Bonobo,
We share a few characteristics. We are both critical about compatriots inside our nations and the presence of bad elements of our nation abroad. I personally hate Dutch bluntness, impatience, rudeness and vulgarity abroad and inside the Netherlands. On several occasions I and my father, Dutch colleagues with sophistication (a certain civilization), Dutch family and friends were ashamed, irritated and annoyed/furious by bad behaviour of compatriots abroad. The fear and loathing of bad Dutch elements abroad which can spoil the pleasure of the people of the nation these Dutch people believe they are guest in as tourist, expat, visiting family or field trip.
I remember my Dutch dad nearly clashing or being involved in a harsh exchange of words in the French Walloon part of Belgium where Dutch blunt tourist acted like if they owned the place and demanded that the locals served them in Dutch. Go back to Holland if you can't behave yourself I heard my father say to them. You stupid blunt people, you spoil the Dutch name here. These are decent people, behave yourselves or leave! My father was a francophone Dutch man and we as children and teenagers spoke French in that part of Belgium. We ordered our meals in french in the Wallloon restaurants, and used French in the local supermarket, in the butchers, bakery and grocery store. And we tried to speak French with our limited vocabulary with our French speaking neighbours. We were respected, because the locals saw that we respected them and tried to speak their language. Next to French they spoke Walloon there and French with a Walloon Ardennes mountains farmer dialect.
Dutch colleagues at my former job at the communication (Public relations) department of the Arnhem Hospital Rijnstate complained about Dutch families abroad in France and Spain. About shouting, screaming, crying Dutch children terrorising the place, while the Italian, French and Belgian families had quiet, disciplined and more social children. Irritation about Duch families abroad is one of the main complaints from well mannered, decent Dutch tourists, travellers and expats. The Dutch, British, Swedes and Russians are notorious abroad for rude and blunt behaviour. Jeanne said that she had some experience with that Dutch bluntness in Boston. I don't like it and consider it a shamefull thing an error in the Dutch culture and probably a side effect of to much levelling and the social welfare state (Social security and such).
I am always relieved when I see a well behaving, decent, pleasant, polite, relaxed, and sophisticated group of Dutch people abroad I don't have to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. If I insulted some working class people over here, so be it. You have also decent working class and middle class Dutch people too. But it is a fact that one of the worries or risk factors for Dutch tourists is the presence of annoying, terrible compatriots who spoil the peace, relaxation of other people with deliberate aggressive, blunt, rude and terrible behaviour. I really detest and hate that.
The same with those plane loads and busloads of drunken and drugged cockney London low lives, and other white trash from Manchester, Liverpool and Brighton who to misbehave themselves in Amsterdam, Kraków, Tenerife, Costa del Sol, Southern France, West Turkey and Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. The lowest of the lowest of our societies. Sometimes I even believe that it is sad that these people are able to travel. I speak of experience with those British low lifes in a hotel in Tenerife in Februari 2009. Tattood, pierced (ears), ginger read, piggish, drunk, foul mouthed, swearing, fighting Cockney London Eastend Brits in front of the hotel, in the hotel lobby, in the lift, in the hallway, on the stairs, in the restaurant, in the bar, in their rooms, on their balconies, on the terrace, in the swimming pool. Some jumping from the third floor into the swimming pool. Often drunken friends who swear at each other, smack each other, beat each other up. And next to these guys often the most ugly, terrible female creatures, often even worse than their male compatriots. Girls and women who are like a merger of the ugly German female Concentration camp guards and the cheapest kind of vulgar prostitutes or porn stars. Wearing the shortest skirts I ever saw in my life. Talking in their Cockney trash language. It was like a British gangster movie. My Dutch girlfriend was terribly annoyed, but I couldn't do anything about it, because the whole hotel was full of these creatures. And the hotels next door too. We were just on our way to the more quiet and more sophisticated island of La Gomera. Nature lovers, ecological tourists, Yoga and New Age people and hippies go there.
Everything I told above here about these Brits could be Dutch tourists from Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Groningen or yes, even Arnhem, people who come from lowclass working class neighbourhoods, Hooligans, factory workers, harbour workers, blunt Dutch cabdrivers, bad elements of the farmers and fisherman communities and maybe annoyed civil servants and bad elements of the middle class. I love my country, but hate these people and their behaviour. I think there is something wrong in our culture, societies, politics, media, pop culture and etc. A vulgar bling bling cheap Noveau riche and lowest level of working class culture dominates our television, movies, pop culture and etc. Bad elements of the migrant community are incorrectable due to the behaviour of that nouveau riche and working class people. It seems that their materialistic, hedonistic, decadent, vulgar and rude behaviour is some kind of rebellion against the pillarisation and the class society in the past in which they were 'oppressed', 'held down', 'and had the position of the lowest class'.
Socialism (Social Democracy), Communism, Anarchism, and the capitalist culture of hedonism and decadence lead to this culture. As a Dutch patriot I hate the fact that Dutch vandals damage property on Greek islands, in Southern France, in Italy where Rotterdam Feyenoord Hooligans damaged a famous fountain, in Spain and etc. You can't beat these people up, you can't execute them (shoot them), and you don't have the power to sent them back to Holland like my father tried to do demand of that Dutch bullies in Belgium. But you can speak out, you can make apologies, like I try to do in this thread and you can try to explain the reasons behind it.
Fact is that a minority spoils it for a majority, because I have heard that in part of France they had area's in which they didn't want to serve Dutch people because they are parsimonious, loud, to much present, to dominant and simply annoying. To be honest as a Dutchman I can fully understand these French guys. It is the fault of the Dutch, they behaved themselves that way, and this is the consequence. I hope that more places in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and Belgium reacted that way. That is the only way these thugs will learn to behave themselves.
Again I have to say that there are a lot of wonderful, social, pleasant, decent, sophisticated, normal and nice Dutch people. Tourists, students abroad, expats, partners of foreigners abroad, people who live parttime or full time in Portugal, France, Spain or Italy. It is the Dutch version of these British Cockney low lives who spoil it for the rest on many occasions. I was really honest and serious when I said that one of the biggest fears or irritations of Dutch tourist abroad are compatriots. We live in one of the most densly populated area's of Europe and therefor tension between people sometimes runs high in trains, subways, busses and on roads and highways or in crowded streets or in supermarkets or other gathering places. The Dutch lack the patience and etiquette for instance which the Americans have. They lack the good style and politeness and elegance of the Poles.
Excactly the same attitude like Bonobo I have towards Dutch immigrants in the USA, Canada, South-Africa, Southern-America or Israel who kept some outdated views about the Netherlands from before the war or the fifties. Fierce Dutch patriots and nationalists who often barely speak Dutch, don't know the present day society in the Netherlands, and have no clue what Dutch culture really means. Their Dutch culture is windmills, Delft Blue (Delftware or Delft pottery), whole feet clogs from the Netherlands (Klompen), Dutch Liquorice (licorice in American English), Dutch Sprinkles (Hagelslag), Dutch Noren skates (speed skates), Frisian skates (doorlopers), Dutch stamppot (Mash pot), Frikandellen (a sort of minced-meat hot dog), Dutch Croquettes and a Dutch style french fries with mayonaise, curry or Ketchup and unions, or french fries with Peanut sauce and mayonaise and Dutch herring with unions, Dutch Heineken, Amstel or Grolsch beer.
Frikandellen
Dutch clogs
Delft Blue souvenirsThese Dutch migrants; Dutch Americans, Dutch Canadians and Dutch South-Africans don't see that the Netherlands is more than these cliché's, this folklore, this sentimental memories, nostalgia, a narrow minded narrative of what the Netherlands today are. A multi-cultural society (whether we like it or not), a country with a high tech water management, a very sophisticated and powerful financial sectors with offices and branches in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, the London City, Paris, Berlin Mitte, Warsaw, Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, Frankfurt, Dubai, Australia and New Zealand. They don't see the very complicated Dutch democracy with 13 political parties in parliament. They don't see that the Dutch larger cities face the same problems French Banlieu's face, and the larger cities in Germany, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. They live in the past with a romantic idea of what the Netherlands once was. That Netherlands doesn't exist anymore. Maybe only in some rural less densly populated area's where you still have a traditional farm life or fishermens life.
The Hague today
The Delta works
The modern port of Rotterdam
The Modern Amsterdam Schiphol Airport with the Boeings 707's of the Dutch national airline KLMSorry to have made the link to the Netherlands and Western-Europe again. Poland ofcourse will have it's own kind of low lifes, anti-social elements, Hooligans, violent extremists, criminal elements and less sophisticated compatriots. But I have the slight impression that there are less of these people in Poland then there are these people in Great-Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Russian for some reason. Russian bluntness maybe has to do with the influence of 70 years of Sovjetization, the communist culture of that country which created a blunt proletarian culture. And after the collapse of the SovjetUnion you got a sort of simplistic, blunt kind of Oligarchic primite Capitalism which created a nouveau riche, cheap style, bling bling class with a lot of money but no taste and style.
Cheers,
Pieter
