He was born in 1944 in Dalen in eastern Holland. As a high school student he loved music, poetry, and literature, and he devoured the Chinese detective novels written by the noted Dutch diplomat and sinologist R. H. van Gulik.
他生於一九四四年，荷蘭東部的達倫區（Dalen），中學時就熱中於音樂、詩，和文學，並且一口氣讀完了荷蘭早期外交官兼漢學家高羅佩所寫的中國偵探小說。