“Ten years ago I met my South Korean wife Jinyoung in Myanmar. In the summer she is in the Netherlands for three months, in the winter I live with her. We chose to live in two countries, because we want to enjoy both cultures. I would not want to live permanently in South Korea. It is not reasonably isolated in the Netherlands. Don’t bound my wife. Living: they translates films, is a member of a writers’ organization.
“Before that, I was always single and I was convinced that this would remain that way. I had a great life, with a lot of freedom of choice. I never had a desire to have children. Politics, climate change, I thought it was not justified to let children in this world grow up, without judging others. They may not be useful, but for the planet.
Peter van Bragt (70) followed a HBO course clinical chemistry and studied molecular biology in Utrecht. He worked as a researcher in the United States and had various internationally oriented positions in the Netherlands.
He lives in a Breda terraced house and is married to Jinyoungwho lives in her native South Korea for most of the year.
Peters pension is 1.1 times average.
“After studying Molecular Biology I wanted to work in Africa, but that did not work. At that time I received an offer from the US in 1979 and I worked in Texas for more than four years as researcher Humane Genetics. I saw there some conservative and progressive forces with a society and that has always worked for a person with a preference for progressive. Finished as a senior policy officer in higher education.
“I like to cook and have more than two hundred cookbooks in the cupboard.”
Photo Mona van den Berg
World citizen
“I have traveled a lot all my life for my work, but also private. I have always felt a global citizen. I used to think: I am going to visit all the countries in the world, but that will not work anymore. I have missed the Soviet Union and East Germany, among other things. That makes me somewhat sad, but I never visited one time. By the way. I save city trips when I have a walker.
“I have been interested in nature since I was fifteen. I have almost a hunting instinct to discover things that I have not yet seen. That has gone completely out of hand. I was pulled through Borneo and through the Egyptian desert. I sailed from Papua-New Guinea I am from Texwak I traveled to Porto on the first time.
Peter likes cooking and especially diving. “There are years that I have made three hundred dives.”
Photos Mona van den Berg
Pick the day
“At the age of 25 I started with sports diving. Diving is just like traveling to other cultures, you end up in a completely different world. I have made almost five thousand dives, all over the world, but especially in cold areas such as Scandinavia, Antarctica and Patagonia. Documentaries about diving in tropical waters I can still see much in the Netherlands.
“There are years that I have made three hundred dives, but this year it is limited to seventy to eighty. That is partly because my motorhome was recently stolen. I had been in demand and Hungary, and that could not go on. But sometimes I will go to Zeeland for a few days, then I spend seventy to eighty hours a week and everything together with that, and everything is what together with something.Blauwtipje.nl) and contribute to the biodiversity research of Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. During diving I take nature photos, I have hundreds of thousands. Among other things, I use this in the research for Naturalis. I have always tried to fill in my hobbies in a useful way, with lectures, publications and management positions. So I never fell into a hole after my retirement – I should have done it much earlier.
Don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow, I have always considered one of the most beautiful aspects of my life
“In addition to traveling and diving, I don’t have much free time left. I do read books about other cultures, that is also a form of traveling. Watching movies. I have a sober car. I have always had a second -hand car, I have a modest house that I am in isolation myself, I hardly buy any clothes and I never throw money away. I mainly spend on diving trips.
“We don’t know how my wife and I are going to furnish our lives when we get old yet. We’ll see it, philosophizing does not make much sense about that. Don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow, I have always considered one of the most beautiful aspects of my life. When I turned out to have a advanced form of colon cancer twelve years ago, I thought everything else would be my first. Walked, among other things, that disease was a lot of life.
How often do you go shopping?
“I go to the supermarket and to the Turkish store a few times a week.”
What was your last major edition?
“The insulation of the attic.”
Have you ever done a bad buy?
“Seven years ago I had the cavity wall insulated for 760 euros, but the ventilation was laid out incorrectly, so that the floor in the living room must now be replaced. Costs: 14,000 euros.”
What was your recently sent Tikkie?
“To friends for a joint gift for a birthday friend.”
Do you buy second -hand or new?
Both. “But I hardly buy anything. I do for years with clothing and don’t have much with gadgets.”
How often do you clean your house?
“Every three to four weeks I go through the entire house.”
Do you cook yourself?
“I like to cook and have more than two hundred cookbooks in the closet. When Jinyoung and I are together, we will eat Korean, Dutch or international. I will never order a pizza.”
What do you spend money on with a feeling of guilt?
“To air travel. But the urge to travel is greater than feeling guilty.”
Do you save?
“I don’t do that anymore. I spend more than less than retirement arrives.”
Do you have another tip?
“Throw away as little as possible, use things until they are worn out or repair them. Be satisfied with what you have, that saves a lot of money in this society where you are pushed to consume. I consume on average only 35 euros per month. Of course it saves me in the winter in South Korea and have solar panels.”