Amsterdam is often referred to as the city of bikes, and while the city certainly is definitely structured to be bike-friendly, arriving in the country in late January amidst a series of storms meant that most of my transit was via public transportation rather than bike. While navigating public transit in a new city can be confusing, I thought I had the hang of it for the first day of classes. I had to take a bus and a train to get to school, which wasn’t too bad at all. But looking at Google Maps, I quickly realised I had accidentally taken the bus from the wrong side of the street in a hurry to get away from the wind and the rain, and was going in entirely the wrong direction. I got off at the next stop, and had to take two more buses and a train to make up for my error.
The Dutch have a saying “afspraak is afspraak,” meaning that an agreement is an agreement. This is true of most commitments one makes, but also extends to punctuality. We had to arrive at classes at least 15 minutes early, and that first week I was supposed to actually get there half an hour early as I was in the rotation for setting up the space along with two others. On time would be late, and to be late was unthinkable. Being from India, and accustomed to a culture that sees time more fluidly, I have a tendency to misjudge the amount of time it can take to get places. Coupled with my public transit mishap, I was really worried I would not make it in time. Thankfully, I had vastly over-corrected for my tendency of tardiness, and made it with just enough time.
Other times, I had to adjust to ‘Dutch directness,’ where people are very forthcoming and do not cushion their thoughts or feelings. This was particularly a challenge in communicating with my host family, who were sometimes direct to the point of bluntness.
To a person from a monochronic culture or a culture that favours direct communication, my navigation of these cultural differences probably seems a little silly. Of course people should always get to places early and say what they mean! But these are not things that operate the same way in my cultural upbringing, and I have had to work on reframing my approach to both better understand their perspective as well as adjust my behaviour and attitudes. I now know not to take people’s approaches to time and communication styles for granted and assume that they will match mine. Dutch directness has actually become a particularly powerful tool for me in articulating and navigating cultural differences–explaining my own cultural biases and upbringing has gone a long way in meeting people halfway as I learned to experience and adjust to a different set of cultural norms.