A casual observation

[old.user4556]

Ok, so I was passing through Schiphol over the weekend as I was in Prague for a stag do (oh what a city!) - what the fuck is wrong with the Dutch? What an incredibly rude and ignorant breed of people (no offence here TdC, I know you live there).

I was unaware of the stereotype until I started to ask my mates about it, and then proceeded to tell my dad who wholeheartedly agreed.

No please, no thankyou, no hello or goodbye, no holding doors open, no excuse me. One bloke threw a pack of lemons at his 7 foot tall dutch mate at high speed across the departure lounge - it missed him and I had to dive out the way or it would have hit me. He came over, picked up his lemons that were next to me, and fucked off - no "apologies mate".

Then there was the queue skipping at Edinburgh airport off the KLM flight through passport control. It was clearly marked, but a crowd of them just barged past the tensbarrier queue down to the front.

And the bloke at ABN Amro, what a cnut; I handed over my remaining 700 Kc (about £17ish give or take) and his first words to me were (in a 'schtop schtop!' accent) - what's the point in changing that back, it's barely worth anything. Well excuse me you rude fuck, but that'll get me some lunch and a magazine back in blighty - who the fuck was he to question my money changing?

Anyway, just a casual observation.

 

[old.Tohtori]

I would think of this thread as nothing more then a silly rant...but you're scottish!

I'm almost flabergasted.

 

[old.user4556]

Silly rant or not, but I was just completely gobsmacked.

Even the insane and crazy club touts in Prague had simple basic manners.

 

[Will]

Saying that the Dutch at Schiphol are typical rude Dutchmen is like saying Parisians are typical rude Frenchmen, Londoners are typical rude Englishmen, and Edinburghers are typical rude Scots.

Once you are outside Amsterdam, its a much nicer country.

 

[old.user4556]

Heineken was actually pretty damn good there too; not the pee in the can we get here.

Edit: and i should add, I'm sure there are lots of lovely and well mannered Dutchmen in Holland, but in my short stay I didn't meet any.

 

[cHodAX]

Alot of Afrikaners in Jo'burg are exactly the same, rude arrogant bastards. I have met some very nice Dutch people but an awful lot of them have been rude pricks as well. You might be right though, it could be an Amsterdam thing, just like you get a very high ratio of complete fuckwits in London.

 

[pez]

It could be a cultural thing, atleast for the please and thankyous. I know Scandanavians are often thought of as rude because they rarely say please and thankyou but thats just there way, dosen't make them rude.

I mean Brittish people do say it way too much, we say thankyou when we give people money for something in a shop. First time i did that in America the girl looked at me like i was either mental or i had stolen something.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Silly rant or not, but I was just completely gobsmacked.

Even the insane and crazy club touts in Prague had simple basic manners.

Yeah i meant that if a scot thinks people are rude, then they must be really rude

 

[tris-]

scottish men are the rudest fuckers ive ever had to talk to

 

[taB]

It could be a cultural thing, atleast for the please and thankyous. I know Scandanavians are often thought of as rude because they rarely say please and thankyou but thats just there way, dosen't make them rude.

I mean Brittish people do say it way too much, we say thankyou when we give people money for something in a shop. First time i did that in America the girl looked at me like i was either mental or i had stolen something.

I was advised to stop saying please for everything when I was in China, to people in shops bars etc.. I was told they are there to provide a service and there was no need to say please / thank you as they were just doing what was expected of them and not going out of their way for you. Was strange to me but meh..

 

[Jarakin]

scottish men are the rudest fuckers ive ever had to talk to

We're more lewd than rude imho. I actually find Edinburgh one of the friendliest cities i've been to and to some extent Glasgow too (apart from the neds running round asking folk "Gawt ony ecce meight?" in a typical nasal tone, then when you say no, they call you a bawbag or fannysack or something along those lines).

So, uh, yeah.. Scotland Rules!

 

[Tom]

It isn't purely a Dutch thing. In Italy last year I was queuing to buy a sarnie, a coachload of Italians came through the airport doors and barged up to the sandwich counter, completely ignoring the queue of about 5 people.

I don't think they'd anticipated 16 stones of me pushing the ones nearest back out of the way. I still got served in my place

 

[mank!]

i've met ***** all over the world. shock!

 

[Dukat]

 

[Kryten]

They're everywhere I'm afraid, it is a Dutch thing, it is just the way they are.
The only folks I find worse are true south africans, there's no culture so arrogant and so narrow minded in the world - but maybe that's attributable to the shit that's been going on there for god knows how long. Even south africans that have been in the UK for several years I know are some of the most fucking rude people I've ever met. Coupled with an accent half australian half cockney-with-a-chest-infection, just makes you want to punch them.

But, maybe it;s just not fair to compare cultures in such a way.

 

[Bodhi]

I found the Dutch friendly enough when I was there. Admittedly I only really spoke to them in coffee shops, but they certainly didn't seem rude. You want to try living with the French for 18 months - completely re-writes your definition of rudeness.

 

[DaGaffer]

I lived with some Norwegians when I was at uni, it took us three years to convince them that saying please and thank you in a shop was the done thing.

You have to accept some cultural differences (for instance in Latin America people are very polite except when it comes to queues, whereas Russians queue well but are otherwise impolite), but there are absolute standards of rudeness - if a Dutch bloke threw oranges and didn't apologise when they nearly hit you he's just a cnut by anyone's standards.

Generally speaking you have to accept that the British have higher levels of politeness than anyone else; we are famous for it after all.

Oh, and with South Africans, its just the Afrikaners, English South Africans, Black South Africans, asians, all pretty polite (you see the difference when you go from Afrikaner Jo'burg or Pretoria to Cape Town).

 

[TdC]

the Dutch are reasonably polite imo, but then, I live here so I'm used to them I guess. The airport isn't a good place to see a Dutchman at his best heh. At least the Dutch understand the concept of queuing. Last time I was in Asia (Singapore to be precise), I nearly committed murder when a squad of (I think they were) Chinese folk jumped a queue I'd been waiting in for 40 mins after something had gone wrong with my ticket and then to a man pretended to not understand when I pointed out they were (cocks) jumping the queue and had a verbal go at me in very loud dialect.

Sorry, Chinese people of the world, but some of you are cocks :/

 

[Ch3tan]

there's no culture so arrogant and so narrow minded in the world .

Americans or British?

 

[Kryten]

I'd not describe either nation as either arrogant or narrow minded.

Ignorant, perhaps.

 

[Munkey]

Living in the middle east, it took me a while to realise that the people out here arent rude (well, some of them are), they just dont understand the concept of politeness. When they tell you to move and seem rude about it, its simply because they werent taught how to do these things while growing up. Their predisposition towards allowing maids to rear their children is only worsening this condition, however once you get past this "rudeness" you do find out that they are pretty decent people.

But dont get me started on the afrikaaners. I've never wanted to kill people so much in my life. The very epitome of rudeness.

 

[tris-]

YouTube - Spitting Image Never Met a Nice South African

 

[Whipped]

Damn tris, you beat me to it

We've got three South Africans working for us, two blokes and a woman. The woman is perfectly nice and polite. The other two are, to put it simply, fucking tools.

 

[DaGaffer]

I've met plenty of very nice South Africans. Anyway, this thread should probably get closed before it turns into something nasty.

FYI. The rudest people in the world are the Israelis. I-S-R-A-E-L-I-S. Except when they're on their own. But in groups of more than two, the most appalling fuckers in the world. Every traveller I've met has a rude Israelis story. I've got them from three different continents.

 

[Tom]

goddam message length thingy

 

[SilverHood]

Have to agree on the dutch thing. I've met a load of nice ones and they're nice enough, but the vast majority I came across when I worked at campsites in Italy were simply so rude it was unbelievable.

So many times I had to go back and sweep the floor of a tent or mobile home because a dutch family wasn't happy with the dust that had blown inside between the cleaning and the showing in of the family. It's a tent for christs sakes, and it's next to the beach so sand is expected :/

Also, nevermind being nice "How are you? did you have a pleasant journey?"
"Show us our tent / mobile home and leave us".
Errr, ok, but I need to tell you about the campsite rules...
"No need we find out ourselves".

Just lemme do my speech so I can gtfo there. Then I got in trouble with my manager for not welcoming them properly.

Another dutch family ask questions about traveling to Rome and Naples, and I tell them not to drive to Naples because their car will get broken in to, and not to wear watches and for the love of god, not have valuables in loose pockets. Their rear window gets smashed in Naples, they get mugged on the street and loose their expensive watch and the wife lost her wallet because she kept in a loose pocket. Another member of staff take them to the police station to help them fill in forms so they can get insurance payout on the items.
THEN they have the nerve to complain that staff weren't helpful enough during their stay.

Another dutch family wasn't happy with the slightly dirty windows (just sand really) and complained to the manager. Since I was on cleaning duty, I had to go and wash them. A day later they're back to the way they were *sigh*

In contrast, english families would just shurg and say "it's only sand, it won't kill us" and they actually enjoyed having a chat while being shown to their accomodation.

Oh, and I don't think I heard the word "thank you" from a dutch customer the entire summer. Not even when I get dragged out of bed at 4AM to fix a blown fuse.

 

[TdC]

Have to agree on the dutch thing. I've met a load of nice ones and they're nice enough, but the vast majority I came across when I worked at campsites in Italy were simply so rude it was unbelievable.

eek, I feel your pain there are Dutch and there are Dutch though. last time I was on hols in the Caribbean, there were some Dutch student types staying in our hotel too. their idea of fun was to abuse the barman in dutch, and generally be quite impolite. now, you don't have to speak the language like a native to know when someone's taking the piss out of you. the barman was an old hand and did not react in the slightest. however their drinks always seemed to take some time to make, whereas mine were quickly done. (I asked for them in my pidgin spanish, which always seems to make spanish speakers laugh and try to teach me naughty words hehe)