My Country, Belgium

Speaker:  Ms. Benedicte  Maemoto

Ms. Maemoto, who spoke at KIFA, has a charming smile; she was born in Belgium and has lived in Japan for 23 years.

When she went to the United Kingdom to study she met her future Japanese husband there. After corresponding with him for 6 years, they got married.  Now they have three children and live in Taishi-cho in Minamikawachi Gun.

She talked about Belgium in Japanese from various angles and answered many questions from the audience.

Belgium gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1830. 

Belgium is a small country, about the size of Kyushu; the land area is about 30,000 km2 with a population of about 10,000,000 people.  It is located in northwestern Europe; its bordering countries are the Netherlands to the north, France on the southwest side, and Germany and Luxembourg on the eastern side.  Belgium has a short coastline on the North Sea.

With its multiple neighbors, both of Germanic and Latin origin, Belgium consists of two main regions, with three official languages, Dutch, French and German. The two regions are Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially a bilingual city, with both French and Dutch spoken.

In contrast to Japan, Belgium is flat, with no mountains.  The country’s highest point is only 694m above sea in the Ardennes uplands in the southeast, near Germany.

Belgium is in a higher latitude than Hokkaido Prefecture. Although it has four seasons, there isn’t such a big temperature difference between summer and winter—the weather is cold or cool almost all year. In all four seasons, sunny days are few; there are  a lot more cloudy and rainy days.
Belgian people usually don’t need to have or use air-conditioners—many people who didn’t have one suffered from a terrible heat wave in the summer of 2003, however.

“What kind of food do you imagine Belgians eat?”  Ms. Maemoto asked the audience.
Some of them answered, “Belgium is famous for chocolates, waffles, and Belgian beer and so on.” It is said that there are 400 to 800 varieties of beer in Belgium.  The audience was surprised to hear that Belgians use different types of cups and mugs according to the type of beer.


A common Belgian meal is mussels and chips that go well with beer; it is offered at every restaurant and cafe´ in Belgium. Incidentally, Ms. Maemoto recommended the following four types of  beer:  Duvel,  Chimay, Hoegaarden and Leffe.  We were happy to learn that useful information about beer.

Question:   In what month are Belgians not able to eat mussels ?  Hint: The months that do not include “R” in their spellings.
Answer:   May, June, July and August.

Q:  How much chocolate do Belgians eat in one year?
A:  About 10 kg!! 

Wow! It’s too much!  Ms. Maemoto thought it would be impossible to eat that much chocolate in Japan because the price of chocolate is pretty high here.

Potatoes are the staple food of Belgium.  People also eat vegetable soup with carrots and tomatoes and a cuisine of beef boiled in beer. They cook chicken, beef, pork, rabbit meat, and some fish dishes. Sushi bars from Japan have recently become popular.

People entertain guests with home-made dishes in their homes. An invited guest usually arrives a little late for the party. The concept of time is completely different from how time is viewed in Japan.

Education in Belgium is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 18. The school year starts in September and ends in June.  Primary school (6~12 years) and secondary school (12~18 years) consist of six years each and schooling is free. Some primary schools offer special education for children with disabilities or other special needs. Students who can't keep up with their classmates have to repeat the same year; it is quite common to see repeaters even in elementary classes.

University or college tuition in Belgium is less than approximately one hundred thousand Japanese yen. We Japanese really envy the low cost of education in Belgium.  Ms. Maemoto regrets that schools in Belgium don’t hold a sports day and a school festival as they are held in Japanese schools.

The welfare system in Belgium is generous. People can get unemployment benefits forever. Parents are given child benefits until their children  grow up, until 21 years of age. So some people depend on their benefits to live and don’t earnestly try to get a job. Many workers who pay very high taxes criticize them.  Tax is higher in Belgium than it is in Japan. For example, the price of food includes a 6~7% tax and people have to pay 16~25% tax on luxurious goods.

Lastly Ms. Maemoto recommended us to visit Brussels and Bruges for sightseeing. Brussels is the capital city/headquarters of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Grand-Place, in the center of Brussels, is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The place is surrounded by an ornate Town Hall and other baroque and gothic guilded houses. The famous writer,  Victor Hugo, once said that the Grand-Place is one of the most beautiful town squares in the world. 

Bruges, in the northwest, is also an historic city center that is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The medieval canal city of Bruges is called the “Venice of the North”.  Visitors can enjoy going on boat rides along the canals.  There are a lot of handmade Bobbin lace boutiques.

Belgium has a high quality of life with excellent food, education for all, fine arts and a supportive welfare system.  Because it is the headquarters of the EU, Belgium hosts a multitude of nations, cultures and languages.  Because Belgium shows us its various faces, it is bound to fascinate visitors.

Q: Is there any sex discrimination in Belgium and what is the difference of position in the society between men and women?

A:  When people greet each other a woman can extend her hand first (when greeting each other, Belgians shake hands).   Men who are well mannered, follow the principle of ‘ladies first’.  Although Japanese society is hierarchical, young Belgians who graduate from university and get higher qualifications can advance in their professions on merit rather than seniority or sex.

Q:  Given the very different religious beliefs between Belgium and Japan, do you think Belgians and Japanese have a different way of thinking about life? 

A:  Belgians are naturally kind and sympathetic even to strangers.  ‘The Japanese way of looking “charity” is rather different from the Belgian/Roman Catholic way.  Also, if a Belgian person sees children making mischief in a train or restaurant, he/she will usually scold them.

Q: What language do your children speak?

A:  I regret a little that I brought my children up to speak only Japanese.   One of them, however, is studying French in Belgium at the moment.