German national Jette Schneider came to the Netherlands at the age of 18 and never left. She is passionate about Rotterdam, has adopted Dutch humour but regrets living so far away from her ageing parents.

How did you end up in the Netherlands?

I came here in 1997 because I wanted to study at the Dance Academy of Rotterdam [Codarts]. In my hometown, Marburg in Germany, it was a very popular school for dance. I studied contemporary modern dance, with influences from jazz and improvisation.

Rotterdam was known for good technical education, but also for being open-minded and modern. I didn’t want to be a dancing machine. I wanted to be a dancer who thinks about why, what, and how. So I also wanted to be educated as a dance teacher, but with a good technical education. Germany felt a little bit too traditional – you could get good technical, classical education to become a dancer who follows the choreographer, or a dance teacher who’s not so strong technically. This combination was very strong in Rotterdam.

How do you describe yourself – an expat, lovepat, immigrant, international?

I’m a semi-international. I have two countries in my body: Germany and the Netherlands.  After 26 years of being in the middle of Rotterdam, I feel fully integrated. But I’m not fully Dutch. I am German with a lot of Dutch influence. I love my roots, my Heimat. It’s where my heartbeat gets calm. I have a healthy, nostalgic relationship with my hometown and country. I miss it a lot, the social norms and values. I also miss nature very much – Holland is too flat.

So maybe I’m not fully integrated. But I could also not go back because if I would go back, I would miss my life here. Being here defines how I breathe, how I walk, and how I think. That’s not in Germany anymore.

How long do you plan to stay?

You know, I have no plans anymore. I think my last chance to leave this country was when I said, “The moment my kids go to primary school, I should leave.” Now, my oldest is in group three, so I missed that. Leaving this country with children is not good when they’re in puberty. And I would need some years to prepare for my departure, it would end up when they’re in puberty. So I’m afraid I missed it.

But I think about it every year. I don’t know why. Maybe because, indeed, I’m international, I have something else in my body. I always thought I would go back. I  would come here, study, then go elsewhere. But I got stuck because I love the Rotterdam people.

But there’s always this little noise. When am I leaving? Do I want to get old here? The time has also come that my parents are getting old, and it breaks my heart that I’m now at a distance where I cannot help them, not even on a weekend basis. It’s a five-hour car ride so it can’t happen spontaneously. I need to plan my visits, unless it’s really an emergency. That’s always in my head and it’s difficult.

Do you speak Dutch and how did you learn?

I speak fluent Dutch. I think by now I speak better Dutch than German. When I write a message to my family, they’re laughing at me that they don’t understand a word of what I’m saying.

I learned it because I had to give dance classes to children. What can you do with English? Nothing, especially at the end of the 90s, when there weren’t so many foreigners here. The lessons forced me to learn Dutch. I could do it quickly because the step from German to Dutch is not so big, it goes quite organically. But there was also another reason – I always had the ambition to be part of the city. The dance world was very international and English-focused. I wanted to get friends in the city, to have contact with the inhabitants and not stay in a bubble.

But still, speaking Dutch really well takes a long time. That always made me feel insecure and still does – with every email, I had the feeling I had to let somebody proofread it. I let it go a little bit but if I have to write a very important email to a subsidy partner, I cannot send it out without letting somebody check it.

What’s your favourite Dutch thing?

It’s really about Rotterdam. I love this city’s combination of being direct and crazy. It’s very different from other places in the Netherlands: it’s a port city and it’s very modern. You don’t find such architecture in any other city. It gives a wide open, colourful feeling. It’s not picturesque or historic. Rotterdam lost a lot of beautiful buildings but it also gained something back. That makes it unique. I fell in love with the city, its roughness, craziness. It’s an environment that supports creative entrepreneurial thinking, taking your own initiative, and thinking in possibilities, which I admire a lot.

How Dutch have you become?

I think I have become quite Dutch! If you move to a country at the age of 18, you still have a few years that actively form you. The experiences of education, the friendships I forged, the nightlife in this city, the way that Dutch people think in terms of potential and solutions, how creatively open-minded and crazy they are. I admire this a lot. I got inspired in my first years here, when I was between 18 and 25. This time formed me.

Also, Dutch humour is something that I try to copy because the German humour is a little bit stiff.  I mean, the Germans really literally don’t understand Dutch humour. In that sense, it’s a rude sense of humour, very direct.

Which three Dutch people (dead or alive) would you most like to meet?

The first one is Kees Boeke. Somewhere in the beginning of the 20th century, I think after World War II, he opened a school that set a different tone. It invited teachers, parents, and students, to get into dialogue, to collaborate and be responsible for a lot of tasks at the school. These included cleaning, taking care of the garden, or repairing stuff, but also making decisions together that concerned the curriculum. Boeke in that sense is an inspiring person, a founder of the so-called sociocracy mindset that I admire a lot. Sociocracy is putting the power in the group, collaborating based on equality. And, by that, being inclusive, looking at different perspectives, giving the kids a voice in co-designing.

The next person is Jan Rotmans. He’s a professor for transition in Rotterdam, and has been very active for a long time to create awareness and share knowledge about sustainability and climate. He says that sustainability doesn’t stop with a solution of, let’s say, batteries for cars. Solutions which aren’t really solutions aren’t the alternative and shouldn’t be considered circular. It’s not circular when we use resources and still create dirty leftovers. We need to think circular in what we take from nature, how we use it, and also that we need to give back.

Now, the woman that I’m the most interested in meeting in the Netherlands would be the mother of my boyfriend and father of my kids. She has unfortunately been sick with Alzheimer’s for a long time and so she could never meet my children. From the stories, she was a very smart and playful woman. I would have loved her to have been a real grandmother for my children. But there’s also some intense family history, given she’s of Indonesian background. I would have very much appreciated to speak with her about it and get a better understanding of the history from a firsthand account. Finally, I’d like to learn about her energy and characteristics, so I could see them reflected in my children and my boyfriend.

What’s your top tourist tip?

I love a bicycle tour through Rotterdam. And I collect the most beautiful skyline views of the city. There are several points where you get the perfect skyline view. The best one is when you cycle on the side of the [Maas] river, on Boompjes, on the city centre. There, you see the Wilhelminabrug and Noordereiland, and this whole part of Kop van Zuid with Erasmusbrug. This view I love the most. I could have had an accident while biking there multiple times, because my sight and head were somewhere else. Another nice view is from the back side of the Kralingse Plas. If you are across the water, you see the Rotterdam skyline in the back. I like to take people there.

Tell us something surprising you’ve found out about the Netherlands

Nothing surprises me here anymore and that’s both positive and negative. Sometimes I’m really disappointed. The government plans to increase value added tax on books, culture, and sports to 21%. I don’t understand it. But it doesn’t surprise me any more. I see over and over again that politicians do the stupidest things to win popular support.

But then, look at the Maasvlaakte! That’s a positive. All of the sudden they created so many square metres of new land. It doesn’t surprise me that a Dutch person thought this up.

If you had just 24 hours left in the Netherlands, what would you do?

I would throw the biggest party with all my people that I got to know here.  Actually, I could also do that without the need to leave.

Sometimes I feel that Rotterdam is a village. I know so many people from such different “life layers”: education, nightlife, working, the school, sports, the art scene. It’s so nice. I should just throw this party without only having 24 hours left. Good idea.

Jette Schneider was talking to Zuza Nazaruk