the dutch guys

with S and T on their last night

(T is actually 6"9 but was trying to make me feel like less of a dwarf in comparison)

have mentioned them a fair bit in the more recent posts and figured i'd post a photo of the dutch guys i met in the hotel! but for S, i woudn't have known that there was an unsecured wireless network within reach (gasps!) and but for T, i wouldn't know that kids receive a very holistic education in the netherlands. but more than that, they were my first spontaneous friends in stockholm and we spent a lot of time chatting over breakfast on the sundeck and later while they were sexiled (hehe) engaging in improvisional theatre in the hotel lobby. it sounds crazy but we were hamming it up so bad with T as the sofa iron-er and me as the job interviewer, much to S' chargrin that we were acting like such kids.

S works at a gas station in a red light district in the netherlands and i was in stitches as he regaled us with tales of his regular clientel. i was very interested to hear of him time in the congo, first as a child and later when he revisited his childhood home two years ago. he was telling me about a precious ore that is refined for use in electronics by the chinese and how the chinese build infrastructure in the congo in exchange for this ore that is surreptiously removed by the plane-load to evade the wanderig warlords. he was surprised to hear of compulsory national service and the annual dreaded ippt. then he said that it must be harder for singaporean men to run 2.4km in whatever the stipulated timing than he because they've shorter legs.HAHA. S also chided me for reading LP (a first!) because it robbed me of the joy of independent discovery. i've never thought of it that way but the context of this admonition is my aghast exclamation that there are (supposedly) only three acceptable colours in stocks every season, in addition to black. and then i foolishly lamented that i was probably not decked in any of the 'right' colours. to which S scoffed me to my face and told me not to be so conscious of what people wear. this was right after his opening line, 'the dutch aren't nice people. they're too direct.' truer words... and after thinking about it, he's absolutely right. project: assimilation is all well and good if i was in a jungle and required camouflage to ensure survival. but i'm not in a jungle and i'm not prey of any sort. so looking different isn't necessarily a bad thing. lesson learnt and i've thrown my meagre fashion sense to the wind and am determined to wear whatever i want :) time to break out the boho patchwork pants lurking in the deep recesses of my suitcase!

T is waiting to go into university and he very kindly explained the different academic paths available to students in the netherlands. i was impressed by how there's a suitable route for everyone regardless of academic ability. personally feel in singers the very bright and the not-so-bright are well catered for but the middle is somewhat marginalised and not given the same opportunities the other two demographs are. not so in the netherlands! and there are cross-over opportunities from one stream to the next so late developers are not condemned to a life of serfdom. T knew an awful lot about singers and it turns out that he'd watched a video of her history during economics class. wow! i never knew we were interesting enough to make it to the small screen. he definitely knew more about singers than i know about the netherlands and it made me both proud and mildly ashamed at the same time. here i am, smug in my little world thinking that i'm well-traveled and well-read but here is this lovely dutch boy who knows more about my country than i do about his. and i've been to amsterdam twice while he's yet to visit singapore!

T posed an unusual question. he asked if singaporeans had 'hobbies' and i found myself struggling to answer that. i, for one, don't have a hobby per se. i used to swim competitively, not because i like the sport but because it got me where i wanted to go (i.e it boosted my c.v.) similarly, i don't know whether many singaporean students like what they're doing for co-curricular activity or are in for similarly practical purposes. we were talking about part time jobs and T used to work in the back of a supermarket packaging the produce. when i told him that i gave tuition for some pocket money, he couldn't grasp the concept of parents sending their kids for extra class. and to think it's de rigeur back home :)

definitely an eye-opener and mind-broadener and i'm really glad to have met S and T, albeit briefly. chances are we might not meet again but that's the beauty of travel. to establish fleeting connections when your orbits overlap temporarily and leave the better for it.