The Lawspeaker
05-24-2011, 02:04 AM
Note: please only reply if you have visited the country (or have lived there or still live there) and met it's people and have thus build up a picture of the way Dutch society and the country in general works.
The Dutch themselves are of course also welcome. Be frank and outspoken.
The Dutch.. well we love 'em or hate 'em but what is it that you found to be very typical during your stay ?
Dutched Pinay (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_archive.html)'s blogspot. She seems to be a professional from the Philippines that has been living and working here for quite some time. Her English is, for what I can see (and I have been reading her blogs for some time) excellent and so is her sense of humour. She offers the viewer a nice insight into who we are....but seen through foreign eyes.
I really like her points of view here. Not bad (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2010/06/dutch-elections-vent.html) for a foreigner.
Dutched Pinay (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_archive.html)'s blogspot. She seems to be a professional from the Philippines that has been living and working here for quite some time. Her English is, for what I can see (and I have been reading her blogs for some time) excellent and so is her sense of humour. She offers the viewer a nice insight into who we are....but seen through foreign eyes.
I really like her points of view here. Not bad (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2010/06/dutch-elections-vent.html) for a foreigner.
DutchedPinay wrote this in 2005 - when I read it I was in stitches:
Dutch Humor at Work (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2005/05/dutch-humor-at-work.html)
I have long wanted to write about cheesehead humor, the kind of humor that if you do not understand it, it will send you to a fit. For a visitor, it will not make sense, but for people like me, who have adopted this country, we either have to learn to accept their uncanny ways or we refute and wallop back at them equally.
An eye for an eye... a tooth for a tooth...
Ah yes, it is not for the faint at heart; participating in Dutch humor is an exemplary exercise of being rude, direct, thick faced, and insensitive. You must at least be game enough to be criticized and pass the buck to the other. Give and take! If your colleague nails you to the obscene limelight, please by all means, drag him into it too. Don’t just nail him, but use it as an opportunity to get even. Evil, hehe.
But the key to Dutch Humor is, DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONAL. If you do, its not the Dutch's fault but yours.
Last week, a friend of my colleague (this colleague is half-Dutch and half-German) played a deadly joke on him while being away in Germany for a client visit.
His neighbor friend, using his office email account, sent to our company group email --- a letter of confirmation of his supposedly job application and a schedule of his job interview with their company. Since it’s our company group email, our hotshot bosses, the ones sitting on the topmost poles of the company, along with the rest of the nosy lot in the office, received it.
“Shit, the Duitser (German) is busy looking for a job!” says one colleague grinning sarcastically behind his monitor.
“Is this a joke, or what?!” shouts another.
“Ack, I couldn’t care less.” says the other. Hehe.
The GF of our colleague, who also works for the same company, had to call him in the middle of his client meeting in Germany asking for an explanation of the job application and interview email. I guess she was very much embarrassed for him!
We found out later that it was all a joke... a deadly joke, but guess what, everyone thought it was the finest shenanigan that ever rolled into our office. Even the management thought so. How cool!!!???
Anyway, that’s just a sneak preview of the circus we have here in the office. I bet if they do this kind of act somewhere, the HR or management will call you to a bad conduct review meeting.
Then last Friday evening during our company dinner, we had a comedian hired to entertain us. Stand-up comedians in Holland are not your regular I-want-to-please-you and make-you-laugh-your-heart-out acts. They are there to ridicule you, the audience, and you again the audience, should be game enough to not take it in bad faith. Instead of being shocked, insulted, and berated, you must open your mouth and let out a loud cry of appreciation. Leave your sense and sensibilities at the door.
Case in point, the wife of our hotshot boss (she looks like a full-sized Barbie Doll) is blond. We all know the blond stereotype, right? So needless to say, she was an easy target. The comedian called her attention and named her, Leontien --- after the blond girl married to a popular singer here in NL where she used to do those blond stupid acts on TV. So off went the comedian working on her...
“He, Leontien, do you know what you have in common with the A2?” he barked.
“No!” she laughs (she laughed before the joke was told, blonds...).
“Half of Holland have been over the A2!” He shrieks, followed by a loud growling laugh that sent sweats trickling down across his forehead. Eww.
Well, everyone LAUGHED. Yes, E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E, including the Dutchman.
If you didn’t get the joke, here it is: Just like the busy highway A2, where half of the Dutch has driven over; she must have had sex with half of the male population in Holland.
Well everyone thought it was REAL FUN. Yeah [insert sarcasm] right on.
I know, it’s kind of like a bad joke, an insult, but them, mischievous Dutch, love these rude antics that make fun of others, and even themselves!
Their TV commercial speak for itself too. In the past, I could not make anything out of it, also because of the language difference, but now being almost integrated in this country, I learned to acclimatize and camouflage into their ways (mostly for my benefit, haha).
Oh my, what have I become? Scary...
The Dutch themselves are of course also welcome. Be frank and outspoken.
The Dutch.. well we love 'em or hate 'em but what is it that you found to be very typical during your stay ?
Dutched Pinay (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_archive.html)'s blogspot. She seems to be a professional from the Philippines that has been living and working here for quite some time. Her English is, for what I can see (and I have been reading her blogs for some time) excellent and so is her sense of humour. She offers the viewer a nice insight into who we are....but seen through foreign eyes.
I really like her points of view here. Not bad (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2010/06/dutch-elections-vent.html) for a foreigner.
Dutched Pinay (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_archive.html)'s blogspot. She seems to be a professional from the Philippines that has been living and working here for quite some time. Her English is, for what I can see (and I have been reading her blogs for some time) excellent and so is her sense of humour. She offers the viewer a nice insight into who we are....but seen through foreign eyes.
I really like her points of view here. Not bad (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2010/06/dutch-elections-vent.html) for a foreigner.
DutchedPinay wrote this in 2005 - when I read it I was in stitches:
Dutch Humor at Work (http://misst2000ph.blogspot.com/2005/05/dutch-humor-at-work.html)
I have long wanted to write about cheesehead humor, the kind of humor that if you do not understand it, it will send you to a fit. For a visitor, it will not make sense, but for people like me, who have adopted this country, we either have to learn to accept their uncanny ways or we refute and wallop back at them equally.
An eye for an eye... a tooth for a tooth...
Ah yes, it is not for the faint at heart; participating in Dutch humor is an exemplary exercise of being rude, direct, thick faced, and insensitive. You must at least be game enough to be criticized and pass the buck to the other. Give and take! If your colleague nails you to the obscene limelight, please by all means, drag him into it too. Don’t just nail him, but use it as an opportunity to get even. Evil, hehe.
But the key to Dutch Humor is, DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONAL. If you do, its not the Dutch's fault but yours.
Last week, a friend of my colleague (this colleague is half-Dutch and half-German) played a deadly joke on him while being away in Germany for a client visit.
His neighbor friend, using his office email account, sent to our company group email --- a letter of confirmation of his supposedly job application and a schedule of his job interview with their company. Since it’s our company group email, our hotshot bosses, the ones sitting on the topmost poles of the company, along with the rest of the nosy lot in the office, received it.
“Shit, the Duitser (German) is busy looking for a job!” says one colleague grinning sarcastically behind his monitor.
“Is this a joke, or what?!” shouts another.
“Ack, I couldn’t care less.” says the other. Hehe.
The GF of our colleague, who also works for the same company, had to call him in the middle of his client meeting in Germany asking for an explanation of the job application and interview email. I guess she was very much embarrassed for him!
We found out later that it was all a joke... a deadly joke, but guess what, everyone thought it was the finest shenanigan that ever rolled into our office. Even the management thought so. How cool!!!???
Anyway, that’s just a sneak preview of the circus we have here in the office. I bet if they do this kind of act somewhere, the HR or management will call you to a bad conduct review meeting.
Then last Friday evening during our company dinner, we had a comedian hired to entertain us. Stand-up comedians in Holland are not your regular I-want-to-please-you and make-you-laugh-your-heart-out acts. They are there to ridicule you, the audience, and you again the audience, should be game enough to not take it in bad faith. Instead of being shocked, insulted, and berated, you must open your mouth and let out a loud cry of appreciation. Leave your sense and sensibilities at the door.
Case in point, the wife of our hotshot boss (she looks like a full-sized Barbie Doll) is blond. We all know the blond stereotype, right? So needless to say, she was an easy target. The comedian called her attention and named her, Leontien --- after the blond girl married to a popular singer here in NL where she used to do those blond stupid acts on TV. So off went the comedian working on her...
“He, Leontien, do you know what you have in common with the A2?” he barked.
“No!” she laughs (she laughed before the joke was told, blonds...).
“Half of Holland have been over the A2!” He shrieks, followed by a loud growling laugh that sent sweats trickling down across his forehead. Eww.
Well, everyone LAUGHED. Yes, E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E, including the Dutchman.
If you didn’t get the joke, here it is: Just like the busy highway A2, where half of the Dutch has driven over; she must have had sex with half of the male population in Holland.
Well everyone thought it was REAL FUN. Yeah [insert sarcasm] right on.
I know, it’s kind of like a bad joke, an insult, but them, mischievous Dutch, love these rude antics that make fun of others, and even themselves!
Their TV commercial speak for itself too. In the past, I could not make anything out of it, also because of the language difference, but now being almost integrated in this country, I learned to acclimatize and camouflage into their ways (mostly for my benefit, haha).
Oh my, what have I become? Scary...