Diplomatic pouch: With mike peters

The German embassy is pushing to be green for a better future, most recently by revamping its automotive fleet to incorporate more electric cars. Ambassador Michael Schaefer took the driver's seat of the project recently, as Christoph Stark, president and CEO of BMW Group Region China, drove to the embassy Feb 23 personally to swap wheels with the envoy.

"Nowadays on the streets of Beijing, one can see the reaches of German engineering and how it is helping to protect our environment, Schaefer said. "Germany and China are now partners in the dream of protecting our environment, both are starting green initiatives to promote better green techniques."

In conjunction with the carmaker, the embassy is working to place 50 of BMW's Electric Mini vehicles around the capital in the coming months. The project is one step to fulfilling a pledge last summer by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said China and Germany would work together on such projects.

"In Beijing there are tons of diplomatic vehicles," said Stark. "Although the Mini is the smallest of them all, it is the most environmentally friendly, we hope that it will attract attention and let people think about the environment and the future."

The Danish embassy in Beijing was celebrating this week after the Danish drama In a Better World won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Embassy spokesman Lasse Karner said the movie will be brought to Hong Kong because of the award, and the embassy and the Danish Cultural Institute hope to get it to the Chinese mainland as well.

The Embassy will host a weeklong visit by The Danish Parliament's European Affairs Committee March 6-12. The group will meet with official representatives as well as private sector leaders and the European Union Chamber of Commerce during a tour that including Beijing, Chongqing and Shanghai.

The Czech embassy's three-year Embassy Art project continues March 4 with an installment of CzechChina, an East-meets-West moment featuring paintings by Chinese artist Huang Rui accompanied by the piano performance of the Czech musician Pavel Vorcek. It's Huang's second collaboration with the embassy in as many years - he was invited by Ambassador Libor Ceska to be part of the Czech National Day celebration at the 2010 Shanghai Expo last May. Embassy Art will schedule dance, folk and classical music events this spring at public venues, says the embassy's culture officer, David Hrdousek.

Visitors to the Estonian Independence Day reception at Beijing's Kempinski hotel got a twofer last week. As they headed for the stairs to the second-floor lobby, invited guests passed through a pre-opening party and exhibition for Estonian photographer Alexander Gronsky, 22. Inspired by traditional Chinese paintings, the Water and Mountains show "is a personal journey through a timeless and at the same time constantly changing landscape," said Gronsky, who savored "getting lost in a space that refuses to fit in a single frame".

Estonian Ambassador Andres Unga said the twinbill was pure coincidence - "we didn't even know it was happening," he laughed. The German hotel began its Kempinski Arts Support Program in 2009 "in keeping with its long history of grand European hospitality," according to the exhibition catalog. The Kempinski awards two fellowships to young artists each year in classical music and in visual arts. Gronsky was born in 1980 in Tallinn, Estonia and is now based in Riga, Latvia.