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1 NETHERLANDS De citaten in dit document komen uit de werkstukken van studenten in de masterprogramma s over Europese integratie bij de Universiteit Maastricht. De studenten schrijven deze werkstukken aan het einde van trainingen of colleges over cultuur. De opdracht bestaat steeds uit twee vragen: wat is cultuur voor jou? Hoe ga jij zelf met cultuurverschillen om? Hierbij reflecteren studenten op het geboden lesmateriaal in het licht van eigen ervaringen. Via deze citaten zie je Nederland als het ware door de ogen van een buitenlander, een beeld vanuit een andere manier van denken. Het gevolg hiervan is dat wat een buitenlander opmerkt over Nederland niet kenmerkend hoeft te zijn voor Nederland. De waarneming betreft alleen een verschil met de eigen manier van denken en doen van de buitenlander. De verschillen in de citaten zijn dan ook relatieve en geen absolute verschillen. Wel zetten ze je op een goede manier aan het denken over wat Nederland nou eigenlijk is. ALGEMEEN A lot of Dutch people travel to the South of Europe for their summer holidays. Last summer I did the same with my parents, we travelled to the South of France. We arrived at the most beautiful summer house I had ever seen. We always go to French megastores like a Carrefour or a Hypermarché Casino for groceries. When walking through the gigantic supermarkets I always play the game with my sisters to guess the culture of the people walking in the supermarket, by only looking at them and not listening to the language they are speaking. In the end we check the right answer by sneaking up on them and listening to their conversations, I can tell you a very fun game, which we are remarkably good at. I can always identify the Dutch people. They are colourly dressed in all the brand names. The father usually wears a polo shirt tucked in grey shorts. The kids look blond and are well-dressed also. I could recognize my own people anywhere. Often the game is spoiled by another characteristic of the Dutch people, we talk so loud! It seems like the person with the loudest voice gets listened to. It is also interesting to look at the annoyed faces of the local French inhabitants. You can see them thinking: Ah, those loudmouth Dutch people, with your arrogant behaviour and fancy clothes.. While at the same time the typical Dutch families also recognize each other and perfect strangers start talking. Again, a very nice game to play. This experience, among others, let me realize one thing: Holland does not have a true sports culture! This is even more so for my sister who was born in London and upon returning to the Netherlands at the age of 15, identified against Dutch culture rather than from Dutch culture. What this shows is the culture is as much individual as that it belongs to a society. The Netherlands ( ) There one can meet maybe even more foreigners than Dutch people. There you can hear the bell ringing every half an hour signalizing the time. And then you can get the idea of the people immediately they appreciate time, keeping deadlines is very important to them. Being nice and friendly? That s not an effort, it s a natural thing, a pleasure for them. Having a good party? Well, that s something I have to talk about. During the first summer holiday of my secondary education, I came to Netherlands to see my father and his business here and then go back to Turkey again for further education. From the airport to home, the first thing to strike me, at the age of 12, was the special red roads that were designed for cyclists. I knew Dutch were keen cyclists however, I would not expect them to built special roads and paint them in red! The second thing that had caught my attention was the amount of traffic lights, and actually people taking them seriously and obeying them! Third thing that came to my attention was the amount of elderly people walking in the streets and still continue to be hardcore shoppers in shopping centres. I enjoyed looking at them with a smile and them responding to me saying Hoi, Jong! with the same smile. Of course, one point that can not be overlooked and surprises anyone that comes to Netherlands for the first time is the combination of French fries and mayonnaise. This is a very minor thing, yet it surprises people greatly and this difference was to be mentioned even in movies, such as Pulp Fiction which is a Pagina 1 van 11

2 famous cult film. It took me some years to get used to friet met mayonnaise, and admittedly, I still prefer a combination of ketchup and mayonnaise on my fries. It was only when I entered the International School in 1994 that I realized that the culture that I experienced in and around the Scheveningen harbour the gabbers and the associated compulsory Ajax or Feyenoord jersey, the unique atmosphere of a lower-class buurtcentrum, the extraordinary sense of national pride during football events, the hustle and bustle of children playing in the narrow streets, their unemployed mothers at street corners discussing the latest gossip, and their fathers driving by on a rusty brommer on their way to work, or as was more often the case, to the local pub down the road is markedly different to the bourgeois Dutch culture that is presented in the media and that I encountered at the International School, and today in Maastricht. There are two things that I have gotten out of this experience. Growing up, one lesson I was being taught by my grandmother, aunt and mother was, Put on a good face to a bad game. Living in the Netherlands I came up with a new motto: Always speak your mind. The second thing that stroke me was that all shops close so early and they do not work on Sundays. In Bulgaria shops usually close at 8 pm during the week and at 5 or 6 pm during the weekends, but supermarkets work until 9 pm all days and there are also a lot of supermarkets as well as shops for alcohol and cigarettes that work non stop. The other thing that really surprised me was the way garbage is collected here- these pink bags that are piled on the streets in a certain day of the week. The garbage in Bulgaria is collected every single day from the street-tidies. And we do not use any special bags; it is not even necessary to put the garbage in a bag, you can just throw it in the street-tidy. As a last example I would mention that Dutch people like spiders and let them live in their garden and houses. In Bulgaria these creatures are not necessarily killed but we always remove a spider web because it is regarded as something disgusting. In this respect we are not tolerant at all. ( ) why they give so much importance to the dogs? And as a general reasoning, I thought this might be because of the loneliness of the people. Since in my [Turkish] culture, there are large families, many children and people generally have not enough time to look after a dog. The average Dutch person does not identify with the specific sectors that Dutch culture is open about; rather the fact is that Dutch culture is open. Nevertheless, expectations can be deceiving. Instead of an easy lifestyle I enjoyed in the city of Warsaw I was forced to adjust my life to the way things were done there. Even the most basic things which I took for granted had been different here. I suddenly was put in the position that I have to adjust to the services others provide, and not having the companies try to convince me to use their service. They did not seem to care about customer satisfaction, or the profits of company they worked for. Best example of that is closed shops on a Sunday, or early closings on Saturday. ( ) To put it simply, people were more concerned about leaving work on time, than providing the services to people until the time the customers were officially able to shop. ( ) I would have thought that profit making principle and customer satisfaction would have been more universal. ( ) Finally most frustrating example of all would be the public transport example. ( ) Buses always run late, or too early. ( ) It was also possible for bus driver to protest for over 2 weeks, often without providing any alternative means of transportation for those who need to use them. Trains happen to skip the minor stations ( ) My problem lies in the mentality of the Dutch people, they accept such behavior, saying that there is not much that can be done to change it, or thinking it s not worth being bothered by it. Now that I know a bit more about the Dutch I know that this order is not only concerning the architecture and landscaping but is deeply ingrained into the society. Dutch was always people who fought the nature, water and bad weather. For this reason, they had to be hardworking, very well organized and also cooperative. In my view at that time, friendliness seems like a foreign word for most Dutch people. As far as I have experienced it, average Dutch people are much more putting emphasis on looking posh than what average Norwegians do. Dutch people claim that they are open-minded and friendly towards new cultures. In reality this is not the case, in the Netherlands I constantly feel that we are unconsciously dividing ourselves Pagina 2 van 11

3 into groups and creating prejudices towards others. People are afraid of other religions and do not like it when other cultures manifest themselves in public. TYPICALLY DUTCH When a foreigner would be asked what they regard to be typically Dutch they would respond by saying the following : coffee shops, clogs, windmills, tulips, bikes etc. But that is not how I see my country. (...) I do not go to coffee shops (many people think the Dutch are always stoned, but most coffee shops are full with drug tourists), I don t wear clogs (much too cold in the Netherlands, not to mention that they really do not feel nor look nice), I sporadically see windmills (but only when I visit my family in Zeeland), tulips are just flowers to me and we ride bikes because the country is just way too small to do everything by car.. Of course I am exaggerating by giving these examples, but I would like to stress that there s much more to a culture than the symbols foreigners think about. I was surprised to find out that my fellow students could list around 20 things, and label them to be typically Dutch, while I all considered these European or just normal ways of doing things. (...) I would agree with everything the students labeled to be Dutch ; it indeed fits with who I am or what I do. This was strange for me, because I never considered myself to be a typically Dutch person, as I m not very proud of my country, the language, the norms, behavior, nor the people. As a Chinese student, I have been living the Netherlands for six years. ( ) I do remember the scene that when I first time came to this country six years ago. The first thing I did when I stepped out the Schiphol airport was to look around to seek tulips. Because in my mind at that time the Netherlands was a country that tulips grow everywhere. Many times we take the things we do for granted and we do not think about the way we do them until we go and live in another place in the same country or even better another country, preferably on a different continent. For many of the foreign students life in the Netherlands represents a daily challenge. In addition to dealing with a different language and a different way of life (such as the fact that all shops here close at 6 pm, for example) we have to get used to different customs. One such difference, in my opinion, is behaviour on the street and in public places. In my native country it is accepted that people should behave in a way that is courteous and considerate of others when in public. This means that when you are in the street, on the bus or on the tram, you should let others pass and make way for fellow passengers to get. If you happen to bump into someone you should at least apologize. Of course, some people do not always do this, but it is the expectation. When I arrived in the Netherlands several times people on the street or on the train pushed me simply because they wanted to pass exactly at the spot where I was and did not want to go around me. It happened to some of friends of mine as well, more than once, so I started to wonder whether this kind of behaviour is more acceptable in the Netherlands. I even asked some of my Dutch fellow students and they confirmed that this is the case, although it is not the rule here and does not happen that often. One of them even said that she did not notice this before until she spent some time in Latin America. When she came back she noticed that people in the Dutch streets are really rude, to use her words. While I have met many nice Dutch people who apologize if they bump into you in the street, I have also met others who do not think it is necessary to do so. It is not easy for me to accept this kind of behaviour but yet I have learned to tolerate it, especially since I know now that I can expect this. HOUSING What surprised me was that the houses are much smaller and more expensive than in Belgium. Another distinctive difference between Poland and the Netherlands is housing style. In Poland lot of people live in blocks of flats, and those who have their own houses, have them very big and spacious. In the Netherlands I think most of the people live in terrace houses, which are not very big. Other thing is that many Dutch people, unlike Poles, do not use any curtains, which in my opinion even more underlines people's openness and frankness. Pagina 3 van 11

4 STUDIE In the Netherlands I discovered that German students are more ambitious than Dutch students. Dutch students are more relaxed and they spend less time studying. What is more, many Dutch students seem to be very fond of student association. I do not understand the student association culture. Why to do humiliating entrance examination? Why to let an association chose who your friends are? These I questions to which I could not find any satisfying answer until now. Even though the programme is taught in English, we have many foreign lecturers and also our class is very multicultural, the educational system is made in a very,,dutch way. For example, the whole concept of project based learning corresponds to the Dutch traditional emphasis on working in teams and task-oriented thinking. During my studies in the Netherlands I also noticed that some of the non-dutch students tried to adopt the Dutch way of acting in the class by for example asking questions and giving comments in the class however, it is very difficult for students from different cultures to sense the fragile line between being direct and express one s opinion and being too critical and sometimes even blunt. Moving to the Netherlands has been a big challenge for me. Not only has the University system I [Canadian] have encountered is completely different then I have experienced before but numerous other things a well. For example, searching for a room was a real trial. When I tried to search for a room in Maastricht via the internet, as I have done before in Germany and Sweden, it was not possible to search without paying a fee to use the different websites. When I arrived in Maastricht and began looking for rooms, I was suddenly confronted with the very different definition of a kitchen then I had. A kitchen in the Netherlands appears to be only a sink and counter, with no stove or oven, or even fridge. I was completely shocked, but I learned to adjust to the situation. AFFECTIEF /NEUTRAAL Moreover in Netherlands people seem more reluctant to touch as well. In Turkey it is common to kiss on the cheeks for both men and women to say goodbye and hello. ( ) Another example can be the time when a friend of mine felt homesick in the Netherlands. She was saying that she was missing to touch someone, such as a family member or a friend. I find the people from the northern part of The Netherlands a bit colder and unfriendly in comparison to the south. For me, one Vietnamese, after arrival in the Netherlands, I also meet many obstacles from language, the way of thinking, working and lifestyle. For example, I am actually surprised when I see Dutch expression of love at public. People can kiss or hold together without any shyness. Because, in Vietnam, people never do like that and there are also many strict rules of the relationship between man and woman. Man cannot kiss or hug any woman due to the influence of Confucianism which regulated the gap between them. VERSCHILLEN BINNEN NEDERLAND The differences in religion between the North and south are immediately clear when looking at the latest election results of the Dutch parliament. The south of the Netherlands, Limburg especially, has a very concentrated and strong support for the Dutch Christian Democrats. The support for the Protestant and Reformed parties is higher in the Northern and middle parts of the Netherlands. Around 20 % of the Dutch are reformed or Calvinist, whereas 31% is Roman Catholic. A large part of the Roman Catholics live in the South, in contrast to the Reformed or Calvinists which are more present in the North and South-west. This difference in religion, as a consequence of different histories, strongly affects the norms and values of the Dutch population, especially the older population. In the Netherlands, I experienced it as a very interesting aspect as the region plays an important role here. In Limburg, I made the experience that especially elderly people rather do not talk to people who are not from the same region. They can easily distinguish themselves from others Pagina 4 van 11

5 because of their dialect. I have even experienced that they are more open to Germans than towards persons from the Randstad. Unknown Limburgers among themselves are very talkative and do not have a big threshold to address somebody. Experiencing cultural differences here in Maastricht are based on two factors. First of all, it is based on the fact that I was not born and raised in this region, but am a Hollander (a common expression used in Limburg for people that were not born and raised in this province). Second of all, my experiences of cultural differences are also related to the fact that I am a student here. As a Hollander I feel (and are made to feel) different from local people. It has happened that people would start talking to me, but would pull back as soon as they hear that I do not speak the dialect, even though I can understand it quite well. Even though I have lived in Maastricht for over five years now and feel very much at home here, I still feel most connected to my hometown Arnhem with respect to my cultural perception within the Netherlands. I arrived in the Netherlands for the first time in 1992 when I was eight years old and I was enrolled at a small local elementary school in Scheveningen. Something that I only realized after I had left the Netherlands, was that the school was situated in a relatively poor lower-class district and most of the children came from a neighbourhood beside the harbour. Thus, I was faced with a community with a strong sense of identity, marked by its members distinct socio-economic standing, occupation, local setting, tradition, a strong haagse dialect and a familiar sense of solidarity and togetherness. In other words, the members possessed a very exclusivist notion of identity, which in theory, should make it difficult for any outsider to integrate. Furthermore, upon arrival, I did not speak any Dutch and lived in the neighbouring upper middle class district, which was clearly demarcated from the former, thereby further exacerbating the differences between me and the insiders. Yet, within a few weeks I became befriended with many of my classmates and rapidly began to integrate into the life of my fellow classmates. The transition from a Czech to a Dutch society was made very easy thanks to the remarkable efforts of my class mentor, who took extra pains to teach me Dutch. After several months, I was considered as a member of the closely-knit school community. This is probably a result of the fact that I (as a Limburger ) do not primarily feel Dutch. VOEDSEL Another difference between the Netherlands and Poland is that people have different attitude towards food. In spite of sharing very unhealthy feeding habits, Poles are more like Italians, according to list with characteristic of typical Dutch person. In my country the way one eats at the dinner table is by taking the food when one pleases, if he/she thinks they didn t had enough. This procedure goes without asking permission or waiting for permission every time one wants to have some food. In contrary to how I was raised, in The Netherlands one has to wait to have permission to take food from the dinner table in order to eat. It puzzled me so much that I actually asked one of my Dutch colleagues to confirm the statement. Indeed, for various reasons, the broodje seemed to be the best choice for lunch. When I explained that where I came from, lunch was a consistent meal, she asked But what do you have for diner, then? In Netherlands the lunch seems a religious mass with its own rituals. Brands are like a secular Gospel and tastes and flavour the incense which gives the environment a sense of mystery. As the Dutch, we were admired by our fellow ERASMUS students for our punctually and straight-forwardness, but mocked for our unrefined eating and drinking habits. On the other hand, I was surprised that many Dutchmen prefer having a sandwich for lunch instead of a nice whole meal. Maybe I was a bit spoilt from the delicious Italian cuisine but I remember that last year we always had at least one hour for a lunch break while here in Maastricht our schedule sometimes allows us to have only half an hour for eating which is not enough according to me. Actually, I do not like the Dutch habit to eat Broodjes for lunch. I think it is unhealthy, and very often I am longing for something real which is cheap to buy when I am in Maastricht. However, in Berlin, in summer, I felt like having a broodje. Pagina 5 van 11

6 Onder het kopje voedsel past ook een de inleiding van een artikel in De Pers. (aangehaald via de website 15 juli 2008). Voor stamppot of snert halen de meeste Turken, Markokkanen, Surinamers en Antillianen in Nederland hun neus op. Met zoetigheden als pannenkoeken en stroopwafels kun je wel aankomen bij allochtonen. En voor een pot pindakaas kun je ze helemaal s nachts wakker maken. Merk overigens ook het taalgebruik in deze paar zinnen op. Zeer waarschijnlijk heeft het artikel en het onderliggend onderzoek nauwelijks betrekking op Turken, Markokkanen, Surinamers en Antillianen maar wel op Nederlanders van Turkse, Markokkaanse, Surinaamse en Antilliaanse afkomst. Dit lijkt een klein verschil, maar diverse onderzoeken hebben aangetoond dat bestendige rapportage op deze manier een grote doorwerking heeft. Dit belemmert Nederlanders met een buitenlandse afkomst in het zich Nederlander voelen en de acceptatie van betrokkenen door andere Nederlanders. Hier hebben de media een belangrijke taak bij de integratie. Zo publiceerde de Volkskrant op de voorpagina eens een foto van een vrouw nadat ze haar Nederlandse paspoort had ontvangen. In het onderschrift stond de vrouw genoemd met haar oorspronkelijke nationaliteit (dit was iets als Ethiopische vrouw nadat zij van Minister Verdonk haar paspoort heeft ontvangen ). Een aan de ombudsman van de Volkskrant leidde gelukkig snel tot een correctie. PERSOONLIJKE RUIMTE/PRIVÉ Another difference in cultures of Ukrainians and Dutch is the issue of privacy, which is actually very controversial. On one hand, Dutch do not like curtains, which can be an in indicator of openness. And Ukrainians would hang curtains, even if they live on the tenth floor and nobody can see anything in their windows. On the other hand, Dutch do not usually invite guests to their houses and prefer to meet somewhere outside, like, restaurants, bars, park, clubs etc. And Ukrainians mo stly meet with their friends and relatives at their houses. So, for a Ukrainian coming to the Netherlands for the first time it might seem as sign of remoteness, when somebody, who may refer to you as a friend, will not invite you to his or her place. INDIVIDUALISME/COLLECTIVISME I think that mentality and attitudes in Germany and the Netherlands do not differ largely. In both countries, people are very goal oriented, work a lot and like to have a feeling of security and safety in their every day life. A striking difference is, according to me, that Dutch people are much more proud of their country and nationality. Due to this lifestyle, I feel difficult to adapt to this new living environment where people all have a private life and high individualism. I [a Dutch woman] would see myself as an individualistic p erson, but when I am part of a group I would always stick by the opinion and actions of the group. In for instance group work you always have to keep in mind that certain manners or ways of doing things are different as a result of cultural differences. I think the most important thing here is to ask why people want to do things the way they do, and then you have to find a comprise. I just realize that this is more of a Dutch approach, because I know that many German students prefer to have a (natural) leader while doing group work. For example, I often notice that I accuse Dutch people of being too individualistic, with which I mean that the Dutch do not easily talk with strangers in public life, or are not easily willing to help each other (particularly not strangers). It is exactly this consensus-building spirit in my identity and personality that made me find and create my own cultures worldwide. I must conclude that I am without a doubt shaped by Dutch culture (especially the consensus-building aspects), even when growing up abroad and moving around so frequently. This is an interesting conclusion for myself, since there are elements of Dutch society I do not feel connected to or even feel limited by. Where one person values high social security, I often experience too many rules as a barricade to my individual Pagina 6 van 11

7 expression and freedom. Where group efforts kit people together and sooth social tensions, I feel that individual achievement is often undervalued and can block creativity and motivation. What can be seen from all this, is that Limburg s society tends to be more a communitarian society than most other parts of the Netherlands, where religion and tradition play a far less important role. MACHTSAFSTAND Another dimension of Hofstede s theory that I can easily see in an everyday life at the university is the Power Distance dimension, showing low hierarchy between students and teachers. It is not an exception that Dutch students talk to their teachers outside classes and they very often go to have a drink with them after lectures. ( ) I personally already witnessed misunderstandings where this behaviour, which is rather typical for the Dutch, was wrongly interpreted as an attempt to win teachers favour and create some kind of an elitist group. My experience is that Dutch people don t consider status to be so important and are generally inclined to call people they are unfamiliar with by their first names very quickly. In the Netherlands, tutors are considered as equals who are not always right. At the beginning, I have to say I was shocked because I was not used to this informality but I got used to it quite easily, even if I still notice that I have a lot of respect for tutors and they are still in my eyes almost every time right. To sum up in a caricatured way, students do not know anything and they are at the university to learn something and tutors are the genius who teach them a specific subject. I feel a split in society of those that desire more acknowledgement of individual achievement (which I felt close too in the USA) and those who wish for more communitarianism to protect the weak in society. Both approaches are Dutch waves of sedimentation, however both have something in common: a degree of responsibility. In the near future, consensus will probably create the middle-way solution here in the debate over deciding who bears which responsibilities. The first cultural difference I felt there was the friendly tone of conversation, and the informal relationship between students and teachers at the VU. This kind of work during a university class put the students in a collaborator position with the teacher, who s standing here, not only to introduce you to an academic issue, but as well to think about it with you. The student has to intervene often in order to show its will to participate to the collective thinking leaded by the professor. This was different from the conservative french way of teaching where the student who dares interrupting the course would better have a relevant question. A different aspect of Dutch life which shocked me when I [Norwegian] arrived here was the competitiveness in the society. As I told some Dutch friends of mine that I previously wanted to become a nurse they looked weird at me with huge eyes and a face expression which presented a confused look. They could simply not understand why I could dream of studying at a College when I could go to University and make a better education with higher salary in the end. Personally, I very much dislike this way of thinking and creation of a hierarchal society where the upper class looks down at the people with lower education. INTEGRATIE This acceptance of behaviours from minorities without repression from the majority is something I really admire from the Dutch traditions and social behaviours. But it has some limits as well on the integration sector, especially considering what we say in France : trop de tolérance mène à l indifférence (too much tolerance leads to ignorance). The reason why I was able to integrate in Dutch society but not in French society for sure has several reasons. First, I started as a student in Maastricht and thus was not isolated as I was in France because from the beginning, I was one of many first-years that were looking for new friends. Second, I claim that Dutch people are more open-minded towards foreigners than French people. PARTICULARISME/UNIVERSALISME Pagina 7 van 11

8 I would like to find the biggest differences between the culture I know, and the Dutch culture. First, Dutch people are very informal, in contrast to Poles. (...) However, the Dutch/Anglo-Saxon informal way of teaching, that I enjoyed more than the French one, has some limits. It appeared to me regarding looking at its universalist way of working. It is here that I felt the French culture was (what I would call after your class) a particularist one : the university never let me pass a second session of exams I could not attend because I was having a pneumonia. The second session was in September next year, where I would already be back in France. Yet, nobody could arrange me a special extra examination, like it could certainly happen with a strict French teacher, because, in the Netherlands, the rule is the rule. OVERHEID Lastly, I want to refer to an employment related experience that has brought me down to earth, with respect to my working possibilities, as a national of a new EU member state. I applied for a Student Assistant position at an European institution located at Onze Lieve Vrouwe Plein in Maastricht. Approximately three hours prior to the interview I received an and a voic message that my interview was being cancelled. I was shocked at this response, and I inquired via telephone as to the reason for this. My inquiry was handled in a short and unfriendly manner. I was informed that someone in another department told the hiring manager that it is very difficult to arrange a working permit for Poles, and therefore the process of my hiring was being stopped immediately. I was, and continue to be furious! I was finally beginning to think that my Polish passport was worth something. Yet, again, I feel like I was treated like a second-class European citizen. I was mostly appalled by the way that an institute of such a high profile treated my candidature. Perhaps this has a direct link to the hiring manager s business culture and communication skills. I would be severely disappointed if it turned out that I could have landed the job with my Canadian passport. The general perception I had while I was still living in Romania was that the Netherlands was one of the most liberal countries in Europe, with an outward-looking liberal government. Unfortunately, this perception has been fundamentally changed by some unpleasant experiences I had here. After the murder of the populist politician Pim Fortuyn, the Netherlands started to become increasingly reluctant towards foreigners. As a citizen coming from a country outside the European Union, I had quite often problems in getting in time all the necessary documents I needed. What was and still is disturbing me is the substantial difference in between the public declarations of a person/institution and the real actions taken by this person/institution. In this sense I would like to mention the difference between the general perception the Dutch society offers, that of being open and friendly towards foreigners and the actual measures that are enforced, which in my opinion attempt to discourage foreigners to come to live/study in the Netherlands. What is upsetting in this case is the lack of flexibility that exists, no differentiation being made between students who have come here for study purpose and those persons that are seeking political asylum in the Netherlands. Being confronted almost on a daily basis with these problems, I think it is impossible not to get somehow skeptic about the government. Moreover, if you feel that your interests are infringed just by the fact that you are not yet a citizen of one of the EU s member states, your euroskepticism is likely to increase. Furthermore, after having gone through the processes of residence permits, dealings with IB- Groep, impossibility of getting a work permit etc., I started to resent Dutch bureaucracy. After not being able to lose my Polish accent in Dutch (and not being able to take my Dutch to a better level in general; I started learning it when I had realized I would still stay in the Netherlands for the next two-three years), and disappointments in personal relationships added to this, I am saying honestly that I stopped trying and applied a sort of cultural relativism to my coexistence with the Dutch society, as previously to my co-existence with the American one. MULTICULTURELE SAMENLEVING Pagina 8 van 11

9 Dutch experience is quite different from any previous one as in the Netherlands I felt (much more than in other countries) being perceived as a representative of certain unknown culture, or better to say I felt being subjectified as a person from the post-soviet space, from Eastern Europe, and even non-europe. I have not felt that much as the Other before. Despite bad weather, people are more open and friendly than in Poland. Every people were eager to help me, even the bus drivers, which is unprecedented in Poland. But I have an impression that the Dutch are less hospitable than the Poles People also wear more casual clothes, than in Poland. (...) My most recent experience here in Maastricht convinced me, that a tolerant multi-cultural society in the Netherlands, is still an idea that has not been translated into reality. I was enjoying a cup of coffee with friends from Thailand, Indonesia and Ecuador, when we were rudely interrupted by an employee of La Place V&D. Apparently, we had not paid for our beverages. While my friends were presenting their receipts, we were accused of stealing! In our less than perfect Dutch we tried to explain that we had also paid with a cashier that had already ended her shift. After inspecting our receipts, the employee left our table without any excuses for her behaviour. We were instead left sitting at our table, enjoying hostile stares from other customers. Having spent fifteen years in a country which prides itself on its multicultural character, I was stunned by the blatant form of prejudice and discrimination that myself and my friends experienced. Granted that discrimination does occur everywhere, the reason why I am so disappointed in the Netherlands is because it prides itself on being so open and tolerant, when in fact, my experiences indicate otherwise. Granted, my experiences do not define what the Dutch culture is, but they do leave a lasting impression. This acceptance of behaviors from minorities without repression from the majority is something I really admire from the dutch traditions and social behaviors. But it has some limits as well on the integration sector, especially considering what we say in France : trop de tolérance mène à l indifférence (too much tolerance leads to ignorance). In the last ten years, culture is more and more associated with concepts such as (illegal) immigrants, integration problems and since September 11 with terrorism. In the Netherlands, the integration issue is a very hot topic. It has gained attention, especially since Pim Fortuin, the assassination of Theo van Gogh and through the politics of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Rita Verdonk. The Netherlands, normally used as a key example of a liberal, open-minded, and tolerant country, is less and less used as an example. It is more and more portrayed as a country with integration problems, and intolerant towards other nationalities. To put it differently, the Dutch culture is hardened. Although, this negative shift in the Netherlands also has an impact on my life, I still try to be as open as possible, without being naïve. I perceive culture and cultural differences as something interesting and not as it is more and more perceived as a threat. The values I was brought up with I considered being typically Dutch. Some examples: open mind, progressive stance on issues such as drugs and abortion, equality, respect for democracy, not spending too much money and respect for others. At the moment I m not really sure anymore if I can consider these values as typically Dutch or as the values of the surroundings I was brought up in. I think that the Dutch values are changing and this has to do with the new cultures that have come to the Netherlands. Many people are afraid of these new cultures and therefore they hide behind conservatism and narrow-mindedness. It is a shame that we do not promote these old values in the new cultural surroundings because I believe this would have a positive effect instead of hiding behind fear. TRANSPORT A lot of people in Netherlands use bicycles and mopeds to commute. In Holland it is more likely that you will be run over by one rather than by car. Poland is like Germany, country of automotive culture. I have been observing that Dutchmen are not very respective for the traffic regulations. (...) Other thing which I have noticed, but which I really don't like is real problem in finding place where you can park your car for free. The first one is the use of bikes. I have never seen so many bicycles in my life. In Bulgaria only kids ride bicycles and nowadays even they are not doing it often. For that reason, I was very Pagina 9 van 11

10 surprised to see that in the Netherlands it is the most popular vehicle. I understand why students use bikes, but I am still shocked when I see a man, dressed in a suit, to ride a bicycle. In Bulgaria, men in suits are driving BMWs, Mercedeses, Porches etc. The thing I remember most from their visit back in the Netherlands was how we learned them how to ride a bike to get to school in the morning. I am still surprised that no one got hurt, since in the best case some had ridden a bike in their childhood, but at worst they never even touched a bike. So far I have learned to ride my bicycle while holding umbrella when it rains. It seems to be something very common for locals. And I am happy to see that not all Dutch students go home every weekend as it was in Leuven with Flemish students. GELD I noticed that Dutch people tend to be economical even though they have money. In my country for example, people also do not spend all their financial sources but they usually deliberately save money if they want to buy something but not in general as a value (without a concrete purpose). One day one of my friends came to my room and we were just chatting then she said me she is hungry and I brought her a sandvich, and she offered me to pay the price and I was shocked and said her in our [Turkish] tradition, we can do everything for guests to make them happy and contended without expecting any return. And this time she was surprised. The cultural difference surprised both of us. When it came to the Bank and bank cards, I also had to adjust. I did not realize that a bank card would be used to connect to my University identity card and that this is how I would pay for my printing and photocopying at the library. It also took me a long time to figure out the system with the chipknip and why this was so important to have in order to pay for coffee or candy bars. At first I was really frustrated at how things could be made, in my opinion much more complicated and more of a hassle then they needed to be. However after some time I began to understand the system and to accept it and deal with it. ( ) while looking back to the history of Netherlands you might understand that this nation has a long history of money matters, being a nation of which had and still has one the biggest seaports in World and being the nation of traders who traveled and did business all over the world, they accumulated their culture of dealing with money, culture which is based on practice and understanding the main essence of money matters and any kind of business transactions (including small and micro business transactions) are embedded in this culture of money. My second major cultural and financial challenge while settling in Maastricht was trying to understand the Dutch banking system and the bureaucracy that accompanied it. Of the four banks (ING, Postbank, SNS, ABN AMBRO) that operate in Maastricht, only one (Postbank) would allow for a student to open a temporary account. This was a process that required an excessive amount of documentation, and would require two weeks in order for the application to be completed. Once the account was open, however, I was able to do little with it, as approaching employees of my home branch was met with indifference and a certain degree of scorn. "This is impossible" was the response I most often received from 'customer service' personnel when attempting to solve problems with my account, and any question I asked of them was diverted to their online banking system, which was difficult for me to navigate, since I don't speak Dutch. RELIGION I explained these differences on the basis of historically religious differentiations. Although the Netherlands is to a large extend secularized, this does not mean that cultural diversity which I argue derived from religious diversity, disappeared too. People living north of the big rivers may not be overtly protestant such as people in the southern Netherlands may not be overtly catholic. But nevertheless they are shaped in a culture which has in turn been shaped by these religions for ages. The fact that people recently stopped going to the respective churches does not change this. Pagina 10 van 11

11 Linked to this is another religious difference which led to a social difference: based on their reading of the bible, Catholics ( Go forth and multiply) have more children than Calvinists. In the Catholic part of the Netherlands there is a stereotype that Protestants are individualistic and do not really care about their families ( God for all ). But Protestants simply had less family and were thus, by definition, more dependent on their own achievements. The Catholic society is a group-based structure in which social status is logically more important than individual success. After all, the family is always there as a safety net. Long before the term was invented, Catholics build up a network society in which social interaction took place in countless association and alliances. Pagina 11 van 11