I'm writing this because I have heard that many Americans are applying to immigrate to the Netherlands. I wanted to share what I have learned from experience, because you can make things easier for yourself, or harder, and the whole process is already hard enough. It's not just the administrative side of things, it's also all of the things that you will have to learn and all of the things that you will have to unlearn.
The first thing I had to unlearn, although I didn't know at the time how to do it, was dropping the American attitude. Let's face it, if the process for you is any easier than the process would be for someone immigrating to America from anywhere else, you should consider yourself fortunate. Bear that in mind any time you have the urge to impose your ideas about how things should work on someone who does not share your culture. You have to adapt to them, not the other way around. Because of how things are going back home, you may face a certain amount of stigma. You will be starting in the negative points and will have to prove to your new neighbors that you are not who they think you are. The burden will be on you.
The next point is culture shock. It doesn't sound like much, but when you're immersed in it, it can be quite distressing. You will go through a cycle of emotions. First, you'll love everything. It's all new and some things are better. Then reality will hit you. This is not America. The rules are different. The laws are different. The social norms are different. Some things you took for granted are missing. You hate everything, especially when you realize that not everybody here speaks English, and even those who do will sometimes perversely refuse to speak it because they're in a bad mood that day, etc. The inability to communicate will get to you. At last, you make your peace with it and learn to live with the people around you. You learn to make things a little easier for yourself.
Bonus fact: if you end up going back to the states, you will experience reverse culture shock. Even if you failed to integrate in another culture, it will have changed you. Things will have changed back home. It will hit you like a brick to the face, and even better, nobody back home will want to hear about it because it only reminds them how they've never gone anywhere or done anything. Fun, huh? Just as an additional bit of information, the Dutch won't want to constantly hear about America either. Some of them are in love with America, and they won't believe anything negative you tell them. Others are not in love with America and they will let you know that. The sooner you can blend in and not make it obvious that you are an American by your behavior or by the fact that everybody can hear you long before they see you, the better. They will not all make you welcome. There are people who are anti-immigrant who will see you as simply another immigrant, and frankly, they're not wrong about that part.
The language seems like it would be easy to learn, but there are a couple of pitfalls that neither the Dutch who teach their language as a second language nor the English-speakers trying to learn it seem to have identified. The biggest one is the phonetic system. English speakers try to overlay their phonetic system onto the way Dutch words are spelled. This results in Dutch so bad that nobody would understand you. An example. In Dutch, the word "boot" means boat and is pronounced boat. The double o has that sound in Dutch. In English that spelling would indicate a sort of footwear, and if you pronounce it that way it will sound funny, but in the weird way, not the "ha ha" way. The "ui" diphthong sounds something like a half-swallowed "ow" and the "ij" sounds like "eye". Like I said, the phonetic system is different. The sentence structure is different as well, and they have formal and informal forms of address and their own business language and articles that depend on the gender or lack thereof of the word they're attached to. Another difference to be aware of is mathematical notation. Instead of decimal points, they use commas, and vice-versa. There are so many things that can trip you up.
I suppose at this point it's worth mentioning that as long as you cannot read and write in Dutch, you are effectively illiterate in every way that matters. All official legal documents are written in Dutch, and not just any Dutch, but legalese. For as long as it takes you to learn the language, you will need help navigating the system, making appointments, getting your immigration obligations done. If you value your independence, learn the language and learn to read and write in Dutch. Put serious effort towards this end. Yes, you can get by for a while on English, but you will isolate yourself if you stay that way. The people around you will not necessarily be patient with you and you will simply have to persevere in trying to speak it. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's part of the process. You will make some doozies in the beginning, but you just have to power through. You will very likely have to find your own resources for learning, and I recommend going to the library or city hall, or the "gemeentehuis". At the gemeentehuis you will find the most help. You will need to register with them when you move into the municipality.
The Dutch themselves are just people. They're all different and there's good and bad in every population. It's worth getting to know them on their own terms, but don't expect to make friends easily. It's like this: they all have had all of their friends since they were in school. All of the seats at the table are occupied. Only if one of those seats becomes open will they offer it to you, and that doesn't happen very often. It will seem snobbish, but don't take it personally. It's just the way people organize their social lives here. They also live according to what's in their planners. They make appointments to socialize, like dates, and they enter that in their planner. Another thing to be aware of is that the Dutch pride themselves in being "direct" , which can come across as extremely blunt. Again, don't take it personally. In fact, you're going to have to get used to it. It can be a bit of a shock the first time you encounter it. Don't worry, you'll get over it, and soon you'll be doing it yourself.
Integrating in another country was one of the most challenging things that I have ever done. It demanded every ounce of resilience that I had. It eventually got easier, but before that, I had never known the extra dimension that loneliness can take on when you are isolated in another country and unable to express yourself or communicate fully with the people around you. It can bring you to the edge of a breakdown if you're not prepared for the challenge that it will pose for you. Don't expect it to be easy. It isn't going to be. You kind of have to dive in and hope for the best. As they say in Dutch, het komt uiteindelijk goed. It can be done, but you have to make a lot of adjustments both mental and operational. This is not for the faint of heart. You have to be all-in.
Oh, and one last thing for the people who think that the Netherlands is this all-permissive drug paradise, it isn't. There are very strict rules and the majority of the people here do not smoke weed or do drugs. They get drunk like respectable people. I kid, but only a little. While there are people who smoke weed and there are coffee shops everywhere, it's not exactly socially accepted here. To them, if they don't get high themselves, it is either a non-issue or they think of you as a tourist, a junkie or a loser. It's not something you do in public or anything you want to broadcast. It's something best done discretely and behind closed doors. Anything harder than weed is illegal and probably not the circles you want to be moving in. The weed culture here is different, so it's not like you can just go from buying it from the dispensary to getting it from the coffee shop and you'll fit right in with the other stoners. Many coffee shops require you to show your residency permit because the city decided they only wanted to allow locals to purchase their cannabis there.
No comments:
Post a Comment