Dutch Hema will open in the US with Hema Amsterdam

[pieter]

nltimes.nl/2019/07/03/hema-open-hema-amsterdam-us-canada-partners-walmart

This is not an advertisement, but to show the Dutch Hema. Hema is part of the Dutch culture and very popular with Dutch girls and women from all milieus (social classes). And Dutch guys like me go there to buy presents for their girlfriends, wives, daughters, cousins, grandmothers, aunts and grandchildren.

I bought baby and toddler clothes for my cute little niece from South-Africa, my sisters toddler daughter Eloise there.


Dutch men who love meat, love the Hema Rookworst (smoked sausage), a type of Dutch sausage in which ground meat is mixed with spices and salt and stuffed into a casing (originally made of intestine, but these days usually made of bovine collagen). Rookworst is a traditional ingredient in stamppot. Described as a Bologna-type sausage, it is common in the Netherlands and is also exported to Great Britain. Typical Dutch rookworst is made with pork, but in recent years, turkey based rookworst is available in most Dutch supermarkets.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEMA_(store)

[pieter]

In my teenage years I bought all my highschool materials in the Hema. Exercise books, pencils, pens, triangle, set square, Geodreieck, my Texas instruments school calculator, my files and school agenda's.

[pieter]

[Jaga]

Pieter, we need more diversity here in the US and more stores with the unique atmosphere, so yes, I hope your favorite store would come here.

[pieter]

Jaga,

Authentic, ethnic and cultural products create more diversity if various communities at their flavor to for instance the USA. The Chinese with their delicious Chinese food in China town. The Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Thai people, Philippinians, Burmese, Indonesians with their Javanese, Sumatran, Aceh, Bali, Borneo and Moluccan cuisines. The French, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, Lithuanians, Latino's and African Americans with their cuisines and products. And there is not just one black culture, like I witnessed it in New York, next to the Afro-Americans you have the Jamaicans with their culture and cuisine, the Portoricans, the Haitians, and the Africans from Africa (Ghanese, Senegalese, Kenyans, Nigerians and South-African blacks).

It would be great if next to Hema Amsterdam also Polish, German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Austrian, Swiss, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Belgian, British and original Irish products would be available from the original home countries or heritage countries of the Polish-Americans, German-Americans, Danish-Americans, Swedish-Americans, Norwegian-Americans, Austrian-Americans, Swiss-Americans, French-Americans, Spanish-Americans, Portuguese-Americans, Russian-Americans, Ukrainian-Americans, Belgian-Americans, British-Americans and other European flavors, consumer products and foods, like we have American, Asian, African and Middle-easter products in the Netherlands and Europe (for instance I use Syrian soap, imported soap -good for people with allergies-). You must have Polish products which you miss in the USA, or does the Polish stores in the USA have all the Polish products?

The White American people for a large part are a mix of many European heritages, cultures and nationalities. That mix is unique and for a long time I considered America to be the New Europe and Americans as New Europeans. But that is not the case, because the ethnic mix and cultural mix goes further than that. European Americans mixed with Native Americans, with Asians (the people of mixed Vietnamese-American heritage and etc.) and with Latino's. Americans are Americans today and not 'New Euroepans', eventhough I consider them to be 'New Europeans', because their christianity, Democracy, Freedom ideas and ancestors came from Europe.

American culture for me to a large extend is a Pan-European culture in which the dominant Germanic culture of the Wasps merged with the Slavic, Celtic and Latin-Romanesque cultures of the Poles, Russians, Slovaks, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Ukrainians and Belarussians, the Irish people and the Italians, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Sephardic ladino speaking jews and Romanians. In My Polish American family I see mixes of Polish-American, Ukrainian-American and Italian-American blood. The Polish American blood and culture is dominant, but these Ukrainian and Italian elements are there too. My cousins have that mix. Other Americans have a mix of British-English-Dutch-Scandinavian-French-Russian-Irish and Native American. You have mixed caucasian and black American people, you have mixed European-Latino people. A wonderful mix and a wonderful people these Americans. And to make it very clear the influence of Afro-Americans and Asian Americans on the American culture made the the culture of the USA in the 20th and 21th century an International and cosmopolitan culture. I mention Michael Jackson, Diania Ross, the great Jazz musicians, Blues and Rythem 'n Blues musicians, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Prince, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Mike Lee, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.), President Obama, Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, and mayor of the District of Columbia Muriel Bowser.

I had to mention the latter, because I am very Eurocentric in thinking and have to tell the truth. I had doubts about posting this Hema topic, but I did it because the cultural value of the brand Hema often transcends the commercial value. In the fast changing times the Hema is a staying factor in times where stores, food chains, supermarkets and shops come and go (disappear). But Hema changed a lot too and it is not the Hema from my childhood and teenage years. I come less frequent in the Hema, and it is a fact that it is a store which is directed at women, more than at men. So it is quite logical that I am often at other stores that serve the male more. But I love to go to the Hema with girlfriends, my sister when she is in the Netherlands and my mother. And when I need a specific Hema product for my home.

Cheers,
Pieter