Even new habits die hard

Some habits are hard to acquire. Others are not. For example, it didn’t take me long to pick up the Lebanese habit of asking ‘do you want/need anything?’ upon leaving. Whether it’s leaving a room going to the kitchen, leaving the house to go shopping, or even getting off the bus to go to work (I’m not kidding, I once heard a guy ask the bus-driver if he needed anything – how he would get the wanted item to the bus-driver once he would drive off, I don’t know); you ask the question every single time.

Usually, the question is answered with ‘your health’ – as in, you don’t need to bring me anything other than your safe return. Hardly ever is it met with an actual request to bring anything. If somebody does ask for something specific, it’s most likely because your destination is spoken of earlier and they know you’re going to that exact store that carries the item they need.

The problem started when I came back to the Netherlands and forgot that this is not standard practice. Every time I left the office, I would ask my colleagues ‘do you need anything?’ First they didn’t know what I meant. ‘Do I need anything? Like, what kind of thing?’ I would try to save face by making up a story about going to the supermarket rather than to the soup-place around the corner for lunch, to increase the chances of them thinking the question was a genuine one, rather than a strange routine I had picked up abroad. When they started ordering their groceries from me, however, it was time to lose the habit.

I still ask it though, but only on one occasion: just before packing my bags to go to Lebanon. The perpetual request?

Stroopwafels. Lots and lots of stroopwafels.

stroopwafels-1

Sorry

It’s a recurring theme in the rants of even the most experienced expats living in the Netherlands: why the generally friendly or at least often smiling Dutch people never say ‘sorry’. (It’s a recurring theme in our inter-cultural marital fights as well, but let’s leave that aside for the moment.) And since for many expats, I’m one of the few Dutch people they know well (that’s apparently another thing that still baffles foreigners living here; how hard it is to become friends with a true Dutchie, but let’s leave that aside as well), they come to me for an explanation.

The first few times it came up, I didn’t know what they were talking about. I don’t find the Dutch people particularly rude, nor do I think they don’t apologize when they do something wrong.*

But I remembered that I was often annoyed, when living in the United States and in Lebanon, by people who kept saying sorry when I felt they didn’t even mean it. “I had a flat tire” – “I’m sorry”. “It’s raining outside so I can’t go out” – “I’m sorry”. “My dog died” – “I’m sorry”. I mean, I knew it was supposed to be friendly, but those ‘apologies’ only made me want to ask ‘why?’ Did you puncture my tire? Are you the one who made it rain? Or worse: did you kill my dog?

And then I realized what the problem was, and luckily it wasn’t rudeness: a different notion of what it means when you say sorry. The foreigners say sorry when they feel bad for you; the Dutch when it’s their fault that you feel bad. Don’t think we don’t sympathize with you – we just don’t want you to think we’re to blame.

*Except when we really did something wrong, like made a fortune by trading slaves. Then it becomes a lot harder to say ‘sorry’.

Clavisaquaphobia

I have a typically Dutch fear, or maybe I should say a fear typical for Amsterdammers: I’m afraid that one day I will accidentally drop my keys in the canal.

Now you may have been to Amsterdam and think: that’s ridiculous! I mean, how often does one actually get close to a canal? And even if you get close, why would you run the risk of dropping your keys into the water?

Well, we also have bit of a parking problem here in Amsterdam. A parking problem that is not restricted to cars; it is almost as hard to find a spot to put your bike as it is to find a place to park your car. (There is even a three-floor ‘bike-parking-garage’ next to Central Station – it fits around 2500 bicycles and it is always full.) So what do we do? We lock our bikes to the bridges. The bridges over the canals.

Once you are busy locking your bike to the railing of the bridge, it’s a small step for the keys to drop into the water – you yank a bit too hard when opening the lock, you pull your gloves out of your bag and the keys somehow got stuck to one of them… there are endless scenarios possible. I mean, if around 850 bicycles a year end up in the canals, what about the keys?

As far as I know, it’s not in the list of phobias, so I propose clavisaquaphobia. Makes it sound a whole lot more acceptable to worry about my keys.

What I wonder...

There is a store close to our house that sells organic things. Fruit and vegetables, cleaning supplies, tea and coffee, bread, cheese, etc. They also sell meat. Between the entrance and the cashier they have a large banner with their guiding principles, or whatever you want to call it. Third or fourth on the list is the statement that they believe in selling only products that have been produced 'with respect for humans, animals, and the environment'.

Yet, may I repeat, they sell meat.

How exactly is it respectful for an animal to raise it in order to kill it? I wonder.

A phonecall from hell

My friend Iman, afraid that I might start missing (an idealized version of) Lebanon too much, forwarded me the following joke: Queen Elizabeth, Bill Clinton and the Lebanese president died and all went to hell. After spending a few weeks in de house of the devil, Queen Elizabeth says: “I miss England. I would like to call my country and see how everybody is doing there.” The devil hands her the phone. She calls and talks for about 5 minutes, hangs up and asks: “well, devil, how much do I owe you?” The devil answers: “5 million dollars.” “5 Million dollars?” She writes him a check and sits down on her chair.

Then Bill Clinton, a little jealous, gets up from the couch and says he, too wants to call his country and see how everybody is doing. He takes the phone and talks to the United States for about 2 minutes. Afterwards he asks: “well, devil, how much do I owe you?” To which the devil answers: “10 million dollars.” “10 million dollars?” He writes him a check and sits back down on the couch.

The Lebanese president gets extremely jealous; he wants to call his country too! “I want to see how everybody is doing!” he says, “I want to talk to the prime minister, to the deputies, I want to talk to Lebanon!” The devil hands him the phone and the Lebanese president talks and talks and talks, he is on the phone for almost 20 hours. When he hangs up, he asks: “well, devil, how much do I owe you?” To which the devil answers: “2 dollars.”

Queen Elizabeth and Bill Clinton jump up and scream “only 2 dollars?!?!”

“Well,” says the devil, “from hell to hell, it’s local!”