Culture Differences

When I first landed in the Netherlands to say I was taken a back was an understatement. Just the look is different to what I know in America. Being to several states and living in a few I can tell you, most of it looks all the same. Sure we have mountainous areas, deserts, forests and crop fields but when you get to the rural areas and cities, aside from the occasional building that stands out, really it looks all the same. The streets I was now walking on were cleaner and the endless cobs of wires hanging over our heads for power, phone and whatever else we can think of was no where in sight. It was all under my feet with dirt and brick covering it all nice and neat. I know places like California does this but where I from in New York, that isn't the case. Side walks was another thing, they were everywhere! Bike paths, side walks and the road flows nicely side by side with rules for each to follow for all to live in relative harmony. I mean, since bicycles are a major mode of transportation here they had to do something right? In North Babylon side walks are scarce, reverting to walking along side the road or on someone’s lawn. But this is all just the look of the Netherlands verses America. Every country looks different with things that make them who they are. It's also the culture that's extremely different.
In the first months that I was here I was getting one eye opener after another. You see stories on the news here that you have seen in America but it seems so different. It isn't censored! They tell the whole story for what it is. So I was getting larger amounts of facts I hadn't living in America. To say the least it was a large pill to swallow. You know that the media can be corrupt and people want things covered a certain way but really, this much! Whole stories I couldn't find on any news station or news paper there I was finding here and it was on my own country. I know Americans like to think they aren't, that their government and media, for the most part, is fair and just. I was just such an American. That's why it was so hard to take. Yet it wasn't only the television that was uncensored here. The people were just as demanding to know and open as the television in front of me.
Take for example what I as an American goes through with living with a father. I get my period and need tampons, now I am in pain and don't really want to go out but he is so I ask him. First off, squirms at the thought. Looks at me like I asked him to walk on the moon but says OK. I tell him what I need and off he goes. He is so mortified by the experience of buying a product that is as natural to use for women as toilet paper that he tosses them my way and informs me to never ask again; beet red and shy to even discuss it. Why? Any woman in his life has or is going through this and he is by no means the only man who acts this way. Most men in America will not do this for their women or if they do they are so shy and mortified by the experience they want to hide when they get to the counter. Yet here if a woman needs that very same product, they ask what and get it. Now sure there are a few who squirm a little but for the most part they see it as natural as toilet paper and tissues.
I was at my mother in laws house one weekend and I wanted to weigh myself. Of course you are down to your underwear and wait what the digital numbers are going to say. Now while I am in this process of torture my mother in law walks in the room! I have a thong on and nothing more and she starts talking and looking at the scale as though it was perfectly fine! My skin and weight number are now in her line of sight and she keeps talking! Is this right I ask? Do they really do that!? My partner looks at me like I am the odd ball because, well, I am. A body is just a body I am told. She has the same stuff I do just a little more used. And my weight? Well that’s just a number right. Good god! I think I have seen my mother naked once in all my life, at least that I can recall. Nudity is shown on the television because after all, its just a body. Can you see what I am getting at. Americans are prudes. We really are. We are sheltered little beings that are taught that Modesty means not even your own mother sees you naked and God forbid we discuss the facts of life in a calm manner without anyone turning ten shades of red. The Dutch are direct and honest. They are open and tolerant, at least on the outside. Americans don't know what tolerance means and being direct and honest is a trait so few have now a day. We beat around the bush with beautiful flowers in our hands in hopes of hiding the hideous truth. Why?
Now I know not all Americans are like this just as not all the Dutch are this way. But majority are and the differences in just the few examples I have given are vast. The world I now live in has changed me. I am more comfortable in my own skin, I blurt out what I think, most of the time, and the stupid things we get shy about I look at and go so what. Some say Americans are weak and intolerant. They are prude and shallow. Now, being an American, I would have disagreed, totally and completely. But now. That's a different story.
When you step outside your world and see it from someone else point of view, I mean really have an open heart and mind to see what they see, and you will learn about yourself and where you are from. I have learned so much about America by simply not being in it. And maybe that is the case with other people and other nations, I don't know, but I know this is the case for me. I know that, for me, they were right. We can be very shallow, opinionated with not much to really say. We are prudish and shy about the simplest of human natures. Sex, menstruation and other issues don't get talked about much. We don't go into detail because it's too private. Well if we don't talk about it in a public way what makes you think people talk about it in private? We don't talk about the intolerance and the weakness in ourselves. We don't talk about the 'secrets' in society. What exactly do we talk about?
This is just my thought on just a few things I see as an American outside in Europe. I could go on, but that would mean a book!