In the eyes of foreigners

[Humppaporo]

In the eyes of foreigners the habits in certain countries are quite different, if not righteout strange. You usually only notice these things when you get questions from a foreigner, or read about it somewhere.

In Holland most people drink a lot of coffee, and many women have the habit of visiting other women around 10.00 am to drink coffee together and talk. I have heard also that foreigners think it is utterly inhospitable that they get one cookie along with it, and that the cookie box is closed again, as if they are not allowed to have more. I actually do not know if it is still like that nowadays (don’t go to these coffee ‘sessions’ )

Older people or people with young kids tend to eat their main (warm) meal around noon, but most others do it between 5.00 and 6.00 pm, which is quite early I think.

Something I always feel is odd here, is that in front of weekends or festivity days, it is extremely crowded in the supermarkets, when I am waiting in line on such days (for paying) it looks like people are expected to starve when they do not stuff their house with groceries (the shops are closed on sundays and festivity days).

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In Finland i noticed women (in various cities) who were dressed in black, white lace on the upper part of their dress and wearing a long black hoop skirt. Golden jewellery and often with children. At first i just throught it was someone with a very personal dressing style, but i have seen them in many cities. Who are they?

[frostheim]

humppaporo said:

In Finland i noticed women (in various cities) who were dressed in black, white lace on the upper part of their dress and wearing a long black hoop skirt. Golden jewellery and often with children. At first i just throught it was someone with a very personal dressing style, but i have seen them in many cities. Who are they?

> hebelek.org/~arzu/su/gypsy_fin_IMG_0004d.jpg

The picture is of very poor quality, but if it's what you mean, then it's about the Romani people of Finland that you've seen; usually the women have a lot of jewellery, a white blouse and a long black velvet skirt, and they're most often with their or their families' children while their men are somewhere else doing their gloomy "businesses" or whatever: the stereotype of a Romani man here in Finland is that he hasn't gone any schools, often can't even read (I've witnessed a Romani man to not know how to write his own home address on a paper in the post office), always carries a knife with him, drives an old white Mercedes-Benz (stolen of course), or an old Nissan or Mazda from the 80's, likes to sing tango songs and acts like an owner of the whole world in a way or another.

Nowadays all these old jokes, stories and alike are however considered as racism (at least by them), and eg. the word "manne" that was used of these peeps still in the 80's and even 90's isn't an appropriate expression anymore. And oh, the kids of theirs are uncivilized and wild rascals and the women tend to speak disturbingly loud in the busses, metros and trains, and they naturally steal food from the grocery stores and hide the stuff under their long skirts. The Romani people are never into doing any real work, but often sell a lot of stolen stuff in general and if one ever happens to get a fight/quarrel with a Romani person, then he/she gets the whole family on the war path.

And metal music is "devil's music" to them; they don't like metalheads in general.
I've got quite a lot of personal experience of this.

And the sad thing is that often many of these stereotypes etc. mentioned above do exist for real at least here in Helsinki.

EDIT: Hopefully there are no Romani from Finland reading this (I don't expect them to visit metal band forums, even if they'd ever understand English enough or had a PC or an internet connection). However if such ever happens, then no offence to their people at all. It's just that their acts and behaviour through all these years in our country has lead to quite suspicious and even frightened attitudes towards them. Their reputation in Finland isn't thus anything very fluttering or positive in general, though exceptions may of course exist somewhere that most of the other people aren't aware of at all.

[Humppaporo]

Yes, that is what i mean. Thank you very much! I already wondered if it might be 'gypsies'.

Here in Holland gypsies live often together in 'camps', clusters of house trailers. And they also drive around in old Mercedeses, often white, about stolen i don't know. The men carry knives, also here, and they are always suspect of stealing and fencing. There was such a camp only a few kilometres from our former home. We never noticed so much about them. And the women are not dressed like in Finalnd. I only remember that one evening a girl and a boy from about 18 years old, came to our door and asked to use the phone (before mobile phone times), because they wanted to get picked up by someone. Of course i allowed them to come in. They made their call and left again. Everyone said that i was a fool, and they said that they only came to check if there was something to steal. I had not that feeling about them, and nothing happened also. But it illustrates the bad name gypsies still have, also here.
In Häjyt i noticed also some of the stereotype thoughts about Romani/gypsies.

In Holland there are only troubles when they have to move the camps to another place, but that is logical.

What you say about shouting and such, here in Holland it is more the habit of people from Suriname and the Antilles. They even have conversations while standing about 10 metres from each other through a window: 1 in the shop at the kassa and the other one outside.

Also the kid boys of these immigrants cling together (which is logical) and form agressive gangs (not so logical). With these people i had a lot to do, when our kids were on 'basic' school, more than half of the school consisted of foreigners, mostly from Antilles, Suriname, Marokko, Somalia and Turkey. Girls were usually very okay, and some of the boys also, but most not. I don't kow why. I even had to come between a stabbing quarrel with scissors, those boys were only 11 years old

The parents often do not speak Dutch, especially the fathers do not.

In highschool i had a Turkish friend. She and her parents and aunt and 5 younger sisters and 1 brother lived in a very poor house in our town. In that area were all Turkish people. I came there very often and i must say, that although nor her parents , nor her aunt spoke any Dutch or whatever language i understand, they were always very friendly and very welcoming. They all worked in low jobs in a factory, as so often happens. I do not envy them.

It is a pity that people live in closed communities so far from the rest of the society they live in. You do not have to compromise all the time, but it is important to speak the language and be part of the country you live in, in a way. Also for the kids, they need friends, and not just the friends from the enclosed groups.

The 'Molukkers' (people from the Molukken islands in Indonesia) live also in groups, speak badly Dutch, and stay inside their own group. They expected to go back to a free country after the independence war from Indonesia (used to be one of our colonies), the Molukken were never free, so they stayed and still separate from the other people. About 30 years ago they tried to force a war from Holland to Indonesia to free the Molukken, by hijacking trains for weeks. Many people died then.
That didn't exactly enlarge the sympathy for their ideas.

[CrazyMary]

This is a great topic humppa, I'm looking forward to reading more posts from around the world.

I immediately started wondering what is "quintessentially Australian" - what strange things do we do which we understand completely, but would baffle anyone else? I decided to ask my best friend today, because she came here from New Zealand 18 months ago and would have some insight.

Until then, and because today happens to be Australia Day (commemorating the first British colony settlement in Australia) here are some excerpts from a newspaper article on what it means to be an Aussie (my comments are in brackets):

You know you're Australian if …

2. You believe that stubbies can be either drunk or worn. <<stubbies are both shorts and beer>>

5. You've made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden. <<due to the "drought" watering your garden is only permitted on certain days, between certain hours>>

6. You believe it is appropriate to put a rubber in your son's pencil case when he first attends school. <<rubber = eraser, not condom!>>

8. You understand that the phrase "a group of women wearing black thongs" refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds.

11. You believe the "i" in the word "Australia" is optional.

12. You can translate: "Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas." <<Darren and Sharon played AC/DC on the way to McDonalds>>

13. You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep. <<it's true! www.bigthings.com.au/ >>

14. You call your best friend "a total bastard" but someone you really, truly despise is just "a bit of a bastard".

15. You think "Woolloomooloo" is a perfectly reasonable name for a place.

16. You're secretly proud of our killer wildlife.

17. You believe it makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that's twice as big as its $2 coin.

18. You understand that "Wagga Wagga" can be abbreviated to "Wagga" but "Woy Woy" can't be called "Woy".

19. You believe that cooked-down axlegrease makes a good breakfast spread. <<famous Vegemite>>

21. Hamburger. Beetroot. Of course.

25. You wear ugh boots outside the house.

27. You believe that the more you shorten someone's name the more you like them.

28. Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language.

30. You know what it's like to swallow a fly, on occasion via your nose.

32. You know it's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle.

34. You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call "Anzac cookies". <<they're "biscuits" in Australia, please! Cookies are unashamedly American>>

42. You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says "cobber".

You can read the full list here

[Ǽcen]

I've noticed that a lot of Europeans get really confused (and sometimes offended) about the legal ages for things in the US. Here, you can drive any kind of motor vehicle when you're 16, but it's illegal to even have a beer until you're 21.

[ingrid]

@ humppaporo: you only talk about Holland, how about the other parts of our country?


hm and yeah I know those finnish gypsies. those clother are cool
the ones over here only deal weet

[Humppaporo]

Yep, i prefere the name Holland above the more formal 'the Netherlands'. Most foreigners do not know that Holland was officially only a small part of our country.
The meaning is the same btw. low land

I myself do not even live in 'Holland' but only in 'the Netherlands'

[ingrid]

hm ok
ah well I hate the name Holland, especially cause the Holland part of our country sucks
that's why I don't live there either

[Humppaporo]

I agree, it sucks. Cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam are not exactly my favo's also.
But... what's in a name

[let's not go too far off topic here, from now on, i will behave again!]

[aussieklaani]

What are the background of Romani people?

Are they indigineous like Sami?

[Lionheart]

The Romani's are believed to come from the Indian subcontinent, Punjab and Rajastan. There they worked in Hindu temples dedicated to an avatar of Vishnu called Narashimva. In the 11th century Mahmud of Gazni laid hands on these temples for the richess they possessed ( they forgot to hide their richess ). When this happened the Romani people became slaves or joined the army of Mahmud. This is when they started migrating to Europe.

Nowadays they have lost their original Hindu identity but in their dialect there are still words used originating from the Punjabi and Sanskrit lnaguges.

Nowadays Romani people are mostly found in Eastern and Southern Europe but are spread across the whole world even as far as North America.

(Source: wikipedia)

[wolferin]

We shake head for "yes" and "no" in opposite directions of the whole world. When I talk with foreigners I say: "Don't look at me, just listen what I say." ;D

Other strange thing are the necrologs, sticket mainly on the walls of the bus-stop kiosk, on the electric colums round there, on the front doors of flats and yards. These are sheet of paper saying that somebody had died, or that from his death had pased a given period of time. There's a picture of the dead man and a few words. One German girl thought these were criminals. She was astcnished that there were so many pictures of criminals seeked by the police. Finally she learned that they were dead people. ( Some of them may had been criminals, who knows )

[Crystiannia]

wolferin: I think that is fascinating! I can see how that might be confusing though.