By Ali Taher, visiting researcher from Iraq at the SCA-department of the VU To begin with: It gives me a strange feeling when I see how the people in the Netherlands openly express their emotions. As a visitor from Iraq it is really interesting for me to see “lovers” and “couples” walking together in the center of Amsterdam, embracing each other, and nothing preventing them to interchange very hot kisses amidst the noise of a busy market !
Every day walking in the beautiful city streets, I continue thinking about all the differences between Iraqi and Dutch society. One of the differences is the kind of everyday embarrassing feeling I have at lunch time. You cannot imagine how shocked I was when I saw one of the girls in VU University choose only one apple as her lunch, although we had been together from early morning… It was unbelievable to see one of the professors who behaved no better than the girl, when he chose some soup with only three pieces of biscuit! I really don’t know how the people here stay alive when they eat almost nothing! It is embarrassing for me to realize I need to eat three times more than what they eat (at least), to feel saturated! Also the taste of the food here is far removed from the taste in Iraq, which is known for its fatty and salty food. Lees verder
