Do it like the Dutchies Do

It was a cold October morning, when my plane landed at the Schipol airport of Amsterdam. I got out of the aircraft, went through the immigration, took my luggage and went outside in the Passenger arrival area of the airport. There a gentleman, who had been assigned to pick me up from the airport, greeted me. He took my luggage, loaded it in his car, and we made our way to an apartment in the heart of Amsterdam.

I came from Karachi Pakistan, a place that differs to Amsterdam and Netherlands in every way. Values, culture, climate, religion, work ethics, living conditions, language, color; well, we even drive on the left side of the road rather the right. Still Amsterdam was not new to me, and so it was not really a cultural shock. However, visiting and living are very much different. You love the crowded streets and tiny cozy apartments when you visit Amsterdam for a few days. However, when it comes to living in those tiny cozy apartments, with a staircase, specially designed in a way to ensure that you loose one of your limbs climbing up and down, its not that beautiful.

The architecture of a Dutch house is very scientific. You will always find a small toilet separate to a bathroom. This small toilet is so small, that you cannot even yawn sitting on the WC. This ensures that you do not fall asleep during the course. Another great feature of these toilets is the washbasin in them. First of all you are lucky if you have a wash basin in the toilet. And if you are lucky then the washbasin in the tiny toilet is so tiny, that you cannot fit your entire hand underneath the faucet. Therefore, you have to wash your hand finger by finger, thus ensuring detailed cleanliness. The tiny-ness of the toilet also gives you a feel of an aircraft lavatory. An average Dutch man is at least 6 to 8 inches taller and twice as wide as I am, how does he uses that toilet. Is still a mystery to me?

Dutch are supposed to be very open minded people; It is obvious by their way of living. You can hear your upstairs neighbor right from the moment he wakes up in the morning. You can hear him going through his natures call routine. Right to the time, when he is engrossed in some very personal intimate business late at night. As a matter of fact if you want to meet your neighbor, you need not to make an appointment, rather keep you ears open and figure out when he is available.

The Dutch people are generally very friendly people always willing to help you. The best this about them is that most of them speak and understand English, provided they are willing to. Therefore, Language is not really a problem here, apart from just a few things; for instance, all information lines on telephone have computers speaking Dutch. All most all documentation and stationary in the country is in Dutch. When I was young, my father told me never to sign a document without reading it. When I opened a Bank Account here, the form and the information brochure was in Dutch, so I had to sign it not really knowing what their contents are.

The Dutch Language on its own has its own charisma. As the letter ‘A’ of English Language is pronounced AAA in Dutch, and when you say the English ‘A’ in Dutch, it means an ‘E’ of the English language. Likewise, the English ‘V’ is pronounced Fee in Dutch and the English ‘W’ is pronounced like the English ‘V’ in Dutch. Similarly ‘I’ of English is pronounced ‘E’ in Dutch. My name is Raheel and I live on a street named Vinkeleskade. So whenever I have to spell my name and address on telephone, I can ensure that the person on the other side writes it down as Mr. Rehiil of Winkiliskedi.

The numerical system in Dutch language is very special as well. While saying a two-digit number, the last number is spoken before the first. So 54 is called vierenvijftig (pronounced feer en fiftech in English), where vier means four and vijftig means fifty. My house number where I live is 65. Whenever I call a taxi on the telephone and ask it to be sent to my house number 65 in English. The taxi always goes to the house number 56 on my street. From there when it is turned down, the driver calls me up from his cellular telephone and I explain him that he has to come to 65 and not 56.

Bicycle is the most preferred mode of transport. One can buy a bicycle within the range of 10 to 10000 Euros. It is recommended not to rent a bicycle, as the rent of the bicycle is about 10 to 15 Euros. The bicycle is prone to theft, for which you can insure, but then the rent will be about 20 Euros. Rather then going through this entire hassle, it is easier to buy a 10 Euro bicycle from a suspicious looking character in some dark alley of the town and ride it carelessly until stolen. However, there are some necessities before you can ride bicycle in town. The bicycle should not be equipped with brakes, bell or a light. The person riding the bicycle should be well versed in abusive sign language, and must be capable of shouting abuses in Dutch Language at the top of his voice. It is not easy riding bicycles in cities, so it is highly recommended to get some training from the Japanese Kamikazes.

Everywhere in Netherlands, one will find an ugly yellow board saying “FEBO”. FEBO, is a combination of self-serving, snack bar and at times a café.. Apart from having, a sour greasy smell of cooking oil (or diesel maybe), there is one other characteristic common in all FEBO’s. They all have a vending machine where one can put in money and get a warm snack to eat. One of the specialties is that if the machine has Euros 1.75 written on it for a particular snack. Be sure that an exactly Euros 1.75 is put in it. Otherwise, if an amount greater then the amount mentioned on the machine is put in, it does not ask and keeps the change.

The Dutch are very law abiding people. If something is lawfully wrong, they like to criticize it. If everything is ok, they say that they have a slow and boring life. If the pedestrian traffic light turns green, they would cross the road. Knowingly that a whole battalion of tanks is crossing wrongfully on a red light from the other side. Although they would love to have this engraved on their tombstone, ‘I was right’.

The medical system in Netherlands is unique. Once when I was alone in my apartment I had a sudden acute pain in my back that was crippling me. I managed to crawl to the phone and call for an ambulance. The person on the line asked me if I was dying. When to her disappointment I replied in negative. She told me that in that case she cannot send me an ambulance as neither I am dying nor having a massive heart attack. Further she told me that the condition I was in is not considered serious enough for an ambulance. However she asked me to call my house doctor as he is the one who is supposed to handle such emergencies. Since I was new to town I told her that I do not have a house doctor as yet. She told me that I should then find one. How she expected me to find a house doctor in the middle of the night is still a mystery to me. Anyway, speaking of doctors and drugs. In this country you need a doctor’s prescription to buy tablets of paracetamol with codeine. However if you walk into any coffee shop in Amsterdam you can easily legally buy Marijuana!!!!

That is enough of criticizing the Dutch.. Nevertheless, when you look at the brighter of this country, culture and its people, one gets amazed. Netherlands is such a small country, that you can hardly pinpoint it on a world map. Regardless of its size, it owns huge corporate like ABN AMRO, Phillips, Uni Lever, KLM and Shell. Produced painters like Vincent van Gough and Rembrant van Reijn. Navigated to and colonized places like New York and Indonesia, at a time when most of the countries did not even knew how to make a ship, forget navigation. Does not that strike you? I think overall Dutch people are one of the most trustworthy, honest, perfectionist and straightforward people in the world. And this is their secret of success.