Love Leiden

I’m just dipping my toes in a book that a friend has lent me called “Watching the English”.  Very funny to read about our unconscious habits as English.  I was wondering how much I still don’t understand the basic rules of the Dutch society.  Fortunately the same friend has lent me another book called “Waar Zijn de Bitterballen?”, which roughly translates as “Could you pass me another sausage roll”.  Written by a German who has married a Dutchman and settled here.  Looking forward to getting started on this second one.  My main hesitancy is it’s thick and in Dutch!

As I was reading about the English I got thinking about a homework club that I have recently started getting involved in.  There are between 6 and 26 kids turn up, aged 7-11, most of whom are girls, and pretty much all of them from Maroccan families.  I’ve been having some trouble striking up conversations with the girls, and I’m not sure why.  They seem very reluctant to chat with me, and often will not answer pretty innocent questions such as ‘where are you going on holiday?’.  I assume that it’s because I am male and they are Muslim girls.  Anyone know?  I realised that I am trying to jump two culture gaps in one step.  They are Maroccan girls, born and raised in Holland, and I am still trying to figure out the rules of the Dutch, let alone a third culture.  What I really need is someone who can guide me in this to show me how to interact with these kids and give me some insights into their cultural norms.

Alles is Liefde

For our 15th wedding anniversary in September, our next door neighbours bought us a very popular film called Alles is Liefde, which translates as Love is Everything.  Basically it’s re-write of the British film from 2003, Love Actually, but tailored for a Dutch audience, full of famous Dutch personalities.  What is striking though, as a Brit watching an essentially adapted film, is the cultural differences between the two.

OK, so Love Actually is no morally pure film – it features two extras in a porno film, and the Prime Minister falling for his tea lady.  However, in the Dutch film, it seems that love, actually, is about jumping in bed with each other.  Like the UK film, this one follows several couples in various stages of their relationships.  The two central characters, or couples rather, are the promiscuous Crown Prince (quite close to the bone here, given past royal male performances!) falling for a perfume counter girl at a department store – you can see where that one ends up – and a gay couple who are getting married.

When our neighbours asked us how we got on with the film, I tried to be honest but diplomatic.  However, what I hadn’t appreciated was that this film is somewhat of a national institution.  Dutch blockbusters only appear every couple of years and everyone goes to see them and is bedazzled.  This film has never been dubbed into English so I now understand why it got a pretty high rating of 7.4/10 on the Internet Movie Database.  Only Dutch people have ever seen it, and they are not exactly spoiled for choice.  Although it picked up a best Dutch film award, I would say that if this was a British film it would have flopped.

Our neighbour looked surprised at my suggestion that the morals were somewhat loose.  “But that’s typical Dutch,” he retorted.

Watching this film certainly gave Ruth and I much to chat about, both in terms of it’s quality and content.  It made us realise how the two cultures see things differently, providing a useful insight.