Tolerance
Michaël Ypma is a Dutch Mechanical Engineering student. “Although the Dutch are honest and open people, you don’t become friends with them just like that. It calls for a certain degree of investment.” According to him, this implies that foreign students often have to depend on each other during the initial period in particular.

Laura Duncker of the Department of Industrial Design thinks that it makes a big difference where you come from. “In big cities people are used to more things, which tends to make them more tolerant than people in small villages.” She also thinks that the Dutch would like to be tolerant, but don’t always succeed in being so.

Frugal
That the Dutch are frugal is something George Trachanis, a Master student of Embedded Systems, noticed after just one month in the Netherlands. “I have seen it. You really think about it before buying something and then select a product on the basis of the price.”

Nadine van Amersvoort, a student of Industrial Design, observes: “If something is for free, everybody wants it.” When asked whether she shares the cost of a dinner with friends, she replies affirmatively: “I also feel guilty when somebody is paying for something for me, it makes me feel as if I have to give something in return.”

Mikhail Langovoy is from Russia and is a postdoc at Eurandom. In his immediate environment he does not really notice that the Dutch are frugal. “Still, with cookies they are stingy. When a plate of cookies is going round everybody takes just one cookie. In Russia you take as many as you want straight away, but that is considered to be impolite here.”

Punctual
Mikhail does not agree with the cliché that the Dutch are punctual. “I used to live in Germany, where they are much stricter with respect to time. Although I myself am often late for appointments with my Dutch friends, they never seem to have any problems with that.”

Michaël Ypma says that he often has to explain to foreign students why he has a diary on him. “They really find it odd that you always have your diary on you and write down appointments in it.” That the Dutch are always in time is a prejudice, he thinks, for in his experience the Dutch are not all that punctual. (HB)

Next week the last part of ‘New to the Netherlands’: Brabant customs.