Jaap Grolleman
From Hattem to Shanghai and back again
- Posts
- 842 from 11 Jul 2007 to 27 Oct 2026
- Posting
- weekly (38 in the last year)
- Kind
- personal blog
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2026 30
- The Lies We Tell
- Dit is ook China review
- Travel plugs
- Twenty-three years
- Searching for meadows
- How to get a job in China (Update 2026)
- Degrees of wealth
- Goodbye to Guanyin
- Half a Jin, Eight Liang
- Cake and Timepieces
- A candle in Minnesota
- Revisiting Columbine
- Rich People Park
- Torrential rain and colorful umbrellas
- Streetside in the AI Park
- Clothes Making Clouds
- Passing on the Baton
- Arriving at an emotion
- People of Nantong
- Cozy market alleys and pot stickers
- Forgotten patch of land
- Cobblestones and Lions in Longmen
- Chinese New Year shopping in Majin
- Dutch Signs in Xixinan
- A Dam in Yuliang
- The Last Road To Zaotai
- The Path and Meaning
- Kunshan Diorama
- Hyperreality
- In Praise Of Writing (And the Case Against AI)
2025 51
- Secret Listening #6
- Chosen Streets
- Thirty kilometers out
- Ways to harmony
- The Return of Magic
- Toilet Egg Pancake
- These Same Roads Again
- To Taipei and Back in a Day
- A summer’s day in autumn
- Mary in Qibao
- Empty shops
- My favorite hidden gems to visit in Shanghai (2025 update)
- Neighbourhood Temple
- Expat Tax
- Taxi app
- Searching for private space
- Hasse
- Today’s ride along chicks and rickety buildings
- Ender’s Game review
- Exploring with FlashFM
- Three thousand steps from home
- The dark outdoor air
- A Song of Achilles
- Shandong couple
- Pancakes at the crossroads
- Tom Lake Review
- Vendors in the rain
- Stoics and the rain
- Secret listening #5
- Socks
- The empty village
- A wave of slate
- Flowing through Heqiao
- The name Shanghai
- Alone with Mona Lisa
- Feeding turtles
- Immigration Area
- A bubble in Suzhou
- The village within the city
- What I’ve learned from living in China for seven years
- Hustle and bustle
- My Chinese learning journey (update March 2025)
- New Harbor Market Town
- One Step Garden
- Rainy Fengcheng
- A candle in Auckland
- Learning Vietnam
- Towards the light
- A foodie for once
- Mountains & hikes near Shanghai (update 2025)
- The former station
2024 83
- Wood carvings and paintings
- The empty road around Shaoxing
- Another village appears
- Tiramisu in Changshu
- A hundred kilometers from Shanghai and a thousand miles from work
- Fresh market
- Altstadt
- The old continent
- The Matarese Circle review
- Things forgotten and learned
- Barbecue heaven
- Reshooting Tangzhen
- In between a KFC and a Luck-in
- Bird watching and old towns
- Century
- Past Caring review
- On the banks of Yangtze
- A bridge to nowhere
- Tiny villages and their names
- Back to Jiading
- Shanghai before the foreigners
- A thousand miles in Cambodia
- The bridge without a river
- Scorching Zhuqiao Village
- Landing planes and searching fishermen
- Outside the Outer Ring Road
- Marathon Mandarin Meetings
- University Road
- Sheep or goat?
- Underneath the stars
- Chuansha before the heat
- What is literature, and why read the books we read?
- Iron & Silk review
- Rules and not-rules
- The lone tower
- Vesper Flights review
- An abandoned church in Pudong
- Inside the factory
- Urban exploration on wheels
- How many minutes?
- Benidorm and Baduka
- Pots and time
- The mess that is school district houses
- Forbidden gardens
- The new old street in Tiantai
- Now on WeChat (public account)
- Flowers and stepping stones
- Rice noodles drying
- Flowers on the trees
- Next to the highway
- Quarries in the mountain
- On the edge of Zhejiang
- Fog
- In Nanhui
- To walk is to learn
- Watermelon on the way, and scorched rice on arrival
- The end is at the Bund
- Live animals and cheap haircuts
- Mia’s Forbidden City
- China’s Great Wall
- Getting to know Beijing
- Circe review
- Street food in tiny alleys
- Street food
- Neighbors
- The pharmacy and its tiles
- Visiting Gaoyou, some 750 years after Marco Polo
- Where to travel in Shanghai
- Starbucksification of old streets
- Coins on the roof and a hole in my jacket
- Alone in the mountains with my mind
- Is China scary? A look at mundane life
- Up the Yangtze
- Along the IJssel
- Chinese New Year banners
- Hometown forest
- In Pale Battalions review
- Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains
- The name and city of Chuzhou
- No signal
- Chungking Express
- Specimens in the middle of nowhere
- Out of the city and into other things
2023 92
- Rice with a bang
- Two fish and four hairy crabs
- Trees of Shanghai
- How to survive in a Chinese company
- Cowboys in Zhangjiang
- A place from fever dreams
- The edge of the edge
- Learning how to eat shrimp
- The bird that doesn’t eat corn
- Searching for a wall
- Fresh again
- Searching for an apartment in Shanghai
- Fengxian District
- Fake Dutch windmills in China
- Bike radius on the map
- Saturday stroll in Shanghai
- Farewell My Concubine
- My first visit to the United States
- A printer for the community
- Tourism in Anhui
- A church in Anhui
- In between mountains
- Cold water
- A bubble in Anhui
- A walk in Ningguo
- Traveling during China’s public holiday
- Scratched
- Tidal wave near the Wengjin Line
- Everything in Zhoupu
- You Say I Say Post-90s
- The old Japanese fortress
- Back to Xinchang
- The Great Wall of Shanghai
- The site of China’s first rocket launch
- Sporting across continents
- Indiana and moving East
- Scorching Songjiang
- Pudong evening ride
- Two hours to Huzhou
- Thirty Thousand Miles From Chang’an
- Lots of history, but we’re just casually observing in Songxicun
- Calming down, cooling down
- Stone markings
- Old Baoshan in the rain
- Gaoqiao, unintentionally the best-preserved area of Shanghai
- Tiny boats and tiny crabs
- Numbers in Pinghu
- The empty town in Shanghai
- Wanghong hell
- Dutch comfort & crudeness
- Chinese characters in the Netherlands
- The changing and unchanging parts and the bit between
- One life lived, and others lost in the process
- Secret listening #4
- Take me home
- This is Shanghai as well
- Going back with nothing to say
- Lakeside in Suzhou
- Long-necked chicken
- Words waiting to be spoken, in Zhelin
- ‘Sea Salt’, near the sea
- Sweaty Shaoxing
- Away from the cities, underneath the Milky Way
- The path we would have never walked
- Betwixt and Between review
- Villages around Ningbo
- In Hangzhou’s new innovation park
- Twenty kilometers yet worlds apart
- Queens WeChat group
- Past & future — Covid & AI
- Back home in Yangpu Qu
- Smartphone pictures of China
- Abandoned village in Pudong
- Shanghai’s seaside
- Sheds and shorts in Yangzhou & Jiangdu
- A chat with Lizzi Lee
- From pawn shop to high-tech park
- Working in Zhangjiang hi-tech park
- Huitong 6 review
- Walking in Huai’an
- A touch of sin (天注定)
- Food during the Chinese New Year break
- Old things in Shen’Ao
- Eating sunflower seeds
- Shishecun: An old village, a river, trees
- A thousand islands, a million tourists
- Hui architecture and Hello’s
- Villages above the clouds in Zhejiang
- Our world without plans
- Snow in Nanxiang
- Past dark willows and flowers in bloom lies a shining village
- The broken place
2022 88
- Christmas card
- Crab shell yellow
- Elimination in the office
- The first astronaut in space
- Opening up
- All in a bike ride
- If only hugs and sunshine could be stored in boxes
- The new place in Pudong
- Flashbacks of the lockdown
- Autumn in Zhangjiagang
- Old, new, and rainclouds, in Zhenjiang
- Post-Double Eleven delivery piles
- The value of photographs
- Moving across the river
- White Forest Temple
- Understanding China (or actually; how not to misunderstand it)
- Comparing cameras
- Annoyance comes on three wheels
- The symbol of disappearing old Shanghai
- Brushing your teeth & learning Mandarin
- On wheels
- A ring and the road in Ninghai
- Peace Park
- The Kingdom of Shadow review
- Yangpu today
- Food during the Golden Week
- Nanbei Lake
- First time on a green train
- Old Nantong in October
- A good look at China
- Learning Chinese with Pokémon
- Tiger Cave Mountain
- An audience with Zhufa
- Turtles and longevity
- Dutch dikes along Asian waters
- The changing and unchanging of Sijing
- The ancient merchant trail
- Gold in the ground
- Borders within the country
- Food in the trees
- True places in Weihai
- A wall, a mountain, and the people that climb it
- Big sister sends us to Luziyu
- Beneath and inside the clouds in Tai’an
- Cobra review
- Hells Bells
- June Yellow
- A Canticle for Leibowitz review
- Cheap rentals for non-locals
- Locked down and out again
- Disappearing Yangpu
- Three smoking sticks in my hand
- How to know whether you’ve found a good language teacher
- River Town review
- Healing
- Long distance calls while looking out of the window
- A jar of stones, sand & water
- Buying poultry
- Chinese language in The Wire
- Day one
- We’re out
- Should you learn Mandarin despite China’s zero covid policy?
- Yangpu during the Shanghai lockdown
- Why don’t you just move?
- Playing with fire
- Dabai at my door
- Dreaming of days
- Come rain come sunshine
- Our building’s WeChat group
- Lord of the Ring review (The Fellowship of the Rings, The Two Towers, and Return of the King)
- Shanghai’s stunning fall from grace
- Waiting
- Little Aunt Crane review
- Nerves and barricade tape
- Her in Shanghai
- 想 (Wish)
- Geef me de ruimte! review
- Warcross review
- Developing Chinese: Advanced Speaking Course 2 review
- Cities you’ve never heard of make up a huge part of China
- Ready Player Two review
- Characters in the wild
- Faces in the fire – Chinese New Year in rural Nantong
- Thrillers & detectives
- The Vegetarian review
- Middle Country
- Secret listening #3
- Porcelain shards of history
2021 72
- We’ve lived 2021
- A God in Ruins review
- Life in a café
- BUT!!!!!!!!
- My first speech in Mandarin
- Chinese consumers don’t really care about sustainability — does Alibaba?
- An interview with Shanghai artist Banana
- Description + telephone number
- I’ve seen the future of China
- Spitting on the ground
- Three language poem
- Act on instinct and data
- In Shanghai: God and Three architectural committees
- Writing on China
- Champions Day review
- Pillars on the horizon
- I want to be vulnerable, not strong
- Three peaks and a railway station
- Ye Garden in Shanghai
- This is me, in Chinese.
- Photography exhibition GoEast
- Oracle Bones review
- The One Minute Sales Person review
- Coffee cups at GoEast
- Experience of Spoken Chinese language courses at GoEast Mandarin
- Ordinary people (老百姓)
- How to speak to a person who is learning the language you speak
- I don’t miss teaching, but I do miss the students
- Secret listening #2
- The Devotion of Suspect X review
- Island of the Blue Dolphins review
- China CEO II review
- The Outsider review
- Old is the song, yet new is the messenger
- Interior at GoEast
- Shirts at GoEast
- If we are strangers, it’s difficult to be friends
- Doe maar gewoon review
- Shuǎng at GoEast
- Death on the Nile review
- 1989
- Legacy of Blood review
- GoEast Mandarin
- Everything is environment
- GoEast Mandarin is moving
- Event posters at GoEast
- Why don’t we___?
- Journey Under the Midnight Sun review
- The Old Man and the Sea review
- Apples & yogurt: What money means in China
- You cannot love what you want to change
- Nio ES6 review
- Last mosque in Suzhou
- Mini-Documentary for GoEast
- Artful review
- 3 years in China
- For this live, not the next
- Learning Chinese has taught me about language
- Purify the soul
- Harmoniously together
- Being poor is a cycle
- The desire path
- Marketing education needs less intuition, more evidence (Or, ‘What I wish I learned in Ad School’)
- Assembling airplanes
- On idioms
- The Plot Against America review
- The White Book Review
- Is posting memes on Facebook marketing?
- One year later
- Factory Girls review
- In Suzhou: Ajax
- Garden of the mind
2020 78
- Life after life review
- ‘Who: The A Method for Hiring’ review & summary
- In Danyang: An anonymous tier-4 city
- Solar panels versus coal mines
- No Rules Rules review
- Age shaming on national television
- Hackers & Painters review
- 4 functions of Chinese apps
- GoEast Mandarin photography
- Cutting bok choy in the stairwell
- You can understand without approval
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy review
- If you can’t tell the difference between your strategy and tactics, you have no strategy
- Carving a bowl
- Western brands in China: hits and misses
- In Wuhan: A city on its own terms again
- Looking down on people is bad practice, especially for marketeers
- Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai
- Educated review
- So how does someone actually become a better person? (vs. learning Chinese characters)
- Shanghai-based-bookreaders
- Lost on Planet China review
- My favourite subreddits
- Whispers from the tower
- The Upside of Unrequited review
- Rendezvous with Rama review
- Where workers sleep in Shanghai
- Cohorts
- Writing as part of marketing
- Abandoned messages on WeChat
- The Dutch House review
- Fluff and failure to understand areas of underperformance
- Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda review
- Long blue rubber gloves
- The Enemy review
- Don’t rely on others for your identity
- The ironic crux of marketing: differentiation and distinctiveness
- GoEast Mandarin’s marketing and the impact of the corona virus in China
- HSK Standard Course books review
- Xenocide review
- Heem
- Teaching marketing and doing marketing
- Chinese exams
- HSK4上 finished!
- Mini views on China
- Tuning out
- Fake pagodas
- Shanghai Unfolds
- The Gardener and the Carpenter review
- Hanzi
- Into the Woods review
- Specify. Choose. Specify. Choose. Specify.
- Chinese in Hattem
- Guns, Germs and Steel review
- Two years in China
- How much to spend on marketing?
- Mother’s Day
- The big wait
- Ayis show the way
- How to seduce chicks with art
- The many cities above line 5
- Three home-working tips from China
- 9 things I learned about Mandarin and about myself
- You cannot buy customers (Why marketers should avoid discounting)
- You own the right to your own feelings
- Secret listening #1
- Opposites
- Challenges & solutions for having to abruptly teach online
- Five books I recommend because they’re profound
- Shoe Dog review
- Once again, the Chinese people show their resourcefulness
- The Day of the Locust Review
- Shanghai’s rush hour under the coronavirus
- Learning Mandarin isn’t spiritual in itself
- Stateless in Shanghai review
- Timberland Project Better
- Goblins & Howard Roark
- Hate flows downwards
2019 54
- Don’t Pay for Your MBA review
- Fudan’s Mini-MBA in Chinese Business
- I am Pilgrim review
- Magazines around paperweights
- Bel Canto review
- Holtenbroek
- Remembrance of Earth’s Past review
- When Breath Becomes Air review
- Hengshan & Huaihai Road
- You cannot see yourself
- SIVA/DeTao
- Tonglu town
- Press stroke
- Deniz
- Someone from the future would love to be here
- The edge of the forest
- Going back to your childhood is part of growing up
- Days that have everything
- The painting and the frame
- The Solar System and footprints on the moon
- 30 years
- Judo versus karate
- Decline is inevitable, but misery isn’t
- Recycling is a massive red herring
- Innovation isn’t flying cars or VR glasses
- WRI: Generating appeal for plant-based dishes
- Leftover women review
- Hershey’s Kisses on the Bund
- Greybox Coffee Shanghai Xintiandi store opening
- The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are review
- So what is branding? And what does it have to do with livestock? And what did king Solomon say about it?
- Speaker for the Dead review
- Being the center of attention
- Cruisers & cargo ships
- Language is about people, and marketing is a language @ Inbound Marketing Forum in Shanghai
- Strategy is specific, specifics are semantics
- Longing
- How to Be Both review
- Old Captain Bar
- Language is about people and advertising is about language
- The bowl with the cat printed on it
- Walking around Albert Park
- Ayrton and Massimo
- An Excess Male review
- Our struggle against pleasure
- Thailand during Chinese New Year
- Strategy lessons from racing
- 4&5 mei vrijheids-pin
- ‘How to build a car’ review
- 21 Lessons for the 21st Century review
- Shanghai’s old hospital
- The rarer nature becomes, the more distant we become of it
- Chinese Elders
- Suzhou, Jiangsu province
2018 64
- Zwolle in Shanghai
- Take a photo of your supermarket
- The difference between “wang” and “woef”
- H is for Hawk review
- Through the open doorway
- China’s young identity market
- CPNB Kinderboekenweek
- Een glimlach uit het Oosten review
- Heart of Darkness review
- Burning the Days review
- The blank canvas that is Shanghai
- One big café
- Waves
- One Plus One Equals Three review
- Ball Lightning review
- Folding Beijing review
- Anna and the King of Siam review
- The false start of QR codes in the West versus China
- Contextual China
- Modern luxury in China: no more same old bling
- 12 Rules for Life review
- A list of simple solutions
- Colours of Tmall
- Joy City
- Tap the mind to grasp the enormity of change in China
- Nuance
- Henk Sneevlietweg metro station
- A Geek in China review
- The over-marketing of things, and praise for the OV-fiets
- Citizens of the Bowery
- China’s media landscape and lessons for the West
- Ender in Exile review
- Ignorant predictions about China
- Resources added
- Content marketing is simple, but companies aren’t designed to make it well
- “If only”
- To the Hai
- Thinking Fast and Slow review
- Hoe lang nog zwijgen review
- This is the Story of a Happy Marriage review
- The science behind how practice makes you better
- Boring truths
- Ready Player One Review
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck review
- Virtual Racing School case study
- Promoting Positivity
- Young China review
- Mapping values
- LIFE’S for living
- Turning your logo upside down for equality
- Climbing the pyramid: Advertising in a richer world
- Three simple suggestions to make Dutch train travel even better
- To balance a brand
- De stilte en de storm review
- The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning review
- Shanghai photography 2018
- Virtual Racing School
- Street of Eternal Happiness review
- Wish Lanterns review
- Replacement versus imitator
- Fundraising campaign for Greenpeace
- Never stop playing
- Wild Swans review
- International Sim Racing Federation
2017 58
- The Geography of Thought Review
- Interview with Andretti Autosport’s lead engineer, Graham Quinn
- Politics and the English Language review
- Double diffusers and bamboo toothbrushes
- Interview with former F1 driver Scott Speed
- Driver Spotlight: The Prince in Blue
- Questions Nobody Asks
- The Art of Racing in the Rain review
- Dune review
- Turing Tests
- Vandebron photography
- Fragments
- The strange ticking sound
- BadgerGP
- Moby Dick review
- Interview with Dr. Kathryn Richards from Mercedes AMG Petronas and Dare To Be Different
- What’s the value of nature?
- Twilight in the Forbidden City review
- Earthrise
- Bits of Freedom Web-In
- Coanda Simsport
- 2017 IWCGPS SEASON
- Fighting a common enemy
- The Great Gatsby review
- Bits and Pieces review
- Do you buy products endorsed to you?
- Commonwealth review
- UNESCO, promoting Dutch heritage
- Shanghai at night
- Thirty Rooms To Hide In review
- De opkomst van het Oosten review
- Minds of Shanghai
- The Circle review
- West Lake, 2017
- Day of the Jackal review
- Venice triptych
- Lolita review
- What sport says
- Wholesomeness
- Moral creativity
- Light Years review
- Libra review
- The papers
- Lincoln in the Bardo review
- Homo Deus review
- Mack’s road to pro
- Strategic Time
- Total Competition review
- Executive Orders review
- Bombay | Mumbai
- 101 contrarian Ideas About Advertising
- In Cold Blood review
- A look towards the new year
- iRacing screenshot contest winner!
- Cosmos review
- A sense of time
- St. Kilda Beach
- Shadow Puppets review
2016 46
- Coanda’s 2016 year of sim racing review
- Man at the bay
- Driver spotlight: Peter Collins
- Interview with Coanda Simsport on BadgerGP
- The Art of War review
- The Core review
- 2016 iRacing World Championship Grand Prix Series video review
- The painting, not the frame
- Holy Shit! We’re living in the future
- What has been your best career decision(s)?
- Belgian Grand Prix
- How do you make people care as much about the world — even a fraction of how much you care?
- Seven billion religions
- “That won’t be”
- Interview with one of F1’s biggest fanclubs
- Marcel Albers
- The Belgian and the German
- Now on Instagram
- Don’t ask, don’t tell
- The Path review
- Ender’s Game review
- The place really lives
- F1’s biggest What If’s?
- On bikes
- Willingness to help
- I have to change to stay the same
- Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
- Max Mania in the Netherlands
- The Top Dog for Spain…
- Creativity, not chaos
- Driver Spotlight: Tom Pryce
- Creating media with meaning
- Fishing
- Meaning of work, life?
- Launch of the Year award!
- Interview on Adformatie
- Going for gaps that exist
- Today
- Race reports for Coanda
- 1984 review
- Moving ahead
- Driver Spotlight: Didier Pironi
- Now writing for Coanda Simsport
- Starting vibes: 2016 season
- Racing the McLaren MP4-30 Around Suzuka Against a World Class Driver, From Home
- State of being
2015 25
- De toekomst is van mij review
- Driver Spotlight: Maria Teresa de Filippis
- Flaws
- The Forty Minute War review
- When teammates collide
- Torch
- Driver spotlight: Jean Behra
- Is ‘saving the world’ really a good argument?
- What do you see as the future for F1 Grand Prix?
- Trying harder vs. trying smarter
- Driver Spotlight: Stefan Bellof
- Driver spotlight: Alfonso de Portago
- You’re the best writer
- On good taste
- Driver Spotlight: Bertrand Fabi
- Top Dog for Monaco…
- Driver Spotlight: Vittorio Brambilla
- Vandebron marketing
- iGP Manager
- Driver Spotlight: Wolfgang von Trips
- We have power
- Create vs. consume
- One year Vandebron
- Innovating as form of protest
- A few things about blogging
2014 20
- Searching for a windmill in Google Streetview
- Driver Spotlight: Fernand Gabriel
- Science fiction without lasers
- Volvo ad
- Can saving the world please be fun?
- On the absurdity of being a vegetarian
- Travelling alone
- Why I like writing
- Greenpeace Lowlands
- LLGD.NET
- Are junior talent programmes a dump?
- On the importance of strategic lawn mowing
- Financial vandalism: Human measure in the age of social media
- Lord of the Flies review
- The second weekend of March in the Netherlands
- Does anyone else in their 30/40s still have the hope of becoming a big shot in the future?
- The things we write today, will they still be read in 174 years?
- The advent of visual
- The perfect lenght
- How to market classical music on YouTube
2013 19
- On Paul Walker & Roger Rodas: Some sense instead of sadness
- Et tu, Brute?
- We’re building our successors
- A low price is a terrible premise
- Things to learn in a weekend
- What is the biggest waste of money in your life so far?
- Design: What are your best examples of really bad design?
- Internet, I love you, but you need some goddamn perspective
- Earth Overshoot Day
- Don’t buy into the lowest price
- Be a brand
- The colour of the sky
- Childish things are more fun
- Mumbai round-up
- Sincerely social
- Leo Ehrlich
- Write
- What SEO can learn us
- Thiago Christo
2012 17
- On over-servicing
- Goodbye Gatekeepers
- Christina Fieni
- Tibor van Bekkum
- Time to wrap up once more: Cannes Lions 2012
- Fidele Hage
- Gauri Burma
- (Spec) ads
- Bruno Setola
- Design work
- QSL cards
- Mumbai; harsh, but ingenious at heart
- Sharing; viagra for the soul
- 11 ways to boost your brainpower
- “You say you want a revolution”
- Florent Luyckx
- In a parallel universe
2011 17
- Playstation freak ads
- Jack Trout
- Vincent Raffray
- Advertising as a sport
- Don’t mock the Bieber
- A few days of madness
- Retrospect on the Cannes Lions 2011
- Hans van Dijk
- Diane Costa
- OBL in ads
- Peterson Joseph
- 2011 april fools
- Content is catalyst
- Luke Sullivan
- Why I hate Instagram
- 50 ways to get an idea
- Chandra Wijaya Tan