CHINESE CONSUL GENERAL FEELS AT HOME IN CALGARY

Lu Xu arrives in time to help launch the China-Canada tourism promotion for 2018

Calgary is considered a prime posting by all of the members of the consular corps appointed to serve here by their governments. I have welcomed most all of them over the years through this column, but none showed quite the excitement that Consul General Lu Xu of the People’s Republic of China displayed.

She says since reading Snow White as a young girl she had always wanted to live where there was white snow.

She has the privilege of being here during the launch of the China-Canada Tourism Year.

Next year, she gets to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Chinese consulate in Calgary, an operation that continues to grow in size and importance.

Lu has been here a few months, with her husband and her dog A-bu, but has settled in well and says she is overwhelmed by the welcome she has received.

She is quick to give her impressions of the spirit of our city: a well-organized downtown, youthful and energetic, and quiet and cosy with no crowds, no pollution and no traffic problems.

Lu was born near Shanghai but attended university in Beijing, followed by training as a career diplomat.

Prague was her first experience living outside of China, followed by San Francisco and then London, where she was consul general, Chinese community affairs, within her embassy.

So another big attraction in coming to Calgary is she’s head of mission for the first time.

Much has changed at the consulate office on 6th Avenue S.W. Besides its staff of 19 nationals, it has hired six locals, including Lu’s executive assistant, and it has outgrown its premises to the point where visa applications have been outsourced to a service centre on 8th Avenue S.W., and she is looking at new space to expand the consulate.

A tradition was broken in holding the consulate’s Spring Festival dinner outside of Chinatown, inviting guests to the Crystal Ballroom at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel, an event that was also the springboard to the 2018 tourism promotion.

A target has been set to double the exchange of tourists between China and Canada from one million in 2015 to two million by 2025.

Meanwhile, Lu is busy familiarizing herself with her new jurisdiction and says that on a return flight from Regina she saw the mountains out her window and “felt I was home.”

Scott Pennock has joined Riddell Kurczaba Architecture as its new director of interior design. A graduate of Mount Royal University’s interior design program, he worked on projects in Australia and in the U.K. before returning to Calgary.

At RKA, Pennock manages a team of five working on institutional, office and hospitality projects.