Stadstekenaar: For All Travelers

Every month, The Hague’s second City Illustrator Kexin Hao publishes a drawing about the city, from the perspective of local animals. About this drawing, Kexin Hao wrote:

A moth, a heron, a silverfish, a pigeon, a rat, a hen with chicks, and a egyptian goose sits in seagull-shaped train speeding ahead. A parakeet in flight accompanies the journey. At the city’s signature station Holland Spoor, the stork from the coat of arms of The Hague waves a goodbye. As shown on the ticket, the train departs from 2025 and heads to 2026; and it is "voor alle reizigers". The Nederlandse Spoorwegen officially switched from using the traditional greeting “ladies and gentlemen” to “beste reizigers” in 2017 to adopt a gender-neutral language, intending to make all passengers feel welcome regardless of gender identity. In my drawing, “alle reizigers” also include the non-human citizens of The Hague.