Strange Encounter With a Dutch Film Crew

Strange Encounter With a Dutch Film Crew

When I first moved to Holland I quickly realized that being an expat in a foreign country meant any simple task had the potential to become confusing and baffling.

This was mainly because I was unfamiliar with the countries customs, traditions and its language. Normally these occurrences were small and easily sorted out.

However, every once in a while something so bizarre happened that I had to question weather it had really occurred. There is one such event which still puzzles me to this day. It was so strange that I had not even imagined that it might happen.

Try to imagine that you are strolling along a street one day, enjoying the weather when an enthusiastically happy looking girl catches your eye. She returns your gaze and approaches with a smile. When she is close enough for you to hear she starts to talk to you in Dutch. You smile back a little nervously and wonder what she is saying.

The language barrier might course a small amount of confusion but this does not really count as a bizarre situation yet. Imagine the scenario again but this time with a little more detail:

You are strolling along a shopping street one day, enjoying the weather when you notice a strangely enthusiastic girl being followed around by a Dutch camera crew. She notices you and suddenly runs towards you while grinning. When she is close enough to point her microphone at you she starts to say something in Dutch. You smile nervously into the camera and wonder what it is all about.

This would be more confusing but a camera crew on the street is still not a truly surreal event yet. Imagine the scenario once more, this time with all the details:

You are strolling along a busy shopping street one day, enjoying the weather when you suddenly see a strange girl being followed around by a Dutch camera crew while wearing a large fake rubber strap-on erect penis. Despite your best attempts to avoid being seen she notices you and suddenly runs at you while her counterfeit member bounces up and down disturbingly on her crouch. When she is too close for comfort she suddenly thrusts the microphone into your face and shouts something in Dutch. You look nervously at her prosthetic manhood and wonder if you should run.

I explained I did not understand Dutch to which she replied, “Oh. Ok. Sorry to have bothered you,” and skipped off in search of another victim. What would you have done in the same situation?

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

34 Responses

  1. Alan says:

    At least it was only the microphone she thrust into your face!

  2. roxanne says:

    I would’ve definitely asked her to translate what she had just said. It would kill me otherwise to not know what the whole thing was about. :P

  3. BlondebutBright says:

    Are you serious? That is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, even with the huge number of crazy Dutch TV shows out there. I probably would have reacted like you, but would also loved to have known what she said!

  4. Deadpoolite says:

    I would either beg for mercy or ask her to take me to her leader depending on how drunk or confused I was :). This is one surreal experience you just wrote about I have to say.

    Have a good day all!

  5. be.bart says:

    This can only happen in Holland. I would emigrate to a decent country with normal people, such as Belgium.

    What?

  6. Invader Stu says:

    Alan – Maybe if I had spoken Dutch and they carried on filming “that” might have happened. *shudder*

    Roxanne – I still wonder to this day but I was just too taken by surprise to think about asking.

    BlondebutBright – I’ve never seen anything like it since either and I can only guess what it was all about. It could have been some kind of scary challenge show where they offer money to members of the public if they are will to do certain “challenges”

    Deadpoolite – If she was just a scout who knows what the leader would have been wearing.

  7. Invader Stu says:

    be.bart – I seem to have a way of attracting strange events. I don’t know if I would be safe anywhere.

  8. sophie says:

    dutch 100% crazy but funny! so they were ‘attacking’ people like that and could not translate the question to English to you??? so it was a cultural magazine maybe, just for Dutch viewers! hahaha! I cannot believe they did not want your opinion!
    I would have laughed a lot! amazing :-)

  9. Tess says:

    Stuart are you sure you were in some busy shopping street and not at the ‘Walletjes’? It’s busy there as well and people are shopping in that area too you see, most likely for the type of stuff that the girl was so eagerly promoting :9

  10. Indy says:

    Dutch camera crews seem to have something going with foreing language, or don’t they?

    Carambah… It baffles me

  11. Dragon lady says:

    I’m with Roxanne and BlondbutBright. Its going to keep me awake me now wondering what it was all about.

  12. man bag says:

    I would’ve grabbed the rubber strap-on and said, “I have one just like it.”

  13. grrlie says:

    The Boyfriend (who is, by the way, Dutch) went “Huh??!” when I directed him to this post.

    I think that’s about all I can really say, too. I’m… well, mostly speechless!

  14. ChickyBabe says:

    Are you sure she only thrusted the microphone in your face?

    what to do… take a bit out of it! :P

  15. Tenakalaz says:

    Hang on, weren’t you telling me this exact scenario when you were speaking about your fantasies?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.