Good afternoon, everyone!

Here in the Translation Department we often talk about differences between cultures, usually between Finland and some of the major English-speaking countries, and it is always very interesting to compare the traditions and customs in these countries. I thought today I could widen your cultural knowledge further by telling you about some funny little customs that people have in Holland.

My speech is completely based on my own experiences in the Netherlands. I spent the summer of 1998 working in a hotel and in a factory in Southern Holland. I lived in a Dutch family on an island called Tholen. I must say that Tholen doesn't represent Holland at its most modern — people often joke about this little island. For example, my colleague at the factory asked me once: "what is yellow and goes back in time?" At that point I still hadn't lived long enough in Holland to know the right answer, which was "the school bus to Tholen". I had to agree with my colleague, because on Sundays life in Tholen was like from the 19th century — families walked to the church in their black Sunday clothes and the only sound in the village was the tolling of the chimes.

My host family wasn't especially religious or old-fashioned, so I consider the members of this family good representatives of Dutch culture, and most of the examples that I will use later in my speech are from this family. My host family told me all the basic things about Dutch culture, and they taught me how to be more like them: I even started to eat French fries with mayonnaise!

As a matter of fact, the food culture in Holland is completely different from ours in Finland, but because I am not so good in cooking, instead of food I am going to talk about the table customs in Holland. There were many table customs that were different from those I was used to, so it took a long time before I was able to merge into the crowd, so to speak. At the beginning I seemed to do everything wrong: when I was eating with a fork, the others were using a spoon. But when I felt it was time to use a spoon, the others grasped their forks. Finally I adjusted myself to this new "cutlery culture", but I still couldn't quite understand why we ate macaroni with a spoon and birthday cake with a fork.

I also learned to cheerfully wish "good appetite" to everyone and I even remembered NOT to thank the cook after the dinner. Dutch people somehow consider thanking the cook or hostess for the food as a message telling them "I didn't really like it!"

Birthdays and other parties seem to be very important for the Dutch. I managed to attend two parties. Both of them pretty funny, I think. The actual parties were quite the same as the parties we have in Finland, but the beginning of the ceremony was simply hilarious: the guests came in and started shaking everyone's hands and congratulated each and every person! Even I got my share of congratulations, though it was my host father who was having his birthday. People abroad often say that the Dutch people aren't funny at all, but such people obviously haven't been to a Dutch birthday party!

Another interesting subject for comparison is the graduation traditions in different cultures. As you all know, we Finns get a nice cap when we graduate from the senior secondary school. Well, this is not so obvious for people abroad, and I often have had to explain to my foreign friends why every student in Finland wears a "sailor cap" when they graduate.

Dutch people don't wear sailor caps — unless they are sailing — but I must say their graduation traditions are even more amusing than ours. When my host sister graduated from a school called Havo, which is an equivalent to our senior secondary school, she and her parents hurried to hang her rucksack up on their flagpole. After a while there was also other school stuff hanging from the flagpole, like pencils, notebooks and pencil cases.

I thought my host parents had overreacted to the good news of my host sister having passed her final examinations, but soon I noticed that all the other families with a graduating daughter or son acted exactly the same way. A few hours later this rucksack phenomenon had spread all over the street and people were crowding to visit the "rucksack families" to congratulate the happy pupils — and of course the other family members as well: again I also vicariously earned congratulations! Nothing to complain about, though.

Holland is stereotyped abroad as the country of tulips, clogs and windmills. However, most of the old windmills are not used anymore, and I saw only one person wearing clogs. The only stereotype that was still true was the stereotype of tulips. In April you can see tulip fields everywhere. In general, flowers and plants play an important role in Dutch culture: it seemed to me that Dutch housewives have a secret battle going on: they keep on working in their tiny gardens creating breath-taking front yard sceneries and trying to make their yard look better than their neighbour's yard. So, when I was walking through the village I felt like Alice in Wonderland: you could never guess what you were to see in the next yard. The flowers got more and more beautiful — and the dwarfs and goblins more and more . . . ugly!

After a few months in Holland, I finally saw the Mecca of Dutch housewives: The Garden Centre. Dutch shops usually were very small and cozy, but The Garden Centre was at least the same size as the Finnish jumbo markets and you could buy anything from ugly goblins to banana trees. You could even buy dog food and canary birds at The Garden Centre. No wonder the gardens looked so interesting!

One can't talk about Dutch culture without mentioning the favourite sport of Dutchmen and -women: soccer! Of course I, as a Finn, had been used to sportsmania in Finland during the ice-hockey matches and Formula 1 races, but I was still astonished to see the Dutch version of sportsmania.

Summer 1998 was when the soccer world championships were held in France, and the Dutch people had their team, called "oranje elftaal", playing for the medals. Everyone was sure that Holland would win the championship and every match was a 'must see'. But the thing that surprised me was that the factories and shops were closed during the matches, and the streets were all empty. Everyone sat in their homes surrounded by Dutch flags and all kinds of orange decorations and watched soccer. Orange is the national colour of Holland and it dates back to the times of King Willem the Orange, and that is the reason for emphasizing the orange colour in every possible manner during the soccer matches.

Thanks to the Dutch soccer maniacs even I — who had no interest at all in soccer — had orange highlights in my hair and found myself hooraying for the Dutch team and eating orange cake — with a fork, of course! Holland didn't win the championship, but the Dutch seemed to get over it soon. We had had a great time anyway!

I would still have many stories about Holland, which I almost consider my second home country, but because of the time limit I must now finish. I hope that my speech has given you some useful information about Dutch culture, so that you will be able to avoid the mistakes I made, and recover from your cultural shock as quickly as possible. I want to thank all of you for listening and it's now time to turn over the podium to our next speaker.

Thank you!