Direct Dutchies and Tarofing Persians

Have you ever been away from family and friends for a longer time? Then you probably can imagine how it feels to be a little homesick. It’s like a sharp, burning feeling inside that sticks to you, even though you’re perfectly happy in the place you are.

Somehow it just doesn’t feel normal to be away from ‘home’ for so long. You start missing weird things that you first hated; the farts of your dog, the sharp sarcasm of your brother and the squeaking of your bed in your student house.

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Things, you realise now, that made life complete. Without the farts, no moments of relief when it’s over, without the sarcasm, nobody to scold at and without the squeaking, nobody in my bed. Oh that last thing wasn’t true.

I come from a family that has very strong bonds. Whatever happened, we always talked about it and supported each other in every way possible. We’re all different, and at the same time very similar. All members of family have something in common with the other persons, but can also name a whole bunch of character traits that are not the same. It made our family dynamic and special. While growing up, my parents taught me to discuss different kind of topics: from politics to relationships, from philosophy to sex, nothing was a taboo. I was lucky with such an open-minded set of parents. Although it sometimes brought us in some funny awkward moments.

When I was nineteen, my first boyfriend celebrated Sinterklaas, a national celebration, with us. We exchanged gifts, and my mum bestowed my brand-new boyfriend three full packs of condoms. We didn’t use them that month. Every time I looked at it, it reminded me of my parents.

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In the Netherlands, nothing is a taboo. We are very plain and honest about most of life. It makes us complainers too. When you’re used to just blurt everything out, then a lot of shit, too say it harshly, comes out of those mouths too. People live close together (17 million souls in a country 240 times smaller than Canada) and know everything of their neighbours. When you walk into the garden, big chance that the neighbour sees you and starts yelling to you over the fence (in a folksy voice) : ‘Hee buuf, kommie lekker effe luchie scheppe? ’ ‘Ey neighb (our), you com(ing) for a little bit of fresh air? ’. The social control is high, but no one cares. There is a saying: ‘Ik heb er schijt aan’, similar to ‘Kiss my ass’ in English, which literally means ‘I feel poop about that’, which is the favorite slogan of many a man.

The honesty and openness, although creating a very open climate for minorities to be themselves (think of Jehovah Witnesses, queers, and fundamental Christians all living together in one country) also created a certain asshole-ness attitude among some people. A super individualistic ‘I can say whatever I want’ conduct, which I believe, made us one of the countries with a fascist politician in our midst that is on top of the polls right now.

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The respect is gone. People just scream and follow their animal instincts. Even within families, individualism goes that far that people don’t care for their old parents any more. They just put them in retirement houses, and go on with the rat race.

When I got to know my Persian-Canadian friends better, it surprised me how polite and respectful they were dealing with each other. You need a surgery and suddenly there is a waitlist of friends that can eventually drive you to the hospital. You walk into a room and you get kisses and hugs from everyone, even people that you never met before. You call an older family member and the first half of the conversation consists of polite introduction sentences, every time you call each other, and I am not even mentioning the end of the conversation, in which people throw all kinds of polite sentences at each other, sometimes so long that you think the phone conversation never ends.

The funny thing is that Persians are warm and open in another way than Dutch people. People would not talk about sex that much, which might be the heritage of the Islamic country they come from. On top of that, families are very close and private stuff always stays within the heart of the family. But nevertheless, people talk way more about physical appearance than Dutch people and give each other a lot of compliments. It is another, very hospitable form of openness, full of respect for older people, family, and friends.

The women call each other ‘azizam’ which means ‘sweetheart’, touch each others hair, talk in sweet voices and endlessly share food. My Persian friends would bring big piles of food and offer it to everyone. Also, they would never directly say ‘no’ in your face. That is very different from the Netherlands, where ‘no is no’ and most of the people would be shocked of a direct embrace, where people are pretty ‘frugal’ or ‘economic’ and would never bring their whole fridge to a friend’s birthday’s party.

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In Persian culture, sometimes yes means no, which can make it very difficult to perceive the real motivation of someone. This concept is called ‘Tarof' and consists of an endless sequence of polite offerings. Especially for me, coming from a country where people are very direct to each other, this phenomenon is slightly strange.

It happens when people want to be nice and give you something, like food or compliments. They would offer you food, and when you say ‘no thanks I’m full’ they would insist and say ‘Masha you should eat more! Really, here take an orange, they are very good’. Sometimes this gets into an hilarious endless back-and-forth food fight, with me quickly grabbing an olive to fulfill my duties.

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Sometimes ‘Tarof’ can get complicated. People would tell you an opinion, but afterwards that opinion seemed to be totally different. They almost never refuse something or say bad things to someone. It brought me once in the position that everyone knew I was wearing the ‘wrong’ clothes to a party, but nobody told me. These are the funny awkward moments that you laugh about afterwards, while during the event you want to disappear through a hole in the floor.

Every culture has its good and bad sides, every culture has its own charms. I feel privileged to be able to know these two interesting cultures, the Dutch ‘cheese-faces’ in all their directness and the ‘dancing’ Persians in all their politeness.

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