Dutch in Translation

  If you've tasted, or at least seen a one thousand leaves cake, then you can get a picture of what The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle book is like, with only one difference. To start with, both have a thousand layers, one on top of the other and endlessly going on. The difference is that when tasting the cake, you take a bite and savor its layers; whereas, in the book, you might read it one time and get a sense of the layers of stories created by the writer, but once you go for it a second time, you realize how little you really understood on that first round! That's why I not only read this book but later listened to it, in order to feel I was ready to share my opinion which is: If you like scrumptious thousand leaves cakes, you should definitely try this one! And if you'd like whipped cream on top, then accompany your reading with one of Spotify's playlists based on the songs mentioned in the book (more info coming). The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami is a sci-f...

Having never left the place she was born and her only known home, one day Merve packed everything and said goodbye to Turkey. She'd lived in Ankara her whole life, but just as a river's flow takes new bends and bifurcates into streams, so did the life of Merve and her husband. A shared project, they took the leap by moving to the Netherlands in 2017. A year later, our Turkish expat found complete bliss by changing careers: from business administration to horeca medewerker. And you know what? She couldn't be happier!  What's her view on life?  How did she manage to take the jump and reinvent herself?  Here's her story. Back in Turkey: business analyst at an ERP consultancy company Before moving to Eindhoven, Merve lived in Ankara, working for the last five years in the IT industry as a support specialist. A ccording to what was expected from a business administration graduate, or what was expected of her, she had  a nice job, stable and steady. The software comp...

Superficially , Eliana is a lucky expat. A Brazilian woman who was able to find work and open her own hair salon just a year after arriving. In reality, during her first year in Eindhoven, she cried a lot, applied for jobs, took English and Dutch lessons, lost her father, fought cancer, registered as a freelancer, and started a business. To me, the question is not how she did it but, what does it take to have her resilience? Who is this expat woman who fights adversity and refuses to give up? How does one settle down and is happy in a new country? What can we learn from her?   Her first years by Vacaria River, Brazil Eliana grew up in the north southeast of Brazil, a rural region with no name, close to  Vacaria Ri ver. P eople live from their crops.  During prosperous times, they plant and harvest corn, beans, rice, potatoes, and other vegetables. Unfortunately, the land suffers from drought and poor soils, so people have to figure out a different way of making a li...