{"id":89,"date":"2005-05-01T22:53:51","date_gmt":"2005-05-02T01:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/2005\/05\/01\/walk-the-dutch-talk\/"},"modified":"2005-05-02T20:12:20","modified_gmt":"2005-05-02T23:12:20","slug":"walk-the-dutch-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=89","title":{"rendered":"Walk the Dutch talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span> couple of sidenotes on the Veterans hospital visit, earlier today. While I’m not-so obviously Dutch, events where Dutch people appear always put me in a ‘cautious’ mode. For example, for me it was easier to talk to Canadians than actually walking up to a fellow citizen and throw out a typical blunt joke. With the years I’ve been living here, for example, going back to Holland brought up conflicting emotions: of course I was happy to set afoot on the soil I used to live on. How<\/em> happy I was, to be back in Nova Scotia. ‘Welcome back home’, as a Customs officer once said, last year.\n<\/p>\n

While I was living here, I never considered meeting up with fellow Dutch people, living around town. I’m sure there is a Dutch-Canadian society meetup somewhere. However, at that time, thinking as a Dutchman to the letter so once in a while, I considered meeting up with fellow citizens would hurt<\/em> my process of integration. I’ll tell you this: I could not have done (or adapted to) the regular stuff people do, like groceries or ordering food in a restaurant at that, if I had been too involved in ‘keeping up the Dutch stuff’. I owe my wife and her mom a lot: sometimes I just needed that push. It was hard, but we did it.\n<\/p>\n

Only after 2002, I came a bit aware of the Dutch people around me, with as highlight (thanks to a Dutch-Canadian from town) a personal one on one conversation with the Dutch ambassador who thought it was silly I had a hard time to speak in Dutch with him. With the years, my Dutch has gone downhill. I particularly noticed this, when I tried to keep up a conversation with the newly immigrants from Holland, yesterday: a of stuttering Dutch and fluid English (mine) vs. muttering (careful selected) English and fluid Dutch (theirs).\n<\/p>\n

My advice to any immigrant is, while savouring your backgrounds is probably understandably, since you immigrated, you might just as well focus on making yourself comfortable with your newly adopted country’s culture and learn about the regular chores Canadians have and do. Stay clear as much as you can from fellow-citizens: you’ll end up disappointing yourself if you keep comparing differences between two cultures: the one you supposed to give up and the one you’re about to lose grip on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of sidenotes on the Veterans hospital visit, earlier today. While I’m not-so obviously Dutch, events where Dutch people appear always put me in a ‘cautious’ mode. For example, for me it was easier to talk to Canadians than … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}