Chinese Studies

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Before finishing high school, I had already gained an early interest in studying foreign cultures and languages, perhaps thanks to the privilege of being able to travel to several countries outside of Europe in my childhood. In that time, I visited mostly countries in Asia and Latin America. For this reason, it may not really be that much of a coincidence that I ended up studying those regions.

     During my final year at high school, I knew that I wanted to study a non-Western language and culture. I considered several, including Russian and Japanese, but ended up at Chinese, without any good rationale. Mostly, I just wanted to study a complicated language. I knew close to nothing about China when I started studying Chinese studies in 2016—I barely knew the names of its capital and its president. Actually, I also had no idea if I would even like studying Chinese.

        I had no previous ties to China: I had not been there, nor had I at any point had any form of special interest in the country.

Before 2016, I could not have told you what the difference is between Mandarin and Cantonese, or what dumplings are. Still, I

gained an interest in China pretty quickly. During the first years of my studies, most attention was on language acquisition, and this especially took off during our Spring 2018 semester at Taipei University (师大).

       Our Taiwanese classes were laser-focused on further improving our language skills. Besides this, living in Taipei and travelling throughout the country enabled me to learn about Taiwanese culture and just experience how it is to live in another part of the world. In 2018, I also travelled through mainland China, trying out conversations with Chinese people (see photo) and experiencing daily life on the mainland. I think it was here that I realized that I made the right choice in studying China.

     Throughout my bachelor, I increasingly focused on (modern) history, including some art history. In 2019, I wrote my bachelor’s thesis on the Indo-Chinese community in the Dutch East Indies in the first half of the twentieth century, and, drawing from archival documents, I concluded that this community was pivotal in the difficulties of diplomatic consulations between the Dutch and Chinese governments in the 1930s and 1940s about ending colonial-era extraterritoriality rights for Dutch citizens on Chinese territory.

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Teaching​

 

In 2019, after completing my regular bachelor’s program, I pursued a teacher qualification at ICLON, learning how to teach Mandarin classes at high-school level. Teaching had interested me for some time, and I quickly realized that I really liked it. At the same time, I started teaching seminars at Leiden University to first-year Chinese studies students as a course assistant. The seminars were part of a course on contemporary Chinese politics, economy, and society. By starting both at the same time, I had ample time to practice teaching methods, and I was able to learn what parts of educating I liked.

    From 2019 to 2023, every first semester of the academic year I worked as the course assistant. Besides teaching seminar sessions, I was also responsible for the course assessment, i.e., grading of exams and papers. During the seminars, besides providing introduction to academic skills, we discussed a broad array of Chinese studies. This ranged from the post-Mao economic reforms to the construction of the Great Firewall, and from the Belt and Road Initiative to the problematic urban–rural divide.

 

Asian Studies

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In 2020–21, I studied the MA Asian Studies, focusing on East Asian studies specifically. Like in my bachelor program, I opted for courses on modern history as much as possible, together with more language acquisition courses. In the summer of 2021, I finished my master’s thesis on Chinese relations with Central America. In my thesis, I argued that the remarkable reluctance of Central American states to still side with Taiwan (ROC) over China (PRC) has its roots in the late Cold War, and presented four factors that account for local decision-making in the recognition rivalry between both Chinas.

Latin American Studies

 

Simultaneously, in 2020 I began the BA Latin American Studies. Having travelled to the region

with family before graduating from high school, this was a region I had a natural interest in.

Moreover, I thought it would be interesting to focus on a particular aspect of China’s interna-

tional relations, and in order to focus on Sino-Latin American relations, more knowledge of

the region itself would obviously be necessary. I also wanted to be able to speak Spanish. In

Summer 2023 I graduated from this program, concluding with a third thesis. This thesis built

on a discourse analysis of media and political discourse in two Central American states, Costa

Rica and Honduras, and examined which narratives about China, the U.S., and their great-

power rivalry have emerged in these countries in the period 2018–23.

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Research traineeship

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In 2023, I also participated in a research project as a trainee. We did research on the new

constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador (2008–09), how they are bringing the idea of plurinatio-

nalism in practice, and how they relate to the rejected new plurinational constitution in Chile

(2021–22).

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(Note: Since 2024, I work at the Ministry of OCW in the Hague.)