Free tool · Just for fun
The culture blender: Netherlands edition
What happens when you put the Netherlands in a blender, in proportion to where people were born? Real numbers, a silly recipe, and a smoothie that tastes mostly gezellig.
- A playful activity, not research or policy
- People are not ingredients
- Runs only in your browser
Layers to scale: of every litre, 133 ml comes from people born abroad (13.3%).
The recipe
One litre of the Netherlands
Each ingredient is measured by its share of about 18.0 million residents. Only people born abroad are counted (2.4 million), so the children and grandchildren of migrants sit in the Dutch base. Counting them too, roughly one in four residents has a migration background, which would make a much spicier smoothie.
Method: pour the base, add the teaspoons, blend until nobody can tell where the orange ends. Serve at a borrel.
The ingredients
What each one adds, and what it might pick up
Blending goes both ways. Every ingredient brings something to the Dutch base, and every newcomer meets some Dutch habits worth trying, or at least surviving. The jokes are on the Dutch habits, on purpose.
And the base?
The Dutch base adds gezelligheid, bicycles, the polder model and the Friday borrel.
It picks up everything above. Sambal, roti, saté sauce on chips and Turkish bakeries were all new once; now they are simply Dutch. That is how a blend works: slowly, at kitchen tables, and in both directions.
House rules
How to play this respectfully
- People are not ingredients. The blender mixes customs and recipes, never people. Nobody has to be blended, and nobody has to give anything up.
- Nothing here describes an individual. National stereotypes do not match how real people behave. Ask a person, not a country card.
- Every culture holds many cultures. Suriname alone brings Hindustani, Creole, Javanese, Chinese and more. Borders on a map are a rough guide.
- Two-way, always. The base changes as much as the ingredients. In the five-party framing, host residents and newcomers both gain.
Want to add a custom from your own kitchen or family? Tell us; please leave out personal details.
Where do the numbers come from?
People born abroad by country of birth: UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024 (foreign-born tabulation for the Netherlands, 2.4 million in total). Total residents: about 18.0 million, Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 2024. “Everyone else born abroad” is the 2.4 million minus the top ten. Shares are rounded, so the recipe may be a few drops off.
Why only people born abroad?
It is the one measure that is comparable between countries. CBS also counts the second generation, which roughly doubles the migrant share. Neither measure says anything about how Dutch someone feels.
Why these customs and not others?
They are well-known, positive and easy to try at home. The list is playful and incomplete on purpose. If your favourite is missing, that just proves the point: real cultures are bigger than any card.
What about stereotypes?
Cross-cultural research (for example Terracciano and McCrae’s study across 49 cultures) found that beliefs about a “national character” do not match the measured personalities of people in those countries. That is why the cards list food, festivals and habits, not character traits.
Is anything I click stored or sent?
No. The blender runs entirely in your browser.
From smoothie to strategy
Real blending takes a plan.
See how coherent integration can work for newcomers and residents alike, or model the benefits for all five parties.