Intercultural relationships: the good, the bad and the amusing

Mar Muñoz Aparici and Wouter Neisingh

Spanish architecture master’s student, Muñoz Aparici, met her boyfriend during her search for accommodation. “I started to apply to houses advertising only for guys, it didn’t worry me. I got into a Virgiel fraternity house, and I actually got Wouter’s room for six months, whilst he went to Switzerland,” she said.

“It’s very different dating a Dutch guy, they’re caring. I like that people here in the Netherlands are honest, sometimes too honest, but it’s nice that you know how to handle people. The Dutch guys I know are confident and motivated, prone to making decisions and doing things with their life. I also found it interesting, they sit and ask – so are we in a relationship now? It’s really straightforward,” explained Muñoz Aparici.

There are challenges too. “It’s difficult with the language with family. His family speaks English, but it’s uncomfortable because they’re doing it just for me. It’s the same the other way around when he’s in my home town, as he doesn’t speak Spanish,” she said. Disagreements are also inevitable. “I know it’s a cliché, but food is an issue. It took me a while to make him understand I don’t like bread, and I don’t like eating bread every day. I never ate it on a daily basis before, and I’m not going to do it now. I have gotten used to eating at Dutch times though, so I found a balance I guess.”

The biggest concern is what the future holds. “I’m finishing my master’s study, but my boyfriend is just finishing his bachelor’s. He has longer in Delft than I have, I’ll likely leave in the next six months or so. My main focus is my career, I’ll see what my options are. We want to stay together, but we’re not sure how yet. The problem with our generation is we have so many options,” she said.

Silvania Pereira and Jan van Neerven

Pereira is a Brazilian associate professor in the Imaging Physics Department at TU Delft, married to a Dutch professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics. They met 20 years ago in the US where she was doing her PhD, and he was a post doc. After a two year stint in Germany, the couple relocated to the Netherlands. Sabbaticals in Australia and Spain have added to the mix.

“I have never lost my own culture, in the same way, I never lost the culture of my Italian grandparents. I grew up in Brazil, a country of immigrants, where my best friend was Japanese. It’s interesting, a mixing of culture. You try to adapt and find the best of both sides. Eventually, you get to something that’s your own version of it; you need that balance. In our case we share everything 50/50, we’re equal,” Pereira said.

How did her family feel about her international life? “It was no problem at all, they saw it as an opportunity to travel,” said Pereira. The couple has two grown children that have Dutch and Brazilian citizenship and speak Portuguese as well as Dutch. “I think they feel they are Brazilian too,” she added.

Food is not an issue, Pereira simply does her own thing. “I like to cook,” she said, “I was raised in a traditional Italian family way, my mother made everything by hand, so I grew up doing that, and I grow my own vegetables. We basically don’t eat Dutch food at home. My husband is fine with that, he’s not so attached to Dutch food.”

Looking back on her early years in the Netherlands one thing stands out: “The weather. It’s so dark the winter here, very long periods without sun. That I really had to get used to,” she said.

Deirdre Casella and Arjen Sukkel

Casella, an American, originally came to the Netherlands 20 years ago as an au pair. A competitive rower at the time, she met her husband during her second year in the country via the rowing club. Casella is an external PhD candidate in the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. The couple has a 4-year-old daughter.

“Having your most important intimate relationship be with someone of a different cultural background really asks that you step back and recognise that you do things differently. It can be from really mundane things to really significant things. I think that’s a positive thing – not taking myself so seriously, letting go of things, learning that there are better ways of doing things,” she said.

Casella also sees the language as a positive. She speaks Dutch, and her daughter is bilingual. “It was very intimidating at first. I was nervous when the phone rang, you were at the mercy of whoever you got on the other end of the line. Twenty years ago it was less common to expect to receive customer service in English. Learning the language made a huge difference,” she explained. Language differences have also led to some comedic moments. “On the plane back from the US when my daughter was 2-years-old, she’d drawn on the table with crayons. I handed Arjen a baby wipe to clean it off which didn’t work. I suggested that he put some elbow grease into it. So he literally rolled up his sleeve and started scrubbing at the table with his elbow!”

When it comes to visiting family and friends in the US, it’s not easy. “Now we have a child, budget is an issue. There are also people you ought to see, and people you really want to see, but you can’t do everything each trip. Equally when my mum comes here it’s not just for a coffee or overnight, it’s for at least a week,” said Casella.

One difference of opinion has been over medical care. “He thinks Americans are much more likely to self-diagnose. The point at which I actually seek medical help is quite a low threshold, whereas his is a really high threshold,” explained Casella.

Laurent Rosset and Geerte Baars

Both master’s students in architecture, Italian Rosset and his girlfriend met via their study. In their community as master’s students it’s easy to speak English, it’s their common language. In private, however, it can be difficult making yourself understood in a language that isn’t your mother tongue. “If it starts to get tense or sad it’s hard, you have to be patient,” said Baars. “I think in English I start to simplify everything sometimes, or at least the way I know it is simple. You need more explanation. Now we try to be more transparent and say what we really mean. If I don’t understand, I say so,” added Rosset.

There are bonuses to an intercultural relationship. “It’s immediately more challenging and interesting, which is good,” said Baars. “In a way you discover more about your own culture, when explaining or sharing it, you then realise and appreciate those values more,” said Rosset. He explained that internationals, including the Italians, tend to keep to their own communities: “In my first six months here I hardly met or hung out with Dutch people at all, but after meeting Geerte that changed.”

Cooking and food has been a source of amusement for the couple. “Now she trusts me when I say we’re going to use just two ingredients for a pasta!” laughed Rosset. The Italians are proud of their food. “Every time someone from Italy comes here we ask them to bring a big suitcase full of food. It’s not that the food here is bad, it’s just different,” he said.

What does the future hold? “I really have no idea, a lot depends on where I can find work. We’re both young, and we’ve agreed that our relationship doesn’t need to limit us in the future. We want to stay together, so we’ll find a way to somehow make it work,” Rosset said. <<