Talk:Dutch customs and etiquette

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Contents 1 Language 2 Holland vs. Netherlands 3 Foreigners speaking Dutch 4 Bias 5 Driving skills 6 Generalisations 7 Heeft het gesmaakt 8 education 9 Dutch humor

[edit] Language

I've edited the language paragraph which has been edited in the past before. Dutchmen are generally outstandingly well in speaking other languages, and there is no other country in the world which comes close to the Dutch system of education regarding foreign languages. The fact that the majority of French barely speak a word of English, and the English generally don't know a word of French either, while Dutchmen speak English very well and French fairly good as well, and even German reasonably well. As mentioned, both our mother language Dutch, and the foreign language English are obligatory subjects at all levels of high school. French is obligatory in the first 2 years of the lowest level of high school and 3 years at the moderate and high levels of high school education. German is obligatory in the second year of the lowest level of high school, and from the second till the third year at the moderate and high levels of high school education and either French or German(the pupil can choose which one of the two subjects he/she wants to choose)is obligatory in the fourth year too. Latin and Greek are obligatory in the first few years of VWO/Gymnasium, the two highest levels of high school education. Spanish, Italian and sometimes even Chinese can be chosen as subject instead of other subjects as well, and some primary schools are even starting to teach Chinese, and English is being taught in the last few years of primary school for quite some time now. I can say with certainty there is not country in the world with an educational system which teaches so many languages and so well.Psych0-007 (talk) 03:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Holland vs. Netherlands

Almost 2/3 of the Dutch live either in North or South Holland, the region provides for half of the Dutch economy and the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs and board of tourism uses Holland instead of the Netherlands when advertising for the country abroad (http://www.holland.com), except for a handful of provincials, no one finds it insulting to be called a 'Hollander'.

Ummm.... While agree I have never heard of someone being insulted at being called a Hollander, not even half of the dutch live in north & south Holland... http://www.nidi.knaw.nl/nl/atlas/size/tabsize/

Besides you being arrogant, you're also wrong. About 38% of the Dutch population lives in Holland. And being offended is maybe a big word, but it is quite odd to call someone from Friesland, Limburg or Groningen a 'Hollander'.

I live in the east, and while I personally do not take offence if people refer to the entire country as Holland (if they couldn't know) but I know heaps of people who will be seriously hurt if you call them Hollanders. They are definately not. This has mainly to do with the (possibly perceived) arrogance of the "real" Hollanders. Just to be on the safe side just call everything the Netherlands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.90.42.250 (talk) 18:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Foreigners speaking Dutch

The Dutch language is extremely hard to pronounce and most Dutch people will perceive a foreigner trying to speak Dutch as someone who's having great difficulties trying to express him or herself.

As far as I can tell we dutch consider it a great effort and do appreciate it a lot if a foreigner tries to speak dutch. Changed the paraghraph accordingly. . . . s k i n 15:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The paragraph does not claim otherwise.Rex (talk) 12:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

The section "The people" describes tendencies as absolutes. It is highly biased. Brammen 13:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree;

Dutch society is egalitarian; the government tries to keep differences in income to a minumum. A situation like in the US is unknown. Tolerance is also present as Euthansia, Prostitution and Gay marriage are legal. The Dutch are modern, no denying that, they have access to most if not all technical innovations, at the moment there are more cell phones than people. Self reliant is also correct, Dutch society is not based on entire families taking care of each other eveyone is expected to take care of his or her own bussines as much as one can. Entrepreneurial; many international countries are Dutch or partly Dutch. Heineken, Shell and Phillips are good examples. They value education. Education is considered extremely important, there are systems to help drop outs and education is obliged till you're 17. hard work, ambition and ability speaks for itself. The Dutch have an aversion to the nonessential also commonly known, everything needs to have a purpose. Ostentatious behaviour is to be avoided, generally the protestant culture there but also true. Accumulating money is fine, but spending money is considered something of a vice and highly associated with being a show-off. (kind of the same) A high style is considered wasteful and suspect(kind of the same). The Dutch are very proud of their cultural heritage, rich history in art and music and involvement in international affairs. no denying that, I'd say that goes for every people. Rex 13:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Rich history in art I can understand, but music?Colmfinito 22:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

"Ostentatious behaviour is to be avoided, generally the protestant culture there but also true. Accumulating money is fine, but spending money is considered something of a vice and highly associated with being a show-off. (kind of the same) A high style is considered wasteful and suspect(kind of the same)." I don't think any of the above is true anymore for the younger generation.

(the previous is not mine) showing off even in younger people isn't considered to be accepted, show-offs still are people who show the how little they have, most youth find someone with overly expensive jewelry and clothing laughable "pimping is considered a novelty to most".

• showing off is only accepted with certain items, like something new of which the price is not of great value in their eyes, although they do wish to know the price Markthemac 17:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The whole paragraph about People should be erased, as it doesn't reflect any custom or etiquette. It is biased, and Rex' argumentation only encourage my opinion. Let me make myself clear.
One cannot argue that a society is modern by its access to technology (specially by the ratio cellphones by inhabitant). Unless it is explained that by modern one understands accessibility to technology. But few people will agree with that definition. Modernism is a term that describe a position towards a broad range of human activities. I am sure there is now days a big group of dutch people more oriented to tradition than to change. Still, mine as well as the affirmation "dutch people are modern" lack of references.
I believe that many dutches will agree that the legalization of prostitution, euthanasia, same sex marriage and marijuana, answers more to pragmatism than to tolerance.
One cannot say that a nation is entrepreneurial because it has a brewery, a company that produces electronic goods and a bi-national petrol company. Or else in the same track of ideas, every single industrialised nation is then modern and entrepreneurial, and so there is no point in highlighting it.
A dutch person works 35 hours per week, which put them number one worldwide as the people that work the less. So how can it be said here that a common value in the dutch nation is hard work.
The definition of ability is somehow positive in itself. So, again, who doesn't value ability?
If the paragraph "People" wants to be kept, then "Aversion to the nonessential" should be replaced by pragmatic.
"Accumulating money is fine, but spending money is considered something of a vice and highly associated with being a show-off by some people", is this the definition of miser? (One who takes pleasure in the mere possession of cash but has no intention of putting it to any use). So this should be either avoided or replaced by something like austere or frugal. These words would be more descriptive.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that Dutch architecture now days is rather flamboyant or eccentric. It rarely follows pragmatism solely. Which contradicts the sentence "A high style is considered wasteful and suspect".
Finally, I don't believe many Dutches would be proud of their "involvement in international affairs". The lack of support shown by the other European nations during the decolonisation towards the Netherlands, comes from the fact that the Netherlands is a dwarf when it comes to diplomatic issues. In my own opinion, if a country like United States, France or UK, legalizes drugs, abortion, same sex marriage or euthanasia, it would start to be considered as a humanitarian or a universal cause, as oppose to a trait of "tolerance". That is because of their true involvement in international affairs and diplomatic importance. So I have to disagree in this point with the article. Again, this is only my humble opinion.
As biased as this paragraph, one could replace it then with:

    Dutch people are austere, parochial and pragmatic.

But I would also disagree with such a paragraph, and would see no place for it in this article.
Camilo Sanabria 20:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Again nearly all your statements can be easily proven wrong and are misplaced. For example, it's not a matter of how long you work, but how hard you work during the time you work. That fact that the average Dutch person works 32 hours doesn't prove anything on them not being hard workers.Rex 20:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Rex, the point is that, since this article is mostly opinionated it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Do you mean to tell me that all Dutch people are tolerant? What about the man who ran for Prime Minister (I forgot his name) who wanted to end immigration to the Netherlands? Does that sound tolerant? Stereotyping an entire population is ridiculous, and does not belong on Wikipedia. The article "People" should be edited drastically or erased. 69.243.222.83 19:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Driving skills

I've started to write about Dutch driving skills. Might be something, might be not. Well... I'll see if the sentence will survive the next few weeks... :-) SietskeEN 19:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Generalisations

I just removed this paragraph:

Though Dutch people were known as tolerant people toward different cultures and races, the image is no more true. Muslim citizens of Netherlands are considered as second level citizens by many high officials. In 2007, Dutch minister Bernard Bot said Muslims lack a tolerance "gene".^[1] Several MPs most notably Geert Wilders are hostile toward Muslim citizens of Netherlands. Referering to increased presence of Muslims in Netherland, Geert Wilders said: "Take a walk down the street and see where this is going. You no longer feel like you are living in your own country. There is a battle going on and we have to defend ourselves. Before you know it there will be more mosques than churches!"^[2]

I think it's rather tricky to base a statement like this on the views of two politicians - the article is about the Dutch people, not Dutch politicians, and even though some of these politicians can be rather vocal, they do not represent the majority of the Dutch society. Therefore, I removed the paragragh. It might be true that Dutch people in general are becoming less tolerant, but there'd be a need for other sources to back up a statement like that. --JoanneB 12:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried to copyedit the paragraph to remove any generalized statement. Generally right wing parties in netherlands have similar viewpoints. And I think in a democracy politicians represent a fraction of people. In any case I am not willing to push for having this paragraph in the article.Sangak 12:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to address the issue by writing a more balanced integration section, which discusses the history, policy and diversity of integration in the Netherlands, instead of emphasizing just one theme. It may be too political (in the sense that it concentrated too much on the level of politicians, policy makers etc.), feel free to edit it. C mon 12:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Remove this paragraph altogheter: apart from it being biased, it is not a relevant part in an article discussing "Dutch customs and etiquette". Most of it discusses recent events that carry no relevance for the topic. Apart from that, the content of this entire article seems unverifiable.

Some mention of recent tensions is allright, but this was becoming a chapter on its own. It had nothing to do with Dutch customs anymore. I shortened it quite a bit, so that people reading this article understand that there has been a debate on Islam in the Netherlands.

[edit] Heeft het gesmaakt

Everything under "heerlijk" is unacceptable, that made me laugh. If I said, "ja het was lekker" then people assume that what I ate was sub standard?

it's kinda how you pronounce it. but restaurants always want feedback if something wasn't great Markthemac 04:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] education

"The Netherlands have a very high standard of education"

not anymore. unless compared to america, we really dont, we just focus too much on language (because of our history of trade). we do really bad on scientific subjects· Lygophile has spoken 07:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

sorry the Netherlands according to IQ is highly educated, so still true. http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/mm/2006/03/dutch_most_inte.html Markthemac 17:37, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Be serious Markthemac, you cannot support your opinion with that reference (please read the comments concerning Richard Lynn studies, e.g. http://blog.handelsblatt.de/dezentrale/eintrag.php?id=67).
After compulsory education many Dutches stop their participation in education (more than 35% of them) before completing two more years:
http://www.eurydice.org/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/FigurePage?pubid=052EN&figCode=052C10
Similarly the number of students following higher education compared to the number of students/pupils in the country is quite low compared with other European countries:
http://www.eurydice.org/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/FigurePage?pubid=052EN&figCode=052C13
So, there is no point in highlighting that Dutch people "value education". For, based on the figures Dutches don't value education more than others, and secondly, in which country education is not valued?
On the other hand, the comment about the "very high standard of education" definitely lacks of serious references (as the rest of the affirmations in this articles). For example, PISA 2003 results may help for this. But still, the use of "very high" is suspicious. First, there is no (as far as I know) international education ranking system where The Netherlands do top 5. Secondly, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and the United States, each has a huge amount of scholarly publications (much more than the Netherlands do) and you will not hear from them any comment about their "very high standard of education". Actually they are very critical about their standards.
Camilo Sanabria 05:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

A logical obeservation would be that all those countries have many more inhabitants. BTW:

Quality education The Netherlands is a country well known to people worldwide, not only because of its beautiful tulips or because of the Orange Football Club, offering so many moments of wonderful football during the world cup competitions. Many students have experienced that the Netherlands is also a reliable address for students worldwide, due to its high quality of education. Every year there are thousands students from all over the world coming to study in the Netherlands.

—Source: Saxion

Rex 13:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch humor

Hej Buster,

you keep removing the remark that in Dutch jokes Belgians are often depicted as stupid. While this is biased in itself, the practice is a fact (just like the fact that in Belgian jokes the Dutch are often depicted as being greedy and moneygrubbing). If you insist to remove the fact that Belgians are depicted as stupid you should remove the remark on jokes on Germans as well. No more are "the Germans" arrogant as "the Belgians" are stupid. It seems you are a bit biased yourself (perhaps this has to do with you Belgian ancestry?).

Richard 13:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No "perhaps" about it!. It has EVERYTHING to do with my heritage--Buster7 (talk) 23:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I am galled. Not only by the comment but by your stubborn persistence that it remain. It is clearly offensive to at least 10 million people and should not be presented as mainstream Netherlandic thought. Wikipedia relies on the printed word and editors that give their opinions. But this is offensive, nothing else. The only possible rationale for inclusion is continued prejudice. You crassly disregard common standards with this unfortunate statement. Its educational value is Nil...Nada...Nothing. You can surround it with subtle verbs like percieved and dipicted but this does not change a thing. I am not pushing my POV---I am merely protecting it. I will continue to correct this type of slander...here and elsewhere. We are creating a new encyclopedia for the Ages. Not the Dark Ages, tho!--Buster7 (talk) 22:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

If this is supposed to be the "rallying point" that you speak about in several copy/pasted messages, then I think you have come to the wrong place. An encyclopedia is supposed to offer encyclopedic (=complete) knowledge. Reporting that the Dutch depict Belgians as less-than-intelligent in their jokes (it is admitted to be a stereotype) is part of that knowledge. It does of course not imply that the authors of Wikipedia think they are; it doesn't even imply the Dutch do. (In fact, most Dutch probably consider the Flemish to be nice people who speak the same language, though with a 'funny' accent.) But it is a fact that those jokes exist. Personally, I couldn't care less, but when you start deleting sourced content just because you are offended that it mentions the existence of those jokes, and get other editors to bend to your demands without using proper arguments, this smacks of censorship, which is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia.

Also, for someone so easily offended, you are pretty quick to accuse other users, and deleting (parts of) other editors' perfectly reasonable messages doesn't exactly comply with the highest standards of politeness either. Iblardi (talk) 10:26, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The deletions are on my talk page and are intended so as NOT to continue the "joke". Do you suppose I would like to read it four times whenever I look at my talk page????? What you call a perfectly reasonable message is, to me, offensive...(the message is offensive, not you). As it stands now, the article states that the Dutch target their neighbors. Do you really feel it is necessary to list the offenses? I don't.--Buster7 (talk) 10:56, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

That message wasn't mine, it was from user Richardw nl. It was reasonable in that it tried to explain to you why deleting the content wasn't a good idea and even offered you a compromise. My problem isn't with the mentioning of the Belgian-jokes as such, but more with the fact that you manage to get information deleted because you are personally offended by it, while it is in fact not offending to anyone - you just have to read the context (i.e., everything that surrounds that single word you seem to be upset about) to see that. Iblardi (talk) 11:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I know where the message came from. --Buster7 (talk) 11:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. Sorry, I misunderstood. Iblardi (talk) 11:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Three things. First: this discussion is rather hard to follow since half the comments are on another talk page. I think they should best be merged (and, maybe, moved to the talk page of the article). Second: the remark on how Belgians are treated in Dutch jokes (is this an acceptable way of putting it?) was not added by me but by Rex Germanus on January 1st 2007 - well over a year ago. Last: I'm sorry you feel this way. It is not and never has been my intention to hurt your (or anyone's) feelings. Mentioning the practice does not mean I advocate it. Richard 14:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardw nl (talk • contribs)

What should be considered is that the "teller" of an off-color joke is rarely offended. Its the person or group of people that the joke is about that are usually offended. Like I've said elsewhere, this encyclopedia is not advanced or improved by including it in any article. I appreciate your straight-forwardness, Richard nl. About the varied locations, guess it was my newbie mistake NOT to have it on the articles discussion page. Do you suggest I move them there? With the blanks filled in, of course.--Buster7 (talk) 05:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that would probably be a good idea. This discussion seems valuable enough to keep it next to the article that it's about. The result in the article (name both "neighbours" (plural) but not how they're misused) is complete and not likely to be taken offensively. By the way - your reaction to the name "Rex Germanus" (I don't know that user's nationality) could cause discomfort by some people so when you're transferring this discussion you might want to consider rephrasing and/or omitting that. Richard 11:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardw nl (talk • contribs)

Retrieved from User talk:Buster7 with slight modifications.