Belgium

Recently, as you may have noticed, bad things happened in Brussels, Belgium (or Bruxelles, as the Belgiques call it).  Terrorism rears its ugly head in Europe, as it has in Africa, the Middle East, and the US.  In our country, most of the violence is from non-Muslim sources, but they’re doing their best.  Anyhow.  Rather than dwell on unpleasantness, particularly on a Friday, I’d rather simply discuss Belgium.

Walloons vs. Flemish.  Belgium is another country like Canada and Switzerland, that speaks French (Walloons) AND another language.  In this case, instead of English or German, the second language is Dutch (Flemish).  Most of the Walloons are on the southwestern side of the country that borders France, and most of the Flemish are on the northeastern side of the country, bordering Holland.  They seem to get along as well as in Canada or Switzerland. 

During WWII the Flemish were accepted immediately into the Waffen SS, while the Walloons had a trial period in the Wehrmacht, before impressing the SS and getting an SS division of their own.  Their leader, Leon Degrelle, insisted on starting out as a private and working his way up, and wound up as the most highly decorated non-German in the Greater Hitler Gang. 

Brussels.  The capital.  We’ve been there once, back in the early 80s.  We stayed at the Metropole Hotel.  The two major landmarks are the Mannequin Pis, and the Atomium.

            The Mannequin Pis is a copper statue-fountain of a young boy – practically a baby – peeing.  It dates from the 17^th century, although the current boy was put there in 1965.  No one knows the exact story behind this, but the story – one among many – that we heard was that a rich man’s son was captured.  The father offered a bounty for his safe return, and promised to build a statue of him exactly has he was when he was rescued.  His rescuers discovered him peeing, thus the statue.  As I said, one story among many.  Imagine the statue if the boy had been a teenager, maybe more popular with the ladies.  Anyhow.

            A somewhat less naughty landmark is the Atomium, a huge metallic sculpture of an iron crystal, dating from the 1958 Expo, and which is still there – like Paris’ Eiffel Tower.

SHAPE.   Formerly outside Paris (now the grounds of the American School of Paris) it relocated to Belgium after DeGaulle pulled France out of NATO in the 1960s.  It’s just over the border.   Actually the PX complex is at a slightly different, but not too far away, location, in Chievres.   I’ve reviewed this earlier (10/10/08, Post Exchanges).

Mons.   This town has the distinction of being where the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) first encountered the Germans in August 1914.   When we visited SHAPE overnight, we’d stay at the Raymond Hotel, which was right across the street from the rail station.  We actually ventured forth through Mons itself.  Nice town.

Bruges.  Another medieval city in Belgium.  A modestly entertaining film, “In Bruges” (2008) starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes, takes place there.  Although we visited this town in the 80s, the movie did not bring back any memories.

Ostend.  I recall my parents liked to drive us to England.  On numerous occasions we drove to Ostend, on the Channel Coast, and took the ferry to England (this was ages before the Chunnel).  The ferry took 4 hours and was not particularly interesting.  London was.  Our experience of Ostend was limited to the ferry terminal.

Bastogne.  In both wars, Belgium wound up as a nice place for German soldiers to march.  In WWII, Belgium wound up getting more excitement in December 1944, when the Germans tried one last offensive to throw the Amis and Tommies back into the Channel.  The Ardennes Offensive ran out of gas (almost literally), but not before the Germans surrounded Bastogne.  The US garrison held out, refusing surrender.  “Nuts!”  Patton came by and broke the siege.  And there was much rejoicing.

Waffles & Fries.  Belgians are famous for their cuisine and love of food.  Waffles and “French” fries are excellent to get there.  The Belgians have a strong – though disputed – claim to have invented French fries.  Both countries do an excellent job of them.  I’ll say I’m a bigger fan of fries than waffles.

Beer.  In addition to food, Belgians are also well known for beer.  Stella Artois is the most famous brand.  Blue Moon is based on Belgian beer, and a trip to the local Total Wine or even supermarket will show multiple instances of the word “Belgian”. 

Asterix.  I know he’s Gaulish (French), but his adventure in Belgium was a good view of the French attitude towards Belgians.  In that story the Belgians look exactly like Gauls, are just as brave, and eat humungous meals.  The whole point of the story was because the Romans claimed Caesar said that the Belgians were the bravest, so our Gaulish heroes challenged their Belgian counterparts to a contest.  “You’re ALL equally crazy!!” was Caesar’s final verdict. 

Tintin.  Truly Belgian, although many of the stories take place outside of Belgium.  For years, reading the English translations, I assumed he was British, until he got on a ferry TO England, which settled that question. 

As you might imagine, I also covered him (9/30/10), and in addition to several animated films, a recent computer animated film was done.  The books are entertaining; my favorites are the B&W “Land of Soviets”, the early “Broken Ear”, and the last few, “Flight 714” and “Picaros”.  Enjoy.

Jean-Claude Van Damme.   Belgium’s most recent export, the Muscles From Brussels.   Is he a real martial artist or just an actor?  Actually he does have legitimate karate and kickboxing credentials.  I find him entertaining for the most part.  How about a live action Tintin with him?  Anybody?

The Congo.  I’ll leave on this note.  Belgium used to have a king, Leopold II, who died in 1909.  Before he died, he made the Congo – currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire – into his own private playground.  Bad things happened there, and many people died…possibly in the millions, though the exact count is hazy – but atrocities in the same league as the better-publicized and more recent Holocaust. 

Notwithstanding, but without waiving acknowledgement of said events, Belgium in 2016 is a much better country and its current citizens bear no guilt for those activities.  So we’ll maintain their innocence and mourn their loss.  Amen.

Tintin

About the same time we started reading Asterix books in France, we also got into Tintin, the Belgian intrepid reporter (though we never see the newspaper offices) with his little dog Snowy and host of friends and adversaries.  We read the books in English, so for some time I thought he was English, until I read “The Black Island” and saw him get on a ferry TO England, which ruled that out.  As for Belgium vs. France…too difficult to tell.  He never went to Paris, nor, for that matter, to Brussels.  Here’s a brief summary; the names are the English ones, as those versions were the ones we read – they are different in the original French.

 Tintin.  Slightly below average height, with a curly lock of hair on his head.  In “Asterix the Legionary”, the Belgian legionary has a similar lock (just so we can tell he’s Belgian and not Gaulish).  He always wears knickers and a blue sweater (except when in some sort of disguise or in native clothing).  He has no female love interests, nor any male love interests for that matter.  He’s clever, resourceful, and scrappy – very similar to Asterix.

 Snowy.  Tintin’s small white dog of some terrier breed.  Snowy can “think” to himself, but cannot communicate these thoughts to anyone else.  He often helps Tintin out by biting the bad guy’s ass at the right moment.

 Captain Haddock.  After “The Crab With the Golden Claws”, the sea captain retires from active maritime service (except a brief stint in “Land of Black Gold”, “off page”) and takes up residence at Marlinspike Hall, an inheritance from his equally fire-breathing ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock (as described in “Red Rackham’s Treasure”).  One whole story, “The Castafiore Emerald”, takes place entirely at the hall.  But of course, Haddock still accompanies Tintin on his adventures, as far as the Moon itself.  Unfortunately, the captain has a drinking problem, and is a nasty, mean John Bonham type of drunk.  A “cure” is finally discovered in “Tintin & the Picaros”

 Professor Calculus.  The typical absent-minded genius professor.  He gets them to the Moon, and develops a “sonic attack” weapon which gets him captured by the Bordurians (Romanians?  East Germans?  Who knows) in “The Calculus Affair”.  He is atrociously hard of hearing – with the notable exception of clearly hearing Haddock accuse him of “acting the goat” (in “Destination Moon”).

 Thompson and Thomson.  The bumbling detectives, identical twins and always identically dressed.  One of them always misquotes the other, “To be precise…”   They are well-meaning but not too bright.  In “Asterix in Belgium” they appear to announce Julius Caesar’s entry into Belgica.

 Bianca Castafiore.  The “Milanese Nightingale”, an Italian opera singer who is hopelessly self-absorbed but also has an inexplicable attraction to Captain Haddock (whose name she constantly butchers) an affection which is definitely not mutual.   She seems fixated on The Jewel Song from “Faust”. 

 Booze/Humor/off-color.  Despite the nominally mundane subject matter and lack of sex, there are ample examples of somewhat off-color elements which seep into the stories.  Alcohol plays a consistent role: not only Haddock’s own problems and issues, but sometimes Tintin gets loopy himself – with dramatic consequences in “The Broken Ear”.  There are also strange dreams from time to time (opium induced: Cigars of the Pharaoh), and Calculus’ prototype TV in the jungle (“Picaros”) had me in stitches with its malfunctions.  Also, “The Congo” portrays blacks in a very cartoonish, Buckwheat style which is egregiously politically incorrect by today’s standards, and “Shooting Star” has a villain, Bohlwinkel, who is obviously Jewish and resembles in manner and appearance the typical Nazi anti-semitic charicatures of Jews.  Finally, Thompson and Thomson exhibit bizarre side effects when they inadvertently mistake Dr. Muller’s gasoline exploding pills (“Land of Black Gold”) for aspirin; the side effects resurface as flashbacks in “Explorers on the Moon”. 

 The stories.  The first story came out in 1929, in black & white: “Tintin and the Land of the Soviets”.  The author/illustrator, Georges Remi, reversed his initials and referred to himself as Herge, which is how R G is pronounced in French.  His last story was “Tintin and the Picaros”, in 1976, and he left specific instructions that the series and character were NOT to be continued after his death.  Some of the stories double up (one being an immediate sequel to the other).  The stories, with their titles abbreviated, are: Land of the Soviets, Congo (B&W), America (first color story), Cigars of the Pharaoh (Egypt), Blue Lotus (Shanghai 1930s), Broken Ear (see below), Black Island (Scotland), King Ottokar’s Sceptre, Crab With the Golden Claws (North Africa), Shooting Star, Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure, Seven Crystal Balls >> Prisoners of the Sun (Inca temple in the Andes), Land of Black Gold (Middle East), Destination Moon >> Explorers on the Moon, Calculus Affair, Red Sea Sharks (Middle East again), Tibet, Castafiore Emerald, Flight 714, Picaros.  Plus there was an animated film, The Lake of the Sharks, turned into a comic book.

 My favorites:

 Land of the Soviets.  Crude illustrations but lots of action, and a brutal view of Russia in the late 20s: a land of starvation, poverty, and a ruthless Soviet regime which hoodwinked gullible British communists with fake factories, and starved its peasants to death exporting wheat overseas to show the world how successful their experiment was.  Needless to say, Remi was not a fan of the USSR.  That’s one reason I love this story so much.

 The Broken Ear.  An earlier cartoon, though in color.  A fetish (small wooden idol) of the Arumbaya (Amazon forest tribe) is stolen from a museum in Europe.  Tintin and two Latino lowlives pursue the fetish into San Theodoros, a fictional country modeled on Brazil or Paraguay.  Tintin becomes the aide-de-camp of General Alcazar, the military dictator of San Theodoros.  This story is somewhat dark and violent, but it has its charms nonetheless.

 Calculus Affair.  The Bordurians capture Professor Calculus in an attempt to force him to produce his sonic weapon for them, a plot lifted from “Asterix and the Goths”. 

 Flight 714.  En route to Australia via Djakarta, Tintin and Captain Haddock are sidetracked by an eccentric and misanthropic billionaire, Laslo Carreidas.  Carreidas invites them to travel with him on his private jet, unaware that his crew – aside from faithful Estonian pilot Skut, who they met previously in “The Red Sea Sharks” – is part of a plot to kidnap Carreidas and extract the secrets to his fortune via truth serum.  Once on the remote Pacific Island, where we meet Rastapopolous once again, and Haddock’s former corrupt first mate Allan, the adventure really begins.

 Tintin in America.  Tintin travels to America and takes on the Mob.  He meets gangsters, Indians (the cigar store, not Seven-Eleven…enough of those in “The Blue Lotus”), becomes a cowboy of sorts, and generally “experiences” America of the early 30s. 

 The Picaros.  As mentioned above, this is the last one.  Tintin, Haddock and Calculus are lured to San Theodoros when General Alcazar’s nemesis, General Tapioca, wrongly imprisons Bianca Castafiore on a visit to Tapiocapolis, the capital city (supposedly modeled on Belo Horizonte, Brazil).  Eventually Tintin and the gang escape into the jungle, meet the Arumbayas again, and team up with General Alcazar, who runs a small rebel army (very Castro-ist) called the Picaros.  Despite the Cuban appearance of the guerillas, Alcazar shows no Marxist ideology.  Alcazar is hampered in his quest for power by Tapioca, who perpetually drops shipments of Loch Lomond whiskey (Haddock’s favorite brand, by the way) and keeps the Picaros bombed and wasted.  It’s up to Tintin to find a solution.  Hey nonny-no!

 Beware: Steven Spielberg will be adapting “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham’s Treasure” to film in 3D.  We’ll see how well that goes.