. uncurtained windows" in Dutch homes.6 When the passerby views a Dutch family in such circumstances, he or she will frequently find an inward oriented people. An individual may be "seated in a self created pool of privacy, sometimes not reading the paper or book before him, not smoking the pipe in his hand or the gin on the table, cut off as if with the thickest of curtains from his wife sewing or his children reading simply sitting with his head on one hand, staring and thinking."7 To others, being by oneself likely "means being in a room alone. The Dutch . . . can be by themselves in a room with six other people or on a canal bank lined with people fishing, almost shoulder to shoulder."8 The Dutch have "learned how to pretend at any given moment that some of the people particularly those who can be lumped in a group
8Ibid., 51.are invisible or are not there. It is a course of action the Dutch have taken since the sixteenth century, when the rebellion against Spanish rule underlined the religious disharmony in the so called United Provinces."9
The desire for privacy on the part of the Dutch means that the development of close friendships in Holland, particularly for the foreigner, is neither an easy nor a rapid process.10 As a consequence, many foreigners, particularly Americans, tend to find the Dutch aloof. The Dutch, however, will almost invariably respond favorably, if not effusively, to overtures initiated by strangers. In the conduct of business, this behavior dictates that the foreigner take the first steps toward the establishing of relationships, and that the foreigner be prepared to expend some considerable amount of time in developing a close, working relationship.
Once a relationship is established with a Netherlander, the foreigner will find that the customary behavior of the Dutch is relatively informal.11 The foreigner, however, must be acquainted with and observe Dutch customs, if the relationsh...