Let's Be Fair

After experiencing the culture in the Netherlands for the past two months, we realize we have had some pretty frustrating things to say about life and people here. Although we still miss the States right now and wish desperately that we were there rather than here, we must be fair. From across the ocean we can see some pretty frustrating things about the U.S. as well.

We had a chance to talk with a Dutch woman tonight at church who spent a couple years in New York at a Bible school. Talking with her confirmed some our suspicions about the way Americans are versus Europeans.

The way Americans work is slightly crazy. Did you know it is actually illegal here for employees to not take their vacation? Three weeks of vacation per year seems to be the minimum in the Netherlands though most people have about five weeks and will take an entire three weeks of vacation at one time. We know many Americans who forgo their vacation time completely, and taking a full three weeks off work is absolutely unheard of! Europeans find this a bit ridiculous, and frankly so do we. It kind of makes America seem a bit like a machine: all work, all the time. While the Dutch might be a bit slow for us Americans, we Americans are insanely attached to our identity being about how much we accomplish in a day, how little sleep we get, and how overly busy we are.

Feeding into this machine mentality is a lack in the American education system to teach people how to really think. Exams are multiple choice and classes generally consist of a group of students sitting, usually sleeping with their eyes open, while an educator lectures. Few questions are asked and rarely will a student disagree with what a teacher is saying. Europeans are generally taught to think for themselves, back up what they think, and learn how to describe and define why things are the way they are or why they are doing what they are doing. Erin can definitely agree that she feels ill-prepared to give reasons or debate issues, mostly because her whole educational life has been spent memorizing information rather than thinking through things. Disagree with a professor? Never! Well, at least rarely.

This then leads to the point that Europeans seem to be generally much more knowledgeable about world events and politics. Americans seem rather foolishly insulated from the rest of the world and annoyingly apathetic when it comes to politics. Of course, what with working 60 hours a week and not taking vacation, there's precious little time to be well-read or investigate political and world events. Europeans get the impression that Americans are happy to barge into world situations without knowing anything about how the rest of the world really operates. The woman we spoke with said she was in the States when we invaded Iraq and said many of the people she talked to said they were "for" the war because the president said it was the right thing to do. She wondered if most of these people could even point to Iraq on a map. I wonder the same thing. After all, I remember history lessons being about 15% world history and 75% Texas history. (This could of course simply be a phenomenon of living in Texas - "It's a whole other country.")

Of course, there are exceptions. There are exceptions in the Netherlands like there are in the States, and everywhere in the world. We just wanted to be a bit fair. America is not the perfect culture; there's not a perfect culture. The only reason we are fine with so much work and so little vacation, with simply memorizing facts, with living insulated with little knowledge of other countries and politics is because we grew up like this. So, in this stage where we hate it here, it is at least a little soothing to remember that our own culture is not ideal either.