I can’t believe it’s Dutch, episode 1: Eurodance

(This is the first in a series of posts about ‘unknown Dutch treasures’ – themselves usually well-known, but not the fact that they originated here, in this tiny country. Enjoy!) I made a ‘citizenship kit’ for Walid a while ago, to give him some background to life in Holland. (And also so I wouldn’t have to explain cultural references over and over again.) It contained, among other things, a list of songs and movies by Dutch artists that were popular when I grew up.

And what would you know? Some of those were the same songs he grew up with. He just never knew they were Dutch. Now I wouldn’t say they are the greatest legacy of the Dutch people for the rest of the world, but I bet it made a lot of people happy. Do you remember this one?

No Limit by 2Unlimited (aka Ray & Anita), early nineties.

Or this one?

We like to party by the Vengaboys, late nineties.

I thought you would. All Dutch!

Koetjes en kalfjes

Walid volgt een cursus Nederlands voor buitenlanders aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Met het leren van de taal komen natuurlijk ook gewoontes en gebruiken om de hoek kijken, en af en toe komt hij vol verbazing thuis over wat hij nu weer over dit kikkerlandje gehoord heeft. Meestal is het positief, maar laatst ook niet: hij klaagde dat ze constant gesprekjes met elkaar moeten voeren over het weer. Elke les opnieuw. Kennelijk praten Nederlanders nogal graag over zon, regen en wat dies meer zij. En het is waar: sinds hij mopperend thuiskwam, heb ik welgeteld 7 keer over het weer gepraat. Dat is best veel, als je bedenkt dat dat pas twee dagen geleden was. Het probleem is vooral dat het me nu zo opvalt, en ik hard mijn best moet doen om een ander onschuldig gespreksonderwerp te verzinnen. Lukt niet.

Gelukkig stuurde een vriend me vandaag het volgende citaat: Het is maar goed dat het weer van tijd tot tijd verandert, anders zouden 9 van de 10 mensen niet weten hoe een conversatie te beginnen. De afzender is een Libanees.

We zijn dus gelukkig niet de enigen die voor ons sociaal verkeer van de weergoden afhankelijk zijn.

“Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?”*

(Background: I’m currently in training to become a Social Science teacher, and am therefore doing an internship at a high school in a city close to Amsterdam. The teacher I am interning with is currently working on Human Rights and the United Nations.) The teacher has just spent two hours explaining and discussing the genocide that took place in Rwanda in the mid-90s. The class of 15-year olds is all out of concentration. In anticipation of this, the teacher has brought the film Hotel Rwanda, for a bit of on-topic ‘relaxation.’

After several horrifying scenes of death, murder and a narrow escape for the protagonist and the many, many people he is trying to save, the hero of the story has a moment of quiet alone with his wife. They are on the bed together, talking, and holding each other.

The class has been watching in silence so far. Then one boy says:

“You should never have sex at a moment like that! You just KNOW something bad will happen right then and you will be standing there with your pants down.”

I guess we all learn what we most need to know.

*(The title is a beautiful Bushism).

Toetje

Nog één keertje dan, over dat huwelijk van ons: Een interview dat Daisy Mohr afgelopen zomer met ons afnam in Beirut voor Radio Nederland Wereldomroep:

Nicolien Kegels trouwt Libanese vriend op Cyprus.

(Of het ook beluisterbaar is op de site weet ik niet.)

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