From Hattem to Shanghai and back again
Our new home in the Netherlands sits in a mundane residential area full of young families like ours. The street name comes from made ( meadow ), still referring to a field that once lay here and now survives only in the name (just how the name Shanghai refers to a river that no longer exists). And [ ] The post Searching for meadows appeared first on Jaap Grolleman .
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 [ ] The post Degrees of wealth appeared first on Jaap Grolleman .
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 [ ] The post Half a Jin, Eight Liang appeared first on Jaap…
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 [ ] The post Cake and Timepieces appeared first on Jaap…
Cycling with my brother from our hometown to Kampen and back, along the river the IJssel — which in this season has flooded the summer dikes and is held by the winter dikes. Such a long bicycle ride with my brother is always one of my favorite things to do when back home. 46 kilometers [ ] The post Along the IJssel appeared first on Jaap Grolleman .
The forest around my hometown. Soft ground under your feet, a hundred shades of green, leaves rustling in the wind, and paths that go on and on. Not a single path is the same. Nature has left dozens of markers to let you know exactly where you are, or how to get back. There’s a [ ] The post Hometown forest appeared first on Jaap Grolleman .
I m cycling through my hometown and the places of my youth, and it s impossible not to get romantic. The pond we used to feed the ducks with our mom and later fish on our own, the field where we played football but had to watch out for dog poo, and the outdoor swimming pool that [ ] The post The changing and unchanging parts and the bit between appeared first on Jaap Grolleman .
I m in my hometown in the Netherlands, a small city of around ten thousand people. And yet these words are still very much about China. Normally in this space, you ll find me looking at China through foreign eyes, but like many people who have lived abroad for a long time, I now also feel a [ ] The post One life lived, and others lost in the process appeared first on Jaap Grolleman .
(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 [ ] The post Chinese in Hattem appeared first on Jaap Grolleman .
David Coulthard labelled it the sporting story of the year, but citizens of the Netherlands went even crazier when Max Verstappen crossed the finish line on lap 66, to win a Grand Prix at 18 years old. Yesterday, grown-ups cheered and cried, newsbreaks hit the television, and timelines were flooded by celebrations as if we’d [ ] The post Max Mania in the Netherlands appeared first on Jaap…