(Originally written for GoEast Mandarin.) My hometown Hattem has around 11,000 citizens, with on the north the river the Ijssel, and on the south the biggest forest of the Netherlands, the Veluwe, teeming with life and fields thick of heather. There are two bus stops, with a bus every two hours — but not on […]

Here’s a hugely impressive book, and I feel smarter and more understanding after reading it. Diamond writes a beautiful message: all societies are inventive, but the environments and starting materials, conditions are not the same. And most of it is based on the narrative of Yali’s question, an elegant and honest search that shows the […]

Today marks two years in China. All these days have stretched time and have given me much more than two years would justify. Highs and low, for which somehow I’m both grateful. Time slowly consumes you, until it wins. And yet it’s measured in experiences, not in years alone. Thank you China.

This is the sort of trick question that typically raises the dogma of “3 to 6 percent of revenue”. But all that does is make you approach your marketing backward, by starting your strategy with the budget. A strategy is a response to a challenge, so why start with the budget? Instead, plot a business […]

(Published on Shanghai’s non-profit HerCentury) I’ve been checking old places I went to on Google Street View, trying to remember names of classmates, looking up old cartoon movies we watched, and Lego sets we owned & other toys. I grew up in such wealth of love and space for creativity, even though we were just […]

Imagine being the doctor of a professional football team. You studied at a medical school for years, and now you sit on the bench — match after match — while nothing happens. Of course, because professional football players rank among the world’s fittest people. You watch every game from the sidelines, but you’re bored out […]

I keep reading about how our behavior and deeply rooted beliefs will be permanently changed by covid19. It’s worth pointing out that Shanghai is totally back to normal, except for some measures (schools closed, wearing facemasks, temperature checks). Kids & parents playing outside, people spending the money they saved in Feb/March on clothes and bubble […]

Cats miaow, dogs bark, and frogs croak. Other animals riffle their feathers (peacocks), glow (fireflies), or release scents (skunks). Or they write poetry and buy flowers and paint (humans). All to create responses from others, in order to survive or make life more pleasant. Well. Herring gulls are mostly auditory (cawing) and physical: they have […]

Lao Zhou sits on the courtesy seat of the subway with a bag of spinach and pork between his feet. For the past six decades, his life was lived around the creek and the buildings next to it. Sepia-tinted memories of a thousand bicycle rides alongside the water, girls, and French Phoenix trees — the […]

It’s now almost seven weeks since Chinese New Year’s eve, which for us marked the start of suddenly being forced to work from home. A big change from seeing each other at the campus every day. Here are three things on how we’ve coped, maintaining our sense of sanity and sense of togetherness. 1) Sharing […]