By Wendy Lin, 2023-24 McCall MacBain International Fellow in the Netherlands
“We really liked you and we want you to have the room!”
After months of sending messages into the void and doomscrolling through endless housing sites’ posts that stated “NO INTERNATIONALS—DUTCH ONLY!”, I broke into tears as my new housemates invited me into my new home. The housing crisis in the Netherlands was much more severe than I had expected—for international students like me, the search is even harder as most student houses are closed to international students, and welcome Dutch students only.
Homestay culture is very unusual in the Netherlands, so as an alternative, I live in a studentenhuis—shared student house—with seven Dutch housemates in the centre of Leiden, a charming student city. Most Dutch students, if they do not live with their parents during their studies, live in studentenhuizen. Although I am not living with a homestay, I feel just as welcomed (maybe even more so) by my huisgenoten—housemates—through our house dinners and outings. Cooking and eating dinner is a common practice among student houses and associations: it’s truly gezellig.
The culture of shared living is very different in the Netherlands compared to Canada, and this difference begins at the beginning of the housing search. House seekers must first send in a writeup about themselves and some photos to showcase their personality, hobbies, and living styles. The current housemates sort through these applications and invite prospective housemates who they want to know better to a hospiteeravond, a social evening held at the house for the current housemates to figure out who is the right match. These evenings occur in rounds, as the demand for housing is so high—often houses host up to four rounds of hospis per night with over 20 students in each round… that’s more than 80 students competing for one room, and these are just the applicants who made it past the initial screening! I was really lucky to have been chosen by my housemates—I think that a lot of points were added to my application when I told them that I was actively learning Dutch.
I spent my first couple months in the Netherlands studying Dutch for four hours a day, four days a week. I was really lucky to have had the best Dutch teacher that I could’ve imagined having, but I feel even more lucky to have been put in a class where each student had the same passion and determination to learn Dutch as me. In my Dutch class, there was only one other student who was my age, the rest of my classmates were older expats and working professionals. Each one of us had our unique reasons for learning Dutch, and we always encouraged each other through our daily lessons. As some of us were new to the city (and the students who weren’t new did not know Leiden well), our teacher, who was a local of Leiden, took us on a city tour. He brought us to some monumental places and told us stories of the previous battles and intricate histories of this city (in Dutch, of course). We ended the day by hosting our own borrel—social evening, typically with your fellow association members or colleagues—at our teacher’s favourite bar in Leiden, which had live jazz music playing. Our teacher told us also about jenever—Dutch gin—and how that is his drink of choice while listening to jazz. My classmates and I got him a thank-you gift of jenever a couple weeks later, when the course had come to an end, and he and his wife brought us oude kaas—old Dutch cheese—to pair with the jenever!
My learning of Dutch has proved to be a huge asset in easing my acclimation into the Netherlands. It’s also opened a lot of doors to opportunities that I feel most international students would not get to experience: the hospi and studentenhuis experience is just one of them. Due to the housing crisis, I’ve been asked by many Dutch students about whether I had managed to find a place to stay. When I tell them that I live in a studentenhuis, they often ask if it’s a house of international students and are very shocked when I tell them that I live in an all-Dutch studentenhuis and that I had to attend a hospi in order to get a room. They say to me, “that’s a very Dutch experience!”, and tell me that it’s very rare for internationals to go through this process. They’re even more surprised when I tell them that ik spreek een beetje Nederlands and that I’m part of not one, but two studentenvereningen—student associations—this is another unique opportunity that I’ve gotten to experience that most international students do not.
The international and Dutch communities are very separate from each other and it’s very difficult to build a bridge between them: one of the reasons for this is the language barrier (as many international students and expats do not speak Dutch), but another is the cultural barrier. Dutch student life revolves heavily around studentenverenigingen, and it’s very rare that you’ll meet a Dutch student who is not part of one. Studentenverenigingen differ greatly from Canadian student associations as they provide a community not only for the duration of a student’s study, but for the rest of their lives. Almost all studentenverenigingen are Dutch only, but as one of the rowing associations was still looking to fill their quota (and thus opened their doors to internationals), I decided to join a studentenvereniging for myself and see what Dutch student life was all about.
At the rowing association, I am one of the few internationals there among a crowd of several hundred Dutch students. I’ve been rowing with them for about a month now, and have raced in two competitions. However, while I am enjoying getting to explore the city through my own boat tour several times a week, it’s proven to be a challenging experience as I attempt to understand and adapt to the Dutch culture around me. For starters, although Netherlanders’ English proficiencies are very high, Dutch is still the language of choice in every interaction. My limited Dutch abilities make it very difficult for me to understand the conversations around me, and even harder for me to converse in our weekly dinners and borrels and participate in other social events.
Although I have had many highlights so far and these experiences which I’ve detailed seem overwhelmingly positive, these couple months have not been easy—I’ve faced a lot of challenges. The process of integrating into Dutch society is very difficult as barriers are set at every step of the way. Regarding logistics, I required a Dutch bank account in order to set up a phone number, which was necessary for my transport pass, and I couldn’t apply for that without my municipality registration, which required my burgerservicenummer (BSN), which took over two months to be processed. Culturally speaking, although I might have a slight advantage as I can understand a bit of Dutch (and people can see that I am trying my best), it’s still very difficult to integrate into Dutch society and feel like I can try to find a place here in which I can belong. At the rowing borrels, there are some evenings where I might only manage to speak out a couple sentences, as I’m so focused on listening and understanding the conversations around me that once I’ve formulated what I can say in Dutch, the conversation has jumped several topics ahead.
I struggle often trying to figure out whether I’m feeling brave and wanting to experience something new, or whether I’m trying too hard to fit in a place where I don’t belong. This back-and-forth comes in different forms, and ranges from little things like biking, to bigger things like joining a studentenvereniging, trying to have a conversation during a borrel and attempting to communicate using the very limited Dutch that I know, and often feeling like a burden when I don’t understand what is going on. However, I trust that these feelings are natural processes and essential experiences of learning to live in a new and foreign place—acclimating takes time, and it’s a continuous process.
