It's half past
six, our building's stairwell
is filled with the scent of meat balls, mash
and nasi. Dinner time
in Holland.

There was some talk this week about Sweden introducing a canon, a collection of cultural artefacts that represents their national identity. Or something along those lines. There was much debate about it. Not being Swedish, you might expect ABBA to be in it, but they aren't. We have a canon of the Netherlands, too. A selecionf of artefacts and historical facts that have defined our country.

If you look at it as an exclusive list of the 25 or 50 things that made a country what it is, you will always find something there that shouldn't be, and many things missing. But if you look at it as a collection to inspire you to think about culture and identity, they can be great starting points.

Personally, I think culture and identity is not limited to the nation borders we see when we look at a map of the world. I think it's more lively than that. And much more connected. Sure, as the poem above aludes to, many people in The Netherlands still eat around six in the evening. And sure you will have "typical" dinners of (mashed) potatoes, vegetables and a bit of meat (balls). But we also eat a lot of food with it's origins in Surnam or Indonesia, such as roti and nasi. In the Dutch canon, you can also find the Hanseatic League, a league of cities with access to the North and Baltic seas who made a trading pact in the thirteenth century, spanning basically the entire coastline of Northern Europe, and how we have so many things in our past that connect us.

I thought a poem is a nice and whimsical way to share about that traditional dinner time of six o'clock in The Netherlands. What is something quirky about your culture you can share?

PS: the image on top is a photo I took many years ago in the old port of Gdansk, a Hanseatic city.

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For this week's piece of the poetics of life, I found a short video about the Hanseatice League. Enjoy: