Comfort and rejection: life in well-planned Holland

My first week in Holland was a rainy week. The rains came suddenly. Everywhere small canals and waterways spread across the landscape in a sudden way, too. But these ‘water’ landscapes didn’t give me the feeling they were part of the ‘natural’ landscape. Instead, I felt they were artificial. They were well controlled and planned within an artificial setting. I sensed that the canal in the park would never flood, and the small canal running beside the sidewalk would never behave ‘wildly’. All was well maintained and calm.

Without further thinking of the reasons behind my first impressions, I started my life in Holland. But in time, I came to understand that this first impression is actually what this country is really about: Holland’s well-planned environment and order both comforts and rejects.

I feel the country’s orderliness when I walk its streets. Everything is planned, everything has its own place: the pedestrian paths, the bicycle paths on the roads, the trees in their own neat rows, vehicles passing on the main road, while trains run smoothly over and above the infrastructure. There aren’t even many signs or instructions telling me what and how to observe certain rules; rather, I seem to understand innately that every activity has a certain ‘domain’ and that I’m to follow this established Dutch social order.

Within this neat order, I ’trust’ that if I walk on my designated pedestrian path, a bicycle will never hit me, that as long as I don’t cross the bicycle path abruptly, bikes will slow down safely and properly for me. It’s this orderliness that gives me the trust that I’ll be safe if I simply observe this invisible order. And it seems like everyone else is observing this order too, creating this remarkable overall atmosphere of tidiness and efficiency.

Sometimes, though, I feel the opposite towards this ‘safety’ issue. Take traffic, for example: the lack of signs or physical instructions worries me. Yes, this ’trust’ and ‘invisible order’ guides the traffic, but is it enough? In many places, there are no traffic lights to give priority to vehicles, bicycles or pedestrians. When I arrive at intersections where no lights or signs direct us – the cars, bikes, pedestrians . who should go first, who must wait? At such times, it becomes an issue of personal decision and the trust between the parties that each is civilized and polite enough, each knows the unwritten ‘rules of order’. But what if one of us doesn’t…?

In Hong Kong, where I’m from, there are strict, physical and visible traffic controls. In Holland, I’m usually confident that the prevailing order and trust will work, but sometimes when I think about it, this kind of ‘order’ and ’trust’ seems so very strange.

This contrasting feeling appears elsewhere, too. The well-designed and well-planned zoning makes everything quite clear for the viewer: the road’s straight, the building blocks neatly placed. Here, there’s no chaos resulting from small and winding lanes clustering in disorder or buildings orienting in a messy way. But it’s exactly this heavy planning that sometimes leads to confusion. Often, the repetitious building blocks and identical city quarters appear all the same. When many of us foreigners first move here, we have difficulty identifying our own homes in the vast landscape of identical housing units.
Deviation

I’ve certainly enjoyed the convenience and efficiency that comes with a planned environment and its inherent order. It’s true, I know the building I’m living in is well-maintained. I know services are readily available if I request them at the right hours. Even the services themselves are brought to me in an organized and well-thought out way: I always know where to queue for the services, where to wait, where to sit, sometimes with free water or coffee machines thoughtfully placed on one side and a table with newspapers on the other. It’s the same when using an elevator: Most lifts have an ‘open’ button, but not a ‘close’ button, because the elevator doors are timed to close automatically at the proper time.

Such well thought design serves me always and everywhere in Holland. It’s comforting to know that I’m being looked after, the many details having been thought about and designed beforehand. Yet, rejection is the other side of this neatness and order.

I’ve felt this rejection on many evenings, as I walk Delft’s streets at around 6 p.m., on my way home from school. Most shops are closed. Only the supermarket on the corner remains open. Even the cake shop and the cafe are closed. Only one or two cafes that serve dinner are still open. The passersby all seem to be heading for home. The empty arcade, the clean street, the closing shops and the rows of trees seem to be all that’s left for me. Walking past the hard and cold (and closed) shop fronts, I decide to go to the supermarket. I feel rejected by the solid walls of the closed shops and the neat rows of trees on the street. I then decide to go home, which I know is the only place welcoming me.

What I feel is this: within the planning, there’s a rich variety of services and activities. But not outside it. I must go to them at the right place, at the right hour. There is a Chinatown, but it exists in a ‘situated town’; and there’s a red-light district, but it too exists in a certain district. Even what richness and variety there is seems to also exist in a planned way. There are few accidents, surprises…only a little, and controlled, deviation is allowed!

There is a duality to life here. The well-planned nature and society sometimes makes me feel rejected, and at the same time also gives pleasure and comfort. Wandering the empty streets, or standing in the cold at night because I missed the punctual bus (little chance that it too, like me, is late!), I feel rejected by the orderliness. Yet, many mornings I’ve enjoyed the delightful green leaves on the neat rows of trees as I walk happily along the smooth path below.

My first week in Holland was a rainy week. The rains came suddenly. Everywhere small canals and waterways spread across the landscape in a sudden way, too. But these ‘water’ landscapes didn’t give me the feeling they were part of the ‘natural’ landscape. Instead, I felt they were artificial. They were well controlled and planned within an artificial setting. I sensed that the canal in the park would never flood, and the small canal running beside the sidewalk would never behave ‘wildly’. All was well maintained and calm.

Without further thinking of the reasons behind my first impressions, I started my life in Holland. But in time, I came to understand that this first impression is actually what this country is really about: Holland’s well-planned environment and order both comforts and rejects.

I feel the country’s orderliness when I walk its streets. Everything is planned, everything has its own place: the pedestrian paths, the bicycle paths on the roads, the trees in their own neat rows, vehicles passing on the main road, while trains run smoothly over and above the infrastructure. There aren’t even many signs or instructions telling me what and how to observe certain rules; rather, I seem to understand innately that every activity has a certain ‘domain’ and that I’m to follow this established Dutch social order.

Within this neat order, I ’trust’ that if I walk on my designated pedestrian path, a bicycle will never hit me, that as long as I don’t cross the bicycle path abruptly, bikes will slow down safely and properly for me. It’s this orderliness that gives me the trust that I’ll be safe if I simply observe this invisible order. And it seems like everyone else is observing this order too, creating this remarkable overall atmosphere of tidiness and efficiency.

Sometimes, though, I feel the opposite towards this ‘safety’ issue. Take traffic, for example: the lack of signs or physical instructions worries me. Yes, this ’trust’ and ‘invisible order’ guides the traffic, but is it enough? In many places, there are no traffic lights to give priority to vehicles, bicycles or pedestrians. When I arrive at intersections where no lights or signs direct us – the cars, bikes, pedestrians . who should go first, who must wait? At such times, it becomes an issue of personal decision and the trust between the parties that each is civilized and polite enough, each knows the unwritten ‘rules of order’. But what if one of us doesn’t…?

In Hong Kong, where I’m from, there are strict, physical and visible traffic controls. In Holland, I’m usually confident that the prevailing order and trust will work, but sometimes when I think about it, this kind of ‘order’ and ’trust’ seems so very strange.

This contrasting feeling appears elsewhere, too. The well-designed and well-planned zoning makes everything quite clear for the viewer: the road’s straight, the building blocks neatly placed. Here, there’s no chaos resulting from small and winding lanes clustering in disorder or buildings orienting in a messy way. But it’s exactly this heavy planning that sometimes leads to confusion. Often, the repetitious building blocks and identical city quarters appear all the same. When many of us foreigners first move here, we have difficulty identifying our own homes in the vast landscape of identical housing units.
Deviation

I’ve certainly enjoyed the convenience and efficiency that comes with a planned environment and its inherent order. It’s true, I know the building I’m living in is well-maintained. I know services are readily available if I request them at the right hours. Even the services themselves are brought to me in an organized and well-thought out way: I always know where to queue for the services, where to wait, where to sit, sometimes with free water or coffee machines thoughtfully placed on one side and a table with newspapers on the other. It’s the same when using an elevator: Most lifts have an ‘open’ button, but not a ‘close’ button, because the elevator doors are timed to close automatically at the proper time.

Such well thought design serves me always and everywhere in Holland. It’s comforting to know that I’m being looked after, the many details having been thought about and designed beforehand. Yet, rejection is the other side of this neatness and order.

I’ve felt this rejection on many evenings, as I walk Delft’s streets at around 6 p.m., on my way home from school. Most shops are closed. Only the supermarket on the corner remains open. Even the cake shop and the cafe are closed. Only one or two cafes that serve dinner are still open. The passersby all seem to be heading for home. The empty arcade, the clean street, the closing shops and the rows of trees seem to be all that’s left for me. Walking past the hard and cold (and closed) shop fronts, I decide to go to the supermarket. I feel rejected by the solid walls of the closed shops and the neat rows of trees on the street. I then decide to go home, which I know is the only place welcoming me.

What I feel is this: within the planning, there’s a rich variety of services and activities. But not outside it. I must go to them at the right place, at the right hour. There is a Chinatown, but it exists in a ‘situated town’; and there’s a red-light district, but it too exists in a certain district. Even what richness and variety there is seems to also exist in a planned way. There are few accidents, surprises…only a little, and controlled, deviation is allowed!

There is a duality to life here. The well-planned nature and society sometimes makes me feel rejected, and at the same time also gives pleasure and comfort. Wandering the empty streets, or standing in the cold at night because I missed the punctual bus (little chance that it too, like me, is late!), I feel rejected by the orderliness. Yet, many mornings I’ve enjoyed the delightful green leaves on the neat rows of trees as I walk happily along the smooth path below.