What Jeff Bezo’s Yacht Tells Us About Cycling in the Netherlands

You know who Jeff Bezos is don’t you?  The founder of Amazon–a really rich guy!  He has been having a huge yacht built for him in Rotterdam.  In fact the yacht is so huge that it was going to require.a bridge in Rotterdam in the Netherlands be taken down temporarily so that the boat could exit the port.  Even though the bridge itself is no longer being used, even though the builders of the boat offered to pay for all expenses, people in the Netherlands were outraged by this.  A recent New York Times article uses this incident to explore differences between American and Dutch culture.  The article notes that the Dutch have a disdain for ostentation and extravagance, which they see as qualities of Americans.  The article includes a story about an American boy who came to the Netherlands for an exchange program and when he was told to make his own sandwich, he put five sausages on the bread, rather than a single one as the Dutch did.  The Dutch were appalled.  The article quotes a Dutch woman saying “Here in Holland, we don’t believe that everybody can be rich the way people do in America, where the sky is the limit. We think ‘Be average.’ That’s good enough.”  As part of this disdain for ostentation, the article notes that the Dutch prime minister rides his bike when he goes to visit the Dutch king.  When I have been in the Netherlands, what is striking to me is how many bicycles are quite functional, but also quite old.  They aren’t for making a statement about what kind of person you are, but for transportation.  Perhaps one of the reasons Americans don’t bike more is that we have been so captured by consumer culture.  We need to make a statement about who we are by what kind of car we drive.