Fresh again

By:  November 26, 2023 Categories: 

I actually like moving. Yeah, it’s a bit of trouble, but you get a whole new neighborhood to explore.

New roads to cycle, new shops to search for stuff on the shelf, and new restaurants with new dishes to try.

Just by physically moving all your stuff (and throwing away maybe 20% each time), everything feels fresh again.

This is now my 9th time moving in 5½ years in China, and each time further out of the city center. As I’ve more familiar and grounded in China, that has somehow been the natural direction of where I’ve been taken.

After unpacking the boxes, I wanted to visit the old station of the Shangchuan Railway (上川铁路) right away, after a tip from Jeffrey from Historic Pudong.

And visited this Catholic church, which — if I’d disimagine the Chinese signage at the gate — could just be at my mom’s hometown as well. Maria here even has that same sad and judgemental look in her eyes.

And peanuts being roasted outside the shop. That’s another thing you won’t see in downtown Shanghai and why I like this area so much.

Latest

Degrees of wealth

Degrees of wealth

In eight years of living in China, taxi drivers or older colleagues loved to ask, “Which is better, the Netherlands or China?”, hoping for a single insightful answer that would explain everything. And now, back as a resident in the Netherlands, people ask the mirrored version: do I miss living in China? Neither question is […]
July 11, 2026
Goodbye to Guanyin

Goodbye to Guanyin

It’s a Saturday morning, and we’re in a taxi on the way to the airport. My clothes cling to my body and already reek of sweat, and that’s even before our 12-hour flight has started. Today I woke up at 5:30 to get up early and throw away the last furniture and items we used […]
June 30, 2026
Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Learning Chinese, or any language, makes you more aware of language in general. And one thing that surprised me is that, despite Mandarin being so different from my mother tongue (Dutch), both languages reach for the same units when weighing things: the kilogram (公斤, gōngjīn) and the half-kilogram (斤, jīn). It’s a small thing, but […]
June 24, 2026
Cake and Timepieces

Cake and Timepieces

There are multiple ways to define Shanghai. There’s the more modern version, with beautiful lanes full of expensive yoga studios or artisan coffee shops, lined with the London Plane Tree (法国梧桐) and the Wukang Mansion (武康大楼), and renovated parks like the North Bund (北外滩) and West Bund (西岸). There’s also the Shanghai as the international […]
June 23, 2026