Momentous Dutch encounters in Hungary

It’s been two months now since my partner and I moved to Maastricht, but it is in our native country Hungary that I had my first contact with Dutch people. I was working last year for an international Human Ressources company in Budapest and the place was exceptionally multicultural: our trainers came from the USA and Europe, my colleagues were English, Irish, Israeli, Polish, Swedish, French… and one of my bosses was Dutch.

A Dutch boss
T. was a bright and friendly man from Rotterdam. He had met a Hungarian lady in the Netherlands, fallen in love with her at first sight and hadn’t hesitated to exchange a good job in his mother country for a new life in Hungary.

T.’s management style was very new to me. A common attitude among middle-aged senior Hungarian leaders is to keep distance from their employees for fear of losing their authority. Sometimes it even looks like they’re playing hide and seek with their staff: when there is a problem it takes time to reach them and it is hard to prove who is to blame. Such Hungarian bosses tend to boast their power, but when it comes to taking responsibility, they invest more effort in “washing” their hands clean rather than in setting out for a goal.

T. was not so. A master of languages and communication, he was always open to new ideas. He was tolerant and friendly without being intrusive. When he had a hard day he would never take it out on his staff.

Many times I heard T. say: “I am going to be very Dutch” – by this he meant that he was going to be very honest and straight forward. And so he was, not just with his staff but also towards his own superiors. Since our office was open, he sat together with us and we would hear him speak to his bosses, always in a nice manner. When something was not functioning the best way, he would ensure them that we would do everything in our power to correct it.

I observed objectivity and humanity in T.’s leadership. I liked the way he would say: “One day without laughter is one day without life”. This sounded all the more striking since it is not uncommon in Hungary nowadays to spend several working months without any sufficient amount of laughter because we are desperately trying to catch up with Europe. Many Hungarians are still struggling for a proper living.

I realized that T. was leading his life according to his motto. When one of my colleagues quit her job because she disliked the type of work, he demonstrated a lot of understanding, saying that “we should always try to find happiness at work since we spend so many hours at our workplace every day”. In his opinion if a job didn’t bring us joy and success, then the best thing was to stop doing it and to find something else that would make us happier.

It can be strange for us Hungarians to see someone being so candid, because our history and political life have often exposed us to distortion and white lies.

Sometimes I felt however that T. Was perhaps too humane, and that as a result some of my colleagues would take up quite a bossy attitude at work. Some of them even overestimated their capacities, which made me reflect that a Dutch boss can perhaps best function only within a Dutch environment.

T. had a pair of “klompen” (Dutch wooden shoes) on his desk which caught my eyes several times. I thought that they showed his deep connection with his motherland.

Lunch or breakfast?
Yet there was something strange about him: I never saw him eat. It is a custom in Hungary to eat big meals for lunch, even on workdays. At noon, all our team would rush to the canteen for our daily two course meal: usually a full soup followed by a meat-potato-salad combination, a stew dish, or some stuffed cabbage or lasagna. We even often indulged in a dessert. No wonder that our efficiency significantly dropped after every lunch. But nothing to be done about it: big and heavy lunches are a strong tradition in Hungary!

Since eating usually implies socializing, we thought that T. did not eat with us because he maybe somehow disliked us. I even wondered if he was eating in secret. But finally the truth came out: one day I caught him in our office kitchen eating a healthy sandwich filled with ham, eggs, salad, tomato, which for me was no more than a small breakfast bite. So my breakfast was in fact his lunch!

The inner power of Dutch women
By coincidence our first trainer happened to be Dutch too. J. taught us communication skills in English. She was an impressive lady with a tremendous amount of inner power. She always carefully prepared for our study sessions, and wrote down notes on the board in advance. She had a habit to listen to peaceful and melodious jazz music on her little magnetic tape during breaks. She said that this put her in the right mood for teaching. J. did not discipline with words but with her attitude.

Just like T., J. was open to our personal feelings and impressions. We talked a lot during the group sessions while learning many useful communication skills.

I felt that she was a great example to learn from. Her manner was gentle but very firm at the same time, down to earth and yet highly professional. J. was aware of her inner power.

At the time I thought that these were her own character traits, but after arriving in Maastricht, I recognised many of these features among other Dutch women too. For the past two months, I have observed that Dutch women have a lot of power, and are aware of it, just as men are aware of their physical strength. What is more, Dutch women seem to know how to use their power without becoming arrogant.

Hungary: a new market for the Dutch
In Budapest I also met a lady who had a Dutch father and Hungarian mother. She spoke Hungarian very well. After many years living and doing business in the Netherlands she had relocated to Hungary to expand her recruitment agency business together with her brother. They represented a very unique style in the Hungarian labour market. I was impressed by their professionalism and proficiency in several languages, and more particularly by their honesty and their seemingly genuine interest in their clients. No wonder that their position in the labour market is rising with a spectacular success. It looks like Dutch people are discovering our country in growing numbers, much to the benefit of the Hungarian economy.

Hungarians in Maastricht
When my partner was recently offered a job in Maastricht I immediately got in touch with my former boss T. to ask him about his homeland. The way he described the spirit of his nation moved me. He talked with pride as would a caring father. He even looked up the population of Maastricht on the internet and the most interesting historical sights of the city, including the oldest pub that we would “definitely have to visit”: In den ouden Vogelstruys.

He knew for certain how life here was going to be like for us: “Holland is very multicultural and tolerant,” he said. He talked about his country as if he were talking about his own child. Even far away from his homeland he could “guarantee” that I was going to be treated in a nice, humane way and that I was most certainly going to be safe. His words showed how much he believed in his fellow countrymen, and made me realise that his nation had a strong inner power which kept its citizens tightly united. I remember thinking that this was a very unique and admirable characterictic.

In my view, it takes a high level of communication skill to find the balance between being friendly, open and helpful without being intrusive at the same time. It is difficult for us Hungarians to find this proper balance when helping another person, maybe because of our troubled history. Many times we don’t help simply because we are afraid to open up and tell our own experience; the reverse can also happen, when we become “too” helpful and care too much.

But thanks to my Dutch encounters in Hungary and my new life in Maastricht, I have noticed that my communication skills are improving and also that I am starting to laugh much more. Since our arrival here, I am much better able to rely on my inner power too.

By Szilvia Jaki

Born in Hungary in 1979, Szilvia Jaki spent one year in Finland, Salo at the age of 16 as a student while living at a Finnish friend family. This first self-organised adventure gave her a deep relationship with Finnish people and intermediate Finnish language skills. In her teenage years Szilvia also visited Spain, England, Germany and Austria. She studied law at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and has a deep interest for languages, communication, different cultures and nature. Szilvia is living in Maastricht with her partner since June 2007 and will start a Masters programme in Law at Maastricht University in September 2007. Szilvia later hopes to work in the field of International law and European law.