1/23/2024 0 Comments Ground floor tv pilotUnfortunately the openness disappears the lights in the streets coming from the living rooms, the social control that comes with it and the gezelligheid. Also young people tend to want to have more privacy. Since there’s been an increase of outsiders – mostly expats – more and more curtains close. Sadly most of them have passed away or were forced to move because of the rental and house prices going through the roof. Even guides with groups of tourists stopped by to have a look.Ī lot of the original inhabitants of De Jordaan like to showcase their interior. Especially during the holidays their house was filled with colorful fairy lights and other Christmas decorations. They lived on the ground floor and liked showing everybody their knick-knacks, porcelain figurines and cozy lights. Until a year ago I had neighbors next to me who were real Jordanesen. Here, four Dutch residents with no curtains tell CNN Travel about why they still like to peek and be peeked at through their unadorned windows.Īstrid Brokke, 68, lives on the first floorĢ0 beautiful European cities that aren't tourism hotspots My mother, Astrid (interviewed below) still has no curtains, which is common in De Jordaan, the now gentrified working-class district of Amsterdam that I grew up in and where she still lives. I have them now because I have a bigger home and they bother me less. The interaction between inside and outside helps foster the open culture for which the Dutch are well known.Īs a Dutch citizen, I grew up in houses without curtains.Īnd when I moved out, I didn’t use them for the first 10 years. It’s fair to say that Dutch people typically like to look outside and see the lights, the hustle and bustle of the streets, and people walking by. Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty ImagesĪnthropologists Hilje van der Horst and Jantine Messing researched the phenomenon in 2006 and observed that people in tight-knit neighborhoods were more likely to leave their curtain open – and more likely to decorate their windows with statues, vases, and (fake) flowers.Īnother reason, of course, is the desire of residents to watch the world go by. Windows help foster the open culture for which the Dutch are known. The most popular explanation stems from the Protestant religious tradition of Calvinism, which insists that honest citizens have nothing to hide. Is it an “I’ve-got-nothing-to-hide” or a “look-what-I’ve-got” mentality? Or both? Those who look for an explanation for this rather curious exhibitionism quickly get caught up in major sociological tangles. It’s so interwoven in their culture that researchers have struggled to figure out exactly why people in the Netherlands care so little about their privacy. The Dutch themselves don’t think it unusual. Often, people don’t even have curtains or blinds.Īt a time when coronavirus restrictions are confining people all over the world to their homes – with only a window for contact to the outside world – this national quirk seems even more intriguing. That’s because many Dutch people never close their curtains or blinds. For many visitors to the Netherlands, one of the great discoveries when wandering through the streets of Amsterdam or other towns and cities is that you can often take a look inside people’s homes when it gets dark.
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