Ten Belgian traditions
Rituals you don't know from a country you don't know
I moved to Belgium fourteen months ago after asking myself the question ‘Where can I dream small?’ In addition, I found British local government frustratingly streamlined and effective and longed to live in a country where regional administrations were approaching double figures.
I’m not saying the transition has been entirely aisé comme dimanche matin; there’s been a raft of local traditions and customs to adapt to, with every single one of them needing to be carried out in three languages, consecutively, plus international English so everyone can have a go at speaking incorrectly. It would have been useful to have some kind of primer to these rituals myself, so today I’m offering you a taster of the world of de Belgitude.
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1) They only let you into the country if you eat three packets of frites
When the authorities saw I had a long-term visa, they took me into a side room of the Gare Midi Eurostar terminal and made me eat three packets of frites. I was not allowed water. The crucial thing here is the sauce; when they ask you what sauce you want, just say ‘sauce andalouse’. This one. Don’t tho ask the border guards what’s in it mind – they don’t know, tho they would expect you to.
2) The Atomium does not exist
You know that structure illustrating nuclear particles, that round ball image which adorns any popular image of Brussels to the extent that there are any popular images of Brussels? Well, it’s not real. Certainly not as an actual place you can actually visit as a person.
Seriously, ask any echte Brusselaar about it and they’ll say something like ‘Ha, you don’t believe that old wives’ tale do you?’ The images you see are all staged, and the real structure is a tiny model of duct tape and painted golf balls. There are still people who claim to have seen it, and that it is in fact ‘even more impressive given the small size’, but to be honest that sounds a little like Belgian cope.
3) Don’t mention the Congo
This one seems fairly self-explanatory.
4) Always set out a glass for René
As everyone knows, René Magritte is quite advanced in the category of both greatest and most famous Belgians. The Belgians are, for their part, fond of the good bourgeois Bruxellois whose wacky doodles these days fetch up to 121 million at auction, proving once again that the best career move for a Belgian is to die.
That’s why, at every Christmas meal as the Belgians settle down to open their tax rebates, it’s customary to ‘leave a glass for René’, namely set aside a wee glass of alcohol for the absent surrealist painter. Anything goes, but you can never miss with a good Pina Colada poured into a plimsol. And don’t forget, too, to sing the unofficial song for such occasions:
5) At the EU, speaking correct English is a faux-pas
You may have, as in my case, moved to Belgium as you have the inutile luxury of having English as your native language. Unfortunately, this tongue is not spoken in Brussels. Indeed, in the bric-a-brac world of NGOs, institutions and government bodies which make up the Brussels bubble, using and certainly insisting on good English is a real social faux paus. Do not ‘turn on your microphone’ – open your mic. Do not apply for a job – ‘postulate’. Make sure, if you can’t bear something, to ‘not support it’.
If you do want to offer a little taste of native English, throw some American buzzwords in there such as ‘privatize’ for hire and stick ‘New Deal’ after any noun going. Above all, never be so jejeune as to speak your native language, particularly when excellent interpreting services are available. As the modern saying goes, better to be an idiot in English than a prince in German.
NB: This advice does not apply to Italians, who can just keep speaking Italian.
6) Eddy Merckx couldn’t ride his bike
The great Belgian sportsman is Eddy Mercx, eleven Grand Tour winner, the supremely successful cyclist known somewhat alarmingly as ‘The Cannibal’. But there’s an embarrassing secret behind the Merckx myth, namely that he never took the stabilizers of his bike. On the occasions he would try, he’d soon fall over and even cut his knee once. Some say that competing on a tiny BMX with stabilizers and still finishing ahead of those on big boy bikes made Merckx’s achievements all the more remarkable, in what might be called a ‘reverse Armstrong’.
As for his nickname, even back then that was arguably cheating.
7) Your taxes are there to fund the taxation system
Belgium, overall, has a pretty good health system and the doctors can tell you what’s wrong with you in four languages; I go for Dutch personally, as there's nothing more sobering than hearing ‘Jij bent dood, wat nu?’ And you’d think it was only fair to employ high taxes to pay for such services. Yet that’s not where your money is going; the taxes in your packet are going to collect, administer and register your taxes. How would taxation occur if there wasn’t the means to process the taxation? Of course, with such high taxes you’re entitled to an annual rebate, tho bear in mind that the rebate administration fee is going to eat most of that up.
8) After you climax, say ‘Thank you TinTin’
As any schoolchild knows, most Belgians are only able to achieve some form of sexual climax by picturing the famous illustrated adventure comics of Hergé, so it’s customary to thank the titular lightning-quiffed scamp for having brought you to jouissance. It’s always nice when both parts of a sexual dyad, having satisfied King Phillipe, also remember to thank TinTin. (Prounced ‘Tan-Tan’). Of course, you probably don’t know what it means if you have to thank Snowy; just remember to obtain consent first.
9) Every time you visit Antwerp you will bump into the lead singer from dEUS
Every time you go to Antwerp, and I realize this is a somewhat specific observation, you will be sitting in a café with your cousin, she will make a gesturing motion with her head and say ‘That’s Tom Barman, the leader singer of dEUS!’ And sure enough the front man of Belgium's most famous art rockers or indeed any rockers will be sitting there. This happens literally every time you go there, to the extent that you start asking yourself certain questions. Is he stalking you? Are you stalking him? Is he a fan of your newsletter? And what’s Tom Barman of dEUS up to anyway these days?
10) Make peace with the beer god
Belgium is famous for its beer, but it’s important to realize that the Belgian beer experience is not like sinking a few watery pints at your local, or the forlorn Twitter threads of Americans getting ‘totally wasted’ on five small tins of Coors Light. No, Belgian beer is a transcendental experience, fungal, hallucinatory, febrile, one which leaves behind less a hangover and more vague sense of having glimpsed the programming codes of the universe. In other words, it’s not Carling.
So don’t fuck with it, don’t drink too much of it and above all make peace with the Belgian beer god. For otherwise one day you will wake up and will have offended him. And trust me you do not want to wake up one day and have offended him.