What brought Miette Dierckx back to Belgium after her years in China?

Miette Dierckx, the Flemish entrepreneur known from VTM’s ‘Mijn Pop-uprestaurant’, has returned to Belgium after several years in China and is beginning a new job here, Het Nieuwsblad reported on 16 August. Dierckx said she hopes the work will help people feel better, although the publicly accessible reporting does not establish the role’s full title, employer, contractual terms or starting date.

For a Belgian audience, the immediate significance is personal rather than institutional: a familiar television figure has come home and is attempting another professional reinvention. No Belgian government body or EU institution is involved, and there has been no relevant political response. Treating the move as a diplomatic development would overstate what is, at heart, a lifestyle and career story.

Dierckx first became widely known in Flanders in 2016, when she and Willem Vankrunkelsven ran the Mexican-themed Jalapeño Loco in ‘Mijn Pop-uprestaurant’. Contemporary and later accounts say they reached the final but did not win. Regional broadcaster RTV subsequently reported that she opened Villa Loco in the former municipal building in Eindhout, part of Laakdal, in 2017. In a 2019 interview with MenStyle, Dierckx said the television experience had increased her confidence and that she had continued developing pop-up concepts inspired by her travels.

Her career later moved beyond hospitality. HLN and Het Nieuwsblad reported in September 2024 that Dierckx had relocated to China for the engineering work of her husband, Jonas. She was then exploring work as a travel guide and developing trips under the name Mimi Voyage. Dierckx presented China as a varied and welcoming country that was often reduced to negative images in foreign coverage. That was a personal assessment based on life and travel there, not a comprehensive account of the country’s political conditions.

The distinction matters. Belgium’s Foreign Affairs ministry currently says China can generally be visited safely when ordinary precautions are observed, but it also warns Belgian travellers that local laws and penalties can differ sharply from those in Belgium. The ministry advises travellers to register through Travellers Online and notes that Belgian passport holders may make qualifying visits of up to 30 days without a visa until the end of 2026. Those official cautions do not contradict Dierckx’s positive experiences; they place an individual travel narrative inside the practical and legal framework applicable to other Belgians.

Her return also closes, at least for now, a chapter that connected a Flemish television career with expatriate life in China. The thread running through her restaurant projects, travel plans and latest job is repeated experimentation rather than a single profession. That makes the story recognisable to viewers who remember her from television, but it does not by itself demonstrate a wider labour-market or migration trend.

What comes next depends on information that has not yet been made public. The employer, scope and duration of the new position need clearer confirmation, as does the future of Mimi Voyage and any continuing professional connection with China. Until those details emerge, the verified development is limited but clear: Dierckx is back in Belgium and has announced another change of direction.