Sample chapter (continued)
Attempting to Sleep in Amsterdam's Park (continued)
...A visitor to Holland will notice this trait almost immediately. The Dutch are polite. Their houses are trim and well-maintained. They don’t throw litter on the streets. Drivers don’t honk in impatience. Children don’t shout. And everything inside doors is clean. Floors are spotless, stairs are scrubbed. In youth hostels in other countries—in England, for example—the clerks looked the other way when I came in with my makeshift, pinned-together sleeping sheet, but not in Amsterdam. In Holland, there is a right way and a wrong way to behave, and everyone knows what it is.
This emphasis on good manners presented a problem for an American boy, especially an adventurous youngster used to doing things his own way. And, 57 years later, when I returned to Holland to make the kayak voyage on the Rhine River recounted in this volume, it still posed a problem. Even though I had many years of so-called maturity under my belt, I had not outgrown independent, boyish impulses. The result was that, in addition to the challenges I faced in my attempted navigation of Holland’s waters, I also had the task of navigating Holland’s landscape of social decorum. And, as I’ll report in the following pages, I found that time after time I ended up..."in Dutch."
In other countries, experiencing episodes of violating norms and being repeatedly corrected would be a sad prospect. In most places, when you break some rule, people can be angry, or at least irritated. They glare at you, or abruptly turn away. You’ve lost rapport, lost their potential friendship.
This pattern of hostile censure does not occur in Holland. As I’ve discovered from many personal experiences, the Dutch have an amazing quality of patience and maturity. They don’t take things personally. When a difference of opinion occurs, they rise above emotion. This maturity comes into play when they encounter a foreigner who has transgressed a rule of conduct. It’s quite a paradox: In this country that has such a broad array of well-recognized rights and wrongs, the people are unusually gentle in their reactions to violations of these norms.
to be continued... Buy your copy now for just $10.00, and find out how this adventure continues!