Whether chatting with Mick Jagger, surviving a doctor's fatal prognosis, or launching the farang-friendly Expat Collection clothing line, Noelle knows how to make the most of life. She's been up and she's been down, but she's always been optimistic and ready for her next great adventure. Her journey began with a one-way ticket to Thailand.
Noelle's Story
Acclimate, February 2009
Noelle was destined to see the world. Thirst for adventure and wanderlust are in her blood. Her father, upon learning that cancer would take his life in less than a year, took off on a motorcycle trek through Africa to spend his last year doing what he loved best. Her mother had been fulfilling her own dreams of backpacking around the world throughout Noelle's young adulthood.
Their tales inspired Noelle, and she dreamed of the journeys she would take one day herself. "On my mom's first trip to Asia, she came to Bangkok, to Khao San Road. She immediately thought it was a place I would enjoy."
And so, upon Noelle's graduation from fashion and design school in her native Holland, her Mom handed her a one-way ticket to Bangkok. "I had enough money to spend three months in Asia and pay for my return trip home," Noelle recalls. But it would be a long time and several adventures later before she would need or want to buy that ticket.
On her very first day in Bangkok, while sitting at a café on the same Khao San Road her mother predicted she'd enjoy, Noelle met a Dutch man. He told her about another Dutch woman he'd recently met who had just left Bangkok to work in Tokyo as a hostess. This was back in the early '90s when Japanese hostess bars were new and trendy…and exotic-sounding, too! Beautiful, foreign women earned big bucks—about 5,000 USD per month—to chat with high-paying patrons. The bars were upscale and the hostesses were required to dress neatly and modestly and to speak properly—no funny business allowed.
Noelle was thoroughly intrigued, and six weeks later found herself face-to-face—literally—with that Dutch woman she'd heard about. They were sharing a room in a dormitory for foreign women and both working as hostesses.
"I used to joke that we were verbal prostitutes: we sold our chit chat," Noelle says. "But there was no sex, nothing improper. No touching, no kissing: nothing but talking. We were expected to behave with class, and have perfect hair, make-up, clothes, and speech." It was an amazing opportunity for a wild, young 20-something, fresh out of school, and Noelle enjoyed every minute of it.
Celebrity patrons included Duran Duran's Simon LeBon, British tycoon Richard Branson, the members of U2, and of course, Mick Jagger.
"The whole experience made me feel like Alice in Wonderland. It was so much fun!" Noelle remembers fondly. She ate at the best restaurants, traveled in private planes, and enjoyed the trappings of the lavish lifestyle of her celebrity clients. Outside of work, though, she saved all of her money for travel, and lived in modest, shared apartments and often dined on the discarded scraps from local bakeries.
During this time, Noelle met a young Dutch diplomat serving in Tokyo who was quickly taken with her. One night, he picked her up in his fancy car and they drove to Mt. Fuji, where they shared a champagne picnic and watched the sunrise. She was hooked, and they fell in love.
But his diplomatic assignment was coming to an end in Japan, and it was time to move to South Korea. Setting off on her next adventure, Noelle accompanied him to Seoul and began life as a trailing spouse. "He introduced me to the whole expat world. I was only 24 and the youngest member of the community," she says. Life sure was different from her Tokyo days, but Noelle enjoyed teaching English to Korean children and falling deeper in love.
Their posting in Seoul was a short one, and after only six months, he was posted to Bangkok. She found work as a tour leader for a Dutch company that specialized in backpacking trips, but enjoyed all the spoils of a woman who could afford to travel in much better style. "We lived in a big house, and I drove a cute, little sports car. We were a really hip, young, expat couple, and we had a lot of fun," she says.
A few months after they arrived in Bangkok, life took a strange and tragic turn. While on a trip back to Holland, Noelle was finishing breakfast at her mom's house when she suddenly had trouble understanding what her mother was saying. She laughed and asked her mom why she wasn't making any sense. Her mom was confused, but Noelle laughed it off and headed upstairs to take a shower. In the bathroom, Noelle sang while she prepared for her shower. Suddenly, she couldn't remember how to sing. She could hear the lyrics and tune in her head, but couldn't make the sounds come out of her mouth. She stood, looking at herself in the mirror, and tried to pronounce her own name. She recalls watching her image disappear from the mirror as she fell to the floor.
After undergoing a battery of tests, Noelle received a shattering diagnosis… she was told she had a brain tumor and had about three weeks to live.
Her first thoughts were about losing her hair and missing the trip they had just booked. But the third thought was the most important: "To die now, at this point in my life? Well, I'd had a great life. I had great friends; I was with the person I loved; I'd traveled all over the world. I felt really peaceful."
"It was such a turning point in my life. I think if I could find peace in a time like that, then there's not much out there that could scare me."
In spite of making peace with her early demise, she wisely sought a second opinion. A different hospital performed another battery of tests, and of course, arrived at a different conclusion. She did not have a brain tumor; she had three parasites that she'd probably picked up somewhere in her travels throughout Asia. They'd caused an infection in the speech center of her brain, which had grown to the size of a small orange, and was interfering with her functions. Her condition was serious and would require a long and difficult rehabilitation, but she would survive.
Her partner eventually had to return to his work in Bangkok while Noelle stayed behind; she suffered short-term memory loss and had to re-learn how to speak and write.
Three months later, she was doing well and ready to return to Bangkok. "I'm not the kind of person who can just sit. So even though I couldn't speak well, I started working from home." In the mornings, she taught expat women hat- and pattern-making. In the afternoons, she rested.
During this time, she met Léa, the Dutch artist and textile specialist who lends her name to Léa Silk, who helped Noelle launch her own self-titled clothing line. She hosted three fashion shows and worked on several charity projects with Léa in Chiang Mai. Because of her husband's diplomatic work, Noelle had the luxury of working for no salary, helping not only her career development, but her physical rehabilitation as well.
During the next year and a half, Noelle was putting her life back together. But the stress of her illness had put a strain on her relationship. When her partner was posted back to Holland, she followed him, but she knew in her heart that things weren't right. Three months later, Noelle was back in Bangkok alone. No money. No job.
"One of my favorite Buddhist sayings is: 'There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.' I don't stay in an unhappy situation," even when it meant leaving all luxuries behind. "If I'm unhappy, then I go back to the last place I felt happy and start again from there. For me, Bangkok was a happy place."
In that first month back in Bangkok, Noelle rented a wooden shack for 3,000 Baht. It had no indoor plumbing, but it was all she could afford. After three tough months, Noelle found a job in tourism and moved to a small stone home (with plumbing!). Tourism, followed by a marketing position with an international lingerie company, provided steady employment for her for the next few years, but she kept networking. As Noelle says, "People don't come knocking on your door. You've got to go out there!"
When she met an acquaintance who ran a clothing company, she told him her fashion ideas and he offered her a job. His company was interested in venturing into Bangkok's expat market and thought Noelle was just the woman to create the brand, design the clothing lines, and launch the business. Expat Collection was born.
Unfortunately, after a very busy and interesting year, Noelle's position has gone the way of so many others in a slumping economy, and she now finds herself unemployed. For Noelle, though, this is not a sad ending; rather, this is simply another opportunity to find the next happiness.
"I'm not that successful by traditional standards, but I've had a lot of successes. My life experiences have taught me to be confident. I'm not afraid to fall. I simply have to reinvent myself again."