I'm Australian and lived in the Netherlands for 3 years before moving to the UK. UK wins no contest. Beautiful landscape, friendlier people, diverse food, people with manners... NL is somewhere to avoid, I feel.

fortuner said:

dandm said:
The question I have is, is the Dutch directness better or worse than the facade and fake politeness you get in England? I am Australian and grew up more with the English tradition, so direct confrontation is uncommon. I then spent three years in the Netherlands (Den Haag) and have spent the past year in London. I often find myself wondering which approach is better - is it best to know exactly where you stand with someone (the Dutch approach) or not have your feelings hurt etc but be somewhat in the dark as to where you stand (the English approach). Occasionally I miss the brutal directness of the Dutchies, but this is rare. For the most part it's a relief not to have to deal with it.

I think it depends entirely on who you speak to, or perhaps more importantly, whether they are having a good day or bad. In many cases, there's little difference between the Dutch and the English. Both can be pretty much as brutal as each other or as nice.

 

 

Well that has not really been my experience. To my face the Brits are always very civil, and will very rarely have a go at you directly. But with most Dutchies I dealt with, if they have an issue with you they won't hold back. It's very evident in workplace styles. There are pros and cons to both approaches IMO.

It's not that the Brits aren't feeling the rage or whatever, it's just that they tend not to release it. Once you remove the face to face element, however, the fur really can fly. For example I find Brits to be very aggressive drivers, and I have a theory that they release all their pent up annoyance in the little bubbles of their cars! 

This is all terrible generalisation I know, everyone is different. But it's hard not to notice overarching cultural trends. 

This post was edited by dandm at August 22, 2012 2:54:09 PM CEST

The question I have is, is the Dutch directness better or worse than the facade and fake politeness you get in England? I am Australian and grew up more with the English tradition, so direct confrontation is uncommon. I then spent three years in the Netherlands (Den Haag) and have spent the past year in London. I often find myself wondering which approach is better - is it best to know exactly where you stand with someone (the Dutch approach) or not have your feelings hurt etc but be somewhat in the dark as to where you stand (the English approach). Occasionally I miss the brutal directness of the Dutchies, but this is rare. For the most part it's a relief not to have to deal with it.

Reading things like this just makes me more thankful that we have left. Every day I feel fortunate to have escaped such is the contrast. No more finger wagging Dutchies for me, and being made to feel like a piece of crap by complete strangers. The Netherlands is a cesspit and their anti-immigrant policies are only going to hurt them in the end as they struggle to fill highly skilled roles and have companies move off-shore.  

This post was edited by dandm at November 18, 2011 11:48:34 AM CET

zchen (Nov 12 2010, 01:38 AM) said: > original post
Hi,

a small question.

I am relocating to NL for work very soon. I am planning to ship my households to NL, but wondering if I should seafreight my washing machine and fridge (just bought recently). will they work in NL? or should I just simply buy new ones once I get there. Company will pay for relocation costs, but it will be out my pocket if buy new ones.

regards,
ZL

Hi ZL. We brought our washing machine and fridge over from Australia too because the company was paying, and had to get rid of them as they were simply too big for a Dutch kitchen and laundries tend to be non-existent here (it's normal to have a cupboard where you keep a frontloader washing machine).

But they will work here if you buy the appropriate adapter, it's really just a matter of space. If you're moving into a big newly built place it might be okay. Dutch fridges tend to be about a third the size of an Australian fridge, for example.

Because our fridge and washing machine were "non-standard" we basically had to give them away, which was very painful as in Oz we probably could have got $600-800 for the pair. I wish someone had of warned me!