Top 10 Things to See and Do in Belgium

Well, this is my top 10. If you start learning a language, you inevitably want to go where it's used. Reading about places also makes me want to go there. In my last blog, I mentioned wanting to see the Mak family's Schiedam and Medan. Now, I would like to see Willem Elsschot's Antwerp. I would like to see a lot of things in Belgium.

• The Hergé Museum. Often, I am more interested in the trivia surrounding something than I am in the thing itself. I lost interest long before the end of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, but I went on a guided tour of Holmes' London, which started from where his address would be, had it ever existed. So it is with Hergé. I did not grow up with Tintin. Although I find the comics boring, I like the drawings. From what I have seen, the museum looks great.

• The Magritte Museum. This is not a museum. Definitely worth seeing.

• The Brabo Fountain. Going there would be the beginning of seeing Willem Elsschot's Antwerp. I would like to walk around the area I have seen in so many of Dick Matena's drawings. I would attempt to recreate the wanderings of Frans Laarmans. A beer and some cheese would definitely be included.

• A Baseball Game. There are lots of clubs. Sports are best when they're played for the love of the game.
  

• The Beach. I like to go to the beach whenever I'm at a place that has one. I have been to beaches in Scotland and Chicago. Even in bad weather, a walk on the beach is great.

• The Waterfront. I have always liked looking at boats in the water.

• Bicycling. I have been to Europe a few times, but I have never ridden a bike there.

• Waffles. One of my most vivid memories of Belgium is buying waffles from street vendors. We don't have anything like them in the US. Our Belgian waffles are just giant flavorless things that look the part.

• In Flanders Fields Museum How come the Doughboys became the Bonus Marchers? What can we learn from this largely forgotten generation? They were pushed aside early on. Why? What have we been avoiding all this time?
  

• The Royal Art Museum. Europe has so many great art museums. This is one of them.
  

How to promote Cheese, a graphic novel in English.

1. Send Dick Matena and his drawings to Comic-Con. This is where most of the likely audience can be reached. There are lots of similar events.

2. Promote to the academic world. This helps build prestige. Belgian literature is not well known here.

3. Promote to the art world. Art in museums always gets respect. Print signings at galleries would also be a good idea.

4. Do cross promotions with other Belgian products. Beer congescenti would be especially receptive. Belgian chocolate is also a good starting point. Also, there is travel, which always attracts attention. "Win a trip to Willem Elsschot's Antwerp!" The same trip could also be raffled off as Dick Matena's Antwerp, depending on whether the promotion emphasized the text or the drawings. So far, I have been able to pair the book's cover and a scene where Laarmans takes a nighttime walk in Chapter 14 with photos of the Brabo Statue.

5. Finally, cheese should be served at all promotional events. Dutch Edam cheese is a must, because it is mentioned so much in the book. Belgian cheese is also a must, even though the book concerns imported cheese from the Netherlands. With the book's title and origin, people will expect it.

More reasons to visit Belgium

A busy street in Antwerp is filled with giddy tourists. An announcer interviews one after another.

Anncr: Hey! What brings you to Belgium?

A: I'm here for the weather!

Anncr: We already talked about that. How come you're in Belgium?

B: We're here for the great works of art!

Anncr: Boooring. You! What do you like about Belgium?

C: Antwerp is de stad van Elsschot!

Anncr: You're a cheap plant! Hey, why are you two in Belgium?

D: We're here to lose weight!

Anncr: Really? Tell me more!

E: The food is fantastic. Great fries, killer waffles and the best chocolate in the world!

Anncr: Is this part of a diet?

D: Yes, we're on the Snikta Diet, which calls for carbs and chocolate. Belgium is the best place to stick to your diet!

Anncr: What if it doesn't work?

D: Then we'll have to come back!

Everyone in the area breaks into wild applause.

Anncr: Come to Belgium anyway!

Applause continues.

Belgian tourism through the years.

White title on black screen: THE BIG TRAVEL AGENCY- 1965.

The camera shows two well dressed people in period clothes on what looks like the set of Mad Men.

A: We overbooked the Paris flight. What can we do?

B: Just give them tickets to Belgium. Lots of people speak French there, and they'll never know the difference.

A: OK.

White title on black screen: THE BIG TRAVEL AGENCY- 1977.

This time, the set and the clothes are in exaggerated 70s styles.

A: We can't send the overbooked Paris people to Belgium any more. They found out about the Eiffel Tower. First they can't find it; then they get mad.

B: Hmm. Maybe we could tell people to make Belgium their first choice. They have great fries, the best beer in the world, and The Death of Marat hangs there. A lot of people think it's in Paris.

A: You're right. They have lots of European architecture too. It's in Europe, you know.

2 seconds of silence.

B: It'll never work.

Belgian tourism logo.

Anncr: COME TO BELGIUM ANYWAY.

Belgian weather. Always a good reason to visit.

A couple is sitting on the beach. We can only see the edges of their chairs, which frame a table between them. On the table, there two Coronas. Each one has a green onion sticking out of it. They are on a sunny empty beach, typical of Corona commercials.

A: I need better weather. This isn't scenery. This is a screen saver.

B: Honey, you should have told me you wanted better weather. We can vacation at a place where the seascape is more dynamic.

A: Good. The ocean should move, not just sit there. Are you sure things will be different?

B: Not just different, better! From now on, we're going to Belgium!

Cut to the same furniture on a wet Belgian beach during a driving rainstorm. There are two Belgian beers on the table.

A: Now that's dynamic! Look at the whitecaps and the energy!

B: And there's no heat problem!

Announcer: Come to Belgium for the weather.

Copyright notice: Same as for the other commercials.

Chapter 2

One big difference between Kaas and most American novels is that there is no, "Sensitive writer," nonsense. "I'm just the nice guy telling the story about these other people and their dysfunction."

Instead, we get a narrator who begins his story while drinking too much. From there, he goes home and unsuccessfully tries to go to bed without waking his wife.* Then, there's a knock on the door, and he's summoned to his mother's side. In a warm room full of people, the beer makes its presence felt. He narrowly avoids vomiting. He feels the appropriate emotions, but he's really concerned about how to make an exit. Finally, he leaves, following his brother out the door.

At the funeral, he meets Mr. Van Schoonbeke, whose name looks like a tagname that I can't quite render into English without a long explanation and speculation.

The family is obviously Catholic. There is a nun at the house when the mother dies. She is a kind of gentle angel of death. A priest is shown at the funeral.

The story started me wondering about religious diversity in Europe and how history is taught outside of the US. While learning about Europe, we hear about how it divided up into Catholic and Protestant countries. It is only later that we find out that such borders weren't so exact, and that after the religious wars, alliances were made along different lines that changed over time.

In the US, we learn about other countries in an American context. Consequently, we learn a lot about Britain before 1776. Britain reappears briefly in 1812 and again in World War 1, if the class gets that far. In the Southwest, as in Mexico, Spain disappears in 1810. The countries we learn about either had big empires or a big part in settling the country.

American classes on recent history cover modern Europe, but there is almost nothing about how it got that way.

Belgium mainly shows up on maps. Occasionally, it gets a brief mention as NATO headquarters or the capital of The European Union. The part of our population most aware of it is beer connoisseurs. Belgian beer is in vogue right now.





*I wondered about this course of action. If he succeeded, he could lie and say he got home earlier. He would run into trouble if she had gone to sleep 15 minutes before he arrived. She might think he arrived even later than he did. On the other hand, if he made no effort and let her wake up, she could look at the clock.