About Mei

Mei arrived in Amsterdam from Taipei to study sustainable design at the Rietveld Academie, and has twice extended her stay because the city suits something in her. She will tell you it is the cycling culture and the food scene and the light — and she is right about all of it, but the real reason is that Amsterdam rewards the kind of attention she naturally pays to things. She is quiet in the way that precise people are quiet: not shy, but selective. An evening with Mei has a particular quality — she notices things, and when she points them out, you notice them too. A restaurant's tablecloth. The proportions of a room. The fact that the Japanese whisky list is better than the Scotch. For dinner dates she is ideal — not because she is easy company (she is more interesting than easy) but because she brings a perspective that makes familiar things worth looking at again. Her Mandarin, English, Dutch, and Japanese flow without effort. She is warm once she trusts you, which tends to happen quickly. The kind of evening you were not expecting, which is always the best kind.

Where Mei travels