Writing has become a part of me; it’s how I document and process my journeys and thoughts, and how I share these with whoever is interested. I started this blog in 2008, and it’s been evolving ever since — especially since moving to China in 2018.
I’ve learned to stay away from anything that can be considered pedantic ‘self-help advice’, or something that reads like a history lesson. Wikipedia is extremely valuable, but it has no feelings. Instead, I’ve developed my own interests, and I am for personal themes, rather than big statements about the economy or politics. Maybe that has been my big discovery of the last decade. I always imagined myself as a cosmopolitan; smart and understanding of the world. But now living in a vastly foreign culture, I’ve been confronted by just how inescapably Dutch I am; both in habits and my thoughts. That is not a bad thing. In cities that become increasingly homogenized with the same multinational chains everywhere, and in a media landscape that is increasingly written by AI, I crave for these personal stories, including my own.
Follow me on X, Instagram, or WeChat.
