Halloween: the non-commercial Belgian All Saints version

While the Anglo-Saxon world is busy enjoying its totally commercialized fun version of Halloween (US sales: $4.96 billion in 2006 according to Wikipedia), Belgium (along with many non-English speaking EU countries) is solemnly commemorating those who passed away, one day later on All Saints day, a Christian holiday that is universally observed, in spite of the fact that this originally Catholic country has been predominantly secularized.

When I was a child, Halloween was totally non-existent, and basically it still is. Belgium hasn’t fallen yet for the pressures to commercialize this originally Celtic pagan feast, so this weekend (when all stores are closed) I will be remembering my loved ones who passed away, along the traditions that now span over ten centuries (All Saints’ Day became fixed on 1st November in 835, and All Souls’ Day on 2nd November, circa 998).

In Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Croatia, Austria, Romania, Hungary and parts of Germany, the tradition is to light candles and visit the graves of deceased relatives. In Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain people bring flowers to the graves of dead relatives.

And that’s exactly what I will be doing: bring flowers to the graves of our loved ones who passed away. Both my SO and myself lost a close relative in tragic road accidents: he lost his sister, I lost my brother’s wife. Visiting their graves is a yearly confrontation with our own mortality, a moment when so many memories and mixed emotions simply engulf me. Frances was only 25 yo when she died in tragic circumstances during that summer of 2000, soon after her marriage to my brother and just months after giving birth.  It’s been eight years, but editing this picture (I removed the family name) still brought tears to my eyes.

So no, I won’t be on some silly Halloween party, I will be mourning someone who brought so much joy to my life and is no longer here.

Antwerp visitors soaked during bizarre winter season opening

Summer is definitely over in gray Antwerp, Belgium: 10°C/50°F at most, with a North Pole wind that has turned the nights into a frosty experience that makes me want to cuddle up to someone I care about (yes, he forced me to add this line – isn’t true love touching? ). Stores have already started to sell Santa Clause merchandise, natives are trying to protect themselves from the sudden chill and many buzzing streets close to my home are virtually deserted during the week.

OK, it’s getting colder, like it always does, but the nice folks over at visit Antwerp got this great idea to make sure the ongoing influx of tourists would still be entertained. “Let’s have a stunning water show, like they do in Florida” some city Einstein must have come up with, “one of those shows with a huge computerized Disney-like laser, plus lightning, plus massive fountains, right in front of city hall, at 9 pm”. The fact that the howling evening wind would shower and soak the onlookers may have crossed someones mind in a rare moment of lucidity, but then again, who would notice this “irrelevant detail” when the show was aired on national Belgian TV? Stop whining folks

National Belgian TV obviously couldn’t care less, but a small local TV station actually showed up, and so did I, along with 500+ visitors and even some Antwerp natives who should have known better. Watching a stunning, yet all-French spoken (sponsored and paid for by France Tourism) 3D laser and water/animated fountain show, I actually had to protect my camera as soon as most tourists frantically ran for cover when the violent wind started to blow the massive amounts of icy jet-water all over the square in front of city hall.

Somehow, this bizarre event is representative for the way Antwerp likes to project its hyped image to the outside world: if it looks good, it must be good (no matter if it chills you to the bone and, worse, even if it’s a freebie to promote another country ànd city). Enjoy my pictures (please click to enlarge), but remember: I needed a warm bath and a change of clothes afterwards.

What would you suggest on how to convey the unpleasant truth about the Antwerp climate to the nice folks over at “visit Antwerp”? (We’re out of ideas, really).  Maybe urgently suggesting to consider having a beach party in the weeks running up to Christmas, as “nobody can see on TV how cold it really is”?

Palin’s America: hate, racism, ignorance and fear

I know I promised to shut up about the US elections, but video reports like these shock the world on a daily basis. Is this really America?

Antwerp also has its fair share of racists, but (if you’re American) can you begin to fathom the impact of these (selected) images?

YouTube Quote: “Idiocy and paranoia are epidemic after 8 years of Bush, and the racism quotient is about what it was in 1958.”

Antwerp prostitute offers “banking crisis discount”

Belgians have long been known for their entrepreneurial spirit, but I’m convinced Antwerp ’star’ prostitute “Hot Marijke” has beaten them all with her latest endeavor. As of this week, Marijke (23, an Antwerp native and legal prostitute) is offering all her customers who own stocks in the “hard hit” (pardon the pun) Belgian banks Fortis, Dexia and KBC a “banking crisis discount” when they buy her sexual services.

“It’s time to restore trust” claimed a glowing Marijke, who is currently campaigning to convince her fellow, eh, “sisters” worldwide to follow her widely appreciated example. [images: courtesy hotmarijke]

Prostitutes near the Valhalla of free enterprise (Wall Street) reacted with dismay: “hey, we can’t even work legally” one was overheard saying. Anyway, if you’re visiting Antwerp, Belgium, check out this somewhat unusual temple of free enterprise at hotmarijke.be I’m not linking, given this is a non-commercial blog

French speaking Belgians fake bloody ethnic violence

The ongoing French-Dutch social/linguistic/economic issues in Belgium (60% Dutch, 40% French speaking, with as capital Brussels, officially bilingual but effectively all French) have been turned into a stunning charade these past few weeks.

Belgian French daily “La Derniere Heure” (word-by-word: ‘The last/past hour’, or ‘The latests news’) yesterday published an amazing, tabloid-style but at first seemingly extreme, uttermost alarming story, claiming a bilingual 14 yo girl was “stabbed 38 times with a cutter knife by her Dutch speaking fellow students” (in black/white on the cover left), just for speaking French in her all-Dutch school. This would have been a first time event, as this kind of physical, bloody ethnic French-Dutch student violence is totally unheard of in Belgium.

Belgian daily “De Standaard” (“The Standard”) checked out the story, finding out the girl was known for self-mutilation by the principal and students in her local Dutch speaking school. The cutter knife turned out to be her own. The “attack injuries” were superficial scratches, visibly not caused by an “attack”.

Belgian French tabloid daily “La Derniere Heure” has recently published more laughable, but disturbing  stories with provoking headlines such as “No funeral in French” or the almost burlesque “Dutch-only GPS shocks French speaker near Brussels’. The media in France (busy demonizing the Dutch majority in Belgium) are blowing up these tabloid events into ‘real news’. Some of my friends are bilingual English/French, have become confused and started asking questions. How would you react?

Antwerp on Lonely Planet “world top ten cities worth a visit” list

Quote from today’s www.flandersnews.be:

“The international travel guide publisher Lonely Planet has added Antwerp to its prestigious [2009] list of the world’s ten most interesting cities. Each year Lonely Planet publishes a top ten of cities that are worth a visit during the coming twelve months.

Lonely Planet writes that Antwerp has a rich history and that the port of the city is the most underrated tourist destination in Belgium. “Few places offer such an appealing mix of classic and modern features.” “Eclectic art nouveau houses right next to neo-classic villas and medieval castles provide a fantastic backdrop to the many bars and pavement cafés.”

Antwerp is in good company with cities such as Beirut, Chicago, Glasgow, Lissabon, Mexico City and Sao Paolo also featuring in the top ten.” [Note: Glasgow was a choice that still baffles me]

Having spent considerable time abroad, I agree with Lonely Planet that Antwerp, Belgium is definitely “a city worth a visit”, but I don’t feel we belong in this (arbitrary) top 10 world list. Trust me, I’ve seen much more breathtaking places.  While the very impressive historic downtown along with the port area may well be worth your time, much of Antwerp isn’t. Like many of the cities in their top ten, +90% of this 500,000 inh town is not worth a glance. Add the abysmal weather (like London, with 200 rainy days a year) and one day will definitely be sufficient to cover the highlights of Antwerp city if you ever visit. Most visitors add Antwerp to their Belgian 24-48h “Bruges, Brussels, Antwerp” tour, a sometimes sensible choice if you’re pressed for time. But allow for a few more days if you’re not a “all of Europe in five days” kind of tourist.

I’m currently trying to collect my recent pictures [please click to enlarge for background details] to give you a more balanced impression.

Like you may have noticed, I may well be local, but I’m not working for “www.visitantwerp.be” 

Wasilla, Alaska flashes a nipple

Look what some citizens of Wasilla are looking for at my blog: indeed, nipples. Given the very poor
performance by “that angry old dude” vs Obama last night, they could sure use some entertainment.
Coming up real soon: the meaning of life revealed, in ten confused words or less, Palin style.
[Vanity note: triple that counter number. Sitemeter was introduced recently at this blog]
Free traffic advice: blog about empty, tabloid no-brainers like nipples. Even Wasilla will find you

Depression 2.0: how much did you lose?

“United in poverty” recently got a whole new meaning: more and more people close to me are spontaneously reporting sometimes minor, sometimes significant financial losses due to the ongoing world-wide economic/financial crisis.

While at first it all remained a disturbing series of events hitting the TV shows/papers/’talk at the local store’ kind of experience, I notice that at present their’s less reluctance to talk about the personal losses many of us sustained. Although economic crises remain unpredictable and cyclical, most are aware we also passed “peak oil”, that point in time where oil reserves inevitably will get scarcer, posing even greater risks to our common economic future. [Image credit: Time cover, Oct. 13, 2008]

Personally, I saw my pension fund crash to the floor, witnessed how relatives who held stocks in Belgian banking giant Fortis saw their value drop from 30 to 1 euro after their bank was sold, with another friend no longer being able to pay his mortgage. I have no intention repeating what has long been elaborately discussed elsewhere, but I just wonder: do you still shop until you drop, is your life still a bed of financial roses or did you lose more than you were able to afford recently?

Belgian Satan beer pulled from US retail shelves

“It’s hard doing business when faced with religious nutcases, especially considering we’re exporting to the US, a supposedly civilized country”, an upset but anonymous source from within Belgian Brewery De Block said yesterday upon receiving word that their flagship prime ale “Satan”, had been pulled from retail shelves in FL and several Southern US cities like Charleston and Houston by their wholesale distributors.

[Full US story: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A53016 ]

Quotes:

“It’s probably been blessed more times than every other beer we carry, combined,” says De Jong of Cask Distributors.”  Despite that holy connection, the name and devilish look of the logo has cost De Jong a client in two Mt. Pleasant Piggly Wiggly stores. Almost immediately after it hit the shelves last spring, a customer complaint prompted the store manager at the Seaside Farms and Hwy. 17 N. locations to remove the beer from the shelves.

“We’re not in the business of offending anybody. If I make one sale on that six-pack and then it offends 10 other people, it definitely was not worth my investment,” says Bill Trull, general manager at the stores. “We’re in the Deep South. We have to be careful of what we put in front of families,” Trull says.”

“In Houston, a church group gathered in front of the display at a grocery store and refused to leave until the manager removed it, threatening a church-wide boycott of the store. And Satan’s importer, Texas-based Noble Union Trading, is currently unable to sell the brand anywhere in the state of Florida, after the state’s alcohol authority sent an undercover, underage person to purchase beer, and he chose Satan. While the investigation is underway (three months thus far), the importer has been banned from the state.

“There is a Bible-thumping crusader behind every tree,” says Charlotte Rowell, the owner of Noble Union. We feel very strongly about enforcement of underage consumption laws and responsible drinking. But what I do have a hard time tolerating is the intolerance of religion. Were this to be taken to a legal battle, we would certainly win the right to keep our beers in the market.”"

An anonymous (but quite angry) Belgian source suggested replacing the labels with “Christian virginity beer”, with an endorsement by (the now found guilty of power abuse) religious-nightmarish fruitcake and Republican US vice-presidential candidate WMD Sarah Palin.

The world economy is crashing to the floor, panic reigns, so what does redneck America? Boycott a “Satan” beer from Belgium. Amazing.

What’s happening in the US South? (and increasingly, in many US states) With the US presidential candidates  falling over each other, pointing fingers while exclaiming “religious fanatics are an ominous threat” (with that finger pointed straight towards the Middle East) the US bible belt has been radicalizing fast, with Bible-thumping crusaders making the US South a much scarier place than many countries I visited on any vacation. Do you feel these US religious extremists are endangering your constitutional (US)/ or legal (non-US) rights?

[Update: feel free to post your opinion by just clicking this simple, anonymous poll:]

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