China is twice the size of the European Union and has over three times the population. You wouldn’t very easily generalize such a diverse area, and neither am I trying to do with China. So for financial news or politics, subscribe to a newspaper, for big sweeping generalizations or a singular answer to “What’s (the whole of) China like?” — sorry, not here.
I write about how I experience China; how it makes me think or feel; how it changes me; or about the people I meet. And China in this case is actually mostly Shanghai and the neighboring provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. (Still, 175 million people, plenty of source material.)
Writing this, for me, is a way of discovery and exploration. There’s so little that’s understood well about China. It’s also one of the main motivations to learn Mandarin Chinese. When you learn something new from something or someone, your life becomes part of that and the thing or that person becomes part of you. That’s how I like to spend my days.
If you want, you can subscribe to my newsletter. Any article I think is substantial enough, I’ll send your way.
Destinations and travel
- China’s Great Wall
- Getting to know Beijing
- Visiting Gaoyou, some 750 years after Marco Polo
- The name and city of Chuzhou
- A church in Anhui
- In between mountains
- A bubble in Anhui
- A walk in Ningguo
- Everything in Zhoupu
- Back to Xinchang
- Scorching Songjiang
- Two hours to Huzhou
- Lots of history, but we’re just casually observing in Songxicun
- Numbers in Pinghu
- The empty town in Shanghai
- Long-necked chicken
- Words waiting to be spoken, in Zhelin
- ‘Sea Salt’, near the sea
- Sweaty Shaoxing
- Away from the cities, underneath the Milky Way
- Villages around Ningbo
- Sheds and shorts in Yangzhou & Jiangdu
- Walking in Huai’an
- Old things in Shen’Ao
- Shishecun: An old village, a river, trees
- A thousand islands, a million tourists
- Hui architecture and Hello’s
- Villages above the clouds in Zhejiang
- Our world without plans
- Autumn in Zhangjiagang
- Old, new, and rainclouds, in Zhenjiang
- A ring and the road in Ninghai
- Nanbei Lake
- Old Nantong in October
- Tiger Cave Mountain
- The ancient merchant trail
- True places in Weihai
- A wall, a mountain, and the people that climb it
- Big sister sends us to Luziyu
- Beneath and inside the clouds in Tai’an
- Faces in the fire – Chinese New Year in rural Nantong
- In Taicang: Porcelain shards of history
- In Kunshan: I’ve seen the future of China
- In Shanghai: God and Three architectural committees
- In Nantong: Pillars on the horizon
- In Jiangshan: Three peaks and a railway station
- On Putuoshan: For this live, not the next
- In Suzhou: Ajax
- In Danyang: An anonymous tier-4 city
- In Wuhan: A city on its own terms again
About the 2022 Shanghai lockdown / covid in China
- If only hugs and sunshine could be stored in boxes
- Flashbacks of the lockdown
- Borders within the country
- Locked down and out again
- Healing
- Day one
- We’re out
- Yangpu during the Shanghai lockdown
- Why don’t you just move?
- Playing with fire
- Dabai at my door
- Dreaming of days
- Our building’s WeChat group
- Shanghai’s stunning fall from grace
About culture
- Shanghai before the foreigners
- Outside the Outer Ring Road
- Next to the highway
- Quarries in the mountain
- On the edge of Zhejiang
- To walk is to learn
- Coins on the roof and a hole in my jacket
- Alone in the mountains with my mind
- Is China scary? A look at mundane life
- How to survive in a Chinese company
- Searching for a wall
- A church in Anhui
- Tidal wave near the Wengjin Line
- The old Japanese fortress
- The Great Wall of Shanghai
- Mountains & hikes near Shanghai
- Gaoqiao, unintentionally the best-preserved area of Shanghai
- Words waiting to be spoken, in Zhelin
- The path we would have never walked
- Understanding China (or actually; how not to misunderstand it)
- Dutch dikes along Asian waters
- Disappearing Yangpu
- Cities you’ve never heard of make up a huge part of China
- Apples & yogurt: What money means in China
- Mini views on China
- The many cities above line 5
- Press stroke
- Contextual China
Media & market
- Bike radius on the map
- Chinese consumers don’t really care about sustainability — does Alibaba?
- Writing on China
- Old is the song, yet new is the messenger
- If we are strangers, it’s difficult to be friends
- Apples & yogurt: What money means in China
- 4 functions of Chinese apps
- Western brands in China: hits and misses
- China’s young identity market
- The false start of QR codes in the West versus China
- Contextual China
Mandarin learning
- My Chinese learning journey (update March 2024)
- Chinese characters in the Netherlands
- Past dark willows and flowers in bloom lies a shining village
- The first astronaut in space
- Brushing your teeth & learning Mandarin
- Learning Chinese with Pokémon
- How to know whether you’ve found a good language teacher
- Chinese language in The Wire
- Should you learn Mandarin despite China’s zero covid policy?
- Developing Chinese: Advanced Speaking Course 2 review
- My first speech in Mandarin
- Experience of Spoken Chinese language courses at GoEast Mandarin
- Learning Chinese has taught me about language
- 9 things I learned about Mandarin and about myself
- Learning Mandarin isn’t spiritual in itself
All posts on China
- Things forgotten and learned
- Barbecue heaven
- Reshooting Tangzhen
- In between a KFC and a Luck-in
- Bird watching and old towns
- Century
- On the banks of Yangtze
- A bridge to nowhere
- Tiny villages and their names
- Shanghai before the foreigners
- The bridge without a river
- Scorching Zhuqiao Village
- Landing planes and searching fishermen
- Outside the Outer Ring Road
- Marathon Mandarin Meetings
- University Road
- Sheep or goat?
- Chuansha before the heat
- Rules and not-rules
- Inside the factory
- Urban exploration on wheels
- How many minutes?
- Benidorm and Baduka
- Pots and time
- The mess that is school district houses
- Forbidden gardens
- The new old street in Tiantai
- Flowers and stepping stones
- Rice noodles drying
- Flowers on the trees
- Next to the highway
- Quarries in the mountain
- On the edge of Zhejiang
- Fog
- In Nanhui
- To walk is to learn
- Watermelon on the way, and scorched rice on arrival
- The end is at the Bund
- Live animals and cheap haircuts
- Mia’s Forbidden City
- China’s Great Wall
- Getting to know Beijing
- Street food in tiny alleys
- Street food
- Neighbors
- Visiting Gaoyou, some 750 years after Marco Polo
- Starbucksification of old streets
- Coins on the roof and a hole in my jacket
- Alone in the mountains with my mind
- My Chinese learning journey (update March 2024)
- Is China scary? A look at mundane life
- Up the Yangtze
- Chinese New Year banners
- Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains
- The name and city of Chuzhou
- Chungking Express
- Specimens in the middle of nowhere
- Out of the city and into other things
- Rice with a bang
- Two fish and four hairy crabs
- Trees of Shanghai
- How to survive in a Chinese company
- A place from fever dreams
- The edge of the edge
- Learning how to eat shrimp
- Searching for a wall
- Fresh again
- Searching for an apartment in Shanghai
- Fengxian District
- Bike radius on the map
- Saturday stroll in Shanghai
- A printer for the community
- A church in Anhui
- In between mountains
- Cold water
- A bubble in Anhui
- A walk in Ningguo
- Traveling during China’s public holiday
- Scratched
- Tidal wave near the Wengjin Line
- Convos
- Everything in Zhoupu
- You Say I Say Post-90s
- The old Japanese fortress
- Back to Xinchang
- The Great Wall of Shanghai
- Sporting across continents
- Scorching Songjiang
- Pudong evening ride
- Mountains & hikes near Shanghai
- Two hours to Huzhou
- Thirty Thousand Miles From Chang’an
- Lots of history, but we’re just casually observing in Songxicun
- Calming down, cooling down
- Stone markings
- Old Baoshan in the rain
- Gaoqiao, unintentionally the best-preserved area of Shanghai
- Tiny boats and tiny crabs
- Numbers in Pinghu
- The empty town in Shanghai
- Wanghong hell
- Chinese characters in the Netherlands
- Take me home
- This is Shanghai as well
- Going back with nothing to say
- Lakeside in Suzhou
- Long-necked chicken
- Words waiting to be spoken, in Zhelin
- ‘Sea Salt’, near the sea
- Sweaty Shaoxing
- Away from the cities, underneath the Milky Way
- The path we would have never walked
- Villages around Ningbo
- In Hangzhou’s new innovation park
- Twenty kilometers yet worlds apart
- Queens WeChat group
- Past & future — Covid & AI
- Back home in Yangpu Qu
- Abandoned village in Pudong
- My favorite places in Shanghai
- Shanghai’s seaside
- Sheds and shorts in Yangzhou & Jiangdu
- A chat with Lizzi Lee
- From pawn shop to high-tech park
- Working in Zhangjiang hi-tech park
- Walking in Huai’an
- A touch of sin (天注定)
- Food during the Chinese New Year break
- Old things in Shen’Ao
- Eating sunflower seeds
- Shishecun: An old village, a river, trees
- A thousand islands, a million tourists
- Hui architecture and Hello’s
- Villages above the clouds in Zhejiang
- Our world without plans
- Snow in Nanxiang
- Past dark willows and flowers in bloom lies a shining village
- The broken place
- Christmas card
- Crab shell yellow
- Elimination in the office
- The first astronaut in space
- Opening up
- All in a bike ride
- If only hugs and sunshine could be stored in boxes
- The new place in Pudong
- Flashbacks of the lockdown
- Autumn in Zhangjiagang
- Old, new, and rainclouds, in Zhenjiang
- The value of photographs
- Moving across the river
- White Forest Temple
- Understanding China (or actually; how not to misunderstand it)
- Comparing cameras
- Annoyance comes on three wheels
- The symbol of disappearing old Shanghai
- Brushing your teeth & learning Mandarin
- On wheels
- A ring and the road in Ninghai
- Peace Park
- Yangpu today
- Food during the Golden Week
- Nanbei Lake
- First time on a green train
- Old Nantong in October
- A good look at China
- Learning Chinese with Pokémon
- Tiger Cave Mountain
- Turtles and longevity
- Dutch dikes along Asian waters
- The changing and unchanging of Sijing
- The ancient merchant trail
- Gold in the ground
- Borders within the country
- Food in the trees
- True places in Weihai
- A wall, a mountain, and the people that climb it
- Big sister sends us to Luziyu
- Beneath and inside the clouds in Tai’an
- Hells Bells
- June Yellow
- Cheap rentals for non-locals
- Locked down and out again
- Disappearing Yangpu
- Three smoking sticks in my hand
- How to know whether you’ve found a good language teacher
- Healing
- Long distance calls while looking out of the window
- A jar of stones, sand & water
- Buying poultry
- Chinese language in The Wire
- Day one
- We’re out
- Should you learn Mandarin despite China’s zero covid policy?
- Yangpu during the Shanghai lockdown
- Why don’t you just move?
- Playing with fire
- Dabai at my door
- Dreaming of days
- Come rain come sunshine
- Our building’s WeChat group
- Shanghai’s stunning fall from grace
- Waiting
- Nerves and barricade tape
- Her in Shanghai
- Developing Chinese: Advanced Speaking Course 2 review
- Cities you’ve never heard of make up a huge part of China
- Characters in the wild
- Faces in the fire – Chinese New Year in rural Nantong
- Middle Country
- In Taicang: Porcelain shards of history
- Life in a café
- BUT!!!!!!!!
- My first speech in Mandarin
- Chinese consumers don’t really care about sustainability — does Alibaba?
- An interview with Shanghai artist Banana
- Description + telephone number
- In Kunshan: I’ve seen the future of China
- Spitting on the ground
- Three language poem
- In Shanghai: God and Three architectural committees
- Writing on China
- In Nantong: Pillars on the horizon
- In Jiangshan: Three peaks and a railway station
- Ye Garden in Shanghai
- This is me, in Chinese.
- Photography exhibition GoEast
- Experience of Spoken Chinese language courses at GoEast Mandarin
- Ordinary people (老百姓)
- Old is the song, yet new is the messenger
- If we are strangers, it’s difficult to be friends
- Apples & yogurt: What money means in China
- Nio ES6 review
- Last mosque in Suzhou
- 3 years in China
- On Putuoshan: For this live, not the next
- Learning Chinese has taught me about language
- Purify the soul
- Harmoniously together
- One year later
- In Suzhou: Ajax
- In Danyang: An anonymous tier-4 city
- 4 functions of Chinese apps
- Cutting bok choy in the stairwell
- Carving a bowl
- Western brands in China: hits and misses
- In Wuhan: A city on its own terms again
- Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai
- Shanghai-based-bookreaders
- Whispers from the tower
- Where workers sleep in Shanghai
- Cohorts
- Long blue rubber gloves
- GoEast Mandarin’s marketing and the impact of the corona virus in China
- Chinese exams
- Mini views on China
- Fake pagodas
- Shanghai Unfolds
- Chinese in Hattem
- Two years in China
- Ayis show the way
- The many cities above line 5
- 9 things I learned about Mandarin and about myself
- Once again, the Chinese people show their resourcefulness
- Shanghai’s rush hour under the coronavirus
- Learning Mandarin isn’t spiritual in itself
- Fudan’s Mini-MBA in Chinese Business
- Magazines around paperweights
- Hengshan & Huaihai Road
- SIVA/DeTao
- Tonglu town
- Press stroke
- Someone from the future would love to be here
- Cruisers & cargo ships
- Longing
- Old Captain Bar
- Shanghai’s old hospital
- Chinese Elders
- Suzhou, Jiangsu province
- Zwolle in Shanghai
- The difference between “wang” and “woef”
- Through the open doorway
- China’s young identity market
- The blank canvas that is Shanghai
- One big café
- Waves
- The false start of QR codes in the West versus China
- Contextual China
- Modern luxury in China: no more same old bling
- Joy City
- Tap the mind to grasp the enormity of change in China
- Nuance
- Henk Sneevlietweg metro station
- China’s media landscape and lessons for the West
- Ignorant predictions about China
- To the Hai
- Shanghai photography 2018
- Shanghai at night
- Minds of Shanghai
- West Lake, 2017
