Another dutchie here, living in the area between Den haag & Rotterdam.
Btw, are you planning to move or spend some time in the netherlands at some point?
It's always hard to nail down what is typiscal [insert country] here. Bike is useful yes, as we have more bikes here than any other western country I think. Just to give an indication, there is a bike parking lot in Amsterdam with two or three levels - and it's crammed full every day! The little outward things are easy to nail. The typical cheese we eat and love here is 'Goudse kaas' btw, not the blue vein cheeses
those are more Danish or French. We are more of the simple yellow cheeses here. Some people have visions of wooden clogs, but only some farmers use those.
When it comes to 'historical pride', look up the golden age - 16th-18th century pretty much, when the VOC was going strong. On the other hand, it is also the age of slavery, which is a shame. Another funny note - we have a queen, but our royal house doesn't trace back as far as other royal houses - we only have royalty since the 19th century! Though to be fair, they can trace back their ancestry back to very important people of centuries back, so the royal line has been important before they became royals.
Nowadays the dutch people are mostly renown for their waterworks, and if any expert on waterworks are needed anywhere, good chance they'll dutch people. It makes sense when most of the country is actually below sea level.
General attitude is more difficult to nail, but I can give a few details. Dutch people are, in general, not very religious. We do have a bible belt where many stern protestants live though, but outside that it has only a very small role (unlike, for example, the USA). The general saying is 'Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg', which translates sort of like 'Just act normal, and you'll be weird enough'. That attitude was the strongest back in the fifties, but still you might find that dutchies don't really get all out crazy
. Our political system works with many parties who after every 4-yearly vote has to make pacts to create a majority. Political parties spend less time slaughtering each other and while the tone of discussions has grown quite sharper in the last decade, it's not as sharp as in some countries with a 2-party system. Civility amongst politicians is still considered important (though also decreasingly so), with one particular exception (for those in the know - Blondie
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Need more particulars?
