Lotte: “We are both a bit of the old guard: think that you can meet someone who turns out to be the love of your life at the green area in the supermarket.”
Timon: “Lotte was originally my neighbor in The Hague. The back of her house was against mine. When I just came to live there, she walked by once.”
Lotte: “I said then: I give a party with New Year’s Eve. Either you come, and otherwise I hope you will not complain about noise nuisance!”
Timon: “I already had other plans, but after New Year’s Eve I went by her once. Then I said: it’s handy, as neighbors, that you have each other’s number. That was a weak story of course. But then we exchanged songs.”
Lotte: “And that’s how it came.”
Timon: “Two years later, on January 1, 2020, Lotte moved in with me.”
Lotte: “Not long after I started living abroad. That was actually my idea.”
Timon: “I didn’t feel like leaving friends and family. I would never have dared to take the step without Lotte.”
Lotte: “But he was the one who could go abroad through his work.”
Timon: “There was a vacancy in Singapore and I did all the sale in Asia for my employer, a company in offshore equipment like cranes. “
Lotte: “Then we decided to take the leap. We were married then.”
Timon: “In the first instance for love, but also for the residence permit in Singapore it was very useful.”
Lotte: “In October 2021 we moved to Singapore.”
Timon: “We now live in an apartment of 90 square meters. That pays my employer. Life in Singapore is expensive, especially if you like Western items. You pay 4 euros for a pack of milk. They import everything in Singapore, because they hardly renovate anything themselves. And it is always 30 degrees, so everything has to stay well cooled.”
Very green
Lotte: “It is a paradise. It is very beautiful and clean. There are botanical gardens and everything is very green.”
Timon: “It is in the tropics, at the equator. So it is always warm, but also moist. We are happy here when it rains, then it is immediately 4 to 5 degrees cooler and that feels a lot better.”
Lotte: “You get used to it. We have to get used to the cold again when we are in the Netherlands.”
Timon: “I work for Huisman, a company that builds the world’s largest cranes. I am traveling 30 percent of the time. Go to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia. Business in Asia is very very based on relationships. In the Netherlands it is going to be a tender earlier. Here you can eat a drink, a bond.”
Color profiles
Lotte: “I am Sales & Marketing Director Asia for Management Drives, a Dutch company that specializes in team dynamics and leadership training. We work with color profiles for people who work in an organization. Red means a direct and focused type, yellow is visionary, organizes is people -oriented and communicative, it is very good in each other. That people feel more at home in an organization and feel more seen and understood. “
Timon: “I am more red, orange – enterprising.”
Lotte: “I am mainly yellow and green. Yellow is creative, investigative, builds on knowledge. Green is one People Manager – that strives for harmony and communication. ”
Timon: “We complement each other well! The colors offer a language to a team to talk about things like this.”
Lotte: “It makes it negotiable.”
Timon: “You can say: you are doing very purple now!”
Lotte: “This way you can criticize each other in a disarming way.”
Timon: “We can also enjoy ourselves separately from each other. I do a lot of beach volleyball and golf.”
Lotte: “I am doing a photography study.”
Timon: “We have an Asian group of friends, but also quite a lot of Dutch friends. Also for humor, the Dutch AD removes, sarcastic humor.”
Lotte: “It’s easier level. There is a very open Dutch here community which is also very connected at the same time. ”
Timon: “Friendships are perishable in the expat circuit. They may last two years and then new people will come again. It comes and goes. So on the one hand it is fun, very dynamic. On the other hand it is not that deep.”
Lotte: “But sometimes you come to depth faster. You experience the same thing, that creates a band. Nobody has family around the corner, like in the Netherlands. So your friends become a second family.”
Funeral through teams
Timon: “We will eventually go back to the Netherlands. This is a broadcast, so that is by definition temporary. But how or what we don’t know yet.
“Living abroad also has less fun sides. You miss things. Friends change jobs. I see my little nephews only once or twice a year and they change 100 percent in six months. Sometimes we follow a funeral from a family member through teams. That feels crazy.”
Lotte: “But the nice sides absolutely weigh against that.”
Timon: “So: do it, if you can and dare. I had a stick behind the door, Lotte, otherwise I would not have done it that quickly. She was the motivation.”
Lotte: “I wanted it and he could do it.”
Timon: “I recommend everyone. It enriches your life. It doesn’t even matter where you are going. It is about ‘the process of your life’ of zero starting.”
Lotte: “It gives you the confidence that you can set up your life again elsewhere. That gives confidence in yourself.”