Hong Tong from Chinese Radio Amsterdam in Taipei (English)

Today I met my old colleague and good friend Hong Tong from my time doing volunteer work at the Chinese Radio in Amsterdam. A volunteer radio station in Amsterdam. Programmes are broadcasted in Cantonese, Mandarin and Dutch.
As I learned from Hong Tong this are going really well and the radio is gradually increasing its activities.
Hong Tong was just on a trip to Hongkong, when he decided to make a quick visit to Taipei. We had a nice dinner at the food-court in Taipei 101 with another Cantonese friend from Holland.
Please have a look at the site of the Chinese Radio in Amsterdam and enjoy their great programme online:

www.chineseradio.nl

Do you want to immigrate to the Netherlands? (English)

The Netherlands used to be known as a very open and easy to immigrate country. Things have changed recently and the society as well as the government has made some right turns in recent years.
There are always debates and discussions going on, how to filter "good immigrants" and "bad immigrants".
Now there was a big TV show with an "inburgeringstest" (immigration test). Check out the link (it is in Dutch, speaking Dutch is seen as a basic requirement) and tell me your score. Would you have been able to immigrate to the Netherlands?
I only scored 3,6, not enough...

Dinner with Lin laoshi, 跟林老師吃晚飯 (English, 中文)

I met up today with one of the best teachers at our Insitute of Sinology in Leiden, the great Lin laoshi!
She is in Taiwan for a few days and I was smart enough to figure out that the sms messages without name came from Lin laoshi ;-).
So we met today, as she was close to the Mandarin Training Centre and had some nice talks about those days back in Leiden and the life in Taiwan. Her good friend Pipi (?) went out with us to have dinner in the famous Yongkangjie (永康街).

我現在也應該用中文寫一下. 我今天碰到了我可愛的林老師.對,她現在在台灣.我很高興收到了她的短訊,可惜她忘記了簽名所以我先考慮了半天這可能是誰寫給我...
我發現以後就馬上給她答案,今天有機會跟她還跟她以前的同學聚餐. 好快樂的事情...

Schandaal om Rabobank! (Nederlands)

Hier gaat het om een interessante informatie voor alle uitwisselings studenten buiten het gebiet van de EU (Europeese Unie): Met ingang van 1 januari 2007 is het niet meer mogelijk om met je RABO pasje gratis andere valutas dan de Euro van je rekening te pinnen. Dat betekent dus, dat het voor mensen in Taiwan of der VR China (of ergens anders) veel minder makkelijk wordt om geld vanuit Europa naar hun tijdelijke heimat te sturen.
De Rabobank geeft aan, dat er te veel gebruik van de klanten van gemaakt werdt en dat de kosten voor de bank te hoog zijn. (ik dacht al dat de Leidse uitwisselingsmafia erachter staat, of de Rabo bank heeft het aantal nieuwe eerste jaar sinologie gezien en is nu al bang, dat in 2007 100 mensen een jaar lang iedere dag hun RABO pasje gaan gebruiken)
Nou, nu moeten ook de RABO klanten (net als klanten van andere banken) per transactie minstens 4,50 € betalen...Jammer, jammer, jammer! (bron: een brief van Rabobank aan hun klanten)