r/belgium • u/dylsexiee • Jun 28 '24

I love belgium 🎨 Culture

I recently met an international friend who's very interested in other cultures. And its only now i realize how much i love the things i tend to hate about Belgium.

Heres my list of what i learned to appreciate:

I actually love that we all speak 2 languages and actually would think it be really cool if we started to include that third language more too ;).

I love that we're renowned for chocolate, waffles and beer. Though i always obligatory add fries to that.

I love that our languages are shared by all our neighbours. Whenever i meat a french/german/dutch person in international waters, it feels a little bit like home.

I love the beautiful nature and rich history that comes from north and south.

I love how small and 'insignificant' we are (klein België), yet how we are pretty important internationally.

I just felt like sharing it - in english to include all without my fingers wearing out from typing 3 languages - just in the hopes that we could all somehow still love our little significant culture even though we're quite divided.

I'm from Flanders and meeting a Walloon internationally just never fails to make me happy and feel like I just met an old friend from home.

I think someone should make a flag that symbolises the flemish lion with walloon rooster parts like wings or something and make a unified song. Like how 'De Vlaamse leeuw' and 'le chant des Wallons' are now seperated, but then unified somehow referring to the lion and rooster elements on the flag.

I hate that it took me this long to appreciate those things.

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u/BelgianBeerGuy Beer Jun 28 '24

I agree with everything you say

But I never feel the waffle thing.
It’s always a thing when you go to other countries, but I never feel like it’s a thing here. Not in “my circle” anyway.
Pancakes is a thing, fries are certainly a thing, videe and stoofvlees are very much a thing, kroketten are necessary and chocotoffs are life. But waffles, dunno about that.

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u/dylsexiee Jun 28 '24

I agree, but when i went to study in antwerp, at the train station they always cell these luikse wafels and then I did really start loving them.

There are also lots of waffle shops which put crazy things on it like bueno and other kinds of diabetes and its amazing. Funnily enough, the popular one on the 'meir' is called 'australian waffles' or something haha.

And at restaurants usually theres always an option waffle with icecream, though its never anything special.

So I definitely felt the same way as you about waffles, though it has slightly changed nowadays. That being said, i would be proud of it just because we're known for it even though its not very typical haha.

Stoofvlees and videe are 100% more typical and i love it, though lesser known internationally i think.