How not to make friends and influence people

It's taken me almost four years, but I've finally “cottoned on” to something about Flemish behavior that is subtly different from that of Americans. Of course everyone knows that American society prizes individuality to an almost pathological degree. At its best, this cultural bias celebrates individual talent and independence; at its worst, it tends towards selfishness and egocentrism.

On the other hand, it might seem obvious that, here in Flanders, individuality is rather less celebrated. But it took me a long time to understand how this cultural difference plays out in ordinary social interactions. What this means is that, when dealing with others, the group dynamic and group identity are much more important than individual wishes or needs.

I'm accustomed to putting my own wishes and needs first, and I'm not shy about voicing my opinions when in a group. I don't expect everyone to agree with me or to go along with me, but I'm also used to everyone else doing the same. My husband finds this behavior off-putting, and will rarely put forth an opinion unless and until he senses that it will be well received by the others.

Members of a group, when making plans or decisions, will carefully consider what will be best for the majority rather than taking stock of everyone's individual desires and hashing it out from there—which is the method I'm used to. In practice, this means that a group will tend to go with what's tried and true, or what's the easiest plan for all involved. And then it's expected that everyone will go along with the plan.

I'm learning that it's not always wise or welcome to blurt out what I want or what I think when in a group. It's not easy to hold my tongue, but I now realize that doing what comes naturally can come across as bossy, selfish or arrogant. Flemish people might seem easy-going and accommodating, but that doesn't mean they like it when someone tries to dominate the group. They expect everyone to help reach a mutual consensus.

Once we rented a vacation house for the weekend with a group of my husband's friends. It seemed like a fun idea—and it was fun. However, I found the experience to be exhausting. As a natural introvert, I was uncomfortable spending all my time in the company of the entire group. There was no opportunity to “go off and do your own thing.” Nor was there an opportunity to do something other than what the group as a whole decided to do.

There are times when I would much rather sit by myself and read a book instead of having to interact with a large group. Here in Flanders, either you join the group or you risk being seen as antisocial. My husband says it's acceptable to sit quietly, whereas I feel pressure (as an American) to make conversation. Where I come from, you have to be “on” in social situations. But you're also allowed to go off and be by yourself if you prefer.

Once, when I went back to California for a friend's wedding, a group of my closest friends rented a beach cottage for a bachelorette weekend. At one point my then-boyfriend called and asked what we were doing. I told him that we'd all brought projects to work on and were happily “doing our own thing” (while enjoying each other's company). He found that exceedingly odd. In his words, “Why go away for the weekend if you're not going to do things together?”

And yet, we Americans saw nothing contradictory in our desire to get together and engage in separate activities. We also did things together as a group that weekend. But it never occurred to us that spending the weekend together meant that we would do everything together. If some of the group wanted to go for a walk, it was acceptable for others in the group to opt out.

I doubt I will ever fully relinquish my tendency to speak my mind and do what I want. But the longer I live here, the more I appreciate the Flemish practice of building consensus and fostering group cohesion. It seems to strengthen group identity among family, friends and colleagues in a way that is different from what I experienced in America. Still, I wonder if people here ever wish they could assert their individuality a little more...

(A version of this post appeared on the website of Fans of Flanders, an English-language TV program about expat life in Dutch-speaking Belgium.)

BBQ time!

Today is a rare summer day that actually feels like summer, with clear skies and temperatures heading upwards of 30°C. (For the record, I consider June to be one of the summer months, along with July and August, whereas here in Belgium summer doesn't officially begin until June 21.) After the miserably cold and rainy spring, I'm starved for sun and warmth, so I'm suddenly feeling a bit giddy—as well as a bit stressed.

The stress comes from the knowledge that this summery weather will soon be replaced, once again, by clouds and rain. MUST TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE NICE WEATHER WHILE IT LASTS!!! Quick, let's drive to the coast and jump in the ocean! Or round up some friends and try to find a café that still has a free table outside! Or, better yet, let's fire up the grill and throw a barbecue!

Belgians LOVE to barbecue. It combines some of their favorite things: getting together with friends and family, eating lots of meat, drinking, and spending time outdoors. As soon as the weather permits, everyone's weekends are occupied with either hosting or attending various barbecues, which can range from casual, simple affairs or full-blown, catered extravaganzas.

We recently attended a family barbecue that fell into the latter category. A traiteur (butcher) was hired to supply the food for about 25 adults and a bunch of kids. He showed up with his grill and was soon stoking the coals while his wife laid out the salads and side dishes. There was potato salad and cole slaw, sliced tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, pasta salad, cucumber salad and rice, along with big bowls of mayonnaise-based sauces. (And, of course, bread.)

Here in Belgium, mayonnaise--plain or in its many flavored varieties--is the main condiment for both meat and vegetables. Salad dressing as we know it (Italian, ranch, blue cheese, etc.) is a rarity. And BBQ sauce? That staple of every American barbecue, in all its glorious forms, whether spicy, sweet, smoky, or hotter-n-hell—is completely unknown. Imagine that! All those Belgian barbecues with no BBQ sauce... Kinda makes you sad, doesn't it?

My husband's favorite BBQ condiment is something called "cocktail sauce," which is a mixture of mayonnaise and ketchup. Where I come from, that's called "Thousand Island dressing" and it's used on salads. To me, "cocktail sauce" is a spicy dipping sauce for seafood made from ketchup and horseradish. But I digress...

At our family BBQ, the grill man was soon churning out platter after platter of meat. No hot dogs or beef burgers—Oh no. But we had (pork-based) hamburger patties and big juicy bratwursts. We had marinated pork chops and thick slabs of bacon. We had pork skewers and chicken skewers. We had skinny sausages called chipolatas and spicy merguez. The meat just kept coming, and we just kept eating. A Belgian BBQ is first and foremost about the meat. Mostly chicken, pork and sausage, but sometimes beef as well.

The good news is, you don't have to hire a caterer or spend time prepping lots of food if you want to have a barbecue. The supermarkets are well-stocked with ready-to-cook barbecue meat, ranging from pre-marinated ribs to ready-made skewers of meat and veggies. All you have to do is pick up a variety of grill-ready meats, some pre-made potato or pasta salad, some charcoal, and you're all set.

In fact, you can probably forget about the salad, as long as you have meat and bread. According to my husband, the other essentials for a classic Belgian BBQ besides meat and bread are sliced tomatoes and canned peaches. Just don't forget the drinks. And the mayonnaise!

(A version of this post appears on the website of Fans of Flanders, an English-language show aimed at expats in Belgium. I'm honored to be one of their regular guest bloggers!)

Getting married in Belgium, Part II

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about my wedding, which took place last summer. I always meant to write another post about getting married here but somehow never got around to it--until now. Since our one-year anniversary is just around the corner, I figured I shouldn't wait any longer to write it!

One of the strangest things for me (as an American) to wrap my head around was the Belgian custom of inviting different people to different wedding events.

Where I come from, a wedding is considered a single event comprised of different activities, to which all guests are invited and expected to attend. The usual sequence goes something like this: wedding service (civil or religious) followed by wedding reception, either at the same venue or a different location. The reception usually involves drinks (champagne), then a formal dinner, and finally dancing.

The creation of the guest list is a complicated and tortuous affair, made even more difficult by budget concerns when providing dinner and drinks for everyone on the list. The final guest list has to include a carefully calibrated mixture of close friends, casual friends, immediate family, distant relatives, co-workers and professional acquaintances of both the bride and the groom, and perhaps the parents as well.

Here in Belgium, it is customary to have a different guest list for each wedding activity. For instance, pretty much everyone is invited to attend the civil ceremony; there's no cost to the couple and because it takes place in a public venue (at city hall) anyone can show up and watch. On the other hand, if there's going to be another ceremony (in a church) only close friends and family might be invited and expected to attend. In general, people outside the couple's immediate circle are happy to skip the church ceremony.

Then there might be two or three different celebratory events after the ceremony (or ceremonies). First, a champagne reception for the people invited to the church ceremony. Then a formal dinner for just the immediate family and closest friends. And finally an evening party with music and dancing for the wider circle of friends, acquaintances and other relatives. (At the evening party, there will often be a casual buffet served late in the evening with sandwiches or snacks.)

Breaking the wedding up into different events (sometimes taking place over two or more days) has two advantages: First of all, you can tailor the guest list to the event, limiting the more intimate events to your inner circle of family and friends and including everyone else in a big dance party. Secondly, it saves money since you're not expected or obliged to provide a formal, sit-down dinner to all of your guests--which is often the biggest wedding expense. It's a very practical system.

However, I just couldn't do it. To me it felt rude to exclude some of my guests from certain events. I couldn't bring myself to invite people to my wedding service and then tell them to get lost for a few hours while I went to a nice dinner with my family and closest friends, even though my husband assured me that no Belgian would take offense.

In the end, because our second ceremony took place in the same location (an old, renovated farmhouse) where we had the reception and party, it didn't make sense to break up the guest list anyway. Everyone who came to the ceremony stayed for the champagne reception, sit-down dinner and dancing. And because I had family and friends coming from the United States and England, having our guests spend the whole day together gave everyone the chance to get to know each other.

Some of our Belgian friends couldn't make it to the ceremony since it was on a Friday afternoon and they had to work, so they just showed up during dinner. I found that strange. In America, either you come to the wedding or you don't. You don't accept part of the invitation and you definitely don't skip the wedding ceremony itself. I'm pretty sure Emily Post would not approve, but then she's not Belgian.

I was used to thinking of the wedding ceremony as the most important part of the wedding and my job as guest was to witness and support the couple during this momentous and romantic event. Here, the ceremony is considered a boring formality, and the guest's role is to help celebrate afterwards. Perhaps this is because civil and Catholic weddings tend to be rather formulaic and impersonal, whereas we Americans put a lot of emphasis on customizing the wedding ceremony to reflect the couple's personality and beliefs.

In the end, our wedding day was a reflection of our marriage and ourselves: a combination of American and Belgian influences and traditions. The civil ceremony was in Dutch and the religious ceremony was in English. We sang songs and had readings in both languages. We served Flemish food for dinner and had an American-style tiered wedding cake. The DJ played both Belgian and American music, and the dance floor was full all night long.

It was everything I wanted our wedding to be, and it was perfect.

Get that baby a borrel!

I recently attended my first baby borrel, a party given by the parents a few months after the birth of a Flemish child. (A borrel is a drink so it's basically a party to toast the arrival of said baby.) Apparently they can range from rather modest affairs to all-out extravaganzas, much like a wedding. This one fell into the latter category.

It was held not at the family's house but at a rented hall, for reasons that became apparent once I saw how many people had been invited. There were easily a hundred family members and friends, with their children, present. Like a wedding, there was a bar serving beer, wine and soft drinks. The room was filled with long tables decorated in theme colors, and there was a table for presents.

The baby in his carriage, along with his parents, was stationed by the entrance to welcome his guests. He seemed unperturbed by all the attention. An uncle hovered nearby, ready with his camera to take pictures of everyone. After admiring the baby and congratulating the parents, guests seated themselves at the tables with other friends, co-workers and family members.

An even longer table held a stupendous array of cakes and sweets, with a couple of token trays stacked with fancy sandwiches. Hardly anyone touched the sandwiches. Like everyone else, I went straight for the cake. Fancy decorated cakes made with sponge cake and layers of buttercream and whipped cream. There were bundt cakes, different types of vlaai (a kind of pie), two kinds of chocolate mousse, tiramisu served in individual glasses, and cookies.

For the kids, there was a separate table where they could decorate mini-cupcakes and cake pops. There was a clown making balloon animals and someone else doing face painting.

The father circulated throughout the room with a tray of little plastic shot glasses containing limoncello and a very strong local liqueur made from sour cherries--in case the wine and beer weren't enough. In the middle of the afternoon, I might add.

The baby borrel is a relatively new tradition in Flanders. The old custom was for friends and family to come to the hospital to see the baby right after the birth, or to drop by the house in the weeks following. Eventually, the constant stream of visitors got to be too much and someone had the idea to throw one big party where the new baby could be introduced to the family's wider social circle.

Where I come from, we have something called a baby shower (presumably because the mother-to-be is "showered" with gifts). It's usually held 6-8 weeks before the birth and is a more intimate affair, with only a few female relatives and close female friends in attendance. Rather than welcoming a new child, the focus is on preparing and supporting the new mother.

The Flemish, being a deeply pragmatic and cautious people, find it strange that you would have a party for a baby before the birth. After all, things can and do go wrong in the weeks leading up to the delivery, during childbirth, and even afterwards--although no one likes to think about that possibility.

I guess Americans are just naturally optimistic. We would rather act as though everything will be fine--and in most cases, it is. The Flemish, on the other hand, would rather wait a few months and then celebrate once it's clear that everyone really is fine. And once the mother has had a chance to recover a bit and appear in public looking her best!

What's not to like? Smoking, that's what

A friend asked me the other day if there was anything I didn't like about Belgium. It's true: for the most part I have nothing but good things to say about Belgium. I love it here and I love telling people all the things I love about it. But I had no problem admitting to my Belgian friend that yes, indeed, there are a few things I don't like about Belgium.

Tops on my list has to be smoking.

Of course we have smokers in America--I believe the U.S. is the biggest manufacturer of cigarettes in the world, and we pretty much invented the whole idea that smoking is cool. (Thanks, Madison Avenue!) But in the past few decades, the government has done a good job of convincing Americans that smoking is dangerous to your health and the health of those around you, not to mention a vile and noxious habit.

Also, I lived in California, that epicenter of health-consciousness, for over ten years before coming to Belgium. Not only has smoking been banned in restaurants and bars in California since 1995, but most municipalities in Southern California also ban smoking in parks, on beaches, near the entrances to public buildings, and in outdoor dining areas. Basically, it's almost impossible to smoke a cigarette in public in Los Angeles.

None of my friends in L.A. smoked. So I was able to live a virtually smoke-free existence before coming to Belgium.

One of the things I admire about Belgium is that people here have a very tolerant attitude towards others. Belgians, for the most part, believe in "live-and-let-live." That means that Belgium was one of the first countries to allow gay marriage. Possession of a small amount of marijuana (for personal use) is legal here. Unfortunately, smoking is still seen largely as a individual right, so anti-smoking legislation has lagged behind the U.S.

Smoking in bars and nightclubs was only banned as of July 1, 2011. Smoking in workplaces (including restaurants) has been illegal since 2006. In general, smoking rates for Belgium are slightly higher than for the U.S. (closer to 1 in 4 adults in Belgium, as opposed to 1 in 5 Americans, smoke). But smoking rates in the U.S. have been declining over the past decade, whereas for Belgium they've stayed the same.

It probably seems like more people smoke here because they're much more visible, especially compared to California. (It makes more sense to compare countries in Europe to states in America, especially when talking about things that are legislated at a state level.) Even if you could find a public place in California to smoke, the shame would probably prevent you from lighting up.

I just can't get used to the fact that it's still okay to smoke on the outdoor patios of restaurants and bars here. Sometimes it's a narrow distinction between "inside" and "outside" when the patio area is enclosed on all sides. There's nothing (in my mind) worse than sitting down to enjoy a drink or a meal on a beautiful summer day, only to have someone at the next table light up and start blowing smoke in my direction.

I really hate cigarette smoke.

So that's one thing that isn't so great about Belgium. I say that as a non-smoker; if you're a nicotine addict--sorry, I mean, smoker--then by all means, come to Belgium! But do it soon. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before Belgium (and the rest of Europe) starts to ban smoking in other public areas, just like California.

Meanwhile, I console myself over the end of summer with the thought that in winter, when all drinking and dining takes place indoors, I'll be spared having to smell and taste cigarettes with my food.

A carnival in every town

Yesterday was the last day of kermis in the city where I live (Hasselt). It started the weekend before with a spectacular fireworks display on Saturday night and lasted nine days. Supposedly it's the biggest one in Belgium.

What's a kermis? We Americans know it as a traveling carnival. Living in mostly big cities and university towns across the U.S., I'd never actually experienced one. It was something mythical and legendary, like barn-raising and church socials--a spectacle familiar to the American national consciousness but rarely seen.

Here in Belgium, kermis is a familiar and regular occurrence. Every town, no matter how small or large, has one. Hasselt's kermis easily covers several football fields, encompassing dozens of rides, food booths and games. I went to one earlier in the year that took up one block in the middle of the village and had maybe 10 attractions.

The rides are familiar to anyone who's ever been to a carnival: carousels and bumper cars and those things that fling you up in the air and spin you around like crazy. Me, I loved seeing all the kermis food, which was new and exotic: smouteballen, which are balls of scalding hot fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar; chocolate- and candy- covered fruit, including pineapple and grapes; karakollen, which are snails; and of course fries, always fries.

Even more amazing to me were the mobile bars, which I'm pretty sure are not a feature of American carnivals. Some served beer, since Belgians always have to have their beer, but others featured cocktails and I saw at least one full bar. Each bar had a seating area with café tables and chairs, but you could also take your beer or cocktail and walk around.

The wonderful thing about kermis is that it's a civic event. Everyone turns out for it, young and old, teenagers and parents with small children and seniors alike. Whole families stroll along, two or three generations enjoying the sights and sharing the fun, not to mention some fantastically unhealthy food, together.

How to do a terrace

Belgium has two things that Los Angeles doesn't have: seasons and weather. Lots of weather. Between the cold temperatures in wintertime (not to mention early spring and late fall) and rain pretty much year-round, that leaves few really good days. You know... warm and sunny with clear, blue skies. The kind of weather Los Angeles has all the time.

So when they do get good weather, Belgians really know how to take advantage of it. One way they make the most of nice day, especially during the summer (when the sun doesn't set until around 10 o'clock) is to find a café or restaurant with an outdoor patio, gather some friends and just... hang out.

There could be a meal involved, but it could be just drinks--alcoholic or not. The point is simply to sit outdoors, sipping a beverage or eating something as the inclination strikes, but mainly... enjoying the weather, your friends and the ambiance, as everyone around you is pretty happy about the nice weather too.

In Dutch this is called "een terrasje doen." Literally translated, it means "doing a little terrace." We don't really have an equivalent expression in English. When people ask me what we say in the States, the best I can come up with is "going to a restaurant or café with outdoor seating and getting a table on the patio and hanging out with friends while having a drink or possibly a meal." The Dutch is much more concise.

Everywhere you go this time of year, you see tables set up on the sidewalk, in city plazas and on rear patios of every restaurant. Most places seem to double, if not triple, their seating capacity during the warmer months. And if the sun is shining, every seat will be filled. Now that it's August and fall is around the corner, we're already thinking our days of terrasje doen are numbered. Until next year.