Bicycle races are coming your way

As a regular bicycler rider in Wallonia, I was often disappointed by the lack of involvement in this sport in my city, i.e. the very few people who actually use their bike to go to school/college/university/work and who prefer being stuck in a trafic jam at rush hours or pay their abonnement to the local bus company, taking the risk of getting late or being surrounded by loud smelly weirdos... Also, the lack of bike lanes and the poor awareness of bikers by car drivers and pedestrians makes the business very dangerous and unpopular in Wallonia, even though some city companies and associations are trying to introduce this eco-friendly transportation.

This is not the case in Flanders and the Netherlands (maybe speaking Dutch turns you automatically into a bike-lover...), where each city center is swamped with bicycles. There are thus more bike lanes and awareness of bus and car drivers, who drive more carefully and often leave way for bikes (too much sometimes). De Lijn (Flemish bus company) often lowers its abonnement price, maybe because buses are not as popular as in Wallonia or as a general attempt to make the city less polluted. And let's be serious, "fiets" (bike) clearly keeps them fit! Know what I'm sayin'?

Bikes on a normal school day in Flanders

However there are some bad points to be noted with this massive use of bikes. As students often use them even when they could walk without problem from a place to another (especially when the city is small), not all of them are very careful while riding, which make them become more dangerous than cars. Indeed, they often ride in pedestrian places, not giving a crap about people walking. That's why you need to be careful when you walk to avoid being hit by a bike, but also when you ride, because policemen (often on bikes themselves) distribute fines to careless cyclists, so don't forget your lights at night and respect the highway code. Also, it is often difficult to find a park place for your bike, so you'll often have to let it stand in the middle of the pavement with a padlock, which is not so safe when you know that it has become a tradition in Flanders to steal wheels, lights or saddle, especially when you've been stolen yours.

Kiss me I'm Walloon

A lot of foreigners will be surprised when getting to know Belgians a little better. The separation between Flemish and Walloons is not only linguistic, but also kissistic.

Maybe it is because French is naturally the language of love, as described in Amy Walker's video (a Youtube comedian), "so you can remember... French kiss!" Indeed, French give that special kiss on the cheek, which isn't actually a kiss because your lips are not supposed to touch the other person's cheek, otherwise it would be all wet, which is disgusting. Therefore it doesn't have the name "kiss" (bisou or baiser) in French but a separate one (simply bise), because it's quite awkward. This bise is repeated four times in Paris, three times in Italy and only once in Belgium, and while it's considered as a female behavior in France, it's quite natural for men to bise other men here. But hey, wait. I was talking about the part that speaks French! En effet!

 This is the actual way to do it.

The Flemish hardly ever give a kiss on the cheek, except with very close relatives, like Aunt Margriet, who likes receiving a kiss from her nephew who "is growing up so fast!" So while Belgian French speakers bise once to say "salut, ça va ?" (hi, doing good?) and once to say goodbye, the Flemish just wave their hand or give a handshake to say hello and say "daag" (g'day) waving again their hand when they leave, because it saves time! (Maybe that's why they're so productive...).

The confrontation between two unaware specimens can be quite funny (even if they both speak English... or French, which is quite often the case), because one will say hello, the other one will lean forward to bise and nothing will happen. Then the French speaker will insist and the Flemish will say "ehm... I said hello" (thinking the other one is just pricking their ears up) or "have you lost something?" (thinking they're looking at the ground). For this reason, French speakers will depict their neighbours as cold while Flemish will probably think that French speakers are awkward kissomaniacs. Qui sait?

Flanders' "je ne sais quoi"

Although a lot is said in the media about Flemish people hating on the French-speaking community and feeling the need for autonomy, a lot of Flemish people will tell you that they still want to be part of Belgium and that they have French-speaking friends. A lot of them also speak a very good French and works in Brussels. Also, Flemish dialects are full of French influences, even in every day conversations. The opposite is also true, because French-speakers tend to use Flemish words as well.

Some common Belgian lexicon (be-fr, be-nl, be-fr/nl):

• Voilà : Here it is, there you go...
• Salut - Salu(utjes): Goodbye (or hi)
• Allez: 1) Okay, like, kind of... 2) Come on!
• Ça va?: Are you okay? How are you?
• Kot: Student accommodation
• Busé - Gebuisd: Getting low results at school
• À volonté: As much as you want (in a restaurant)
• Merci(kes): Thank you
• Bon: Well...
• Bourgmestre - Burgemeester: Mayor
• Friture - Frituur: Shop where Belgian (!) fries are sold

However, the last century saw a lot of big changes in the countries that altered the perceptions of the different communities. First of all, Belgium used to be officially monolingual in French. The reason was that most of the rich families in Wallonia and Flanders spoke French, although the rest of them spoke dialects of Flemish and Walloon (a cousin-language of French). Also, Wallonia was the wealthiest part of Belgium at first, due to a massive industrialization and mining (that's why you will find a lot of Italian miners' offspring in Wallonia, including Prime Minister Elio di Rupo!). Afterwards, this industry faded away and unemployment rose up in Wallonia, while Flanders was becoming more and more wealthy. 

Nowadays, Dutch is officially used and mastered by (almost) all Flemish people and their area is much richer than Wallonia. Therefore, a lot of them want more autonomy to have their own tax system, so that they won't pay for the poor... I also have to mention that Brussels was populated by a lot of rich families from Flanders and Wallonia who spoke French only and a lot of Walloons found a job there and were there to stay. This is why Brussels is stuck in the middle of Flanders but most people only speak French.

This odd history has left a lot of stereotypes in the country. In caricatures, the Walloons are seen by Flemish people are stupid, lazy workers, who like to go on strike and who are socialist, just to make Flemish people pay for them. The other stereotype is that Walloons can't speak a foreign language properly (which is often true, unfortunately, except when you get educated in Linguistics haha). The Flemish may see Brussels as a place full of Walloons and foreign immigrants, and not as enjoyable as, say, Ghent or Bruges...

Accents of Flemish stereotypes

Actually each city has its own dialect in Flanders and it's pretty easy for a Flemish to tell which part of Flanders someone else comes from. Also, each city has its own stereotype... Here's a small list of them...

The biggest city in Flanders is Antwerp. That's where you'll find all the concerts, shops and spectaculars. It is also the place where Bart de Wever, the most famous anti-Walloon politician is mayor. As a consequence, the Antwerpenaars are generally perceived by the rest of Flanders as arrogant and too proud of themselves and their city. 

Vision of the country as an Antwerpenaar

Another part of Belgium which is full of foreign tourists is West Flanders, known for its windy beaches (Oostende, De Panne, etc.) on the North Sea. It is also the closest place to France (actually there's a small part of France called Flanders and which used to speak West-Flemish). In general, this place is considered to get so many rich people from France or England that its people become rich themselves (note that the "wealthy French tourists" and people will make an effort to speak French to them, by contrast with the "poor Walloons"). West Flanders is also known for its accent, in which all Gs sound exactly like Hs. As a consequence, a lot of Flemish people find it hard to understand them. An example is Alex Agnew, from Antwerp, who likes to make fun of them in his sketches.

Agnew comparing the West-Flemish to potatoes (in Dutch)

The third stereotype is about people from Belgian Limburg (not to be confused with Maastricht in the Netherlands). They are often seen as the poor part of Flanders, with people who don't actually master Dutch but still speak their dialect (Limburgs), which sounds pretty much like German... Also, slowliness is typical of this dialect, in which one word has a different meaning if it's pronounced slowlier!

I would be really grateful to any Flemish who could provide me with more stereotypes on the different cities in Flanders, but those were the ones I heard the most, as most of my Flemish friends are from those places.

Why the Flemish are not going Dutch

As far as I know, it is easy to distort stereotypes by simply showing that the more you dig into the selected population, the more you find sub-stereotypes, and finally an incredible diversity of people. The French often see Belgians as one and the same entity, as a blend of Belgian stereotypes. You will often hear them refer to us as the "fat Belgians", make nonsense jokes about us showing that we are stupid, our accent is funny/ugly and we basically spend our life eating "French" fries... Also some people in the world think of us as deceitful and arrogant, like Hercules Poirot... The following video is a compilation of anti-Belgian jokes, which someone made on Youtube:

This is why I decided to write articles on my blog about... more stereotypes. This time, instead of looking at what the world thinks of Belgium, we'll see what all parts of Belgium think of each other and the rest of the world. Even in a small and peaceful country, you can get so many distensions... In these articles, I will focus on Flanders, how it distinguishes from the Netherlands and the rest of the country, and I will also explain how each place in Flanders has its own stereotypes.

Just because they speak Dutch (or a dialect related to it) doesn't mean they're Dutch. All of them will tell you that! Also, even when they speak Dutch, the difference between those two people is clear... Just listen to them talking and you'll notice that in Netherlandic Dutch, the G/CH are pronounced rough and coarse, as if it was Arabic. Rather, Flemish Dutch has a softer sound for those letters, which may approximate a plain English H. This is one of the differences (there are a lot more actually) between the languages of these two communities. I will also mention the fact that orally Flemish Dutch contains much more French expressions, which you will hear over and over. 

But the distinction is not just linguistic, it is also cultural (at first, Belgium separated from the Netherlands because it was the Catholic part of it, while the Netherlands were Protestant). The two will get along easily like cousins, but they will never be twins. In general, Flemish culture is about acting with restraint. When something goes wrong, you can't say it in a straightforward manner, because it might sound rude. On the contrary, Dutch people say directly what the trouble is and they feel the need to be sincere, even when the truth can hurt the other person. That's why in general, the Flemish are considered by the Dutch as cold-hearted and shy, while the Dutch are considered as rude and too direct. 

Another recurrent stereotype sees the Dutch are as stingy (they spare money), in other words, they are like the Scots for the English! This is probably because the Dutch state didn't give much space for housing in order to protect the naturalness of the country (which Flanders didn't do). This encouraged a culture of caravan-driver, the easiest and cheapest way to get more space and freedom by travelling with a low budget (we do find a lot of Dutch caravans in the world at all seasons). Finally, although Belgium and the Netherlands are two modern monarchies, in which gay marriage and adoption are legal, the Dutch are slightly more liberal and have legalized weed. Then, every time someone goes to the Netherlands, someone in Belgium says "oh you're gonna smoke pot?"

Just a regular Dutch caravan...

"Phlegmalloony" what?...

You might wonder why this mess of a blog exists and who created it... Let me share a bit of my story!

As a postgraduate student in Wallonia, it felt that my life was incomplete. This place looks so much like a cocoon, an old rusty one, with the same old friends, the same funny accent you get easily used to. Wallonia is like that. Sincere friendly people, usually a bit old-fashioned and predictable... Old gray streets, which, during the rush hour, become full of youngsters dressed like in the last hiphop music video or simply beggars who desperately ask you for the first time while all you have is a bank card...

I sighed while walking through the RAVeL on the riverside, realising that not that many people actually use their bike but prefer TEC, the local bus company, which goes on strike at least five times a year for an indetermined duration of about one or two weeks. Strikes expresse two tendencies of Walloon labour: depression at work for being underpaid and for miserable work conditions and an obsessive need for party, leasure and cheap beer drinking, which usually go with an age-long love for a local football team, which doesn't actually win that much outside of the country. RIP Michel Daerden (passed out in August 2012), representative of the socialist party and cliché of a Walloon, speaking funny and slowly.

Five years of student life in Wallonia, my homeland, being told all the time about the importance of a Belgian unity, a compromise à la Belgian, without even having the least interest in what was going on across the border, imagining the Flemish as gibberish-speaking Walloon-haters. I remember our former Prime Minister Yves Leterme, who while talking about French speakers living in bilingual districts (2006), said "apparently French speakers are not in an intellectual state to learn Dutch", even though he has Walloon origins and a Walloon name... I decided to discover a region I didn't actually know that much. This blog is dedicated to my life as a student there and my discovery of our introverted marketable and polyglot cousin neighbour.

Yves Leterme, who also thought La Marseillaise was his national anthem...

Oh, the title of the blog? Just a pun I made with the words "Flemish" and "Walloon", because Flemish have the phlegm (the type of humour, not the liquid!) and Walloons are loony. Grappig eh?