Chinese exams

Today, while millions of students take their life-deciding college entrance exam (gaokao), I got my own experience of tests in China. The driving theory exam is provided to foreigners in English, but the absurd logic and translations are verbatim from the source material — so it’s a near requirement to memorise the specific answers to the hundreds of questions, and then traffic signs are still in Hanzi. But I passed, 96 out of 100! So I’m allowed on the roads, where of course, reality is very different than in the exams — where cutting lanes and passing left and right is the norm rather than the exception. Glad to be part of it!

Latest

The Lies We Tell

The Lies We Tell

I left my hometown when I was 19. After nearly two decades in a dozen Dutch cities, Sydney and Shanghai, I’m back. I push Hasse’s stroller and see once again these streets and buildings that are old yet ever new. Everything is closer than I remember it, distances I travelled as a teenager seem now […]
October 27, 2026
Dit is ook China review

Dit is ook China review

‘Dit is ook China’ by Cindy Zhu Huijgen isn’t a perfect book. And yet it’s enjoyable, and when you turn the last page and close it, you’re — rather than feeling relieved — you’re just glad you read it, and you’re glad you’re a person who reads books. Before starting, I was a bit discouraged […]
October 26, 2026
Travel plugs

Travel plugs

In our new house, many appliances still get their power through a travel adapter. Eight years in China was long enough to not only put down roots and settle in, but also for everything we owned to end in a Chinese plug: my MacBook, the coffee machine, the rice cooker, the baby monitor. The appliances […]
September 21, 2026
Twenty-three years

Twenty-three years

In June we moved back to the Netherlands, six suitcases across 8000 kilometres, and after a brief spell at my parents’ place, we moved into our own home. This second move also involved putting down carpet, curtains, buying appliances and furniture — so that our new garage quickly filled with cardboard boxes and other packaging […]
August 29, 2026