Today I realised myself we Europeans know much more about life is North Korea than in America. Because on a regulair base you find reportages how the people are living in North Korea, travel reports, political analyse but about America never. And I have found out in the time of my stay on the American critical fora the cultural difference between continental Europe and America is immense.
Let's go back to the past, the time when I was young. The war had just ended and America and the Americans had a almost holy status here in Holland. Because they had been the liberators in that terrible war. (Others too of course) Our family, my parents where much more focused on England because my father was raised there, had studied there, had been a translator after the war most times for the English army, but for most of the Dutch people special the Americans where there herros.
Then the Vietnam war was there with all it's cruelties and the protest against it. But, in the same time came the California hippie mouvement to our country and was extreem populair in Holland and has developed itself to some Euro hippie culture. Special in the region where I was raised because there was a strange mix of the close by American base and American boys who avoid military service and deserters. The ex Vietnam boys where the ones who introduced the drugs, the others the hippie culture and they all wanted to fuck the Dutch girls so it was a melting pot. A strange bevy in short.
So, the popularity of America in general didn't drop because of the Vietnam war. The protest where against American politics, not against America..
And that Euro hippie mouvement has changed the complet mindsetting of Holland, because it was not only embraced by the young people but also by older. Our culture contain still many, many hippie elements because my generation introduced them in the whole society. Special in Holland, much more than other European country's. Holland is still some hippie state and must be in the eyes of Americans be a kind of formal sovjet satellite with it's strict state controlled political system. And on the other hand there is a extreem free moral and are we very open minded. Except Dutch wikipedians, but that is a very special kind of Dutch peeps because you find them only in wikipedia land and for the rest nowhere.
Because Europe is a very closed system so we only hear her from..... Europe. (And North Korea
)
All the news, television, info, it is pan Europa. Basically I know the same about America as form China. Nothing. It is a weird situation, America still has it's old very good reputation in Holland, bu t the man or woman in the street has not even te slightest idea how Americans are living.
And sometimes I notice very strange things, little things. If someones place where he is living is public I have a look with Google maps there. I was where Aggie is living, where Abd is living, and where Eric is living in Lakeport digital. I had a look around in the streets, looked inside the fire department next to Eric's firm, saw a old fire truck inside there, I like that. Because I will probably never leave Europe, I never did.
And on of the strangest thing for me was all streets are absolute symmetrical. All streets are drawn with a ruler. And if you are in Europe you find bend's in the streets. .I think this is a great example of very small differences what got your eye.
https://gooiland.50plusser.nl/?page=art ... WjgMi2iHOQHet Spiegel in Naarden for instance. Before there was navigation a nightmare to find a street. If you was lost you was really lost! Look at Lakeport, not one bent in the road.
So anything about America is welcome.