Misconceptions that the Dutch Have about the US part 1

One of the things that I have constantly been confronted with while being a foreigner in the Netherlands is what the Dutch think about America and Americans. The Dutch are always talking about what Americans think about them. The only thing that Americans know about the Dutch is tulips, windmills, the red light districts and soft drugs (marijuana). Americans have learned about these things through the media. Movies and news reports about the Netherlands. Stories like Hans Brinker the boy from Spaarndam who put his finger in the dyke to stop a leak and saved the village.

It is sadly true that most Americans would be hard put to locate the Netherlands on a map if shown one. It is also sadly true that the Dutch in this manner are also quite hypocritical (by the way it is a normal human condition to be a hypocrite). Most of what the Dutch know about America has been gleaned from movies, news and other cultural media (music, music videos, tv shows, etc.) . It can't be any other way. This is the only contact that most Dutch people have with America.

It is funny that while the Dutch think they know all about America from the exposure they have had through the media, they look smugly down on Americans who think they something about the Netherlands through their exposure to similar media.

I have been a member of Dutch society for more than nine years now. I have learned to speak Dutch fluently. Studied engineering in Dutch and taught at college level in Dutch. My Dutch is pretty good. Not great but pretty good. The Dutch are not shy about letting you know what they think about your culture. In contrast they are also more than likely to be quite defensive about their own society.

So here goes my attempt at exposing some of the myths that the average Dutch person has about the US.

- Americans are so (fill in the blank).

I often hear from friends, acquaintences and total strangers that Americans are so ... . This space can be filled with nice adjectives but usually the adjectives they use are less complimentary.

There is nothing wrong with having opinions about a group of people but you need to understand the scope of your statements before you say them.

America is enormous when compared to the Netherlands. The Dutch are very quick to ascribe any number of attributes to all Americans without batting an eyelash. This is one of the assumptions that I try to break through when I talk to my students and others. I always say that you need to look at America like you look at Europe. That's it. America is Europe but with one common language. It seems like a strange association to make but it is true.

So the Dutch paint all Americans (300 million of us) with one brush stroke. Yet if you start to talk to the Dutch about their own ideas about people from different provinces or even towns you get quite strong opinions.

For instance. Many Dutch people think that the (white) Dutch people from the town of Den Haag (The Hague) are unfriendly and money pinching. That people from "De Achterhoek", an eastern Dutch area which boarders on Germany, are stupid and slow. There are even opinions that people have about various neighborhoods in certain cities.

So there are specific, individual characteristics for all sorts of Dutch communities, yet all Americans are fat, stupid, right-winged, war mongering, capitalists, who don't know how to ride bikes.

America, for your information, is a complex collection of states, each with their own history, and yes I know it is a short lived history, but still a history. That history, who settled the place and who has moved there since it was settled are very important to the character of the state. Utah for instance was settled by Mormon fanatics. There is a very distinct flavor to Utah. There are even distinctions within Utah (believe it or not). It is a state the size of Great Briton (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all rolled up in one). Yet with a population of 2,7 million. The population density is 10.5 per square kilometer. The population density in the Netherlands is 400 per square kilometer.

Or California or Chicago or New Orleans or Atlanta or keep on naming cities and states and areas and you get vastly different people with very different points of view about lots of different issues.

- Americans don't know how to ride a bike.

That last one is of great importance. The Dutch are convinced that they are the only people in the world who really ride bikes. Those sloppy Americans only pretend to ride bikes. They don't really know that much about it. That is why they need to ride with a safety helmet on. Because they don't know how to operate this complex machine safely enough to ensure their own heads won't be bashed in.

I remember quite clearly the first time I went bike riding with my wife, Anita. We were in this National Forest (the only one really) called the Veluwe. It is a sand dune with lots of nice woods and stuff. There is a famous museum in the middle of this park and we went there to see it. Since the park itself is a beautiful thing to see we decided to park on the edge of the park and use the free bikes which the park provides and ride to the museum that way.

Now. Just for your information I got my first bike when I was 3. I was riding without training wheels when I was 4. I was riding my bike to and from school from the age of seven. I had, in my garage, a shop where I would take bikes that other people threw out in the garbage and build my own super bikes. Which I rode with pleasure throughout my neighborhood. For hours a day. For my entire childhood!

Now. Here we are in the Veluwe, Anita and I. We get these clumsy one speed bikes with solid tires and we get going along a nice path towards the museum. Anita now feels the need to instruct me on how to ride a bike. Uh sorry. I mean how to ride a bike "properly." Now I love my wife and all. But this was just a bit much for me. It was kind of like some one telling you how to walk when you first take a stroll with them. You are 36 and still, since you don't come from a culture that "takes country walks" your faithful companion tells you about the ol' one-foot-in- front-of-the-other strategy.

I have to admit. The Dutch are just crazy about bikes. In the late 19th century, when the bike was first making its debut, a society was set up called the ANWB or General Netherlands Bike-Riders Union. This group was one of the most influential public lobbying groups in the early years of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They still are. In the 1880's they raised money and built a series of bike paths - roads which provided a proper riding surface. Before that there were no hardened roads which were suitable for bikes. This group was responsible for the modernization of the Dutch road network from a rural series of dirt roads to an organized system of interconnected roads. At the cross points of these roads they set up signs. The most famous is the 'Mushroom,' which is a squat polished concrete square with beveled top edges. On these mushrooms is listed the various possible destinations and the distances. Early road signs. As the car was introduced the ANWB transformed it the Dutch version of the American Automobile Association.

So with such an illustrious history you might understand that the Dutch are quite proud of their bikes and bike paths. It is said, and rightly so, that you can ride your bike on bike-only roads from the very northern point of the country to the southernmost point. In Holland you have more types of morning and afternoon traffic. A large number of Dutch commuters use their bikes to get to and from work. The central train stations have bike parking garages which are almost always completely full.

Thus you can give the Dutch a break for thinking that they have a monopoly on all things bike. Yet it is this type of national pride-driven myopia that is the root of their misunderstanding. Like, for instance, Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors of the airplane, were...you guessed it they were bike repair shop workers. They owned a bike repair shop in Dayton, Ohio.

It will amaze and astonish Dutch readers to know that there are some American cities which have embraced the idea of bike commuting. Some cities in Arizona have a full system of bike paths very similar to the Dutch model, but without the mushrooms.

- Dutchie is going on vacation to the US. He has two weeks and wants to see as much as he can. So he asks me what I would recommend. This has happened to me more than once.

Two weeks I say. Well you can't see very much in that time. What were your plans? Dutchie gives me a list of things. NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, LA and maybe Seattle. Whoooa. Hold on here Nellie! Let's get some perspective.

The Netherlands is a small country. It is a bit less than twice the size of New Jersey. If you get into a car and ride straight in any direction within three hours you are in a different country. Often you are in another country in much less time than that. Dutch people are used to short trips of one to two hours. Which for them seem very, very long. Just for some perspective.

Now we have our friend Dutchie who is hoping to "see" America in two weeks. Thank goodness for Google maps. It gives you a great tool for describing the size of various parts of the world. I call up the Google maps site and put in New York City and Chicago, just for starters. You CAN get there in 12 hours and 45 minutes if you drive the whole way through and don't stop to look at any of the gorgeous things you will be passing on your way. The rental car is cheap enough and compared to Europe, the gas prices are ridiculously low. Yet we are talking about 13 hours of driving! For an American is this a long trip, but not unheard of. In Europe it would be like driving from the Netherlands to Barcelona. In SPAIN! Or Warsaw in Poland. And this is just one of Dutchie's destinations! Never mind actually doing stuff once he gets there.

Almost invariably I have to disappoint our friend and tell him to choose a smaller list of desired destinations or fly the whole way (which is outrageously expensive!).

- America is filled with Crazy Religious people who hate blacks and carry guns.

Well yes. I cannot deny that this is true about the US. It is not the only kind of people that the US is filled with but it is, in part true. We need to look at history to understand a bit about the founding of the US and the part that the Dutch played in it. Yes the Dutch are not innocent in this story.

When the US was first being settled Europe was embroiled in a savage and horrifically violent schism. The protestant church, which had shown its face in the 16th century had become a real threat to the powers that be, the catholic church. The 30 years war and the 80 years war were both, in part, wars about religious freedom and dominance. In England there had been an official protestant church (the CoE) for some time. Yet even within this protestant community there were factions. This was also true in the Netherlands, Germany, etc. Some of these factions advocated extremely radical (often violent) changes in political systems. These groups, among others the Anabaptists, were outlawed after they seized a number of cities (including Munster in Germany). The ruling classes all over Europe were petrified of these types of groups. All over similar groups who advocated more democratic or theocratic ideals were outlawed. One of these groups was the Pilgrims. They were an English group who advocated the setting up of a new Eden in which the rich and royal were no longer on the top of the food chain. The king outlawed them. Two groups of Pilgrims moved to the Netherlands to escape this persecution One to Leiden and one to Amsterdam. They stayed here for a nine years before they were picked up by the Mayflower on it's way to Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. The years in which the Pilgrims were protected in the Netherlands is significant in the history of the US. Here in the Netherlands they were free to propagate their beliefs and practice freely.

Now the Pilgrims are just one of any number of crazy Christians who left, fled or were kicked out of Europe in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. This migration was important to the makeup of modern day US politics and religion .

Yes we have lots of crazy religious fanatics in the US. But they came from here!

- The US is much more REAL than the Netherlands.

By real the Dutch usually mean deprived and depraved. One of the reasons that many Dutch people go to places like New York City is to experience the dregs of society. My nephew once came to visit us while we still lived in NYC. One of the things he was interested in as a young 13 year old Dutch teenager was graffiti. He lived in Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands (south of the three big rivers). He was used to the Dutch way of dealing with graffiti. There is lots of illegal graffiti in the Netherlands but it is really frowned upon (just like in the US). The difference between the two countries is that in Eindhoven, for instance, the local government has tried to legitimize graffiti by making legal places where the artists can showcase their work. Legal graffiti. If you get caught making illegal graffiti you will get into trouble. Dutch trouble (which is not very big trouble). In contrast to in NYC where graffiti is a plague. Where the cops for the most part don't even stop kids who are spraying graffiti in forgotten and rotting neighborhoods. As long as it isn't in the richer neighborhoods who cares?

And there is the crux of it. The Dutch want to come see this wild art. This art which is inspired by true depression and poverty. Not like the nice white Dutch graffiti which is born out of a kind of awe and appreciation of the REALNESS of the inner city graffiti of the US. The Dutch kids 'wish' they had access to that kind of passion. The kind of drive that a life of deprivation offers...yet without the actual pain of poverty and racism, etc.

That is why we took the 7 train into Queens to a well known graffiti building just on the other side of the river. We got out. It was cold. First week of January. We strolled around this old factory building that had been taken over by artists, themselves college graduates who have moved to the forgotten industrial areas to find inspiration and cheap studio space.

The walls of the factory were coved in graffiti. The elevated train which ran along the factory was crumbling and falling apart and was, of course, covered in graffiti in places that makes you wonder how on earth the artist got there to paint it.

Sietse, my nephew, took lots of pictures that day. He recognized many artists. We went to a dumpy diner near the subway stop and had some hot chocolate. He was very excited about our expedition into the belly of the beast. It was day time. The sun was shining. The diner was full of the lunch hour crowd. Extremely overweight workers with slimy clothes and dirty hands stuffing their faces with saturated animal fat and potatoes. Not all of them fat...not all of them slimy...but all of them looking trapped in their lives. Not especially happy. Or protected from the vagaries of life, the way that poor people (white Dutch) are protected in the Netherlands. This is REAL life. Where the hard realities grind you down and form the inspiration for the art form we had come to see.

The grime is an important part of the REAL life experience for the Dutch tourist to a big city. Just like the huge and seemingly unending beauty and spectacle of the nature in the US.

More Later

This blog is going to be a series of my impressions of the country and the people of the Netherlands, often called Holland. These impressions will then be formulated into a series of chapters and hopefully later into a boo

Through the nine years of living and working in the lowlands of the Rhine basin I have seen and done things that few foreigners who live here ever do. I have completely immersed myself in he Dutch culture and history to a level which I have not often seen. My wife, who is Dutch, describes me as "more Dutch than the Dutch." I hope my special perspective can give some insight into both the Dutch psyche and the misconceptions the world has about the Dutch and vice versa.

I have always been a people watcher. Often the wallflower at a party. Enjoying the spectacle which lay before me. I have always attributed this personality trait as having been greatly influenced by my second mom...the TV. (look for my poem 'My TV is dead'). This propensity towards voyeurism had some part in my choosing to study Cultural Anthropology for my first Bachelor's. It involved watching people, ascertaining things about their interactions and analyzing these into helpful descriptions and theories about the culture or clash thereof.

It is one of my theories of life that when people tell a tale of some happening in their life they create a script. Maybe not the first time. But certainly by the second time of the telling the teller has edited it to flow better. Has chosen to embellish it or shorten it for the audience or for the circumstances or as a reaction to your audience's reaction to your previous telling. You tell a story about a birth differently at work than to your sibling, for instance. Or in a short subway ride than in your living room.

During the repetitions of this tale the narrative thread becomes clearer. The teller builds blocks of the tale which can be easily added or removed from the text to suit the context of the audience (time, place, make-up) until the story, which began as a explanation of a real-life occurrence is transformed into a play of sorts. A script which you act out when told.

I have known this for a long time. It is not a new idea, but it is the basis of the chapters of this book. Stories that are based on real happenings which have been crafted into playlettes.

This process was never more clear to me than when I was teaching Technical Drawing to budding engineers at the local technical college. I would give the same lesson up to twelve times in a week to different groups of students. I developed a script which I freely edited, kept jovial and cordial but serious. Whenever a student would attend the same lesson twice I would feel a bit ingenuous, as if they were seeing behind the curtains of my stage and noticing that my lesson was not spontaneous but a carefully crafted play. The students laughed where I have planned that they should laugh, etc. Once you see the bag of tricks the whole thing feels kind of fake. Yet I assure you that this process is natural and the crafting of a good story is not a clever form of lying or deceit, but a necessary part of how humans communicate their information to many people over time. The tales I will tell here are true and the impressions I take away from it are honest, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent (grin).

That is this the process which, over the years have yielded the grist for this story-mill. I hope it will be worth reading for you and offer food for thought. In the end the opinions are my opinions and not fact, but I am actually kind of good at this watching stuff thing and maybe, just maybe, through my watching, thinking and telling, I have brushed upon the truth.

Christopher D. West

Amsterdam, 9 May 2010