04/09/2025
# The Fairground Boy: Christiaan's Story
The carnival lights flickered across the evening sky, painting the clouds in hues of red, blue, and yellow. The sweet scent of oliebollen mingled with the mechanical oil of the rides, creating that distinctive fairground aroma that young Christiaan had come to know as home.
Born into a family of fairground operators, Christiaan Schuman spent his childhood traveling across the Netherlands, his life moving in rhythm with the seasons and festivals. Each town brought new faces, new streets to explore, but the fairground remained his constantāthe beating heart of his young existence.
It was during a summer stop in Lissen that Christiaan's life took an unexpected turn. The fairground had been set up near the town square, the usual flurry of activity surrounding the setup. Rides were being assembled, stalls arranged in their familiar pattern, and the generators hummed their mechanical lullaby.
# # An Unexpected Encounter
That evening in Lissen, as the sun began its descent, casting long shadows across the fairground, something unusual caught Christiaan's attention. A Dj with the live set was playing at the fairground venue!
The melody drifted through the air, cutting through the mechanical noises of the fairground. It was unlike anything Christiaan had heard beforeāraw, emotional, and impossibly beautiful. The sounds were so attractive, it started to stir strong emotions in his chest .It felt like a strong sign from the universe for Christiaan!
The mechanical predictability of the fairground rides suddenly seemed hollow compared to the organic, unpredictable beauty of the music. For the first time, he recognized something was missing in his lifeāsomething that didn't match the person he was meant to be.
# # The Discovery
In the days that followed, Christiaan found himself drawn back to the Dj. Sometimes he was there, sometimes not, but Christiaan began to recognize the profound effect music had on him. It spoke to him in ways the fairground never could, reaching parts of his soul he hadn't known existed.
He with the help of the family bought a small dj set. Late at night, when the fairground fell silent and his family slept in their caravan, Christiaan would put on the headset and would began his mixing exploring the musical worlds that existed beyond the boundaries of his traveling life.
House,deep house,techno,hardstyle āeach genre opened new doors in his mind, created new ideas in his imagination. Music became his secret companion, his window to a world larger than the circuit of Dutch towns and fairgrounds.
# # The Shy Boy Behind the Scenes
There are no photographs of young Christiaan at the fairground. Unlike many children who eagerly pose for family pictures, Christiaan would shy away whenever a camera appeared. His timidity around photography stood in stark contrast to his confidence in the fairground environment, where he moved with ease among the rides and stalls, knowing every bolt and switch.
"I was very shy as a child," Christiaan recalls. "Everyone a camera showed up to take pictures of our fairground family, I would find somewhere else to be. Now there's this strange gap in the visual history of my lifeāplenty of photographs of the fairground, but almost none with me in them."
# # Life on the Road
Despite his growing passion for music, there were aspects of fairground life that imprinted themselves deeply on Christiaan's soul. The atmosphere was magicalāthe twinkling lights transforming ordinary town squares into wonderlands, the joyful faces of children experiencing the thrill of the rides, the constant buzz of activity.
Each morning brought new challenges, technical issues that needed immediate solutions before the fairground could open. Christiaan watched and learned as his father and the other operators worked together, solving problems with ingenuity born of necessity. This practical education would serve him well in later years, teaching him resourcefulness and adaptability that no classroom could provide.
Some of his most cherished memories were formed in the cab of his father's old Scania truck. Seated in the middle of the cabin, young Christiaan would gaze out at the world passing by, feeling both protected and adventurous. The view in the side mirror fascinated himāthe massive trailer behind them following faithfully as they navigated to their next destination.
"When I was a child sitting in the middle of the cabinet, and then you look in the mirror to the right and see the large trailer behind the truckāit was always fascinating, especially watching it make turns," Christiaan remembers with a smile. "Those are moments I'll never forget."
# # Home life
At eighteen, when Christiaan got his driving license, his father was overjoyed. "He asked me to go for a truck driving license, and I did that a few years later," Christiaan recalls.
One day, returning from driving school, Christiaan found his father waiting in a dark blue Mercedes. "I opened the door, and he looked at me and said, 'Son, I don't want you to give up. Get your truck license.' He had tears in his eyes." The memory still moves Christiaan deeply. "
# # The Change
Through all the hardships, the disconnect between Christiaan's fairground life and his musical soul grew. The constant movement, which once seemed adventurous, now felt unsettling. The mechanical reliability of the rides, once comforting, now seemed limiting compared to the boundless creativity of music.
At twenty one , Christiaan made a decision that would alter the course of his life. With the blessing of his understanding father, who had noticed the change in his son long before he voiced it, Christiaan began to dream of studying music in Amsterdam.
The transition wasn't easy. The stability of a permanent home felt foreign after years of movement. The discipline required for formal music education challenged him in ways the practical education of fairground life never had. But each time you were touching the set buttons the mixer, he knew he had found his true path.
Finally Christiaan obtained his truck driving license, hoping to occasionally drive the family's fairground equipment. "I was never allowed to drive by my mother, though my father wanted it. But it never happened," he recalls with a hint of wistfulness. This small disappointment, however, was overshadowed by his growing musical aspirations.
# # Following the Dream
In 2012, Christiaan made the definitive break from fairground life. "I made my dream come reality," he says with pride. "I wanted to be a DJ and followed my passion as a musician." This wasn't a rejection of his past but an embrace of his future. The rhythmic beats and melodic flows he created as a DJ held echoes of the mechanical symphonies of the fairgroundāthe whirring, clicking, and humming that had formed the soundtrack of his childhood.
His father's passing remains a painful chapter. "My father died not long ago, and I was not invited to his funeral," Christiaan says, the hurt still evident. "He was a man who was very honest about everything but was always afraid of the one thing that controlled him."
People often ask if he misses the fairground lifestyle. "No," Christiaan answers honestly. "The urge for music is stronger than being in a fairground life. But what I do miss is the atmosphere of the lights and the surroundingsālots of people coming together, children who are happy, and always something new happening or things that needed to be fixed before the fair got started."
# # Full Circle
Years later, Christiaan would return to Lissen with his own sound equipment. He set up not within the fairground but just beyond its boundaries, in the very spot where he had once heard that life-changing melody. Now it was his turn to create the music, to perhaps inspire another young soul searching for their path.
As he played, he noticed a young boy watching from the edge of the fairground, eyes wide with wonder. Christiaan smiled, recognizing the look of someone discovering something missing, something that matched their soul perfectly.
The fairground had given Christiaan a childhood filled with color, movement, and community. But it was music that had given him his voice, his purpose, his true self. And as his melodies drifted across the fairground, bridging his past and present, Christiaan felt a profound gratitude for both worlds that had shaped him.
The boy from the fairground had found his way homeānot to a place, but to the music that had been calling him all along. In becoming a DJ and musician, Christiaan hadn't left his fairground roots behind; he had transformed them into something new, something that was uniquely his ownāsomething that, at last, matched who he truly was.
"I want to thank my girlfriend Lina for her support and all the things she does for me in these years, even though it's hard for her to keep me up," Christiaan concludes with heartfelt gratitude. "She does a great job šš» and deserves praise from everyone who has read this story." Everyone is Included-All People, All Places, All Ways
