A story I never thought I’d tell

It had taken years to get where we were. Within minutes, we were in a completely different reality.

Thanks for being here. I’m Raphael.

I grew up in Delft, a picturesque city in the Netherlands known for its historic canals, Delft Blue ceramics and its technical university. My childhood was, in many ways, ordinary. I lived with my mother and younger brother in a tall apartment block on the edge of the city. I biked to school and played outside with friends.

I was ten when my parents divorced. I struggled with it for years, and it affected my performance at school. I wasn’t considered good enough for the highest level of secondary education needed to enter university, but I persisted and still managed to pass my exams.

Wanting to run my own company, I applied for a business administration program at Erasmus University Rotterdam, but I was denied. Not good enough. Again.

I wrote to the admissions board, asking for a chance. In the end, I was accepted when another applicant dropped out just days before the program began.

During my last year, I took part in a workshop organised by a multinational company behind many well-known personal care brands. It was exactly the kind of company marketing majors like myself aspired to work for. The best participant would be awarded a sought-after internship.

After a series of exercises, I made it to the final round. It came down to one other participant and me. As the possibility of working there became real, I gave it everything I had.

But the other candidate won.

She got the internship. I went home with the product of our final exercise: a tube of toothpaste.

In hindsight, not getting that internship turned out to be one of the best things that happened to me. Looking for something new, I enrolled in a Chinese language course at Beijing Language and Culture University—a decision that would shape the course of my life.

My family and friends were surprised when I suddenly left for China to spend four months studying Chinese. But to me, it felt like an opportunity to step into something completely different. Being one quarter Chinese, it was also a way to explore that part of my heritage.

So in August 1998, I flew to Beijing to begin a new chapter.

I look back on that time with fondness. China was entirely different from what I was used to in the Netherlands, but instead of unsettling me, the culture shock drew me in.

I never really impressed anyone with my Chinese language skills, but I made close friends, and together we shared many fun, interesting and sometimes crazy moments.

Most importantly, I met Paulina.

She’s Chinese Indonesian, grew up in Jakarta, studied in Canada and Australia, and had enrolled in the same course. I liked her right away. We weren’t in the same class, but spent more and more time together after class.

When the course ended, we decided to stay in Beijing. We travelled, found jobs and started our careers there.

Four years later, we were married.

That same year, we left Beijing and moved to the bustling city of Shanghai. It was there that our life together truly began to take shape. In time, we became the parents of two beautiful daughters — Naomi, born in 2004, and Sienna two years later.

Naomi loved drawing and was always creating detailed scenes on whatever pieces of paper we gave her.

All the drawings you'll see throughout this story were made by Naomi when she was five years old.

All was going well. We lived in our condo in Lujiazui, Shanghai’s Manhattan, the girls were in good schools, and we had a great social life. By then, I also had become co-owner of a growing company. The early years weren’t easy and took perseverance, but when we signed a major multinational client in 2009, things began to take off.

Then, in February 2010, literally overnight, everything changed.

________

The night our world collapsed →