The brilliant dianerevoluta, gentlefolk:
Does it ever bother you that your entire public persona is built around making you seem like a buffoon? That your media advisors’ mandate is simply to make you seem like a loveable chump? Do you realise that by playing into this caricature you are implicitly agreeing with the notion that the…
35 - An incredibly well written and important commentary on the problematic nature of the ‘Kony 2012’ campaign.
You must have heard of the viral video created by Invisible Children (IC), a U.S. organization that has launched a one-year campaign (expires December 31, 2012) to eliminate Joseph Kony, the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group in Northern Uganda that has been embroiled…
2831 - 
Groningen, The Netherlands (by Bert Kaufmann)
So, this is happening right now. And I’m not there to see it.
Small talk. It happens, a lot. Not my forte, but a necessity as part of the living abroad experience.
I really wish there was something more that could be said in response to – ‘New Zealand… that must be really far away’.
Ah, yup. It is.
Another curly one is being asked to explain what is different about living in Holland. Within the confines of making polite conversation over breakfast I never quite knew how to answer that one.
On the one hand, the answer is: very little.
Groningen streets in wintertime. Magical.
So, one of the best things about travelling or living in another country is supposedly about new, interesting or otherwise noteworthy foods you might eat. European fare has dominated Western culinary standards globally. Italians brought pizza and pasta to the world, revolutions have been founded on Spanish sangria and tapas, French macaroons have had poets weeping sonnets in their name, and the espoused benefits of eating like they do on the Mediterranean will apparently have us all living joyously well into ripe and wrinkled territory.
And then, you have Holland.
Not exactly a nation known for their contribution to the culinary world, the Dutch are a people who devote whole shelves of their supermarkets to a product that we back home consider a novelty item for children’s birthday parties…
Given my privilege as an English speaker, it is unsurprising that I have only a very short list of experiences where my inability to speak Dutch caused issue. They range from mildly irritating to somewhat awkward.
My tirade against the aural qualities of the Dutch language is probably born of the need to find fault somewhere with a nation of people who speak English better than most New Zealanders. I’ve talked of my chagrin over my monolinguality before. Of all the countries I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to, living in Holland, I haven’t even had to learn how to say ‘do you speak English?’ It is a fairly safe bet to presume that everyone under the age of forty-five, from your classmates to the supermarket tellers, will probably be more fluent than John Key, and seemingly are more than happy to converse with you.
Despite that, I can’t get past the feeling that it is disrespectful that I, a foreigner, should come to a country, or indeed a continent with only the most basic, phrasebook-clutching knowledge of the local languages, whilst this underlying attitude that the host be required to speak to me in my (only) language seemingly pervades all cross cultural interactions.
It’s certainly an undesirable state of affairs when one has known about the existence of a town for at least a year, been aware that correct pronunciation of its name would be necessary for roughly two thirds that time, and yet, even after being based within its area for about the last five months – still being unable to actually say ‘Groningen’.
And not for lack of trying, I’ll have you note.
Stephen Fry once described the guttural Dutch ‘G’ sound as “an outbreak of pneumonia in a frog pond”. You’ve probably spent your life thinking the painter who chopped off his own ear was called ‘Van Go’ or ‘Van Goff’. However, for correctness, you should probably start trying to hack up your oesophagusal tubes every time you say ‘Van Gogh’ instead.
Am I the only one who thinks The Netherlands is shaped like a foetus?
A quick google search tells me so.
I’ve never been particularly good at grasping the exact details about a thing until after I’ve made some sense of the ‘big picture’. One friend describes this as macrothinking. I just like the neologism, to be honest.
Maybe this is just how I am accounting for my absentee explanations about my life here in Groningen. It’s certainly how I’ve reasoned away my general failings in understanding what my lecturers are rabbitting on about until the penny drops right at the final moments before an exam. Usually. Except for, you know, that awkward moment when it… doesn’t.
Ostensibly, coming up with excuses – now that is something I’m really good at.
by Dani℮l on Flickr.
Classic sight in Groningen, the largest city in the north of the Netherlands.
Current place in the world.
(via nomnommari)
Schiermonnikoog, the smallest of the Wadden Sea Islands, on a cold day in late November.
Barcelona.
The beauty’s in the details. And the colours. And the atmosphere.
