orange crush

Americans may get a bad rap the world over, but lately I think this reflects the difficulties of the superpower rather than its uncouth children. My losmen is consistently filled with Germans and especially Dutch people and much of their time is spent to enumerate their complaints: no one speaks English, no one possesses the ‘skills’ or ‘abilities’ to help them, its ridiculous that you can’t travel smoothly and with total convenience, people on the street never have the right information on plane departures or bus fares. It seems as if these people feel genuinely inconvenienced that such a country is not set up for their leisure and comfort—and they sulk accordingly.

Just last night this fellow was absolutely abusing one of the employees of the losmen where I live with condescension because the airline had lost his bag, whereas the staff member had merely generously offered to liaise with the airline (because, of course, this fellow does not speak a whit of Indonesian).
I hold my tongue, but I often want to pipe in to point out that they are choosing to come to someone else’s country where they do not speak the language (and do not go out of their way to try) and where time, culture, and custom move differently than in Europe. These things happen when one signs up to travel in the developing world, after all.

In fact, they just whined, ‘Next time we should just go to Germany.’

Now I know that perhaps I have a bit of a non representative sample on my hands here, however, all of the Americans (and the number is few) that I have met here have without dispute been the most upbeat, flexible, friendly, open-minded, and most willing to try to insinuate themselves into the local rhythms. Truly, this was one of the last things I expected.

What is more, I have never seen such an unflattering portrait of Dutch people and I cannot help but wonder if this is rooted in the colonial experience. As an American, I have quite a different bent on colonial heritage, and one that is substantially less contemporary. The Dutch, on the other hand, were fighting to remain here as recently as 1945 and really only capitulated when the UN pretty much dictated their marching orders to them. Say what you will about imperialism, unilateralism, and proxyism but the fact that America stands essentially alone in the developed world (callously overlooking our neighbors to the north, I know) unstained by the legacy of colonial patronage truly resonates.

It is one thing to complain about the vagaries of travel, but quite another to go to a country that, by the way, your country exploited its natural resources and culture (as an aside, Dutch colonialism is fascinating: they basically bought off the local royalty, setting up a complex patronage system that ultimately buckled under its own weight after a downright impressive run) for 350 years and once there act superior and gruff about the absence of European style efficiency and the fact that no one speaks a language you understand.
Strange days.