Jaap Grolleman

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.

Our new home in the Netherlands sits in a mundane residential area full of young families like ours.

In eight years of living in China, taxi drivers or older colleagues loved to ask, “Which is better, the Netherlands or China?”

Learning Chinese, or any language, makes you more aware of language in general.

There are multiple ways to define Shanghai.

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.

The forest around my hometown.

I’m cycling through my hometown and the places of my youth, and it’s impossible not to get romantic.

I’m in my hometown in the Netherlands, a small city of around ten thousand people.

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.