Mikhail Visser: What Do They Admire About Life In America?

The person I interviewed was Mikhail Visser. I met him at Rutgers playing tennis. He is from Eindhoven, Netherlands.

1. Define your culture in one word.

2. What might they change about life in America? What do they admire about life in America?

3. What about life in America required the most adjustment?

4. What is the object you brought and what is its significance?

5. Why did you come here?

6. Do you want to stay here?

7. How did you grow up?

8. How is your life in that country?

9. Do you regularly practice your religion?

10. Looking at people who grew up in America and those from your native country, what is the major difference in the lifestyle?

11. What do you think of war being the way to achieving peace?

12. Being a college student, do you prefer the way the American education system is run, or the system from your country?

Mikhail grew up what is considered an average life in the Netherlands. He was born on April 23, 1992 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. He is an only child but sometimes wishes that he had a little sister. He has always wanted to have the privilege to be an idol to someone and raise a younger sibling. Although when he sees little sisters of his friends he doubts his wish. As a child he lived a very

ordinary life. His dad worked as a civil engineer and his mom was a stay at home. According to him, being a stay at home mom was very common during his childhood. They lived in a small house in the city. During his childhood the city was beginning to expand and newer infrastructure was being built but his family had been situated there for many years and lived in an older part of town. He attended public school throughout his educational years. One day in the middle of second grade he discovered that his friend played a sport called tennis. He begged his parents to go play with him and at that moment his love for tennis was born. At first he played just for fun but as he got older and realized that he had a lot of talent he began to play tournaments. He played tournaments until he was eighteen years old. Also, being the Netherlands nearly everyone is exposed to the wonderful sport of football also knows as soccer. Soccer is the major sport in this country and Mikhail loved it the day he started playing. He and his friends played street soccer almost every day and on the weekends would practice with their teams. Soccer was viewed so highly that the soccer ball was almost considered as a religious item. Religiously, he was very active. He is a catholic and hated going to church when he was young. He always found it boring and drag to be in. Mikhail remembers one Sunday morning when he was 5 or 6 he really didn’t want to go to church but was forced to, so when mass started he bit the guy closest to him who gave out a startling cry. He thought it was funny but the rest of the church apparently did not and he was forced to sit outside. As he grew up, he matured and began to understand the value of church and actually enjoyed attending it. However, he quickly lost interest in it as he became engrossed with school and his love life. In high school he had two girlfriends. The first lasted 7 months before he caught her cheating on him at a party. He was in shock that something like that could happen to him. However, his second girlfriend lasted for a little more than two years and the two of them went their separate ways because they attended different colleges. Where he lives, the german shepherd is a very common per and Mikhail evidently has one. Its name is biscuit because they discovered that it loves eating and is 6 years old. His family decided to get it when he was 16. Ever since then he has had a major soft spot for dogs. One of the biggest parts of his life has been beer. Social drinking has been a custom in the Netherlands for years and many people start at young ages, like Mikhail who started when he was 13. He told a story of when he was 15, his extended family was visiting and they had party which consisted of about 30 people. As tradition everyone had a drink, but because there were so many people no one kept track of the younger people and many of them got drunk and destroyed a bathroom. Remembering these childhood memories, Mikhail broke out a small smile. He then proceeded to tell me of his life goals. He wanted to follow in his dads footsteps as an engineer but did not want to be a civil engineer. He went through his options and settled upon industrial engineering because he enjoyed working with integrated systems. After applying to various colleges he finally got the acceptance letter to his dream university, Eindhoven University of Technology. It was huge honor getting accepted into this college because it highly ranked and touted about throughout the Netherlands and getting into it sets you apart from other students. He is now in his senior year of college and wanted to experience what it was like to live in America because he said he may want to come here. He decided to transfer to Rutgers for semester and so far he tells me, he is enjoying the “American ways”.
When I asked him to define his culture in one word he told me “beer”. At first I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not but after explaining himself it made sense. He said that beer was their way of coming together socially. Unlike in America as he has observed, his parents didn’t care if he drank as long as he didn’t cause trouble. When he and his friends got together, the first thing they did was grab a drink and sit down to talk. Beer allowed them to converse rather than be on their phones like he now experiences in America. Beer was also the mark that meant a child was growing up or coming of age. It marked a new age for him because he would now be included with the “big” people in conversations. He felt that this was a big moment his life. He tells me; however, that beer was only of such values of where he lived, being that it has been engraved into their tradition for many years.
When I asked Mikhail about what he would change in American he had an interesting response. He said he would make college population smaller. When he attended university in the Netherlands, class sizes were much smaller and students received more individual attention. He found it hard to adjust to the large class size and found it difficult to learn. He also found it astonishing at how much Americans eat. At his first outing to a diner, he barely finished a third of his plate while his friends ate all of it. He stated, “I now know why obesity is such a problem in America. How is it going to be solved if meals of this size are going to be served”. The on positive statement he made of America was that America seems to always be upbeat. This says that life in his culture is very calm and controlled. They do everything proportionately like serving dinners. It also shows that Americans care more about getting everyone through college rather than having everyone learn and understand what is being taught. We seem to care more about quantity rather than quality.
The item of cultural significance he brought was a soccer ball he had preserved from his childhood and what he considers his “good luck charm”.

He had this ball in glass case covered by plastic and buried in his back which was full of cotton padding. When I looked at it, it barely looked like ball and he refused to take it out of his bag fearing it may fall apart. He said it represented his whole life. To him it represents all the fun and serious situations. The ball also holds a major cultural value as soccer is big in the Netherlands. Soccer has evolved into the culture of the Netherlands. This particular soccer ball is from his first goal in organized soccer. He chose it because of these reasons. It has a lot of personal and cultural value to

it.
I can see from this interview that culture is location specific. Even different towns have a different culture even if it’s a small difference. After this interview I realized that what I view as “normal” may look or be weird to someone else. Culture is all about perspective. It is based on what a person sees and how he acts. I learned that culture can’t be grouped, it is one broad idea and each person lives in a different culture. Looking at how he practiced his religion and how some of my friends practice the same religion, I realized that religion is also location specific. Although the religion does not vary from town to town it does vary from country to country. Mikhail did some things that my friends did and vice versa. The role religion is his case, shaped his childhood.