Personal Stories About Life In The Netherlands

[rare_fandom]

I’m about to embark on roleplaying a young man from the Netherlands, and in anticipation I’ve done lots of research into the country and its culture. As part of that, I’m hoping to get some person stories from people who’ve lived there/are natives/have experience with the Dutch to flesh out what I've got so far. I’m looking for bits of everything,

Comments

[heleentje]

I can't contribute much, but being Belgian I can say there's quite a bit of rivalry between the Dutch and the Belgians (and especially the Flemish). That usually translates in lots of jokes about everything from accents to food to habits, ... You name it. There's even a lot of overlap. I once discussed some of those jokes with a Dutch friend, and realized that some are exactly the same. There's one we both knew:
- What's the similarity between a dinosaur and someone from the Netherlands/someone from Belgium?
- Their brains are the same size.

The only difference was, obviously, the nationality of the person in the joke.

Most of those jokes are pretty good-natured, though, and I know of very few people who actually take the whole rivalry thing seriously nowadays.

So that's just my two cents. Hope it helps!

(Also, the trains in the Netherlands are a lot more comfortable than those in Belgium *jealous of that*)

[gamiila]

Twee Belgen zitten in een fles. Zegt de een tegen de ander: "Laat mij 'ns voor het raam zitten."

(Two Belgians trapped in a bottle, one says to the other: "Move over and let me sit in the window.")

Pretty silly, but that's the kind of 'Belgenmop' we used to tell in school, in the 80s.

[heleentje]

I admit it, I laughed xD Our jokes usually involved the stinginess of the Dutch:

- Hoe krijg je 20 Hollanders in een [kleine wagen naar keuze]?
- Gooi een eurocent in de koffer.

(- How do you get 20 Dutchmen in a [small car of narrator's choice]? - Throw a eurocent in the car boot.)

Jokes like these were told when I was in high school, but I doubt they've changed much over time. We tended to use a Smart as the vehicle in question.

[gamiila]

ROFL!

The thing is, I can sort of see where the 'stinginess' came from, but whatever made us (Dutch) decide that you (Belgians) weren't too clever? Was it because you seceded? Whatever the reason, they're still funny, yours as well as ours.

[heleentje]

I think it's just a default thing: we think the same about the Dutch. And the Germans. And the French. And (if you're Flemish) the Walloons. And the people outside your province... Yeah. The jokes still remain funny, as long as you don't take them seriously. I've heard a couple of off-color ones that are still funny in their own right, but they could be potentially offensive.