About Fryslân

The stereotype of Fryslân, the Dutch province where I live, is the squared image of Holland abroad: green pastures, farms, fat cattle, sailing boats called skûtsjes (pronounce skootches) and skating. It has its own language, Frysk, shared with some areas in Germany and even Denmark, but in Fryslân the language is still vivid and spoken as daily language by the majority of the inhabitants. Needless to say that the Frysk are a rather conservative people and that any Frysk who wants to make a career (and many Frysk want that!) has to move outside the province. The Frysk has a special word for these emigrants: "Frysk om útens". Totally not fitting into this picture is a company in Dokkum, producing exclusive watches: Van der Gang Watches, even more exclusive than Rolex or Cartier, just because they only produce a few hundreds per year. The owner Mr. Van der Gang however hopes that he will sell more watches abroad and will raise production to 800 per year. Please have a look on their website. Prices are not mentioned, so one can conclude that these are rather high, according to an interview in a Dutch newspaper they are around 6.000 Euro, so that's quite reasonable as compared to Rolexes. And, be honest: a Rolex, isn't that a bit boasting, showing off? Something like a white Mercedes?
In Frysk: "Tige tank Van der Gang, dat jo net fuortgean binne" (thanks Mr. Van der Gang that you didn't leave".