The story of

"k zin n'en Zeeuw!" (I am a Zeeuw; in dialect) I shout to drown out the music.
"Sorry? What?" she asks.
I am standing on a boat with many twenty-five-year-olds, none of whom I know. This King's Day, I had resolved to avoid the crowds, along with my cousin who doesn't like crowds. But his girlfriend asked if we couldn't drop by, because it would be fun she said. Of course, anything for love. 
"I'm originally from Zeeland.”
"Wow. That's far away. How long does it take by car? One-and-a-half or two hours?"
"No, two-and-a-half hours. I'm from Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. What about you?"
"Oh, I was born in Amsterdam and now live near the Vijzelgracht. We sail right past our house. I live there with my flatmate."
The conversation comes to a natural end. The looks in our eyes betray that we don't have much else interesting to tell each other, and in my mind, I go back to the Zeeland accent I dropped when I revealed the nature of my identity: "k zin n'en Zeeuw."

That's how I feel, too. Now. I feel like a Zeeuw. And the crazy thing is that I didn't feel like a Zeeuw when I lived in Zeeland. My parents are, as they say, "imports" and at home they never spoke with a dialect from Zeeland, but with the dialect from the province of Brabant. Invariably, my father spoke of "hullie" and "zullie." And my mother spoke in Brabants dialect when she spoke with relatives on the phone and otherwise always in Standard Dutch.

"Gulder zijn van die van den Reijen zeker?" (You are those of van den Reijen, aren’t you?) my brothers, my sister and I were still sometimes asked. As if we came from abroad. We lived two whole kilometres outside the village, but to my mind the distance to the people of the village, de Kauter, was even greater. Just as people outside Zeeuws-Vlaanderen still sometimes refer to us as reserve Belgian, I felt like a double reserve Belgian. What was my place in the world? Not in the Nieuw-Namen polder in any case, I was sure about that.

During the Christmas holidays, I regularly went to visit my cousin in Amsterdam. I don't know when exactly the tradition started, but it must have been around the age of seven. I found the big city magical. It was the exact opposite of Schelpstraat 1. In Amsterdam, you could do something every day and I was never bored for a moment.

I have now lived half my life in the capital, but in recent years, Zeeland has started to beckon again. Hosternokke! (“Goddamn”; in dialect) I mean: I'm not going to move to Zeeland anytime soon, because my soon-to-be, Polish wife is not up for that. And I can understand that, Zeeuws-Vlaanderen has a lot to offer, but it lacks a large international community. I also have some anxiety: the weekends I spend with my parents are wonderfully relaxing, but what is it like in real life?

I must owe the answer and probably for a long time. For the time being, I remain a diasporic Zeeuw, but one who from time to time secretly looks into buying a possible holiday home somewhere in the municipality of Hulst. The wallet won't allow it, but oh well, sometimes a bit of dreaming about Zeeland here in this bustling city can be quite nice.