Live in Holland....the People (1)

Dutch are quite an interesting society. I didn't know much bout the Dutch when I was in Indonesia. All I knew were just Famke Jansen, Tiesto, Ruud Gullit, and some soccer players that I often heard people mentioned their names. I learn bit by bit about the Dutch everyday since I am here.

Here are some remarks, probably you guys will think I have something againts the Dutch, but no I dont, I just try to be as honest as possible with my point of view, so correct me if I am wrong.

Dutch basically are quite friendly. They are probably the most welcoming people among other Europeans I know. The fact that it had a long history with Indonesia might have influenced that they are familiar with the Indonesians live among them. Of course, some small minded people are being nasty to us, foreigners (Asians), sometimes but they have never given me such a hard time so far.
I used to take it to heart everytime I heard some Dutch youngsters calling me names as I walked down the streets, staring at me from head to toe or even laughing at me but hey, it happens everywhere in the world, they will always be people like that everywhere you go. After a while, you'll get used to it and sometimes, you'll even find yourself smile or laugh about it. Just chill out...

Dutch are cheap, I couldn't agree more. They are stingy...soooo true. People surely didn't invent "going Dutch" out of nothing. I have found that most Dutch do really take 1 euro cent into account seriously. A few cents could even get you into a long queue in supermarkets or even worse. That is just insane.
A friend of mine told me this story how she was shocked when her Dutch friend actually expected her to pay for the petrol when he was helping her moved with his car.

Maybe because of this stingy thing, I have never seen any Dutch holding any lunch/dinner parties by serving you piles of foods to fill your stomach up. They well only serve you snacks (frikandelen, kroketten, patat friets, kaas soufle or simply breads) which I am sure the Indonesians would think that is ridiculous. They have this word 'Gezelligheid' , which cannot be literally translated into English, but you'll hear this word being mentioned a lot together with 'lekker' . Gezelligheid means somekinda warm, nice athmosphere created when you are surrounded with the people you like and who you'd love to spend your special moments with. SO, instead of being blinded by delicious foods around you, you'll probably consider of the hosts' kindness and thoughtfulness of sharing their precious moments with you.

This is the funny thing about Dutch. If you celebrate something, let's say your b'day for instance, people will come up to your family, relative or even friends to congratulate them on your birthday. Think about it, would you ever say, ' Hi, congratulations on your friend's b'day!'. I DON'T THINK SO.... but yeah, maybe thats another strategy to create some chit chats.

The last but not least actually hee hee...this one really pisses me off, to be honest. If you get ill and need medical help immediately, don't waste your time by going to the hospital, cause instead of getting some help, you'll just end up getting a pain in the ass. You have to have a 'huisarts' here. Huisarts means your private doctor. Everyone here got their own huisarts who will be the one they will go to in the first place if you do need some medical help. Later on, the huisarts will decide whether you need to go to hospital or simply just giving you drug perscription. I don't have any huisarts cause I have never suffered anything serious but flu, sore throats and stuffs and I have always been able to take care of myself so far. I should get myself one though....

About a year ago, I got a friend (Sherly) staying over at my place. She complained on feeling pain on her stomach right 2 hours after we had dinner. We thought it was just a usual period pain. But it got worse and worse and by 11 pm, she decided to get some help cause the pain was unbearable. I asked my Dutch housemate at that time (Jordy, such a nice guy) taking her to the hospital with his car. He drove us to there and as soon as we arrived, I took Sherly to the emergency unit. She was very pale and I could see how hard she tried to walk, she looked like about to faint. There were just a man with his son sitting in the waiting room in emergency unit. I ran to the nurse and told him that my friend needed help ASAP. He was old and looked grumpy. He just stared at us and after a while he opened his mouth and asked us (in English),

" Are you two tourists?"
" No, we are foreign students here, we have been living here for more than 2 years", I replied.
" Have you got health insurance?", he kept asking
" Yes, we do, we aren't illegal immigrants here, we even have our residence permit" I started to loose my patient, but he didn't even move and kept staring at us.
" Are you two Japanese?" FOR GOD'S SAKE, I almost exploded with anger.
" NO, listen, could you please helping my friend? she's been in pain for hours. I'll answer your questions later on, we have health insurance, it will cover the hospital bill, please!"

He moved closer to Sherly and stared at her. By the time, Sherly, in her pyjama, looked like she was dying and struggling with the pain. The nurse, calmly asked her,

"what is the problem?"
"it's my stomach, please help me...." Sherly almost cried.
"what did you doctor say?"
" I dont have a huisarts, I have never been sick since I was here, I went directly straight to hospital"
"you should have a huisarts though and tell him about this before you decided to come here" he said and I had to control myself really hard not to slap him on the face.

" can you please help her?" I interrupted and raised my voice. He gave me an odd look, just like a moron, and after a few secs of waiting what his next words would be, he opened his mouth and said,
" I will think about it" then he walked into a small office.

I was stunned there, couldn't believe what just happened. Neither could Sherly, I believe. and the first word that came out of my mouth as soon as I could catch my tongue was "FUCK". The man and his son just stared at me, surprised but I couldnt care less if I made a scene over there. It was a emergency unit for Christ's sake, arent they suppose to help people out?! I mean what if we had been real tourists with no local health insurance, Im sure they would have let us die over there cause they were so afraid that we couldn't pay the hospital bill. But lemme tell you, if you ever set that kinda of regulations in treating patients who desperately need you, then just go to hell, no need to build a hospital and employ what so called 'doctors and nurses'.
You give help to people who need it immediately, thats how Emergency Units are for. No matter whether if its your own people or tourists.

I called out to Jordy who was waiting outside and told him the story, he rushed immediately into the ER and talked to another nurse. He explained everything and not for long, the female nurse handed him out a form to fill in. After I filled the form out for Sherly, she was called into a room to have a further examination. And the result was...she had to spend the nite in the hospital because it was appendicitis.