be finished in a few days. After that Mr. Pu and I will send the final financial report and balance to Miss Tang, as soon as possibble. The country road to Wa Yu school was very bumpy. Because of the bumps and jolts, our car was broken-down on the way to Wa Yu. We had to drive back and fixed the car before we finally got there. Mr. Pu and I also visited several other schools which need to be rebulit.
Thank you again for your great effort to find financial sources to build the schools. Merci beaucoup! We hope these schools will bring the poor kids a better future. I am also looking forward to meeting you in September. We welcome you to China.
Kind Regards,
Min Jie Zhang
Dear Min Jie Zhang,
Thank you for the pictures! The work has certainly progressed well since I was there! I will take your and my pictures to our next meeting and I am sure our members will be very impressed.
We also had some problems with the car and I hope that our excellent driver was able to get everything repaired again.
Please ask Mr Pu to send the report to Miss Tang since she is handling the administrative and financial aspect of the project. I will also get her more involved and hope she will be able to come with me when we visit Wa Yu with our little group in September.
As Mr Pu may have told you, Miss Zhang is expecting a baby by the end of this year, so she will be getting less involved in these projects.
Kind regards,
Hans
Dear Hans,
Glad to receive your email.
As you said I will get Miss Tang more involved. I haved heard about Miss Zhang from Mr Pu, and he also told me the talk between you and him. Both of you stand in front of the primary forest, you asked him, ‘what's is that? ’As his English is a bit poor, he had to answered,'old tree'. What an interesting answer! Mr. Pu is really a humorous man.
This time I drove to Wa Yu School by myself. Unfortunately the car was broken on the way. That was a good chance to improve my driving skills.
They road will even worse, as Sept is the rainy season. It is quite possible that the car can't reach that far, so you might need to walk 4-5kms to get to Wa Yu School. I think it is better to remind you in advance.
Kind Regards,
Min
Dear Hans,
I have good news for you: the construction of Wa Yu School has been finished. The total cost is ¥48094.80, and I will send the final financial statement and other documents to Miss Tang and you as soon as possible. Since Miss Tang has already sent me ¥30000, the residual balance will be ¥18094.80. Could she remit me the left money at her earliest convenience?
Thank you very much!
Will you visit Beijing on you next trip to China? I am looking forward to seeing you at Beijing.
Best wishes,
Min
Hi, Min
I just received your e-mail. Maybe the incompatibility of the mail addresses is just with your Sina mailbox
Hans will be back to France around next Thursday. Therefore, the money transfer issue will be proceeded soon after his return.