5th July, 2010

A view from the Canal ride

First Impressions

“He gezeille” is the Dutch expression for feeling cozy, and pleasant. This is exactly what I felt after spending four days in Amsterdam by myself. Even though I was alone in the city; the friendly nature of the locals never made me feel so. I found the city to be a lot of fun, with a lot interesting people to meet and talk to. Nonetheless, Amsterdam being more of a tourist city than typically Dutch, presented me with a very partial view of the Dutch. This was completed by our first lecture in the University of Amsterdam. Professor Jeroen introduced us to various aspects of the Dutch society ranging from civic systems like the education, social security, and political system to its language, culture, and religion. From the many aspects of the Dutch culture, and history that we touched upon, I found a quote very interesting. “God created earth, the Dutch created Holland”. I have learnt about many nationalists from different countries who are loyal to their motherland, primarily because of it being their birthplace. However, with the Dutch this is different. There are very few countries whose citizens who can legitimately claim together as a unit that they made the country with their own bare hands. The fact that the Dutch worked tediously over many decades, building one windmill after the other, followed by dykes so that they could reclaim/create land from the sea; I feel gives them this right to claim it as their land. It is a unique event and what makes it even more special was the way the citizens were united in protection against their common enemy, water. A video in class on the locals relentlessly working together in harsh conditions to build a dyke further buttressed the perceived unity amongst the people. Apart from the unity another interesting observation was the rarity of seeing an expensive car like BMW, Mercedes, etc and also that of most of the buildings looking similar. The reader had mentioned of “a certain uniformity in Dutch housing” (Vossestein, 2010), but after seeing it for myself I felt impressed. Most of the buildings had the same façade, following a similar pattern, and of an almost uniform height. “At the heart of Dutch culture lies egalitarianism, a sense of everyone being equal from a moral point of view” (Vossestein, 2010). I believe that the lack of expensive cars and the well developed and utilized public transport system support that quote. Additionally, during our canal ride I also noticed that many houses did not have curtains. It was easy to look inside an apartment and observe the interiors. The interiors usually comprised of white color wall, a painting, and wooden furniture. Not only did the apartments look similar, but also the canal houses were more or less equal in their interiors, and exteriors. Thus, it was the Dutch unity, national pride, and egalitarian nature that impressed me the most.

In between our class, and canal ride we had made a trip to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum. Van Gogh was born in a protestant family, and was an exceptional painter who was heavily under-recognized during his time. He believed in paintings for its artistic values, rather than its financial value. Therefore, during the early part of his career he focused his paintings on the dark image of daily life. As time progressed he learnt different styles, and travelled to different places which brought about a change in the way and subject he painted. The museum did a remarkable job of putting them in an easy timeline. Since a floor was shut we couldn’t see more of Van Gogh’s paintings. Nonetheless, there was a painting that struck out to me. It was a still life painting called “Stilleven met bijbel” from 1885. The painting had the French novel la joie de vivre drawn next to an open bible to illustrate Van Gogh’s critical attitude to his father who was an ardent believer in Christianity. I found this painting to be typically Dutch. There was nothing exceptional about the painting itself. It was the reason behind the painting that I found interesting, and immediately linked to an aspect of Dutch culture. Professor Jeroen had educated us that Dutch parents don’t like their children to be obedient. They want them to be critical, self-conscious, and an independent thinker. This is exactly what I saw in Van Gogh’s painting. He was being very critical of his father’s religious belief, and it displayed his independent thinking mechanism in the way he chooses to express this attitude.

In conclusion, I found today to be very productive. It was a great way to start the program by bombarding us with all kinds of information that we could use when required. There were many more moments when I found something that I had read in the reader or heard in class and saw that in action. Given the space constraints, I choose to focus on a few aspects of the Dutch culture. I find them very interesting, and something I choose to identify myself with. The Dutch way of thinking, parent’s attitude towards upbringing, their art, their culture, etc all excites me, and I can’t wait to see more.