“Rotterdam is a culture apart from the rest of the Netherlands,” laughs Kyle. ‘They are very honest and direct here. But that’s nice too, you know exactly where you stand when you talk to a Rotterdam native.’ From his hometown of Port Elisabeth in South Africa, he soon travelled around the world. He worked in Istanbul, Portugal and England. “I was a young man and I wanted adventure and life experience,” he says. But never did he stay long, until he came to the Netherlands.
In 2000, he came here to work for a spirits manufacturer for four years. He worked in Utrecht, but was already living in Rotterdam straight away. Besides already having friends living here, he loved the city itself. “It is an international and big city but not as big as Istanbul or London. It is therefore a bit more accessible. Rotterdam is not as busy or touristy as Amsterdam. I wanted to have the Dutch experience. But still, you can find everything you want here, from Turkish to Surinamese food.”
Similarities
Moreover, it had some similarities with his home country. “Honesty is also important to South African people. So is individualistic development in who you want to be.” It also helped that the language in South Africa is very similar to Dutch. “All the adjectives are the same as in Dutch and the grammar is mostly German. So for me it was doable to learn Dutch. And I was helped a lot by a great family in the Lakes who taught me Dutch with a lot of laughter, if with a little Utrecht accent,” he laughs.
Learning from Rotterdam
He feels so much at home here by now that he never went back to South Africa to live there. “My hometown has 1.5 to 2 million people where mainly South Africans live and a few Germans. There you can do mainly South African things. Tolerance is also a bit less there because of the history, although that is gradually changing. I think South Africa can learn from Rotterdam in terms of respect for other cultures. Every culture is something special and has beautiful things you can learn from.”