LL-L "Language learning" 2002.11.22 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 22.NOV.2002 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Stan Levinson stlev99 at yahoo.com
Subject: LL-L "Language learning" 2002.11.22 (01) [D/E]

You know, Brad, I haven't been in the Netherlands for
30 years (and I'm not proud of that fact!!!), but I
remember the year I lived there ('71-72), while
teaching English, one of my students, a kind of retail
merchant-class guy, quite pointedly told me that if a
German asked him for directions, he would reply in
Dutch that he didn't understand!!!  I would have hoped
that another 30 years would have helped, but I guess
it goes back far!!!
I remember that I was somewhat influenced by this way
of thinking as well.  One day, I remember, I stood
outside the library in den Haag, and a late
middle-aged trio of Germans, one man and two women,
came up to me and asked me, in German, for directions.
 I understood perfectly, and having studied one year
of German in college, I could more or less answer
their question.  But as I found myself getting
frustrated trying to speak German (I must have been
absent for the lesson teaching "turn left at the
corner and go two blocks"), I heard this voice inside
me saying "Hey, you're in Holland.  They've got a
lotta nerve addressed you in German." Whereupon I
finished giving the directions in Dutch.
These folks were just innocent victims.  But you can
find ugly tourists among all groups (though we
Americans probably corner the market to some extent):
another time in my lovely, precious, unforgettable 's
Gravenhage, a German-speaking man came rushing up to a
friend and me, and, somehow NOT expecting us to
understand him, made gestures of eating and kept
repeating "Speiserestaurant...speiserestaurant".
But just so Ron doesn't think I'm bagging on Germans:
My first day in Europe, in 1971, I sat in the TEE
train from Luxembourg to den Haag, a train consisting
of all 1st class compartments.  My (then) Dutch wife
and I sat in a compartment with an American family.
As we came into the compartment speaking Dutch with a
friend heading for another seat, the man didn't know
we were English speakers.  After a few minutes, he
leaned across to us, and, as sweetly as possible,
said:  "You speakee English?"
Oy vey...
Stan
Brad wrote:
> On another note, but related to other discussion in
> this thread: When
> living in Amsterdam, there were a number of
> occasions when out with
> Dutch friends we were approached by people speaking
> to us in German,
> e.g. asking for directions.  It was always I who was
> left to communicate
> with these people, being abandoned by my Dutch
> friends, all of whom
> spoke far better German than I!  Not sure if this is
> a similar example
> of carrot and stick language policies or an
> indication of historical
> animosity of the Dutch towards Germans.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language learning

Stan:

> But just so Ron doesn't think I'm bagging on Germans:

:)  Is *that* the only reason? Well!

But I think you are quite right in assuming that "ugly tourism" is not
specific to any particular group, and neither is lack of hospitality.  As I
am growing older and hopefully wiser, certainly more compassionate, I no
longer point my finger and think in terms of "them versus us."  I can even
understand, albeit not condone, why in the 1960s a young person (obviously
born after WW II) identified as "German" would be refused service and would
even be assaulted in neighboring countries.  ( As for old grudges, it may
interest you to know that the only country to which I traveled as a young
person where I did *not* experience at least mild personalized anti-German
hostility was Israel.  'Nough said.)

Also, you have to realize that still in the 1970s English was not a
mandatory subject in all German schools and that at that time most people
could barely read simple English texts, leave alone speak and understand
spoken English.  I just made several extra efforts, beginning in my young
teens by taking community college courses on top of ordinary school courses,
and that was definitely not the rule, was in fact pretty darn "nerdy."
Things have come a long way since then.

It used to be my expectation that every tourist at least learn a few useful
and polite phrases in the languages of the countries they are about to
visit, if only for the sake of politeness and for opening doors.  I still do
so.  But then again, I am a language "nerd," and most people aren't the
least bit interested in that sort of thing, which is why they prefer to
"see" foreign countries from inside tour busses and through fences that
"protect" their beach resorts from all scary foreignness.

Citizens of "small" European countries speaking "small" languages are
usually credited as being linguistic chameleons, and they usually are,
because they feel or are told they have to be.  However, that does not
always mean that they are culturally sensitive and are exempt from membershi
p of the "ugly tourist/resident" club.  Chinese people in Hong Kong often
told me how disgusted they were with long-term British and other European
residents not even learning to greet people in Cantonese.  I have heard
similar complaints from people in Kalallit Nunaat (Greenland) about
long-term Danish residents never attempting to learn the local language, and
from people in former Soviet republics complaining similarly about Russian
citizens.

The most extreme form of "ugly tourism" I ever experienced was in Indonesia,
where on a train two middle-aged couples from the Netherlands ranted on and
on in Dutch, very loudly, about poor sanitation there, how the only food
safe to eat on the train were hardboiled eggs, etc., etc., and then they got
into how that country had gone to hell in a handbasket since the end of the
colonial era ...  Obviously I was not the only person who understood what
they were saying, and I was also not the only person who pretended not to
understand.  The pretence continued while the couples tried to make a young
steward understand, in Dutch, that they wanted plenty of hardboiled eggs,
boiled for so-and-so many minutes.  Finally one of the Dutch women shouted
in English, "Can someone help here?"  I was so mad I didn't even respond to
that, and I could have easily helped.  Finally, an elderly local lady,
obviously trying to put an end to the embarrassment, walked up to them and
interpreted very quietly between Dutch and Indonesian, then walked back to
her seat, her eyes darting around in what almost looked like shame.  To top
it off, the same Dutch woman then shouted in Dutch across the car, asking
the lady how on earth she had managed learned to speak Dutch so well.  The
almost whispered, rather diplomatic answer was something to the effect that
in her young years she had been required to learn the language.  This was
followed by huffing, puffing and snorting throughout the car, and I felt
like yelling, "Hello! Duh!"

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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