It took me a while to figure out how to write a spiritual post about my recent visit to the Netherlands. This is my conclusion: the universe decided that Holland must be too cold to be comfortable for 11 months out of a year. Also, the country has so many people living on such a small space that you only feel alone when you’re inside a toilet. Even when you’re walking in the middle of a forest with a friend you still need to raise your voice to be heard over the noise of a nearby motorway. You think India is crowed? Think again. I read that Holland is the most crowded country in the world. I guess that observation is true. It’s also one of the most expensive countries in the world. One small bag of Dutch grass has doubled in price over the past 9 years.
According to the editor of the gay krant (gay newspaper) the best days for LGBT-people in the Netherlands are behind us; more gays are being beaten up again and discriminated against compared to the 1990s and more gays are secretive about their sexual orientation.
The only celebrity transsexual in Holland (a stunning looking young girl whom I met at her house in 2004) has been ridiculed for years to such extend that a popular Dutch band decided to release a love-song for her, hoping to change things around for transsexuals. Yet, she is still the subject of ridicule. Poor Dutch transsexuals!
Dutch people appear to be stressed and tense and things have changed so much for the worse that I didn’t feel anything nostalgic. I didn’t miss my country.
Although I unregistered myself as a Dutch resident in 2000, last week I went to the town hall to pay 10 Euros in order to receive an official document stating that I am no longer a Dutch resident. With this statement I can now apply for a new drivers’ license in Bangkok (or get a new passport in any country other than the Netherlands).
“If you leave our country, you are in the hands of God,” said the Dutch-Moroccan employee working at my old town hall.
In the hands of God? Finally something spiritual, I thought.
“Which God? The Christian God or Allah?” I wanted to reply, but I remained silent and paid the 10 Euros and got the document.
I am a Buddhist. Buddhists don’t believe in a God-creator, thus technically I shouldn’t believe in God either. Regarding this I am a little bit of a rebel too, as I love to talk about God to Buddhist monks in Asia.
My visit to my parents place was lovely. They are very sick and in the process of dying (aren’t we all) and I fear this was the last time I saw them alive. Their penthouse is so big, it has a domestic phone system and it takes 5 minutes to reach the nearest toilet from the living room. Finding my father anywhere in his home was easy, as I just needed to follow the trail of urine on the parquet floor. His adult diapers seemed not very effective. In order to find my mother, I just needed to use my nose, as she is still a chain smoker.
I was surprised they both have the energy to still stuff themselves with candy and other fatty fibreless factory produced food items, and they are so angry with the lack of health that they tend to bicker with each other all the time in a most unpleasant manner.
I spent most of my time at their home in the freezing cold of their palatial outdoor rooftop terrace smoking Dutch laboratory grown government approved cannabis in order to speed up my connection to the root of the universe. I had to smoke outdoors as my father didn’t allow me to smoke in the west wing.
The real highlights of my visit had all to do with being reunited with my old Dutch friends. I never realized I never said goodbye to any of them when I left for Asia in 2000. My friends learned about my immigration by reading about it in the media a few years later. Nine years on I thought of reigniting our friendships, but I soon realized they were more interested in experiencing a proper goodbye from me, rather than a proper hello again. Their lives are so different from mine that they no longer feel a connection to me. After saying farewell to all of them, I felt I was ready to go back to Asia.
Another highlight was my visit to my old rowing club in Utrecht. When I walked into the club house I got recognized by all club members and was warmly welcomed. It was here that I agreed to meet with a former junior world champion with whom I had a six-year relationship. I spent an entire chapter on him in my book Pholomolo called “My Loyal Lover Lars”. We never officially broke up our relationship, which we finally did in a very elegant manner in the west wing of my parents’ penthouse. There were plans for him and me to row in a double sculls competition boat a few days later, but the weather changed for the worse and I decided to cancel. My reasoning was that if I enjoyed our rowing session, I would feel bad when realizing that I would not be able to row again, as Thailand has no rowing clubs. If I wouldn’t enjoy the rowing session, I would feel bad too. So I said goodbye to the man I called Lars in my book, and wished him and his new girlfriend, his two cats and his mortgage all the best.
There was a lot to do about the Dalai Lama and his 50 years of living in exile in India around the 10th of March. I had hoped to be invited by the Dutch media to share my thoughts on the matter, but nobody was interested in my ideas either. I received one email from a journalist who wrote extensively about me in the past years. She was interested in meeting me but she finally decided that she was too busy with more urgent matters. My God-fearing Christian Dutch publisher didn’t return my email with my request to meet him. Since I offered him my proposal for my book Pholomolo in 2004, he appears not to be interested in talking to me anymore. I hope he has a good time when he’s visiting church on Sunday mornings. I also hope he realizes he hasn’t been paying my royalties for 5 years now.
I wonder how long it will take before some famous Dutch band writes a love song for me…
So I guess I spent 32.000 baht and 36 hours of traveling just to say goodbye to my country of birth and the people I used to be friendly with, including my parents. I couldn’t wait to travel back to Asia to be reunited with my family.
Last Thursday, 26 March, I travelled from Amsterdam to Hong Kong dressed in a Free Tibet T-Shirt. You should have seen the faces of the Chinese transfer employees at Hong Kong Airport. After a few hours I got on a plane to Bangkok. I showed my passport to the nice Thai gentleman at passport control at Suvarnabumi Airport. The moment he saw my non-tourist visa he said to me: “Welcome home, Miss Renard.”
I nodded. “Kap khun kha. Thank you. It certainly feels that way.”
According to the editor of the gay krant (gay newspaper) the best days for LGBT-people in the Netherlands are behind us; more gays are being beaten up again and discriminated against compared to the 1990s and more gays are secretive about their sexual orientation.
The only celebrity transsexual in Holland (a stunning looking young girl whom I met at her house in 2004) has been ridiculed for years to such extend that a popular Dutch band decided to release a love-song for her, hoping to change things around for transsexuals. Yet, she is still the subject of ridicule. Poor Dutch transsexuals!
Dutch people appear to be stressed and tense and things have changed so much for the worse that I didn’t feel anything nostalgic. I didn’t miss my country.
Although I unregistered myself as a Dutch resident in 2000, last week I went to the town hall to pay 10 Euros in order to receive an official document stating that I am no longer a Dutch resident. With this statement I can now apply for a new drivers’ license in Bangkok (or get a new passport in any country other than the Netherlands).
“If you leave our country, you are in the hands of God,” said the Dutch-Moroccan employee working at my old town hall.
In the hands of God? Finally something spiritual, I thought.
“Which God? The Christian God or Allah?” I wanted to reply, but I remained silent and paid the 10 Euros and got the document.
I am a Buddhist. Buddhists don’t believe in a God-creator, thus technically I shouldn’t believe in God either. Regarding this I am a little bit of a rebel too, as I love to talk about God to Buddhist monks in Asia.
My visit to my parents place was lovely. They are very sick and in the process of dying (aren’t we all) and I fear this was the last time I saw them alive. Their penthouse is so big, it has a domestic phone system and it takes 5 minutes to reach the nearest toilet from the living room. Finding my father anywhere in his home was easy, as I just needed to follow the trail of urine on the parquet floor. His adult diapers seemed not very effective. In order to find my mother, I just needed to use my nose, as she is still a chain smoker.
I was surprised they both have the energy to still stuff themselves with candy and other fatty fibreless factory produced food items, and they are so angry with the lack of health that they tend to bicker with each other all the time in a most unpleasant manner.
I spent most of my time at their home in the freezing cold of their palatial outdoor rooftop terrace smoking Dutch laboratory grown government approved cannabis in order to speed up my connection to the root of the universe. I had to smoke outdoors as my father didn’t allow me to smoke in the west wing.
The real highlights of my visit had all to do with being reunited with my old Dutch friends. I never realized I never said goodbye to any of them when I left for Asia in 2000. My friends learned about my immigration by reading about it in the media a few years later. Nine years on I thought of reigniting our friendships, but I soon realized they were more interested in experiencing a proper goodbye from me, rather than a proper hello again. Their lives are so different from mine that they no longer feel a connection to me. After saying farewell to all of them, I felt I was ready to go back to Asia.
Another highlight was my visit to my old rowing club in Utrecht. When I walked into the club house I got recognized by all club members and was warmly welcomed. It was here that I agreed to meet with a former junior world champion with whom I had a six-year relationship. I spent an entire chapter on him in my book Pholomolo called “My Loyal Lover Lars”. We never officially broke up our relationship, which we finally did in a very elegant manner in the west wing of my parents’ penthouse. There were plans for him and me to row in a double sculls competition boat a few days later, but the weather changed for the worse and I decided to cancel. My reasoning was that if I enjoyed our rowing session, I would feel bad when realizing that I would not be able to row again, as Thailand has no rowing clubs. If I wouldn’t enjoy the rowing session, I would feel bad too. So I said goodbye to the man I called Lars in my book, and wished him and his new girlfriend, his two cats and his mortgage all the best.
There was a lot to do about the Dalai Lama and his 50 years of living in exile in India around the 10th of March. I had hoped to be invited by the Dutch media to share my thoughts on the matter, but nobody was interested in my ideas either. I received one email from a journalist who wrote extensively about me in the past years. She was interested in meeting me but she finally decided that she was too busy with more urgent matters. My God-fearing Christian Dutch publisher didn’t return my email with my request to meet him. Since I offered him my proposal for my book Pholomolo in 2004, he appears not to be interested in talking to me anymore. I hope he has a good time when he’s visiting church on Sunday mornings. I also hope he realizes he hasn’t been paying my royalties for 5 years now.
I wonder how long it will take before some famous Dutch band writes a love song for me…
So I guess I spent 32.000 baht and 36 hours of traveling just to say goodbye to my country of birth and the people I used to be friendly with, including my parents. I couldn’t wait to travel back to Asia to be reunited with my family.
Last Thursday, 26 March, I travelled from Amsterdam to Hong Kong dressed in a Free Tibet T-Shirt. You should have seen the faces of the Chinese transfer employees at Hong Kong Airport. After a few hours I got on a plane to Bangkok. I showed my passport to the nice Thai gentleman at passport control at Suvarnabumi Airport. The moment he saw my non-tourist visa he said to me: “Welcome home, Miss Renard.”
I nodded. “Kap khun kha. Thank you. It certainly feels that way.”
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It must feel great to have a place where people acknowledge that you are home!
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