kurisuto wrote:
Actually, in France too we talk about "Belgians" as one people - but we mean Walloons, because to us, Belgium speaks, is French. And it's pretty logical I would say since there aren't cultural relations with Flemings (for instance, Tintin - soon in theater I think - by the Walloon Hergé, is one of our favourite comics here in France, we have lots of Walloon comedians, and... we love "moules-frites", which is to us is typically Walloon, etc).
Yeah, when I think of it, you're right. When Dutch people say "Belgian" they really mean "Flemish". Walloons don't really seem to exist
Actually I've only ever met one Walloon, in Japan. His name sounded somewhat Dutch and I knew he was Belgian, so I just started talking to him in Dutch assuming he was Flemish... well he wasn't, and he didn't speak a word of Dutch. I thought that was kind of interesting because I've never met a Fleming who wasn't reasonably proficient in French as well.
kurisuto wrote:
Really ? Do you know that the single most productive joke material in France is Belgians ? Literally, I'm not exagerating (well, we make fun of Swiss too, but to a much lesser extent). I usually don't find these jokes that funny, but you just told me the best ever
(really, it's culturally interesting - maybe not really kind, but interesting)
It's the same here, Belgians (and by that I mean Flemings) are the biggest source for jokes in Holland. I really don't know why we chose to make fun of them for being "dumb" and not something else. We have a "rivalry" with the Germans as well, but that's mostly limited to football (funnily enough, they don't really seem to take this "rivalry" as serious as we do, but that's probably because they generally do better than us). In fact during the world cup in Germany in 2006, there was an
ad on the Dutch MTV, attempting to get us to think less "badly" of the Germans (I think it was only broadcast in Holland) - it's pretty hilarious. You see him digging a hole in the sand on the beach at some point in the ad; for some reason there's this general belief about Germans here that they steal our bikes and dig holes on our beaches (god knows why), I guess it's a WW2 hold-over.
