Compare...and compare

When I spoke to a close friend two days ago, she asked me if I could write something about the similarities between Dutch people and Americans. According to her, all I really seemed to do was underline the differences, while there had to be some things they had in common.
When I thought about all the different topics I have written about here, I realized that she was right; all I seem to do is describe how people or things in the Netherlands are different from American people and things. Granted, there are a lot of differences between the two countries, but they are both developed, well-to-do western nations, so they have got to have something in common besides the fact that they are both populated with humans.

My focus on the differences can probably be blamed on academics. More specifically on one class that I took a long time ago on identity formation. This is where I learned that in order to create one’s identity, one has to be aware of an “other”, a person, or a group of people that one is not like and does not want to be like. I know this sounds vague and probably slightly like I’m one sandwich short of a picnic, but think about it. Try to tell yourself right now how you experience being a woman, a man, a mother, a believer, or really anything that you consider an identifying characteristic of yourself. If you just tried explaining what’s it like to be a woman, you probably ended up using the characteristics of a man to explain what you are and what you’re not (you can sit down when you use the bathroom, you have to spend more time on your hair, you have to shave your legs but not your face, you’re more likely to encounter gender discrimination, and so on). The bottom line is that in order to know who you are, you need to know what and who you’re not, and don’t want to be. I think that what’s been happening in this blog is that I’ve been pointing out the differences between my two homes in order to decide who I am, what I do want to keep from my “old” home (roundabouts and bicycling everywhere), and what I want to retain from my “new” home (politeness, the weather, the students).

But for the sake of my good friend, I did, for just a day, discard my tendency to only consider differences between the US and the Netherlands. So I started to ponder what Americans and Dutch people have in common. I have to tell you, I considered this for quite a while, and found it really hard to come up with examples. Stating that both peoples like to eat and listen to music seemed a little too simple, but when it came to finding shared cultural codes, I really struggled to find similarities. However, I finally managed to think of a few. Well, one actually. It’s sad, I know, but there you go.

The one shared characteristic that came to mind were the differences between the north and the south of both countries (and once again I managed to squeeze some differences in there). I think that after having lived in both places in both countries I can conclude that people in both places share some similarities. Sure, the southern part of the Netherlands will, unless global warming really persists, probably never grow cotton, and the people in the northern states in the US never lived in huts made of peat, but the people are somewhat the same. For one thing, northerners, whether they’re Dutch or American, tend to be sticklers for punctuality and efficiency, which unfortunately can’t always be said for southerners. When I taught at a university in the Netherlands, and a student was late for class or an appointment, we almost always assumed the student was from the south, simply because we knew they lived by a concept known as the “southern 15 minutes” (Brabants/Limburgs kwartiertje). In Georgia people don’t appear to take time as seriously as people up in New England either, and they appear far more laid back about being on time and taking care of things in a speedy and efficient manner (and honestly, why rush if you can sit on your porch with some sweet tea?). Moreover, southerners in both countries tend to be less direct and more polite than their northern counterparts. Southerners in both countries will say “Sure, no problem honey”(although Dutch people will probably leave off the honey), even when something can’t be done, while people in the north will tell you why it can’t be done straight up. It strikes me as odd that the differences within a country as large as the US are somehow the same to the differences in a country as small as the Netherlands, but, and this is a tough admission for someone who always has an answer to everything; I really don’t know why.

Well, I am going to put my thinking cap back on and think of some more similarities, because there have got to be more, and I am a woman on a mission. In the meantime, all your suggestions are very welcome.