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Hi mate,
As a well travelled person I must say, I really didn’t get the humor nor the purpose of this piece concerning Belgium. We try as much as possible to be diplomatic and to learn eachothers languages ( I speak 8 btw ) and are a country with indeed, some weird habbits, as all countries have, this is the challenging part of different cultures having to live together.
As stated above, Belgium is an artificial country, while creating it, having seperated populations from their original homegrounds, in order to protect Europe from wars, which obviously didn’t succeed. Our country has been the scene of two worldwars, the first WW having been most prominent.
It is not mentioned in your masterpiece but there are 150 Commenwealth war cemeteries in our country, some of them populated with your fellow country-men of which you should be very proud.
Please come and vist the Meningate in Ieper and experience the sound of the Last Post. I bet ( not on a cows shit-drop) that you will be very quite and moved, if not, crying.
After that, I am sure you will re-think how to write about our little country.
Yes I am a Belgian and yes I am a Fleming, but mind you if one of us would ever write like that about down-under, of course, nobody would read it, who reads stuff written by Belgians?
In any case, I suggest Australians do not use this piece of info when they plan for their OE, since they will be missing out on a great place and regret it for ever when they later hear about it.
Next time when I am in Australia I wiil maybe have a couple of VB’s with my mates and have no worries about what people write about our country, since I am of the opinion that each country has its greatness, because of its people and its heritage,
Best regards,
Lieven Huysentruyt, or maybe Hercule Poirot (Inspector Clouseau is a Frenchman)
Ps.: hope you ever have the capacity to speak or write our 3 national languages as we (Belgians) have, to write in your mothertongue, which is Her Majesty’s English I believe
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad
Hello,
I’m sorry that my post offended you so much as that really wasn’t my goal. Australian humour can be very dry sometimes and is often hard for others to understand. However, I took the time to write about Belgium as its such an interesting place that I really love.
I wrote about the humourous things because I find them interesting but also because the other Belgian achievements are very well documented. Australians are very aware that Belgium was the scene of two world wears and that there are many of our ancestors buried in Belgium. The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne has a statue called “Wipers” which is how Australians mis-pronounced the town of Ypres tat they were defending at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Remembrance#Shrine_Reserve_and_environs
I encourage you to write an article like this about Australia, I – and we – would love to read it. Nobody likes to insult Australians as much as we do ourselves (except for maybe New Zealanders).
Anyway, next time you are in Australia, please don’t drink a VB as they are terrible. We do have much better craft beers (still not up to Belgium’ standards though).
P.S. You’re right, I don’t speak your national languages, It is very hard for us to learn other languages over here as there is very little opportunity to learn. I did study French all the way through school and university, but as I never have the chance to use it, it has been promptly forgotten.
– Dave