Dreadfully Dutch Fake Facts – Part 1

1) Everyone in Holland is 6’5 tall. Any Dutch person who has not reached this height by their 21st birthday is exiled to Belgium.

2) Due to a series of escalating over exaggerated tourists stories visitors to Amsterdam are often disappointed to discover that the red light district is in fact just an area with a lot of faulty traffic lights.

3) Dutch music was first invented during World War II as a means of ‘interrogating’ German spies. However, when the human rights movement put a stop to this practise another use had to be found for it. Incidentally this is why you will never find a German at a Frans Bauer concert.

4) Frans Bauer and Jack Bauer are related.

5) The Dutch government is very concerned about the over harvesting of wind by the county’s many windmills. They foresee a real danger that this resource will run out in the next 5 years. This is not helped by the fact that all Dutch people live in windmills.

6) The Dutch phrase ‘ja hoor’ has caused several diplomatic incidents when English speaking diplomats have mistaken it for the Dutch diplomats calling them names (sometimes they were).

7) A lot of Dutch land has been reclaimed from the sea by pumping out the water and building fake land. This has proved very successful. However, at high tide the water still comes up to everyone’s ankles.

8) Holland is so flat that someone in Friesland can wave to someone in Belgium. The Dutch are deadly jealous of any country with the smallest of mountains, hills or speed bumps.

9) Even Dutch people giggle every time someone starts talking about the water ‘dykes’

10) The wide popularity and use of bicycles in Holland can be directly linked to the song ‘Bicycle Race’ by Queen when it became a smash hit in 1978. Bicycle sales jumped by 89% and, “I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it where I like,” became a national slogan.

Want to read more Dreadfully Dutch Fake Facts? Check out Part 2 of this list.

#DreadfullyDutchFakeFacts

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

22 Responses

  1. Invader Stu says:

    Wezz6400 – I don’t know what you mean. What makes you think that is mean and not a real Dutch girl *cough* Oh look over there *runs away*

    StephanieC – I am also willing to stand up in court and testify to that fact.

  2. Just a Plane Ride Away says:

    #1 is so true. I felt so short in my Dutch house–the counters all came up to my chin.

  3. VallyP says:

    I’ve laughed more than I have in weeks over this. Brilliant!!

  4. Invader Stu says:

    Just a Plane Ride Away – You should see me standing next to my wife to be. The counter is not the only thing that comes up to my chin.

    VallyP – That’s great to hear. Thanks :)

  5. Lucas Spoel says:

    JA HOOR!!!

  6. M. says:

    Hi, thanks for your contributions. I’ve spent 7 years in your country which much pleasure and appreciate your observations. However one point I would like to draw your attention to is that we haven beaten the French about 200 year ago and there is really no need to keep referring to the French occupation (and left wing collaboration) by addressing the Netherlands as Holland. This period of occupation lasted less than 4 years. The Netherlands have been around in roughly its current form and shape since the 12th century (Floris the 5th, Staten Generaal etc.) It would be a similar thing to call every single Brit Oswald Mosley…

    Thanks for keeping this in mind and keep up the good work !

  7. zJoriz says:

    About the flatness of Holland (yes, Holland, not all of the Netherlands is that flat)… You know, I cycle a lot around Rotterdam. I live on the southern edge, have one job in the west of the city, go to the gym just past the east end of the city, and have another job in a town to the southeast. And there are a lot of height differences on each leg of each journey. However, I recently realized that most if not all of these are man-made! Never thought about that before… it’s all overpasses and dykes and tiny bridges and a large one and some tunnels and one long one (fun fact: featuring the oldest still functioning escalators in the country). There are no visible traces of any natural dunes or hills left that I know of.

    While this may be a shame, I’m not too jealous of more curvy countries. Cycling here is quite energy-efficient, after all.

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