Ana Cimanez
I am an Asian living in the Netherlands for 10 years now. We came from the Philippines. My husband is also Filipino, and so are my two daughters. My eldest is now 23, and my youngest is now 17. I am working in Dow as an Improvement Manager at the HEC site in Zwijndrecht, Belgium. My expat journey was a daily struggle of cultural acceptance and learning to adapt. My youngest daughter came to the Netherlands when she was 6 years old. So for more than half of her life, she has now adapted to the straightforward culture of the Dutch. Let me share with you a funny story as an example.
We were enjoying a road trip when we noticed a beautiful rainbow in the sky. So, braggingly, I told my husband that I know what the Dutch word for rainbow is and even spelled it. My youngest daughter quickly interrupts me, saying how wrong I was in the spelling of “regenboog.” And I felt disrespected.
Now, in my culture, politeness is very important. So for me, I would have appreciated if she said, “yes, that’s good Mama, but you were missing an “o” in your spelling.” But she said, “no, what are you saying?” (Nee. Wat zeg je nou?!) And I told her that.
This experience inspired me to bridge cultural gaps in my family and in my office. I’ve been working with multinational companies for more than 20 years of my career now, and I have realized that sometimes through different conversations, culturally, the message just doesn’t come across right. The Dutch culture is frank and direct, but that doesn’t mean that they are disrespectful. So being a member of the Asian Diversity Network ERG in Dow, I started leading cultural exchange sessions in the Asian Way of Saying “No”– how Dutch culture is just normally direct and straight to the point and how we Asians do not say an outright “No” (we say “yes, but….”).
The project has been a mind-opener to a lot of people that helps bridge the communication gap in cross-cultural teams. And right now, I am also involved with Every Nation Terneuzen. We are an Evangelical church, and we do our church services in English. You can visit us every third Sunday of the month, every 10:30 am in De Grote Kerk, Terneuzen.
