“AAAAAAAA”, shout about thirty expats. “OOOOOOO”, they practice the pronunciation of the Dutch vowels out loud. On Saturday afternoon they are in a room in the Westergas in Amsterdam at the IamExpat fair. During a workshop Practical Dutch teach them that the word peen’very important in Dutch cuisine’. And that ‘neighbor’ is very important in our culture. They eagerly contribute and take pictures of the slides.
Speaking of Dutch culture, the people of Amsterdam play korfball outside on the fields of Sporting West. Inside, in a parallel world, the working language is English and expats are informed about money matters, buying houses, but also about the education of the children and the Dutch language. Issues such as integration are also discussed in workshops. By shouting out the Dutch vowels, the expats in the workshop have taken their first steps towards integration.
Thick insufficient
There are complaints about this integration from Amsterdam and other North Holland participants the panels of AT5 and NH. They give a big unsatisfactory to the ever-increasing number of expats. And the majority of the panel members are fed up with the fact that international employees often live with their backs to society, do not speak Dutch and are not social towards their neighbours.
“Become an Amsterdammer”
The mayor of the city also has a call for expats. Last week, a Rabobank report showed that Amsterdammers are increasingly leaving the city and that only expats are actually coming to the city. That worries her. “Don’t sit in your bubble and commit to the neighborhood,” says Femke Halsema via AT5 against the newcomers. “It is a virtue if you learn to speak the language of your country. Become an Amsterdammer.”
Angry looks
So there is work to be done for the internationals, as the expats have come to be called because of a bad image associated with the word expat. Another poll, among the members of the Omroep Flevoland panel, shows that they are much more positive about the growth in the number of expats there. So there still seems to be room to go there and avoid the angry looks in Amsterdam.
The experienced expat coach Michel Daenen also has a positive message for expats. Because the new expat is increasingly a keeper, and not someone who comes to live like a god in Amsterdam for a few years and then leaves again. There are more and more ‘stay-pats’ as he calls it. Like the Pakistani family in Almere that we interviewed in the video below.
The text continues below the video.
Expats from Karachi consciously live in…. Almere – NH News
It is no longer just the classic expats that Daenen also guided for years from the top 50 multinationals through an international relocation agency. Now he guides expats who still live in their own country through the site ‘Your move to the Netherlands’. He has seen a change. “The classic expat of the past was sent out for a few years and then moved on to the next country. Everything was organized for that and there was nothing missing. With generous allowances, take it easy in Europe. Those people put a considerable pressure on the housing market and house prices.”
He understands that those strangers have been received with a frown. “The local population feels that as a takeover. These people are not necessarily focused on integration. They live a parallel life in the city.”
“These people want to learn the language, build a life here”
But a group has also emerged that is very different in the game. “That is another category, which does receive some compensation for the costs of a house and a tax benefit. Sometimes they are housed for the first three months. But after that they have to fend for themselves. And they therefore move to other places. Lelystad, Almere, Diemen or Purmerend rightly so. They often also have children in Dutch schools and are more interested in the Netherlands.”
Mayor Halsema and the panel members can therefore breathe somewhat calmly, things can get better, says Daenen. “These people want to learn the language, build a life here. There is also a greater need to make friends and so on. Adapt, learn Dutch. That’s a different atmosphere.”
Melting pot
According to Daenen, the corona pandemic has taught the large multinationals that things can be done differently. “Covid has done something to the world of the expat. We have learned that people can work remotely. Those companies will also make calculations and then see: can’t we hire someone locally or have someone work remotely. The new expats often also have a Dutch employment contract. There was a kind of awareness with covid.”
Perhaps also as a resident of Almere, Daenen understands all too well that expats move to Flevoland. The expat coach is a sociologist, a scientist who studies the behavior of groups and society. He likes to compare Flevoland with America, which started as one after the discovery by Columbus melting pot vof various nationalities. The new country where there is still room. “Everyone in Flevoland was once a newcomer. There is something fresh and new in Flevoland.”
Pioneers
He has a theory, not based on research, that there is less room for newcomers in the old world of Amsterdam and Haarlem. “Amsterdam goes back to 1600, there is something of antiquity in that city. You also have that with Haarlem. Oldest railway line in the Netherlands, there is also a lot of history there. New people quickly get the stamp of: they are new, belong not with the original population, but they are taking over things here a bit. That is a different sentiment than in Flevoland.”
Hardly anyone in Flevoland has a real history yet, which makes it easier for newcomers to access. “Everyone over the age of 40 was not born in Almere. We are all newcomers and pioneers and try to make something of it. Everyone comes from somewhere else. It is a hypothesis, but I think it is plausible. You can feel it, here is something adventurous. There are no standard patterns yet, everything is possible. In a new world there is not yet an established culture and an us/them feeling. There is no real Almouder.”
“Man loves security and seeks out his own group”
And he would like to go a step deeper about how desirable expats or foreigners are. “At the core, people experience the arrival of new cultures as something threatening. People like security and seek out their own group. That could well be deep within us. The American sociologist Milton Bennett is famous for a model on how to to deal with those differences. It shows that people can grow in the ability to deal with cultural differences in a good way. Many people do not have that of their own accord and may or may not undergo a development in this.”
This article was made by the Metropool editors. The editorial team is a collaboration between NH Nieuws, Omroep Flevoland and AT5 and is journalistically independent. The broadcasters receive a financial contribution from the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA).
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