Dear reader

I’m sat at gate E6 at Schiphol Airport waiting for my flight to be called. I’ve been here before; three months ago, to be precise. My flight back home isn’t direct, and Amsterdam is just a stopover.

I’ve spent the last three months in China – my flight from Beijing landed earlier today – and I had the mad idea of leaving the airport and going for a wander up to Dam Square. Anyway, a few photos have been snapped and a stroopwaffel or two scoffed, and I’m back at the airport. I’ve still got time so if you don’t mind indulging me once again, I shall write down a few thoughts.

*Probably not the best photos I could have taken but it was raining.

I have a fondness for the Netherlands. I visited the country regularly as a child and was lucky enough to study here for a semester while at university. Any opportunity to visit, even if my stay is fleeting, is always a pleasure.
I studied in Utrecht in the late 1990s. Before the Euro and when life seemed easier and almost certainly cheaper than it is today.
I was an exchange student, living and studying with other kids from a bunch of countries that I knew nothing about. Of course, the common language we had was English, but our lives were weaved together by dint of the fact we were there to study. We brought with us our own lives and culture, which shaped our lived experiences. Our differences became the glue that bound us together.
I felt less defined by my nationality and considered myself to be a citizen of the world – if that’s not too much of a cliche; definitely a European, striving to be an internationalist, just like that great raconteur Peter Ustinov. There was food I had never tried before, ideas I had never thought, jokes I had never laughed at; we survived on a couple of hours sleep every night, talking until the small hours, fuelled by cheap booze, music, and incredible conversations.
I left Utrecht better for the experience. More accepting of others, more open to new ideas, and more willing to listen to what others had to say.

I’ve been working in Beijing, China since November 2023, and while I was waiting for my flight, I wrote a blog post not far from where I’m sitting at the moment. I spent a while pondering what my experience in China would be like, as well as some indulgent navel gazing into my own past. If you would like to read it, click here: Confessions of a semi-itinerant.
Beijing was fantastic and not at all like I expected. I used the free time I had to explore the city and eat a variety of food. There are thousands of years of fascinating history, and I only scratched the surface. I tried to document my journey through a series of blog posts and if you are interested to read them, click here: A postcard from the Great Wall of China. Each post has an embedded video and at least one activity to complement the theme. I’ve addressed all posts to my 6-year-old nephew, Bertie. He is my target audience with the intention of providing information and fun materials which he can access himself. For every blog post, I sent him a postcard with the URL written at the bottom. He just needs to type the link into his device to gain access.
In writing these posts, it has also made me look a little deeper into the things I saw. Passive sightseeing is fine but in this case, I wanted to know a bit more, learn a bit more you might say.
Fundamentally, these are lesson materials and if you can find a use for them in your teaching, please do. There are 12 separate blog posts, which could well make the basis of 25-30 hours of lesson materials. I will at some point this week create a post to bring them together in one place. For the moment, each post is accessible from the home page, click here: Home page.
Oh, I said I got to explore the city, Beijing, but I also got to go to Shanghai, too. Both Beijing and Shanghai are mega-cities the likes of which I’ve never seen before. The thing that struck me was how advanced their transportation links are. Beijing to Shanghai is 1200km but with high-speed trains, you can get there in around four and a half hours. The metro systems in both cities are incredible. How on earth they have managed to dig such complex tunnels is astonishing. Beijing and Shanghai are not the only cities with subterranean metro systems. I believe there are 47 in China at the last count with more currently being built.
I ate great food and was impressed at the variety. It’s much more diverse than what I expected- what I thought was Chinese food, isn’t really Chinese food. The one thing I can say is it has ignited a love of aubergine/eggplant. Who would have thought it could be so diverse, eh? Also, it turns out MSG makes everything taste delicious. I recommend sprinkling a bit on your chips when you have your tea tonight.

My life has been guided by my life experiences and those I have met on my journey. I not only got to meet locals – kind and considerate people who often went out their way to help – but people from all over the world. This goes back and mirrors the experiences I had as an exchange student in the Netherlands. It was then as it now; I’ve always relished being in an international environment and some great times have been had.
Meeting new people is like Kryptonite to any prejudices and assorted assumed thinking we may harbour. With what seems to be an ever increasingly hostile world, it’s hard to make sense of the direction of travel. We should keep reminding ourselves that we are all human, often with the same concerns, aspirations, values, and interests.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. My flight is boarding, and I need to get in the queue. Let’s just hope I have a decent seat. You never know, I might strike up a conversation with a stranger and learn something new.

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