The Dutch (as related by a Hollander)
1. Never use the word "Dutch" in
front of a Hollander. It reminds him
too much of the word "Deutsch"
which is a word for Germans and other
things he doesn't like. A Dutchman is a Hollander or a Nederlander.
2. Never ever try to speak Hollands even if
you have lived in Holland
for more than five years. Not only will it give you a splitting
headache but also Hollanders won't understand
a single word of what
you are trying to say. Foreigners are expected to speak English or
gibberish.
Speaking gibberish they are easy prey for pickpockets
since they can't make a report to the police.
3. Also never try to eat
"drop". Drop is a kind of
licorice that
only Hollanders can eat. It can be recognized by its colour: black.
The taste is a cross between printer ink
(blue) and earwax.
Hollanders absolutely love it and eat kilos
of the revolting stuff.
There is a nationwide conspiracy to look at
the faces of foreigners
who are tricked into believing it is edible.
4. Do not buy wooden shoes. They will look absolutely silly on you.
Which is of course the main reason for
selling them to you in the
first place.
A Hollander himself wouldn't like to be found
dead in them. (As a
matter of fact, they wouldn't like to be
found dead at all)
5. Do not make holes in dikes. Behaviour like that is not only
frowned upon but in certain cases can get you
stoned to death with
wooden shoes by an angry mob. You may feel
free however to stick a
finger in any dike you like. It'll get you a
few good laughs from the
natives.
6. A Hollander is always right and he knows
it. With this in the
back of your mind it is easy to deal with
most of them. If ever you
get into an argument with a Hollander, tell
him that he is absolutely
right and that you see the error of your
ways. This will drive him
absolutely crazy: Since you are a foreigner you can't be right. You
agree with him. Therefore he also cannot be right. Impossible! He
is a Hollander. But.. why.. he.. At this
point you may want to
stand back and watch him try to strangle
himself with a tulip.
7. Windmills are unavoidable.
8. It is not necessary to show an interest in
tulips, windmills,
wooden shoes or cheese. Every Hollander knows that you came for the
softdrugs or the Amsterdam red light
district, the Walletjes. Both
are available in a large quantity and are
easy to find. Ask any
Hollander age six or older or any French
tourist (see items 19 & 20)
9. Avoid fans of soccer games at all
cost. Soccer in Holland is
merely an excuse used for bashing in the
brains of just about
everyone else, including yours, after the
game is won. ....Or lost.
...Or if it is a draw. It is also very unwise
to stand near a
policeman during these festivities. (see item
10) Also, whenever
there's a Hollander around: "Don't
mention the '74 final!". You'll
end up in an ongoing discussion about how
well the Orange team played
and how marvelous it is that a small country
like Holland has such a
good team and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
10. Policemen in Holland may be used for
throwing things at. If you
feel like hitting someone or something, use a
policeman. No Hollander
will pay any attention if you decide to hit,
maim, or kick a
policeman in the groin. Policemen represent authority and no
Hollander recognizes any authority
higher than himself. You may also note that a lot of Hollandse
policemen are in fact foreigners tricked into
taking the job.
11. Hollanders do not like to spend money,
they'd sooner cut off
their own ears. A Hollander will become a friend for life if you
give him something for free. (Note: Social diseases are an
exception). LOL. This might explain the
success of MacDonald's in
Holland.
The story that copper wire is an
invention of two Hollanders fighting over a
found cent is absolutely true.
12. Holland is small. There is a rumour that Holland is put inside
during rainstorms. Not true, but that is mainly because it rains
about 365 days each year. This might also explain those wooden
shoes: They float.
Yes, Holland is small and Hollanders are
proud of it. They will grab
every opportunity to point out to you that
the nation has
accomplished great things, despite of it
being so small. A suitable
answer to this swank is the Hollander's
imperialistic past. Wich
brings us -rather nicely- to item
13. If you wish to insult a Hollander -and
sooner or will- simply
tell him you don't think he is a
pacifist. Now immediately start
running for your life. He'll want to prove to you that he is a
peace
loving person and he won't stop proving this
until your intestines
are scattered all over the floor. However, mentioning a supposedly
imperialistic past considering Surinam and/or
Indonesia, will
instantly reduce a Hollander to a pathetic,
sniffing and crying
child, begging for forgiveness.
14. The Hollanders are supposed to be
tolerant. They are not. They
simply make too much money from the sale of
soft- and hard-drugs and
pornography to foreigners to let an
opportunity for making a good
profit go by.
15. The main form of public transportation in
Holland is bikes. Feel
free to take any bike of which you are able
to pick the lock. Don't
expect your own bike however to be where you
left it three minutes
earlier.
The hunting season for bikes is open 365 days a year. Have
fun.
16. At nearly every meal in Holland you will
find a small vicious
looking blade with a slit in it. It is called a "kaasschaaf" and is
used for taking very thin (the see-through
kind) slices of the
cheese.
Yes, it is indeed an invention made by a Nederlander. Never
cut cheese with a knife, you'll make an utter
fool of yourself.
Another peculiar dinner tool is the
"flessenlikker", which literally
means "bottle-licker", but which is
best translated by
"yoghurt-scraper". Note that this
tool is not meant to get rid of an
itchy back or for your nightly escapades.
It's designed to clean out
bottles of yoghurt or "vla" which
is a sort of custard. The
Nederlanders wants to use absolutely every
millilitre of the yoghurt
or 'vla' he bought. He paid for all of it and he'll jolly well eat
all of it.
17. At the time of this writing, the
Hollandse economy is doing quite
well.
The Hollanders say that this is the result of extensive
negotiating between parties like the unions,
the employers and the
government.
They even have a name for this: The polder model.
Foreigners are made to believe that this
polder model is the key to a
healthy economy and if others should follow
this polder model, their
economy's will also improve
dramatically. This is utter nonsense.
Hollanders just love to talk and talk and
talk. Calling al this
talking negotiations only gives them a sense
of doing something
useful. Talk is not cheap in Holland.
18. Hollanders like to drown fried potato's
in litres of mayonnaise
and put it in small paper bags. This is called "een patatje met".
One of these bags can sustain life over an
indefinite period. Not
everyone agrees if it is the sort of life
worth living. Some
foreigners however are reported to have actually
liked eating it.
19. Hollanders have a special and unique
service for -mainly- French
tourists.
As soon as they cross the border between Belgium and
Holland, they are welcomed enthusiastically
by young men in fast
cars.
These young people wish to point out to the French tourist
where the more interesting touristy places in
Holland can be found.
Strangely enough they always seem to end up
in a coffee shop (see
item 20).
Funny people those French.
20. There is a fast and guaranteed way of
making a complete fool of
yourself in Holland: Enter a coffee shop and ask for a
cappuccino.
Coffee shops do not -remember this- do not
sell coffee. You can
however get a good number of other
stimulating drugs there. For some
unknown reason coffee shops are extremely
popular with French
tourists.
21. A Fries is a semi-detached sort of
Nederlander, living in the
north of the country in a province all for himself. He is fond of
frozen water, Beerenburg (which is a form of
euthanasia with alcohol)
and continuously pointing out to non-Fries
Hollanders that they are
-indeed- not Fries. The rest of the Hollanders look upon this
behaviour with the good natured ambivalent
feelings that parents have
for an obstinate child.
22. On the matter of what books to buy before
you come to Holland, I
can recommend the following: The complete
works of William
Shakespeare or a leather-bound volume of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
(the 1913 copy: Fr to He). In my experience these two books have
just about the right weight for clubbing a
pushy drug dealer or pimp
on the head without leaving any marks. After hitting you might want
to drop the book you were carrying at that
moment for a more speedy
retreat.
Bring plenty of books.
23. Do not bother to hire a car. Not only can you steal more bikes
than you will need but car-traffic in Holland
is not something you
will enjoy. In the rest of the world traffic
jams are measured in
miles or kilometres, Nederlandse traffic jams
are measured in weeks.
As a
matter of fact, the more persistent traffic-jams are well worth
a touristic visit. The sight of starving people in an expensive
Mercedes can be quite uplifting if you are of
a philosophic nature.
You may want to bring some pieces of bread
with you to throw through
open car windows. The resulting fights can often be worth watching.
24. Contrary to popular belief, you may not
bring your mother-in-law
to Holland for do-it-yourself euthanasia. Tourists are warned not to
take these matters into their own hands.
25. Whether you are catholic, Muslim or
worshipper of Urrrgl, god of
all honest politicians, in Holland you are
likely to run into a
church, temple or oak-tree-and-virgin of your
liking. Hollanders are
supposed to be very tolerant of other
believes, ways of life and
religious convictions. They are not. The only reason for there being
so many different churches, sects and cults
is the fact that
Hollanders disagree on just about anything.
A Hollander is always right (see item 6) and
anyone who thinks
different than him can jolly well bugger off
and start his own church.
26. Holland is a kingdom. It has no king but a queen and her husband
is no king but a prince. The queen doesn't rule the country -well,
not much anyway- but she is very good at
opening bridges, roads and
visiting other countries. She is also very decorative at state
banquets.
Her son, the crown prince, will be king as soon as she
stops queening (nice word eh?).
Now his wife won't be a queen but she will be
a princess because
Nederland is much too small for a king and a
queen at the same time.
On April the 30th its Queen's Day, which is
not the birthday of the
queen, but the birthday of princess Juliana
the queen's mother (who
used to be the queen). It is no wonder that more and more
Nederlanders wish to make Holland a
republic. Queen's Day, by the
way, has nothing to do with royal
festivities. It's just a
Hollander's excuse to drink large quantities
of alcohol. On Queen's
Day Hollanders also sell garbage in the
streets.
27. It might be wise to learn how to swim if
you visit Holland. No,
the dikes will hold, that is not the
problem. The huge amount of
ditches, moats, canals, rivers and brooks can
however lead to
mistakes.
The shiny nice new asphalt road that you wish to drive
your car on during a rainstorm, may in fact
not be a road at all.
28. The Hollandse art. Most Nederlandse painters get to be famous
only after they have died. That is a very sensible arrangement from
the publics point of view. Not only do you get large quantities of
paintings -a man has got to eat, right?- but
it also makes a nice
investment for art-lovers. The painters
themselves do not share this
view at all but are unable to do anything
about it. In at least one
case the frustration has led to
self-mutilation involving an ear.
29. If one of your Hollandse friends invites
you for a birthday
party, prepare yourself for a unique experience. Unique, because it
can only be compared to taking place on a
wooden chair which has a
sharp nail driven through the underside of
the seat, and not being
able to move for a month. More than one foreigner has been driven to
the brink of insanity in just one
evening. A Hollandse birthday
party consists of sitting in a chair, talking
to other Hollanders
about your work, your car, foreigners and
politics. You are expected
to leave at 11 pm and you'll gladly do so.
30. Do not get sick in Nederland. Over the last ten years, the
famous Hollandse healthcare has been
privatised. These days some
operations, like open heart surgery, have a
waiting list of more than
six months.
The doctors don't think that is a problem, "More than
half of our patients for open heart surgery
never even show up
anyway" they say. Some Nederlandse patients who have become
desperate, move to a country like Mozambique,
Iraq or Pakistan where
healthcare is infinitely better.
31. Nederlanders leave their curtains open in
the evening. This used
to be so that the neighbours could always
check if your family didn't
gamble or drink alcohol. These days it is a precaution against
junkies trying to steal the stereo from the
family car, parked in
front of the house. It has the fortunate side effect that you can
watch Hollanders in their natural
surroundings, in front of the
television, watching soaps.
32. Holland has more cities than only
Amsterdam. Like ...erm.
...Well, it has!!
33. Hollandse beer has made quite a
reputation for itself over the
years.
Some people even drink it.
Brewing is indeed one of the
things Hollanders traditionaly do very
well. Holland never used to
be a country with anything more interesting
to do than to drink
oneself blind in new and interesting ways or
make paintings. This
made the beer industry very popular. Experts claim that once you
have drank Hollandse beer like Heineken,
Grolsch or Amstel, all other
beers taste like the tapwater in a Rotterdam
hotel.
34. Hollandse tapwater is safe to drink. This is quite remarkable
considering that most drinking water comes
from poluted rivers like
the Rhine.
Plans to improve the quality of the riverwater, so that
fish like salmon will return to Hollandse
rivers to spawn, can count
on strong resistance from the
Nederlanders. They don't like the idea
of animals having sex in their drinking water.