Culture shock in the Netherlands

Culture shock hits you in weird, completely unexpected ways. Things you didn't realise you took for granted shift underneath you and you suddenly feel like an alien - for instance, we never could have predicted that barley would be so difficult to find in stores here, or that we'd be so demoralised by its absence (it's an important ingredient in one of our favourite recipes.)

Here, in no particular order, is some of the things that have triggered in me the strongest sense of culture shock - and maybe, some suggestions on how I deal with them (or at least rationalise them.)

Smoking

Europe is a little behind Australia in the process of enforcing bans on smoking in various venues and public places - and libertarian little Holland is having a lot of trouble making those bans stick. neither of us smoke, so seeing people light up in a bar (despite prominent non-smoking signs) certainly gets to us - and the sense of wounded pride exuded by 'poor disenfranchised' smokers is palpable.

Knowing that Australia went through exactly the same cycle of whining and acceptance within living memory makes dealing with this easier - but as an asthmatic and a great believer in my right not to breath other people's smoke, this still rankles.

Dog Shit

Everywhere. I mean it - don't ever walk without looking first, and stay off the grass if you don't want to spend ten minutes scraping filth off your soles. A 'god-given right' of the Dutch people is apparently to keep huge dogs in their poky city apartments - which while already an abominable crime in my opinion, also leads to dog crap on most footpaths (not cleaning up after said dogs is another privilege, apparently) and on every scrap of grass.

This one I find very hard to deal with - the cruelty of keeping big pets in small spaces always depresses me - but that's weirdly edged out in the disappointment stakes by the implied disrespect of leaving shit everywhere, in a country that claims co-operation and mutual respect as core values.

'Coffee Milk'

For the uninitiated, 'coffee milk' is a variety of condensed milk sold in the Netherlands, marketed specifically for adding to - you guessed it - coffee. Imagine the product increment just before the diabolic 'non-dairy creamer' sold in the States and you've about nailed it - homogenised, sterilised little satchels of white fluid with a nasty chemical flavour.

I recommend you try it, just as I recommend Dutch people try Vegemite - you won't like it (just as they almost never like Vegemite) but its important to try new things and understand that taste is fundamentally tied to the culture you grew up in. I personally relish pouring real milk (full cream if possible) into my coffee and tea, to the bafflement of the locals: for whom coffee milk is a cultural default, and tea with milk is a drink for children. Vive le difference. :)

Personal Space

This is an interesting one, because it hits me in two places I've never really had trouble with before, ie. train carriages and bike paths.

On trains people will avoid a carriage full of empty seats to sit directly behind me. This contradicts (what I thought was) a basic tenet of society, which I believe is best illustrated by men's behaviour in public toilets: it is considered polite to choose the urinal most distant from the other occupants. (The implication that standing closer implies you wish to intimately share the experience is outside the scope of this essay. :) ) In the same vein, I consider it polite to maximise the distance around me in a train carriage, for my (and everyone else's) comfort.

Neither of my two theories about this behaviour is satisfying: Do Dutch people live so tightly packed together that they've become inured to issues of personal space? Seems unlikely - I would have expected the opposite reaction, hyper-sensitivity to the issue. Perhaps it's a threat-management behaviour - sit directly behind the only other person on the train... to what end? To show you're not scared of them? To stay out of their field of attention? To intimidate them? Any light the reader can cast on this behaviour would be much appreciated.

Bike paths can also be unnerving - I often feel the urge to point out that with a path three metres wide, there's no need to graze me while trying to get past. This is a little easier to understand though, I think - I come from a culture where bike ownership and usage is restricted to enthusiasts, and sharing a path or the road with a bike is still rare enough to confuse the hard-of-thinking. Here, though, bikes are commonplace - everyone has one and knows how to ride it. So riding becomes like walking - you think nothing of brushing past close to someone because you've been riding your whole life, and so, presumably has the person you're buzzing past. With that firmly in the front of my mind, I'm working hard to acclimatise - but it's hard going.

Conclusion

It's been cathartic to jot down a few of my local frustrations, but I wouldn't want anyone to think I regret coming. This sort of thing is exactly why I'm here - to learn what's different between our cultures, and what's shared. The Dutch have a lot in common with Australia (pragmatism being a the most obvious trait) and when it comes to the streets, Dutch dog crap is a lot less depressing to step over than the Californian homeless. Holland's expensive, grey and a little stuffy, but it's culturally rich, libertarian and reasonably liberal - there's lots to like, and I'm looking forward to making a fresh start in late April.