Guide for foreigners: do's and don'ts in Belgium

Are you going to live in Belgium for a while or visit our beautiful country? This article is a small guide for you. If you don't know how to behave (little is said in the media about it), it will help you by outlining the main elements that you should remember. Let's get started!

Be careful with languages  

  

- English open doors in Flanders and Brussels! Don't hesitate to use it when you spend a short time in these places, Brussels being the most international city in the country...
- French is a must in Wallonia! Very few people actually speak or understand foreign languages there, so if you try Dutch or English, even officers or sellers won't get the message right and will make you feel awkward. If you can speak French, don't worry about speaking right. Belgian French speakers are generally tolerant to foreign accents and mistakes, contrary to a lot of French people.

Confused dog is confused.

- Dutch gets you integrated in Flanders! If you're staying a little longer than a few months, do learn it! It's probably less difficult to pronounce than French as there are no silent letters. Also, ask your friends to teach you a bit of "dialect" (i.e. Flemish regionalisms) and do your best to NOT speak in a Hollandish accent, which might be considered as arrogant...
- French helps you even more in Brussels! If you want to live in Brussels for a long time, a sound knowledge of Dutch may prove useless, as only minorities that are also bilingual (French-Dutch) speak it there, so learn French instead.
- Attend language classes in Belgium! It will be one of the best ways to meet new people. You will mostly meet foreigners like you, but you might also see some Walloons attending Dutch classes as well (Dutch is not compulsory in Walloon schools!). Some students also organise free conversation classes in bars, one of the best ways to learn quickly, so keep informed!

Keep calm and confront bureaucracy

- Know the rules! Belgian bureaucracy is well-known for being intricate and demand a lot of paperwork, so read all the rules and possibly ask for help (don't worry, a solution can always be found even with the strictest rules), so that you don't annoy both the officer and the next people in the queue because you don't have a document or a photo that's been asked earlier...

- Obey the deadlines! Do what you are asked to do early enough, especially in Flander. E.g. the deadline to apply for the university in Flanders is months before the beginning of school year, while it is months after it in Wallonia. Also, be careful with days-off and strikes that may happen the day you have to submit an important document!

Bad luck Bryan in Belgium.

- Be patient! Administrative procedures may take a lot of time, but it doesn't mean your request isn't taken into consideration. Also, you might have to wait in a crowded place before getting to speak with a clerk.
- Be prepared to pay the price! In Belgium, people are used to pay a lot of taxes, contrary to some Eastern European countries, as well as to spend a lot of money on everyday groceries. Also, public transports in Brussels are very expensive, but think that it's also one of the best systems in the world.
- Be polite and don't take things personally! Post officers, clerks, policemen or secretaries, especially if the place is crowded, won't always be kind and patient, so smile, ask your question in a clear and short way, and don't mind if they are being rough with you. It probably means that they are having a tough day.

Stuff you shouldn't say

- Don't call all French speakers Walloons! On the one hand, Walloons mostly define themselves as Belgians, and then we relate on their province/city, not their region. On the other hand, French speakers who live in Brussels are not Walloons, since they don't live in Wallonia. Also, keep in mind that there is a minority of Flemish French speakers...
- Don't say that Belgium is a "non-country"!... Or that it should split. Or that Dutch and French are ugly languages. You will get in fight with many people here if you say things like that. Worst: don't use the words "French fries", but "Belgian fries"! Read this blog to make sure you know a bit of Belgium before giving that type of opinion. People here tend to underestimate themselves, so if you really hate their country, ask them to show you the bright side of it. There is nothing better than visiting the best parts of a place with the help of a local.
- Be open minded! Avoid all racism, homophobia or derogative comments on women. Belgium has a culture of open-mindedness and feminism.
- Be a gentleman! Women can dress up the way they want and consider men whistling to them or complimenting them in the street as complete douches. Do not be too pushy and don't make them uncomfortable...
- Know the basics! Get a picture of basic Belgian geography and remember the names of big cities and where they are situated... The North speaks Dutch and the South speaks French, roughly... So don't make the same mistake as this Austrian newspaper...

Walloon territory labelled as "Flanders" by Austrian newspaper.

Looking for new friends?

- Take advantage of social media! As I already mentioned, attending language classes are good ways to find new friends here, but Belgians enjoy more and more spending their time on a smartphone or a computer, maybe more than real human interactions... So start meeting people on the Internet. If you don't speak the local language, you can use websites such as Polyglot Club to meet new friends in your town.
- Are you Italian, German, Spanish, Arab, Turkish, Vietnamese, Congolese...? A part of the population comes from these foreign countries, but if you look at older generations, you will find many more waves of immigrations. The most important community is the Italian one. Get curious and you'll probably find cousins here!
- Complain! Complaining about the intricate bureaucracy works, but also complaining about delays of the local metro/bus/train company, or the horrible Belgian weather that goes up and down all the time! Belgians are always happy to share their opinion, especially if they can complain about stuff, so they will easily join the conversation.
- Don't randomly talk to strangers in public places! Instead of doing that, attend places where people specifically go to meet new friends: openings of exhibitions or stores, big picnics in town, or other things organised by associations are perfect for that. If you get to know people and want to see them again, never "turn up out of the blue uninvited" and always schedule things with the person a long time before.
- Stay distant and tactful with Belgians! Especially Flemish people... They are no Dutch(!) If you think something is wrong, wait until they notice it by themselves, and if they don't, try to be polite and formulate the criticism indirectly...

A Belgian's face if you're being too direct

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"Ne me quitte pas", a true Belgian story

While Belgium is still culturally divided in the common opinion, a moving and absurd documentary tells the story of a Flemish guy and a Walloon guy who are best friends forever... The film is seeking international recognition, as it was nominated at the Tribeca Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA).

Dutch film makers Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden collaborated on a bilingual film (in French and Dutch), Ne me quitte pas "Don't leave me", whose action takes place in Belgium. The genre is a mixture of humour and tragedy, but the story is non-fictive and genuinely moving. It is not told in a cliché, voyeurist way though.


The plot is the following: In a small village situated in a remote unpopulated place full of forests, farmers Bob, a retired Flemish who always smokes cigars lives a long-lasting friendship with Marcel, a younger Walloon guy, whose wife leaves him and tries to take their three kids with her. This is the story of failure, depression and alcoholism. The two friends want so much to help each other that they even discuss the best ways to commit suicide...

The title of the film echoes to Jacques Brel's (legend of Belgian chansons) sad song "Ne me quitte pas", which backgrounds a part of the story, while not a lot of music is used in this film to make it look less "artifically dramatic". Will this purely Belgian story touch international hearts?...

Did you see this film? Give your opinion in comment!

Belgian beers at the UNESCO: aye or nay?

Last Monday, Belgium introduced a request to have as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at the UNESCO its brewery culture. But a request may need at least one year to be successful and nothing is certain yet.

The country is famous in the whole world for its beers (even Obama mentioned them!), which have over 1,000 different types. Personally, I'm not a connoisseur but I never say no to a good beer... I guess it is just part of being Belgian(!) For those among us who can't drink alcohol, some of those beers exist in an alcohol-free version, so you have no excuse! :) If you don't know anything about Belgian beers, let's introduce you to some of them...

You probably already know the difference between lager-type beers (also called "blond beers") and dark beers (called "brown beers" in Belgium), which can be distinguished by their colour and their taste. In general, dark beers taste more rustic and strong than blond beers...

Stella Artois ad: a metaphor for Flemish and Walloons?

A famous blond beer is Stella Artois, because it has been exported by the world's largest brewer. Some of their ads feature a smartly dressed guy speaking in a French accent, and Artois is the name of a Walloon area, but the beer is actually brewed in Leuven (Flemish Brabant). So paradoxical! Another blond beer is Duvel, brewed not far from Antwerp, and whose name is dialect for "devil". Note that our national football team is called the Red Devils! Now, if you're looking for something lighter and refreshing, you can try a white beer (or wheat beer), such as Hoegaarden (from a city next to Leuven), which also exists with a red fruit ("rosée") flavour.

Next, as an example of dark beer, we have Leffe, from Dinant (Namur province), which is also famous for being a so-called abbey beer. There are a lot of them in Belgium and their brand send a part of their benefits to monks. Maredsous is also an abbey beer, but it is probably more famous for its nice abbey cheese... A specific type of abbey beers are trappist ones. This means that their brewery is supervised by trappist monks or that they make the beer themselves, and the trappists are one of the strictest monk communities. Three examples of brands you should remember are Orval (Luxembourg province), Chimay (Hainaut province) and Westmalle (Antwerp province).

All my copyrights on this pun!

For those who are interested in new tastes, you should try a lambic. It is a type of beer that has a special sweet and sour taste, and is produced in southern and western Brussels only. This type comprises the gueuze (or geuze) (literally "beggar"), with a more genuine taste, and the kriek, a cherry-flavoured lambic. A famous lambic brewer is Mort Subite. Its name comes from a card game played by people while drinking and the bar where it was played ("À la mort subite"). Some say that it's because when players had to run to the toilet after drinking too much, they were considered to have a sudden death ("mort subite" in French).

So, making Belgian beers famous is a good idea. Yet, there are so many beers in Belgium that it should be difficult to make it to the UNESCO. I would rather imagine a list of recognised brands or specific types of beers, because all Belgian beers are not typical to Belgium, I guess. And it can be excessively used for commercial purposes by all those brands to pretend they're better than others. Anyway, contrary to other examples of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Belgium (Binche carneval, fishing, etc.), this heritage would make the whole country proud of itself.

What is your opinion on the topic? Express it!

How Brussels welcomes superstars

These days, the capital of Belgium hosted two mighty and powerful men: US president Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Both were welcomed by a smiling royal family and shy Prime Minister Elio di Rupo.

From my point of view, Obama's visit into my small country looked very odd, because he usually appears in a huge lecture halls full of English speakers who identify themselves as whether Democrats or Republicans. Here, none of those... He simply spoke in BOZAR building, an artsy place for people who can't spell the word "Beaux-Arts" (Fine Arts). The place was full of... young multicoloured-faced people (Hey! you don't have to be coloured to listen to Obama). The big organ behind him made him look like a priest, but what a priest (I haven't heard any preach on gay-friendliness so far). Finally, the first words that came to his mouth were "chocolate and beer"... Oh dear, he forgot about fries and waffles! He probably doesn't like them, zeg oh zeg.

Then they all got to a Flanders Field Cemetery and Obama called our country "brave little Belgium". How well formulated, almost a tongue-twister! The Flemish media rather focused on the two other speakers. Prince... erm King Philip, who studied in English, but whose accent sounded quite "Flemish" to me(!) talked about "the horrors of the trench warfare", but Flemish media heard "the horrors of the French warfare". It doesn't matter, we love France. Then later on, PM Elio di Rupo gave it a try too... although he stuttered at some point, it was a nice try, but he's surely progressing quicklier in Flemish, which he speaks in his original Italian accent!

On Sunday, the next person who visited Belgium was Chinese president Xi Jinping. For the record, "xi" is NOT pronounced "ksi", but something like "she" (although he's surely a he!). For his first day of stay, he visited a zoo called "Pairi Daiza"... by the way, why did they change the easy, more accessible, Spanish-sounding "Paradisio" for an old Persian (Vedic? Avestic? Whatever!) name that only the best orientalist/protoindoeuropeanist would get? Why?...

Anyway, the goal was to inaugurate a pavilion specially dedicated to an OTPP, i.e. "One True Pair of Pandas", imported from Beijing and graciously provided by Xi Jinping's country... These two guys are also superstars in Belgium, as we've heard of them the whole month along. They're so famous that even Bart de Wever appeared on a TV-show dressed as a panda and made the audience laugh, although the mixture of politics and entertainment wasn't approved by everyone (also because the guy is pretty much anti-Walloon).

The next big event in Brussels this week will be the EU-AU (i.e. African Union) summit. So far so good... Except some people are not very happy with the way traffic is disrupted... For example, a whole metro line was stopped even the day before Obama arrived in Belgium...  Also, they're not that happy with all the money spent on all those big events, but that's another story...

 
Tell us what you think of Barack, Elio, Philip, Jinping or Bart de Panda! And share the post to your friends!

Funniest ping-pong match ever!

Being a small country, Belgium is not very famous for its sports player abroad, except maybe in tennis where Kim Clijsters (a Flemish sportswoman) and Justine Henin (a Walloon one) did great scores. However, we can find a nice example of how Belgians can express their quirkiness and humour in their everyday life, including a ping-pong match!

Here's a video of probably the funniest match ever. It was played by Belgian player Jean-Michel Saive and Chinese player C.Y. Chuang. The audience as well as the commentator can't refrain from laughing constantly at their jokes. It actually doesn't look like a competition, but a big comedy. Enjoy!



If you have any other funny sports anecdote or video, don't hesitate to post a comment!

First Flemish TV-show entirely in English

Today I came across a TV-show that really reflects Flemish pride and proficiency in English. The project I'm going to talk about is quite similar to this blog, but it only focuses on Flanders, rather than the whole country.

In September 2012, the Flemish public broadcaster VRT decided to create a TV-show intended for expats in Flanders. Being aware that not that many expats could speak Dutch, they created for the first time in history a TV-show entirely in English (with subtitles in both Dutch and English).

Fans of Flanders is a weekly programme with presenters who all speak an excellent English. The goal is to make people (expats or Belgian people themselves) learn more about Flanders and the most quirky things going on in there. The show focuses on Flanders but also includes Brussels, although the city has a majority of French speakers, because it is often the place expats choose to settle in and probably also because the VRT premises are located in Brussels. The French-speaking community is left out for once.

The programme mainly describes how quirky Flemish people can be, but also tells you about interesting places to visit and provides interviews of expats on what they think of Flanders (in the sequence 'Expat of the week'). All of this is made with a lot of (Flemish!) humour and may also depict the weirdest sides of the region (e.g. the irrationality of the garbage bag system). Also, typical Flemish expressions and words are presented by a journalist.

Actually, Fans of Flanders is primarily a website with 'funny' videos and all the content is first published on the internet before being broadcasted as a full-shaped TV-show. The VRT makes use of social networks, polls and blogs a lot. As a less recent project, the same broadcaster launched a Flemish online magazine all in English called Flandersnews.be.

Hopefully one day the French-speaking community will do the same... or the same will be done to introduce the whole country to the world...

Spread the word!

French-speakers dismiss their local cinema

A rough but moving humour, surrealism and royalty, those are some features that probably build Belgian culture and may be reflected in the national cinema. Yet, if you don't know about it, you will have a hard time trying to find common features between all films produced in this country. This intricacy is due to a cultural difference between Flemish and French-speakers, once again! In fact, each linguistic community's vision of itself is reflected on how they make and watch films.

Flemish people tend to watch less often Dutch channels, favouring their own Flemish ones, which promote local films and make them proud of their community. An example of the way Flemish film-makers tell the world about their own history is 1992 film Daens, which deals with the misery side of Flanders during industrialisation time and the hand given by local bishop Daens, who created the Christian Socialist party.

Also, Flemish film-makers try to make films that can be easily exported. As a consequence, their cinema seems to be closer to English-language cinema and American remakes of them often come as a reward for their success. An example is Ben X (2007), in which a bullied teenager tries to escape real life through online games. Other significant Flemish films include The Misfortunates (2009), which is about drugs, crimes and... riding a bike naked(!), and Bullhead (2011), which deals with a Limburg farm and a murder case...

In comparison, French-speakers in Belgium identify themselves to their country as a whole and less often to their linguistic community. French-language Belgian films lack means and money, and are less valorised. Being often documentaries or auteur films with a social side, they appear less "exotic" to Belgians (but maybe culturally enriching to foreigners). Some were made by the Dardenne brothers and received awards (e.g. The Child), but they may be depressing because they show the 'sad' side of Belgium.

Very clearly, over Belgian TV-channels people prefer French ones, which only promote French films. Yet, it is often the case that Belgian actors play in French films or that these films are co-produced by Belgium and shot in this country, for instance Nothing to Declare (2010), a comedy about a French and a Belgian custom man having a fight.

It is not true, however, that French-language Belgian films cannot leave their mark on the history of cinema. For example, an alien, Man Bites Dog (1992) is a disturbing comedy shot as a fake documentary depicting a serial killer who explains the art of killing people. Another one, The Eighth Day (1996) has as main character a man with Down's syndrome (some people may find similarities with Forest Gump...).

Now I suggest you go to the DVD store and order some nice Belgian film!