19 Strange Dutch Habits and Customs
If you’ve only just arrived in The Netherlands or been in the country for a while there are a lot of strange Dutch habits, customs traditions to discover. Here are just nineteen of the weird things the Dutch get up to.
1) Cycle everywhere without bike helmets
Maybe it is cycling from a very early age that makes the Dutch very confident when it comes to getting about on two wheels. Not only are they able to multitask while cycling but they do so without even wearing bike helmets (and think it’s strange if anyone does).
Read more: How To Cycle Like The Dutch
2) Eat very salty liquorice
If a Dutch person ever offers you liquorice (Dutch drop) be very careful. It could be a trap. Some types of Dutch liquorice have a very extreme salty taste that will make everyone of your taste buds scream out in horror. It’s hard to understand how the Dutch can love the stuff so much.
Read more: The Horrors of Dutch Drop
3) Ignore emergency alarms (if it’s on the first Monday of the month)
On the first Monday of every month, at noon, a rather scary sounding alarm screeches over the whole of the country. The Dutch ignore it though since they know it is just a scheduled test. But what happens if there is a real emergency on the first Monday of the month at noon?
Read more: The Emergency Alarm
4) Use the Dutch word ‘dus’ for everything
The Dutch word ‘dus’ (which mean ‘so’ in English) is very flexable. It can be used to communicate a wide range of thoughts, feelings and emotions. It can be everything from an angry stop word to a suggestive come on (and more). That’s why it is best not to get the intended meaning mixed up.
Read more: The Many Meanings of Dus
5) Celebrate birthdays by sitting in a circle with tea, coffee and a slice of cake
If you only consider a party to be a party if the music is too loud, the police have been called three times and someone is passed out in the corner you are going to be slightly disappointed by a Dutch birthday party. It mostly involves sitting in a circle and drinking coffee. Even on this list it is one of the most strange Dutch habits.
Read more: The Dutch Circle Party Tradition
6) Go camping in style
When the Dutch go camping they go camping on their own terms. Why should getting in touch with nature be done without indoor plumping, a fridge/freezer, washing machine, heating, a home entertainment system and the other luxuries of home?
Read more: A Dutch Guide To Camping
7) Greet each other with three kisses on the cheek
If a Dutch person suddenly kisses you on the cheek three times don’t get any romantic ideas. It is just their way of saying hello (and goodbye). It’s usually reserved for close friends and family so don’t go over using it yourself. That would just be odd.
Read more: The Dutch Three Kiss Rule
8) Understand the use of ‘de’ and ‘het’ even though the rule makes no sense
Most Dutch people will tell you there is a very simple rule for using the words ‘de’ and ‘het’ (which both mean ‘the’ in English). Then they remember all the times the rule does not work and admit you just have to be Dutch to understand it.
Read more: The Great Dutch Mystery – De and Het
9) Celebrate the Kings birthday (or anything else) by dressing up in orange
Whenever it is celebration time in the Netherlands the Dutch will go orange crazy. It’s no surprise since it is the official colour of the Dutch royal family (house orange). It must be a very confusing time for anyone who suffers from colour blindness.
Read More: The King’s Day Guide
10) Put lots of mayonnaise on their fries
The Dutch love mayonnaise. They love it so much that every chip shop in the land will automatically add it to your order if you don’t explicitly tell them not to. Anyone who does request not to have it is seen as an oddity. In The Netherlands mayonnaise is basically considered its own food group.
11) Drive on the right (which is weird if you are British)
Never get into an argument with the Dutch about which country drives on the correct side of the road. You will lose. They will use your own language (English) against you to explain why driving on the right side of the road makes them right and you wrong.
Read More: Driving in Holland
12) Sometimes live in dangerous houses (especially in Amsterdam)
Old Dutch houses have a lot of charm and character, which is a polite way of saying they can be incredibly dangerous. Spiral stairs so steep they can be classified as twisty ladders, fuses that would withstand a lighting strike and mice as house mates are just a few of the strange things you might find.
Read More: The Dutch House Guide
13) Ignore all the rules of queuing
When it comes to queuing in The Netherlands there are no rules, only survivors. It is every man, woman and child for themselves. Anyone who has ever tried to board a busy train in the Netherlands will be very familiar with this (and probably still suffer from flashbacks).
Read more: How To Queue Like The Dutch
14) Wait ages to be served by waiters
The biggest mistake you can make when trying to get served by a Dutch waiter is trying to get served by a Dutch waiter. They are masters in finding other distractions. They will only serve you when they are ready and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Read More: The Trouble With Dutch Waiters
15) Recognize the official start of spring based on ladies fashion
It is not the appearance of the first tulip or the first baby bunny that ushers in the start of spring in The Netherlands. It is Rokjesdag, the day Dutch ladies start wearing short skirts again (and the day most guys start accidentally walking into lamp posts).
Read More: What is Rokjesdag?
16) Celebrate New Year’s Eve with a lot of very big explosions
Most countries will have a few safe firework displays on New Year’s Eve. Holland on the other hand actually tries to blow itself up. At the stroke of midnight it is as if someone tosses a lit match into the countries entire supply of fireworks (and it does not run out till at least 2am).
Read More: How The Dutch Celebrate New Year’s Eve
17) Are un-phased by parts of their country being seven meters below sea level
If you lived with the constant risk of your country being reclaimed by the sea you would probably be a little nervous. Not the Dutch. Most of them don’t even think about it. Maybe it’s because to them The Dutch are not below sea level, the sea is above Dutch level and they are the masters of it.
18) Eat lots and lots of chocolate for breakfast
The Dutch love sweet things on their bread for breakfast. Chocolate paste, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate shavings and more. What could possibly go wrong with giving children (and adults) a massive sugar rush every morning?
19) Celebrate Sinterklaas on the 5th of December
Sinterklaas might seem like a serious copyright infringement to anyone who gets their gifts from Santa on December 25th, but don’t be mistaken. Sinterklaas is the original. Santa is the copy. In this case it is the rest of us that are being weird.
Read More: The Sinterklaas Guide
Are there any strange Dutch habits, customs or traditions missing from the list? Let me know in the comments below.
Sometimes we are a bunch of weirdos… :-P
Us too :)
Very funny! I’ll admit I have picked up the habit of using ‘dus’ with everything. The main ones that I am not a fan of are: kissing on the cheek as a greeting (even once, to be honest!), going to birthday parties and congratulating everyone who is in attendance — argh! why?!?, and mayo on fries. Though usually I remember to tell them not to add it so I survive that okay…
I’ve not picked dus up as a habit but my wife and I do sometimes knowingly use it as a joke.
Wrong, you have to Pay for mayo, so you really have to ask for it, otherwise they won’t put it on your fries!
Most the time they assume you want it, add it and charge you for it if you didn’t say otherwise.
But once the Dutch paid for it, they expect a lot of it.
Yes l think that is right it’s swimming in mayo….. and they think it’s weird that l an (English person )is crazy to put vinigar on my chips 😕
in most restaurants it is brought as standard and not charged
That’s onely in Holland and Utrecht.
In the south they say “proficiat” and grab themselves a beer 😃
yes! and in the South we don’t say Holland but The Netherlands (which is the name of the country anyways)
I totally agree with you that it’s a very strange habit to congratulate everyone who’s attending a birthday party. I’m Dutch and I don’t understand it either.
Last night, walking home here in Bologna, we came across two people on obviously rented bikes. More importantly, they were wearing helmets. My boyfriend and I turned to each other and both said, “tourists”. Helmets were always an easy way for us to tell people were tourists in the Netherlands (unless they’re wearing lycra, have racing bikes, and are in a pack, then they’re just a bunch of friends out for a ride).
They don’t wear helmets in Italy either? I’m starting to think England is the only country that wears them.
It is law in Australia to wear a helmet now
In italy not even on a motorcycle (:
I think you missed to barbecue at 15 degrees, on the otherhand, if we would only barbecue at 25 degrees, there would be no point in having a barbecue…
Hahaha. Very good point. If I do a follow up post I’ll have to add that one.
We even BBQ at -25 in Canada
My second visit to the Netherlands was over New Years when they switched over to the Euro in 2002. We have the 4th of July here in the US, and it pales in comparison to what I saw there. I wound up being in one of the fancier neighborhoods that night (my wife’s “perfect” aunt and uncle) so when the fireworks began all around us, it felt very eerie. There was a guy who sold fireworks that lived in this neighborhood, and he was setting up as war erupted on all sides of us in other neighborhoods. Once our fireworks began, it was almost like a display a small town in the US would set up in the park.I fell very spoiled in my first experience.
That sounds like an accurate description of the Dutch New Years madness.
Dont for getting the massive fires on the beach. Complete useless.
I’ll have to look out for those this year.
Which part of the beach? We have one long beach that is approx 140 kilometers long, I only know the fireworksfestival in Scheveningen, is that what you mean?
Wear helmets in Italy? And ruin the “bella figura”? Never! No sweaty helmet head for Italians. :)
Haha. I guess I should not have been surprised.
Zwarte piet is definitely weird
Yeah. I was not sure how to approach that one tactically.
Zwarte Piet (black Peter) is originally a bought child slave that would given a job with salary and food and shelter. In fact after St. Nicolaas bought them from the slave ships the had the opportunity to learn and live in good health. Later black Peter was a person that became black from the soot in the chimney. That’s why there made black with red lips. Now a day some immigrants concider it discrimination and would like zwarte Piet to be all kind of color except black. This is stupid and od as we Dutch say. Because Black Peter is black and not green, yellow or pink. If he is yellow the Asian people are not happy, if brown you can guess it. If Red the Indians will be offended. If the colour’s of the rainbow the gay people are pissed. So it stays black. Experiments Whit other colours have been done with the opposite effect.
This story is not true. Historicaly you can’t find the source for this story. The truth is that Black Pete is made up by a teacher(Schenkman) in 1850. Black Pete was an African house-slave according to the illustrations used in the original book.
A lot of people can’t understand that this figure is very stereotype and painful for a lot of Afro-Dutch children.
It’s time to change this part, so every child can have a great time celebrating “Sinterklaas”.
black peter is as the matter affect a culture group called the moors st Nicolaas was born in turky and was a pope he used the moors as his servends they worked for him so now i see you thinking why they are fighting something that has nothing to do with slavery ( Proud to be dutch )
There is no tactical way to approach it, as you can see :-) The problem with Black Pete/ Zwarte Piet, poor thing, is that there’s more than one version of his tale, and that each version has multiple versions of its own. Before christianity established itself, Black Pete belonged to the Wild Hunt of Odin, who rode through the sky at night in the dead of winter, scattering nuts and seeds as a promise of fertility, with people laying offerings at heir hearth; in christian terms he became a demon, Black Moer, in the following of Satan himself. Then there’s the legend/feast of the White Klazen and the Black Klazen (Sinterklaas was one of a veritable army of Klazen), basically also a fertility feast (celebrated on the Dutch isles in the north for instance). And only later on (17th century? 18th?) did Sinterklaas, a lone (Catholic) bishop handing out presents to poor children / giving dowries to girls who were too poor to marry, make his appearance. And yes, to him this stupidly insensitive image of a black slave/helper – and alternately a sooty young chimney sweeper – was added in the 19th century. Sinterklaas has seen so many alterations and survived, it will no doubt survive this controversy too, though Black Pete may alter his guise to suit the times – what else is new?
It is not ik you would knowhow the real meaning of it. But a small Group of dutch People want to spoil it all!!!!!
#13 is especially intimidating when you’re 5’4″ and are surrounded by towering Dutch people fighting to board the trains…
I’m a little bit tall but ti’s still intimidating for me too.
Re: 17. Just think of it as stuffing the sea in your attic. You really only worry about it when it’s storming hard enough that (part of) the roof might blow away.
There are a lot of storms in The Netherlands.
Many times I have seen people of smaller height waiting in line to gain access to the toilets. The Dutch urinals are too high even if the shorties stand on tip toe. Why aren’t the Dutch follow international standard? I feel sorry for the Asia Pacific tourists.
I guess they have to aim high.
Has anyone had an experience like I had when a waitress brought me fish and chips with mayonnaise over them? When I complained she said “Shorry Yo” and walked away.
She did replace it? I’ve had similar experiences.
She probably said ‘sorry hoor’ which some people understand as surly whore :) yes we are an obnoxious nation
Oh yeah, it used to be that in Holland you had to check out of your hotel room by 10 am. I don’t know if it’s still the same rule. International norm is 12 noon.
I’ve been to a few places here where it is still 10am.
It depends in which hotel you are staying. Every year I go to a hotel in Veldhoven where the check out is at 12 but this year we are staying at a hotel where the check out is at 10.
I know what you forgot… when they live the party and say bye-bye to each other they normally do it for dozen of times…
– Doeiiiii!
– Daaaag!!
-Doeiiii!
– Daaag! 😂😂
– ….
-……
(And so on en so forth untill they disappear over the horizon!!)
We had extreemly party lovings neighbours and they freeked me out everytime in the middle of the night by Daaging-Doeing each other for lots of times with the voice as loud as if they were on fire!! ðŸ˜
Oh god yes. That is so true. The Dutch do love a long goodbye.
Salted herring . Lift by the tail and eat
… is one of the things I will never do, no matter how integrated I become.
The best thing since sliced bread ! Born a dutchie but living in South Africa and still love our traditions !
Many Dutch, inclusief nyself have a calender hanging in the toiletroom. This calender tells us when friends and family are having there birthday. Nowadays, thnx to Social Media (Facebook alerts), it is less common as it used to be.
My wife has such a calendar. It used to be in the toilet room but now it is in the kitchen.
My sister calls this a “poop calendar” because it’s usually in the bathroom. I love it,
have to get myself a new one next time I visit :)