So I visited the Netherlands last week and decided to stop by Giethoorn. This is a town whereby many (if not most) of the homes are accessed by small boats via narrow water canals. During the summer months, the residents of this isolated picturesque town welcome visitors with their seasonal tourist attractions such as canal cruises on eco-friendly boats, restaurants and a small museum which highlights the history of the town.
There are a few narrow walking paths within this village, such as the one pictured below, allowing tourists to enjoy the beautiful gardens that the residents of this town take great pride in. But I was really surprised when I turned a corner along the walking path and ran into this literature cart. Like me, you’ll probably notice 2 interesting things right away:
1) The flow of pedestrians (relative to where the JWs are standing) practically causes the JWs to be out of the tourists’ direct view since their attention is focused mainly on the beautiful gardens across the canal as they walk past the literature cart. Very clever cart positioning by these two since this generally results in much less interaction.
2) The literature cart had mostly Asian (Manadarin, I think) literature on it. There may have been a few Dutch “Bible Teach” books on the cart facing in the opposite direction, but most of the books in both carts were of an Asian language. No English at all, even though I could tell that most of the tourists spoke English and I didn’t see any Asian tourists at all in the entire day I spent there.
Not pictured here is when I purposely lingered in front of the cart for a few seconds to see if I could get any sort of reaction from these 2 dubs who were clearly passing the time to pad their Field Circus hours. They never approached me, said hello or reacted in any way as I perused the contents of the cart for a good 10 to 15 seconds. Nothing. Nada.
So I decided to continue on my way, turn around and snap this picture which says it all. You can just imagine what they’re thinking as I snapped the picture. Also, the “Sense Of Urgency™” J-Dubs used to have has completely died in the mid-90s. Now it’s just a social club whereby your social standing is apparently dependent upon how long you can stand away from cleverly positioned literature carts while ignoring passers-by all day.