Ghidul Xenofobului - Olandezii

The Xenophobe's Guide

by Rodney Bolt

It's all in your mind

The spirit of tolerance does constant battle with the ghost of Calvin for control of the Dutch psyche. Few Dutch people go to church anymore, but they don't need to. Inside every Hollander's head is a little pulpit containing a preacher with a wagging finger.

 

Going Dutch

This is the nation that once sold scrapers for getting the last remnants of the film of buttermilk from the inside of the bottle. The Dutch "think with their pockets." Parsimony is not an embarrassment, but a virtue.

 

Culture vultures

The Dutch are cultural magpies. They keep a beady eye on other people's cultural trends, and are swift to snap up sparkling new fashions. This means that rather than producing an indigenous culture, they have become voracious consumers of everybody else's—true Europeans, whose cultural fads and fancies know no borders. The Netherlands acts as a giant cultural sponge.

 

Double Dutch

For the Dutch, the other side of the question is as important as the question itself. Dialogue is the lubricant of tolerance, and the essential ingredient of dialogue is "Yes, but . . ."

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Cultural, Holland, Humor

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Rodney Bolt was born in South Africa. He studied at Rhodes University and wrote the play Gandhi: Act Too, which won the 1980 Durban Critic's Circle Play of the Year award. That same year he won a scholarship to Cambridge and read English at Corpus Christi. He has twice won Travel Writer of the Year awards in Germany and is the author of History Play, an invented biography of Christopher Marlowe (HarperCollins, 2004) and The Librettist of Venice, a biography of Lorenzo Da Ponte (Bloomsbury, 2006), which was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Amsterdam.

Reviews

[Dimitri]

Ah, the Dutch ! Can't live with them, can't help wondering sometimes whether our 1830 independence was such a good idea after all.

Always a lark & mostly spot-on, you still need to read between the lines to find out which common traits of the Dutch can make them insufferable. Hint: they're jealous of our smooth, seductive accent & generous dessert offerings and we drink Heineken when it's too early for beer.

Have they changed in the past 20 years ? The booklet could use a word on the Internet. Perhaps the coffee made the trendy evolution to Latte and cheese shares the limelight with sushi, but it's still a clean & friendly country to visit.

[Chantal]

Lovely book, describes Dutch people with a grain of salt. However it was a good read and I enjoyed it.

[Mimi]

More interesting than expected, also more serious than I expected.
Yes, some cliches got thrown in, but all in all a fair analysis of the Dutch mind in the 90s.

[Tara]

Short enough to read in one hour-and-a-half sitting, this book is concise and humorous, including the right amount of relevant insights that a short-stop traveller might want to know, without going into detail about long historical explanations or deeper sociological analysis that at least I myself will not be privy to on my stay.

I suppose the danger of this type of book is to arm the traveller with a set of prejudices about the general population which immediately close your eyes to some things and focus your attention... Very tongue in cheek, I do wonder what 'the dutch' themselves would think of it. But then, the concept of a united country with a national opinion and behaviours is something the book is founded on and doesn't objectively exist. Nevertheless, the humorous tone was spot on for me.

[Jara De Boer]

It sure does contain a whole lotta true stuff about Dutch people for a book that tiny haha

[Nathan]

I'm not quite sure about other people's offence at the humour. I think it was a good at a brief and even investigation of the Dutch zeitgeist, told in a candid and conversational manner. A book like this is always going to be slightly bias, just as much as if it it were written instead by a Brit, a German, or someone from North or South Holland!

As a soon to be resident British expat, I'm looking forward to seeing some of these observations prove themselves.

At the end of the day, it's only tiny. It's not big deal, no waste of time, if you're not too bothered with the content.

[Patrick]

Recognizable goes further than the usual stereotypes.

Forgot to mention that nobody but complete douchebags drink Heineken in the Netherlands. But the publisher probably would be sued for slander by the Heineken company if they would publish that.

[The Katie]

I have read this before, but it is interesting to re-read this now that I live here. I can see a lot of truth to some of the segments of this book.

[cloudyskye]

Fun observations as usual with these xenophobe guides. Perhaps a little dated.

[Chad Mitchell]

Not as good as the Israeli one

[David Cattarin]

This is a cute and somewhat tongue-in-cheek introduction to Dutch culture. I can't take the contents too seriously since there are many sweeping generalizations. For a book this size, that's too be expected. Since it is only an introduction, I think that approach is fine.

I read this as a way to understand a bit more about the current Dutch exhibit at The Nelson. In particular, this book reinforces the fact that trade is an essential part of the Dutch culture and has been for a very long time.

[Irina]

It's just soo bloody funny and true at the same time :)

[Qonita]

interesting facts about how & why of the dutch people. great little book for anyone who want to relate with dutch people (not necessarily living in the netherlands).

[Emma]

Hm... This book made me realize some of the not so obvious parts of the dutch culture and people. However, sometimes the humor is not as funny as intended, but blatantly offensive instead.

[Xuan Luo]

Nice sketch of the Dutch culture & society, though the intended effect of humour is less than expected.

[Patricia]

Unlike other books of this series, this is too mild for my taste, and less witty than others.

[Unwordy]

Seems to describe the Dutch well enough.

[Mcmeki]

4.82

[Barbara]

After absolutely slating 'Why the Dutch are Different' for being way too long, far too dull and almost entirely lacking in humour, I thought it was time to balance that out with examination of the Dutch from the 'Xenophobe's Guide' series. I've read other guides from the series a long time ago - in fact, I might well have read the Dutch one when I first started working with an Anglo-Dutch company many years ago - but it was worth another read.

I'm torn on this one between 2 points and 3 and have decided - for a change - to be charitable. It certainly squeezes a lot of observation into a very small book and shoe-horns some very wry observations in without going all out for every possible joke. It is pretty superficial though - it's the easy and obvious stuff that you'll learn about. The outer layers of the onion are clearly displayed but little attempt seems to be made to get into the why instead of the what.

The author is described rather bizarrely in the end-notes as 'African' which is more than a little ambiguous (I think he's actually South African which is a rather special and perhaps atypical type of African).

If you already know the Dutch ways of living, attitudes, sense of humour etc then there's plenty in this that rings true. If you've never been there and don't know Dutch people, I'm less sure that it will hit home in the same way. Thankfully the author doesn't feel the need to go into tedious detail about long ago history, instead focusing on the kind of things you're likely to observe and notice.

I don't normally make my kindle 'highlights' public, but there are some cracking comments that I picked out and I wanted to share them this time.

The book is overdue for an update - mentioning as it does that Queen's day is at the end of April. The Queen abdicated in 2013 and now they have King's day instead (around the same time - for Willem Alexander's actual birthday - the old Queen's day was actually the Queen Mother's birthday, I believe).

Quite a few reviewers have commented that some of the humour is offensive to Dutch people. If they are themselves Dutch and they are offended, then that's very unfortunate. If - as I suspect - many of them are not Dutch but are doing the very on-trend thing of taking offence on behalf of other people, then I offer this quote from the book "Tolerance is not simply a virtue, it is a national duty." It's quite hard to offend a Dutch person - they really are very thick skinned and tolerant which makes them such a joy to work with and to have as your friends.

[Tom]

Fun to read. At many points I was like: "Ha, this is so true." I recognize myself in a lot of aspects. It's fun to see it written down and to knod while you read and want to tell it to someone else. There are some small mistakes here and there, or things that have changed over time already. But anyhow, it works. Do recommend for immigrants in the Netherlands, but also for natives, to have the same knodding-while-reading experience.

[Robin Tuttle]

I'll be traveling to the Netherlands soon, and don't know much about the country or the people. Thus I read this book, but I'm not sure it did much to positively characterize either. I realize it is trying to be humourous, but I'm sure this is possible without relying on stereotypes. At any rate, it was a quick read, and not too bad.

[Tessa]

Mostly true, I found one thing, I'm pretty sure is not true (at least not in the part where I live) and learned several things about my country on the way. Some of the ideocracies I recognized gave me a chuckle, but it's never laugh-out-loud funny.

[Rick_Qualie]

Hilarious and mostly very true. Here and there dated 25 years after publishing but still very much worth the read. Don't know if it's more written for the foreigner or for the dutch. As a dutchman I say, read it, laugh about it and get to know us.

[Tsveti Iko]

Learned a great deal of historical facts about the Dutch and their country. Easy to read, funny, short.

[Graeme]

I love this little book. It has lain on my toilet cistern for several years, and I still find joy and fascination in The Netherlands and the Dutch. I am fully prepared to travel and stay.

[Jeff]

Generally really good, and lots of fun. Also a quick read. But I'm not sure how accurate it is or will stay over time.

[Marinthe]

Was quite funny to read, was also a quick read. Some of the informations is slightly outdated.

[Martijn]

Sommige punten raak, andere totaal mis.

[Hanneke]

Fun! Enjoyed it!

[geoff earl]

Good insights

A well written, easy to read overview of our Dutch cousins. Wildly humorous in places but always informative . A good book I would recommend to all.