This is the story of the 535th real person we tell
I am Mia, born in the 1980s in Nanjing, and now living in the Netherlands .
As the only child in the family, my father has not cared about me very much since I was a child. My mother has a bad temper and often starts yelling without saying a few words. The scene of a loving father and mother is simply a fantasy in our family. I have always wanted to escape from such a cold family, as far away as possible.
Destiny seemed to have heard my prayer, and a red thread led me to the Netherlands thousands of miles away. People say that life in Europe is very laid-back, but I lost my job within a few days and was "driven" by a group of people to start a business, and I never looked back.
(Photo of me and the tape recorder as a child)
In 1983, I was born in a dual-income family in Nanjing. Both parents worked in public institutions, and the family conditions were good since I was a child. Whatever delicious and fun things are available at home, I enjoy them all by myself. It can be said that I only enjoy them. There are no brothers or sisters to compete with me. But at the same time, there is also a lack of care and an increase of loneliness.
My parents are usually very busy at work and often don’t get home until seven in the evening, leaving me alone at home. At that time, parents seemed to have little awareness of safety. They thought that keeping their children at home was like staying in the safety circle drawn by Sun Wukong for Tang Monk. As long as they did not go out, they would be safe. My parents just told me to stay at home and not open the door to anyone. Apart from this, there are no other instructions.
In fact, there are many safety risks for children at home alone, such as electric shock, gas , fire, knives, etc. A classmate of mine was alone at home and fell down from the 6th floor for some reason. Fortunately, he was lucky enough to have a big cut on his face from a clothes hanger on the third floor. He was sent to the hospital for more than a dozen stitches, but the rest of his body was not seriously injured.
I am rebellious at heart, but I dare not blatantly do so. I'm just a bit lazy when it comes to learning and don't like to use my brain. But in order to save face, I always pretend to love to learn, but in fact there are all kinds of little tricks underneath. Sometimes, there is a book on the table, and I seem to be staring at it, but as long as I pay a little attention, I will find that the page of the book has not been turned for a long time.
(My mother also dressed me up very fashionably when I was a child)
On normal days, my mother would get up early in the morning to steam steamed buns, and I would pack them up and go to school, bringing a lunch box with the leftovers from the night before. You can steam it at school for lunch at noon, so you don’t have to run home to eat. I have to wait until my mother gets home at seven o'clock to make dinner. Our grandparents’ homes are far away, so it’s unrealistic to help us. We have to rely on ourselves.
Throughout my school days, what I miss most is my high school days. At that time, I finally no longer had to endure the cold and lonely time after school because I was living on campus. There are eight blooming girls in a dormitory, and they have endless topics to talk about every day. The conversations are extremely lively, and my mood is like rain after a long drought. I am very happy that I have finally found my true self.
The happy time of three years is always fleeting. In 2001, I was successfully admitted to the international trade major of a university in Jiangsu Province. After graduation, I worked in a foreign trade company.
(Girls who love to laugh are not so lucky)
My English, especially grammar, is not very good, but because I often deal with European and American customers, my spoken English is quite good, probably even better than the average CET-8 English major. Usually we communicate with customers and handle order issues by email, but my boss takes me to attend the Canton Fair twice every year.
The Canton Fair is all about business. Unexpectedly, I not only talked about business at the Canton Fair, but also fell in love. A customer came to attend the Canton Fair, and his friend came from the Netherlands to travel to China. Through a customer's introduction, we met and started chatting. Later, he returned to the Netherlands after his trip, and we exchanged emails. Later, we added friends on social platforms, and we chatted like online friends for a while.
After about half a year, the relationship became stronger and stronger. I wanted to see his real situation in the Netherlands, so I quit my job and applied for a tourist visa to visit the Netherlands.This activity lasted for three months, and it was the most detailed investigation I have ever done. After all, it is related to my future destiny, so I have to be cautious.
(Photos taken while visiting Nanjing)
At that time, I originally wanted to buy a direct ticket to the Netherlands, but due to various reasons, I failed to book it. Later, I bought a flight ticket to Frankfurt, Germany, thinking that I would transfer to the Netherlands when I got there. After all, we are in an EU country, which would be much more convenient.
Unexpectedly, he, who has always been gentle and steady, unexpectedly went out of his way. He felt that the transfer was inconvenient and wasted time, so he drove all the way from the Netherlands to Frankfurt Airport in Germany to pick me up. When he picked me up and drove all the way back to the Netherlands, it took more than four hours one way. Thinking about the eight-hour round trip, I was so shocked that my jaw almost dropped. This etiquette was so grand!
didn't expect that this was nothing. In order for me to stay, simply took a big gamble and spent all his vacation for a whole year to stay with me for a month and a half. He took me to Paris, the romantic capital of France, to Schloss Neuschwanstein in Germany, and for a long walk in Switzerland, which made me feel his full sincerity.
Mr. Qian Zhongshu once said: "Travel can best test a person's character." There is also a paragraph about marriage and travel in " Besieged City ": "The honeymoon trip after marriage is in reverse order, and travel should be done first. One month after another, the two parties have not seen through each other and are disgusted with each other. They still want to maintain the original engagement. This kind of couple guarantees that they will not divorce. "It is precisely because of this more than one month of traveling together that I can see. His attentiveness and thoughtfulness strengthened his determination to stay.
(Cycling is the most popular way to walk children)
When I came to the Netherlands for the first time, I felt like I was in a fairy tale world. Looking around, there are no high-rise buildings around. There are colorful gabled townhouses everywhere, shaded by trees, large seas of tulips flowers, large lawns, and windmills everywhere, making the Dutch fairy tale The smell is very strong.
just arrived in the Netherlands. One day he said: "Let's eat vegetable salad today." I nodded happily and said, "Okay, okay." As a result, when eating, he brought out a large bowl of raw vegetables, sprinkled some seasoning on them, and that was done. But it made me so depressed that my originally red face almost turned green.
I have lived for more than 20 years and have never eaten any raw vegetables except cold cucumbers . Eating a pot of raw vegetables is equivalent to a rabbit eating grass. I joked: "Are we eating grass today?" He said seriously: "This is a vegetable salad." I had no choice but to join in, but I didn't expect that I was right. At the end of the meal, I actually found a piece of grass in the salad, which almost made me laugh crazy.
Dutch people mostly do things slowly and are more enthusiastic towards others. They will say hello when walking on the road regardless of whether they recognize them or not. 's English is pretty good, and both men and women, old and young, can speak English, which is great for me. At least at the beginning of my life, I won't have a lot of language inconveniences, and I won't be particularly anxious at the beginning. However, in order to integrate into the life of the locals, Dutch must be learned, because passing the language test is one of the conditions for getting a green card.
After playing around for a while, I felt pretty good. After returning to China, I decisively applied for immigration and went to the Netherlands. That was in 2010. We didn't get married right away. I stayed in the Netherlands for more than a year before getting the certificate. Unexpectedly, when he got married, his true colors were revealed, and he took the Dutch's "stinginess" to the extreme.
(photo taken in the studio)
The wedding process was so simple that it was almost negligible. He also specially picked a Monday to go to the city hall with me to sign and register, not because it was an auspicious day, but just because there was no fee to register on Monday. Even our wedding witnesses were temporary staff from the city hall.
Since his parents were gone, we signed and received the certificate in the morning and went straight to the airport in the afternoon to fly directly from the Netherlands to Bali, Indonesia for our honeymoon. The next year we returned to China, took a set of additional wedding photos, and treated our family members to a simple meal, which was considered acknowledgment.
When I first arrived in the Netherlands in 2010, I only had a short internship in a Dutch company engaged in clothing import. It happened to be the economic crisis and major layoffs, and I was unable to stay as an ordinary intern.
(The pastoral scenery of the Netherlands is intoxicating)
Fortunately, the east is not bright but the west is bright. Before going to the Netherlands, some friends made an appointment to entrust me to buy milk powder on their behalf. At that time, there were no various platforms. If you wanted to buy foreign things, purchasing on behalf of others was the only convenient way.
I didn’t know anything at that time. As long as someone entrusted me to buy something, I would do it. Later, more and more people commissioned it, so I simply opened an online store. We will transport large quantities of goods by air. We will send a batch to Nanjing and store it at a friend’s house to sell as spot goods.
When I first arrived in the Netherlands, I didn’t have any difficulty with the language or the discomfort of life. The only difficulty I had was that milk powder was really hard to buy! Supermarkets have restricted the purchase of milk powder, and one person can only buy one can. In order to get a box of 6 cans of milk powder, I have to visit at least 6 supermarkets.
In order to buy milk powder, I know all the supermarkets nearby. While I lamented the difficulty of buying milk powder, I didn’t understand why the purchase was restricted at first. If I buy more, won’t the supermarket sell more and make more money? Who would turn away the business that comes to their doorstep? Later I realized that the purchase restriction was actually to protect locals.
(The sheep on the roadside are also very friendly to people)
I was very busy opening an online store. I was working alone. I was about to make the store bigger by myself. My pregnancy put a pause on my glory. I have always held multiple jobs by myself, including purchasing, packaging, customer service, after-sales, and marketing, all by myself. I am extremely busy.
My husband is very opposed to me opening an online store. He feels that consumers are too difficult to deal with. If you don’t just want to buy something, you have to spend a long time talking nonsense. In fact, he doesn't understand that buying and selling requires building trust. There is an old Chinese saying that goes, “Buying and selling cannot be done without benevolence and righteousness.” This is the truth. Maybe because of this, I have a lot of repeat customers.
My husband is very busy at work. Seeing that I enjoy it, he doesn’t interfere too much, but it doesn’t help much either. In this way, I worked alone for 5 years. later became pregnant. In order to ship all the goods before delivery, a week before the baby was born, I still knelt on the ground to pack with my belly full. Although was hard work, I thought about being a sports midwife in the later stages of pregnancy, so I gritted my teeth and persevered.
(A beautiful nurse dresses a newborn baby)
Another thing that I find difficult is taking the driving license test. I passed every subject of my driving license test in China in one try, but it took me two years and five road tests to get my driver's license in the Netherlands. During the road test of , there were all kinds of little details that made people laugh, cry, and feel unwilling. The Dutch are simply picky to the extreme.
There are no other subjects when taking the driving license test in the Netherlands except for traffic regulations and the road test. As a Chinese, I passed the Dutch traffic regulations easily. Then came the nightmare road test. Each road test lasted about 40 minutes. On the fifth test, the teacher asked me directly: "Do you know where you went wrong in the previous tests?" I muttered in my heart: "Can you not know!"
did not drive past the cyclist in front. and too close to them; braking and stopping at the turntable at the intersection, obstructing traffic, and traveling too fast on the turntable; not looking to both sides frequently enough or too much when driving on the highway; not looking in the rearview mirror before parking on the roadside. The traffic conditions in there, etc., all kinds of things that I think are normal, but are not qualified in the Netherlands.
By the fifth time, I guess the instructor couldn’t bear to see me take the exam for the sixth time, so I finally passed the exam. A driver's license tortured me for two years, and I also spent more than 100 hours on the road training, plus more than 50,000 yuan. It is really a history of blood and tears. But it was through trial and error that I truly understood the value and fragility of life. Life cannot be repeated, and anything that may threaten the safety of life must be taken seriously.
After my son was born in a public hospital in the Netherlands in 2015, I did not ask my parents to go to the Netherlands to take care of me during confinement or take care of the child. If my parents come and they don’t understand the language and are not used to living, I still have to take care of them. Just let them be "Grandma and Grandpa Yun" and just have video chats on a regular basis.
After my child was born, I took care of it by myself most of the time, and I really didn’t have much energy to take care of the online store. Coupled with the emergence of domestic milk powder in China that rivaled the best-selling milk powder in the Netherlands, the demand for Dutch milk powder dropped sharply. I put aside the online store and chose a more flexible career. I began to learn to make short videos, hoping to work hard in this blue ocean. own new business.
(I feel better when walking outdoors)
It has been more than ten years since I came to the Netherlands, and my son is seven years old this year. I truly feel that my motherland is prosperous and strong, and it has become more influential in the international community. Currently, the Chinese are the fourth largest ethnic minority in the Netherlands. Many Chinese people are also actively participating in politics and speaking out for the Chinese people, gradually changing the silence of the Chinese people, so that we unknown civilians no longer feel invisible.
’s son attends a public primary school in an ordinary Dutch town. Their school is the only one among the five primary schools in the village that offers Chinese classes. Generally, Dutch children don’t learn foreign languages ​​until junior high school, but their school offers Chinese classes in fifth grade. What’s even more surprising is that Chinese classes are not open to all students, only outstanding students are eligible. When I realized this, I felt a sense of national pride. But I almost got divorced because of my identity as Chinese.
(The tulips in the Netherlands are so beautiful)
One day my husband came back from get off work, looked at me as if he was hesitant to speak, and said solemnly: "We have to divorce, otherwise we won't be able to do this project." I was shocked, like a bolt from the blue. I had provoked someone at home, why did I suddenly want a divorce? After understanding the cause and effect, I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
It turns out that he took over the radar system project of the Dutch military. This project has very strict review of staff and family members. Because of security issues, the Dutch Ministry of Security came to visit my home for four hours. They threw a bunch of questions at me and bombarded me so wildly that I wanted to dig out my eighteen generations of ancestors and ask them all over again.
I was very uneasy and nervous at first, but gradually I calmed down and told myself not to panic. In the end, I even felt a little tired. The whole process was like a roller coaster of emotions, up and down, and I was afraid that someone would accidentally catch me. Fortunately, my family are all ordinary people and have never done anything shocking. In the end, I passed the review, he got the project, and everyone was happy.
My husband has a colleague who is not so lucky. The National Security Agency knew that he was dating a Russian girlfriend and immediately kicked him out of the office building without even giving him time to say goodbye to his colleagues.
(Although we are drifting abroad, our roots have always been in China)
At home, our language is very confusing: mainly English, supplemented by Dutch and Chinese. I speak Chinese to my children, my children speak Dutch to my father, and my husband speaks English and Dutch to me. Therefore, my child started to speak relatively late. When he first learned to speak, he mixed up three languages ​​and spoke them together, and no one except me could interpret them.
Now I speak Chinese and my son can basically understand it, but only with simple words and expressions. In the future, I still hope that he will have the ability and opportunity to challenge Chinese in his senior year. After all, he is half Chinese and is uniquely equipped to learn Chinese.
Although my online store is temporarily suspended, I have never thought about living a life like a salty fish for a moment. In my opinion, income represents ability and confidence, and couples should support each other no matter where they are.
is independent and is another kind of scenery for women. When you are happy, you can wash your hands and make soup; when you are sad, you can drink wine to the sky.
As the poet Shu Ting said in " To the Oak ": "Be a kapok near you, sharing the cold wave, wind and thunder, and thunderbolt, and also sharing the mist, liulan, hauni, growing up. "Waiting for each other on the road."
[Oral: Mia]
[Editor: Cheng Xin Cheng Yi]
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