🎵Nami by MEITEI

Tonight, January 14th. I was walking away from Amsterdam central tonight trying to find a particular coffee shop… I had navigation to my location going on my Apple Watch… and I walked past the alley way that I was supposed to turn on. Several steps after missing the alleyway, I noticed on my watch that I walked past my turn so I quickly swiveled around to go down the alleyway.

Literally just as I swiveled around a woman happened to go down that exact alleyway in front of me… and after about 30 meters she just stopped and pointed in front of her and told me to go in front and it dawned on me that she thought I was following her! I just remained focused on walking through and ignored her… but honestly I was embarrassed because the timing was definitely awkward and I can see why that would have made her nervous 😭

If you are that person, I AM SO SORRY FOR SCARING YOU!! I was just lost and trying to navigate… I am new here and have no idea what I am doing 😮‍💨🥹

While I was waiting for a friend at Rokin today, a lady came towards me and gave me this beautiful letter.

I was able to have a short conversation with her a little later on in the subway, thanking her and how kind it was of her for doing such a thing.

IF you ever read this; thank you. You made my whole year after losing most of my family.

I love not having to go to school because of the snow :)

I’ll give some context first.

I’m an expat, or immigrant, whatever you want to call it. I’ve been living in the Netherlands for about a year. I have a normal, honest job — I work as a truck mechanic. I don’t cause problems, I don’t mess with anyone, and I just try to live my life quietly here.

Almost two weeks ago something happened that I still can’t stop thinking about. It really affected me, and I still feel bad about it.

I was coming back from Spain after visiting my family. It had been a long trip and a very hard day for personal reasons. I’m not trying to play the victim here, I’ll just stick to the facts, but honestly what happened still feels almost unreal to me.

I arrived in the village where I live (Montfoort) around midnight. I got off the bus and had to walk about 500 meters home, crossing the main square. There are three bars there. Two were open, and one had around 10–15 young people sitting outside. It had just snowed, and as I walked by, they started throwing …

Today while dropping off my kid at daycare adjacent to a Basisschool, bunch of kids aged 8-10 called out “mustafa” and mimicking “Bollywood music “ at us. We are not even Indians, just look like one. A teacher/guardian wearing school’s yellow vest was walking around them. I believe he saw them doing this as he heard me back whispering “f***ing idiots” at the comment and didn’t say anything. My wife was also called out before like that. My colleague was called “ching chong” by children of another colleague at a work family event and they didn’t even correct them that this is wrong. Why Asian name calling have been normalised in this country to such extent that I am even scared to pass by a group of kids at this point? Kids here are such a low level in racist behaviour and their shitty parents don’t even say anything. I am worried of the bullying my child would get when he will be going to school because of his skin colour. It feels like it is like ‘60s here for Asians and how it was in …

moved here last year and still dont really get how tv works in this country

wanted to watch some football and apparently i need viaplay for premier league, espn for eredivisie, and then ziggo for champions league?? thats like three different apps

works out to maybe 50 euros a month and i still cant watch everything

feels like a bit of a ripoff honestly. is this just how it is or am i missing something obvious