RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 20

RANDOM REMINDER

DUTCII TREAT

The Dutch, like many! Europeans have a much: stronger tradition of; everyday etiquette than] ]we sometimes rude, if ! well-meaning peasants.! I For example, we tend to 1 .shake hands only on first meeting, when bidding! i farewell for a considerable time, or welcoming; back someone whom we have lot seen for ages. Not so the Dutch. The Dutch shake hands at everj opportunity, on ! seeing each other upon! getting up . in the morn- ; ing, on welcoming each! /other home at night, on ! seeing friends after just a 1 ifew hours aoart, and of, course on more formal! {occasions, such as return-, ing from popping out toj the cobbler’s to have a] ! nair of shoes planed. The I fresult is that life in thei

’(Netherlands can come to | resemble a Buckingham Palace garden party, an j orgy of hand-clasping; !and" Dutchmen can be (picked out of a crowd not only by the clatter of i'their feet and their habit of standing in bus queues .with at feast one index (finger in an ailing dam ;|but by their enormous (powerful wrists, some of! . them many hundreds of! feet across. s After a while in New! i,Zealand, the handshaking! i(habit fades and the mus-i ■ des atrophy. Everyday ( i i hand-clasping fades! i into the memory,, i (like early morning! ‘.mists on long-discarded ( bedsocks, but the Dutch! i politeness never fades; I,nor does the embarrass-: ijment of one Dutch New rZealader, now long-estab-qlished, when he recalls an

i incident in his first week i here, when he put hist i clog in it. His English was quite , ) poor, hardly above sub- : sistence level in fact, and ' he was rather timid about : his first visit to the par- : ents of the girl he had : travelled half-way round i the world to see. As she i led him up the garden! fl path - a habit she has! f;maintained in the ensuing' jyears — he saw in the] ■ distance the back of her! >! father, who was working -{on the section, as is the 1 ■'custom of the land. The; i;father did not see them,! ,!but the young man{ /thought it worthy of’ j mention when introduced i i{ it dinner that evening. { “How do you do,” he! • said. “It’s so nice to meet r you- I caught a glimpse; - of your behind this afteri noon.” I