Lilac Colored Glasses

I had an oral presentation today for my Dutch class and it went pretty well. We had to choose a topic either from our book or any other interesting piece of information, so long as we didn’t try to slack off and do something like : “My name is Russian Hooker, I come from Russia, I’m 19 and when I finish learning Dutch I want to torture small helpless children with my dagger-like fingernails.”

So after much debate (I wanted to talk about Paul Revere and CB told me that was boring and then brought up Civil Rights…yeah cause that’s what I want to talk about with a bunch of the Africans in my class that I’m friendly with) I decided on women’s suffrage. Inflammatory to the Africans that I have befriended in class? No. Potentially subtly inflammatory for the group of men from the Middle East who are constantly making disrespectful remarks about women and joking about terrorism and bombs? Could be I suppose, but they haven’t even bothered looking in my general direction since I mentioned being an atheist during a classroom discussion in which a guy from Iran tried to convince me that my “without women there would be no life” statement was false because God created Adam before Eve.

I thought that saying I was an atheist (which I am) was wiser than mentioning I was Jewish but apparently, according to most Muslims, atheists are even worse than Jews (better to believe in the wrong god than none at all). Ever since then a group of 3 Middle Eastern men in my class have been outright ignoring me. I mean the kind of ignoring where they look right through me or start a conversation with the Dentist (in Persian) while we’re standing together and just step in front of me like I’m not there. So did I care if a simple history lesson on suffrage irked those that have chosen to ignore me? Nope.

I kept my presentation simple and factual, with very little opinion and mostly dates and names. It was definitely a little dry, but it gave some information about my country and it was a topical theme. Some other presentations covered things like Dracula, the fall of Tenochtitlan, old marriage traditions in Uganda and sex robots. Some topics were more interesting than others, but all of them were informative and give you some insight into the person talking.

Then, towards the end of class, one of the Middle Eastern guys (the one who wears muscle shirts under his sports coat and tends to have some pretty strong B.O.) gets up for his presentation and writes on the board: “Amerikan heeft seks met autos”. He was referring to this article about some guy in Washington state who apparently has a car fetish. You can read it for yourself, but suffice it to say, the guy is definitely one card short of a deck. The guy presenting decided to summarize the article while constantly saying things like “I think it’s crazy, you think it’s crazy, but yeah, this is how Americans are.” He finished up his presentation by again reiterating how this was the mindset of all Americans. When he had first written the line on the board, my friends glanced towards me to see my reaction, which was simply to sit back in my chair with my hands clasped. I gritted my teeth and was quiet and simply didn’t clap at the end.

Should this bother me? Apparently not, according to my mom and CB and my own common sense. Sticks and stones and all that, right?

Does it bother me? Yes, it fucking bothers me! I’m so sick and tired of always feeling like a target. If it’s not my gender, it’s my weight. If it’s not my weight, it’s my culture. If it’s not my culture, it’s my nationality. If it’s not my nationality, well you fill in the blank. There’s always ALWAYS something that I feel self conscious of or discriminated for. In America it was mostly my weight and sometimes my gender. In Plum or Indiana it was often my religion (or lack thereof). So far here in Belgium, no one has given me shit over my weight (except for myself) or my gender and I really don’t discuss my culture much with anyone so that’s a non issue. Half the people here have no clue about Judaism or the culture behind it, besides the fact that they don’t believe in Jesus and most of them live in Israel. But in this level I’ve been offended by remarks about my gender, culture and now, very blatantly about my nationality.

I hate being the butt of someone’s poorly veiled animosity. Sure, I’m a civilized, educated human being who knows the proper way to handle this sort of insult is to just swallow the vitriol and pretend like it doesn’t bother me, but it DOES bother me. I wanted nothing more than to say something cruel and nasty to this guy. I wanted to spit in his face or insult something important to him. I don’t care what anyone says, it is not more acceptable to pick on the stronger powers over weaker powers. I didn’t choose to be born in America anymore than this guy chose to be born in whichever country he was born in but that doesn’t seem to matter. When he said what he did today, he said it about me. When I hear people criticize the United States, in effect, they’re criticizing me. When I’ve said that in the past, others have told me that that I’m mistaken; that no one is judging my based on the actions of my country, but I saw today, very clearly, that that’s not true.

Plenty of people judge me by the actions of my country and they can’t wait to smile blandly while throwing it in my face.

So last week I gave you a little bit about some of the stereotypes that Flanders has about the Dutch. And sometimes I can agree…I mean, how many giant day-glo floral patterns can a sane person take?

And yeah, the Dutch are a little crazy with their gouda, which would totally be cool if they sold ANY other kind of cheese. But sadly:

As for the cheap thing, well, I’ve yet to witness a miserly Dutchman in person, but I’ll let you know when I do.

But for all those things, the Dutch have some things to say about the Flemish too. One thing they tease about is Belgian brainpower, which I think is absurd but I guess when you speak “official” Dutch and then try communicating in Belgium, the land of a thousand dialects, the locals could be perceived as stupid for not speaking “correctly.” This one is pretty much an acknowledged joke between the two cultures from the secession of Flanders from the United Kingdom of Netherlands during the Belgian Revolution.

Then there is also the perception that Belgians are highly introverted, which, um yeah they are. I have yet to hear anyone say “gezonheid” on the bus when someone sneezes. Small talk in the checkout line? No! Forget it, move along you’re holding up the line and I only have to work 38 hours a week, thank you very much!

But anyway, once I showed you all Anouk, I decided to follow up with a Belgian group (Sarah Bettens has a solo album and I like her that way as well) that I discovered long before CB and I started our relationship, K’s Choice

Not an Addict

Breathe it in and breathe it out
And pass it on, it’s almost out
We’re so creative, so much more
We’re high above but on the floor

It’s not a habit, it’s cool, I feel alive
If you don’t have it you’re on the other side

The deeper you stick it in your vein
The deeper the thoughts, there’s no more pain
I’m in heaven, I’m a god
I’m everywhere, I feel so hot

It’s not a habit, it’s cool, I feel alive
If you don’t have it you’re on the other side
I’m not an addict (maybe that’s a lie)

It’s over now, I’m cold, alone
I’m just a person on my own
Nothing means a thing to me
(Nothing means a thing to me)

It’s not a habit, it’s cool, I feel alive
If you don’t have it you’re on the other side
I’m not an addict (maybe that’s a lie)

Free me, leave me
Watch me as I’m going down
Free me, see me
Look at me, I’m falling and I’m falling.

It is not a habit, it is cool I feel alive I feel…
It is not a habit, it is cool I feel alive

It’s not a habit, it’s cool, I feel alive
If you don’t have it you’re on the other side
I’m not an addict (maybe that’s a lie)
I’m not an addict…