Neil Landers   

Cultural Ambassador in Liege, Belgium, 2004-05 Sponsored by Rotary Club of Oroville, California Hosted by Rotary Club of Liege, Belgium

Sponsored by Rotarians Pat Rogers and by Rod Ritchie

Final Report July 15, 2005

Note: Italics are excerpts from previous letters and reports throughout this year.

I went to Belgium expecting to find a small country. But instead of a small country, I found a great one.

As a Rotary ambassadorial scholar in Liege, I made cultural exchange my primary focus. Whether I was working as an English teacher, making new friends at school, speaking with professors, or talking to Rotarians, every day gave a new opportunity for an exchange between me and the people I came in contact with. I was recently in Turkey, strolling the banks of the Bosporus, when I was accosted by a young boy of about six years. He asked for money; I declined and went on my way, but he followed me. As I continued to tell him no, I could see his face plead for me to change my mind, but I didn’t. He continued to follow me. Irritated by his insistance, I went near a large tree where he would not be able to follow. He caught my intention however and changed sides to circumvent the tree, spurring me in turn to change sides as well. I saw his face suddenly light up with joy at our improvised game and a huge smile replaced the pleading demeanor. For a few brief moments, I played tag around a tree with the small Turkish boy. He was transformed into a joyous child for those moments and I was touched by his transformation, but just as much by the knowledge that it would be short-lived, as he would undoubtedly have to revert to begging as soon as our game was over. I gave in and let a couple coins fall into his little hands and he went away skipping with delight. I have realized that it is so effortless sometimes to spread joy to other people. Often, joy comes in the unexpected form of a small, simple gest. I have learned that they way to make my life matter to me is by striving to give to others and in having a positive effect in the world of a single person. I feel that helping someone out or bringing a spontaneous smile to someone’s face is one of the most substantial impacts I can make on the world around me. By making someone else’s day better, we change the world. To parallel the Rotary International slogan, this is the service, simple yet inexhaustible, that I can render to others. As I reflect upon what this year has meant to me, I recall my mind frame when I first set out. I went to Belgium expecting to find a miniature country. Instead I found a great one. In some ways, Belgium is even bigger than America. For chocolate and beer, it is an enormous country. There are more varieties of chocolate and beer in Belgium then I ever could have ever imagined.

When I was getting ready to leave my “home” country, a lot of thoughts went through my mind. I thought about the concept of home. What does that mean? Do I have one anymore? Or do I share that quality with the turtle, the snail, and the hermit crab in that my home moves with me? If home is the injection of yourself you make into your surroundings, then my home is spread out over several places; indeed I am making another right now.

When I told people that I was an American, clichés were soon to follow. Often they were amusing and a great segue into a fruitful discussion. I found myself usually either vigorously denying or else agreeing whole-heartedly with them, depending on the stereotype. In the eyes of many Europeans, Americans are all an image of what they have seen on a television series or in a movie. I tried to stress to those I met the inaccuracies of relying too much on those stereotypes though, given the greatness and the disparity of the United States, practically any statement is true for some place. Indeed, it is difficult to say that Texans, Californians, Floridians, and New Yorkers are the same, even if we are all Americans. But I realized that if this is valid for America, it is even more so for Europe. It is very difficult to utter a sentence beginning “Europeans are…”.

I have been seeing, tasting, and living Belgian life these last weeks. Some new-found friends have introduced me to the essential delights here: beer, French fries, waffles, and chocolate. Beer comes in many kinds and colors, from very strong to very light, and in many fruit flavors like cherry, peach, and raspberry. Waffles are a gourmet treat that you buy on the street, fresh off the grill; they can be cinnamon or sugar or chocolate and are delicious! Chocolate….is amazing. There are many different kinds and I was surprised to notice such great variation. In my former life in America, chocolate was chocolate and I knew it as Hershey’s. Tasting chocolate from here is a point of no return, you simply will never be satisfied again with anything else.

But Belgium is a special case in itself. In this miniscule country, so small that it would fit twelve times inside California, I found many different people. From a linguistic perspective alone, Belgium has three national languages: Dutch, French, and German! With such wide-spread disparity, it is even more important to avoid the mistake of surmising that the Belgians are all alike. I learned soon after my arrival that practically all the labels are too general for this country. The name Belgium designates a multitude of peoples, languages, cultures, and histories. My stay in Belgium unveiled the regions of Flanders and Wallonia, the peculiar French of Liege and the Flemish dialect of Dutch. And as I delved into the history of the area, I found not one but many histories: Brussels, Flanders, Liege, and Wallonia each have a separate story dating back many centuries and only recently united by the advent of Belgium, which was founded in 1830. So many discoveries in one!

My Rotary contact had promised to meet me at the train station upon my arrival. It was actually his daughter, Corail (KO-R¬YE) who first saw me, struggling with more luggage than any human was ever meant to carry. François-Xavier Nève was standing at the exit near his car with the biggest picture of me that I have ever seen. He is a generous and jovial man, and had offered me his house for my first days in Belgium.

I have taken to walking through the different parts of Liege to discover more of it. It is quite amazing. Liege seems like a big playground.

I relished the incredible diversity of Belgium. A promenade through the center of Liege became a walk through time, since the disparate architecture of the city often juxtaposes the most anachronistic styles. I was constantly astonished by each new corner of the city I discovered and I loved getting lost in the parts I didn’t know. I would discover each time a new treasure.

Chocolate for breakfast?! The Belgians have no problem with this idea, strange as it first seemed to me. Chocolate croissants, chocolate cereal, chocolate toast, chocolate waffles…they surely don’t deprive themselves of the gustative pleasures in daily life. Hurray for chocolate!

This year has been rich for me in discoveries. I made many voyages in Europe, progressively making my way further east, visiting friends or traveling alone in Germany, Italy and France, then to the Czech Republic, Hungary, and finally Turkey. As I ventured further and further east, I was more and more removed from my own standards, culture, references, and customs. I learned to see the world in more exotic shades and to see my own culture and country through the eyes of others. Living and traveling abroad has given me new eyes through which to gaze upon the world and new tools with which to understand it. I realize it is crucial, in our era of globalization and of intervention abroad, to understand others’ differences, even when they cannot be reconciled with our own. I hope to always put understanding before criticism; then I will not criticize blindly and ignorantly those who are not like me. Only with understanding can I progress in wisdom.

I just got from running in the snow. I set out for a jog in the cold; as I passed the scenic borders of Liege’s great Meuse River, snowflakes began licking my ears and tickling down my neck. I looked up and the sky was crumbling apart, falling on and around me in little pieces. I was running under a tumbling sky. I realized that it was the first time I had ever been running in the snow. I’m sure there are people all over the world who do it daily, but as a Californian, I was doing it for the first time.

In my travels, I observed the many differences around me, but was equally astounded by the similarities. I became conscious of the fact that although our enormous world is made up of hundreds and thousands of cultures and countries, everywhere I go I will be able to recognize things that we all have in common. Different as we sometimes are, we are also the same. No matter who my interlocutors were this year, I have always found common ground with them. Traveling exposed me to many elements I had never known before. Having grown up in the city of Oroville, California, I had only limited exposure to other cultures and ideologies. I had conversations with students in post-Communist Czech Republic and discussions with locals in Turkey. I learned to see myself from their perspectives. One of my favorite aspects of traveling is that I am removed the comfortable shelter of my familiar references and forced to enter and understand a new world.

Once when we had gone out eating together in Prague, I excused myself from the table and had to return a couple minutes later to ask whether I was a Muzi or a Zeny (I was a Muzi).

When I was asked about America, I was amused by the stereotypes that came out. Some of them ring true, but others were unfounded. I took joy in talking to people who had never before conversed with an American. Even my conversation with the pizza guy became a cultural exchange. He would ask me if I lived on the beach and surfed every day, if I saw movie stars all the time, if I carried a gun everywhere I went, or if I ate hamburgers every day. I would ask him if European girls really didn’t shave their legs, what he thought of the European Constitution, and how many languages he spoke (he was fluent in three languages – and just a pizza guy!). Another place of exchange was my job as an English teacher. As I talked to my students and taught them English, I inevitably talked about America as well. We had many laughs comparing such subjects as food, dress codes, mentalities, traditions. I realize how much language can be the gateway to culture. Throughout the year, there were some excellent opportunities to talk to others about my country and culture. I was invited on Christian Radio of Liege for an interview about academic differences between America, France, and Belgium. During the year, I helped lead a linguistic exchange, in which international students had the opportunity to speak English for a while with native speakers in return for speaking their native tongue afterward for mutual practice. These meetings became a great place for discussion and discovery of countries all over the world. There were Bulgarians, Nigerians, Latvians, and many more, and we usually ended the evenings among laughs and invitations to the cinema. The meetings at the Rotary Club of Liege, which hosted my scholarship for the year, were also an occasion of discovery and enrichment. Upon the first meeting, I noticed a slew of differences. My first discovery was that the club was for men only, one of the last of its kind in the region. Therefore, I was welcomed by about fifty Belgian men in suits and ties. Several months later, the club made the decision, following debate and a vote, to allow women to enter the club. And so I witnessed the historic gender mixing of my host club. I was at first quite surprised to find out that gender separation was still practiced in some places. But the tradition of some men only clubs seems to be a remnant of the past which is quickly disappearing. At their meetings, I was served some of the best food I have tasted. The president would announce the menu at the beginning of the meeting. I usually didn’t understand a thing since the French culinary tradition has a lingo of its own, but it always sounded wonderful and I was never let down. The major part of my time was spent studying at the University of Liege. Since I was free to take whichever classes pleased me, I used the opportunity to follow diverse interests. The majority of my classes were in French literature; however I also studied such diverse subjects as the history of English, Belgian literature, Shakespeare, ancient history, and the history of Christianity. I enjoyed the free reign this year offered me to study my own interests, especially since I will be working on a doctorate in French literature beginning next year at U.C. Berkeley. My goal is to teach French and francophone literature in America. I learned a lot about Belgium and Europe, but I made discoveries about my homeland as well. A benefit of speaking to others about where I am from is that I was brought to reflect on my origins, my culture, and my country in order to talk to other people about Americans. I had to think about what it means to me to come from America. Am I a typical American? How are Americans different from Belgians? How are they similar? Many Europeans asked me questions about Americans which further animated my reflections. Questions about what Americans believe, how they act, what they do, their political and religious orientations, all made me reflect on America, Americans, Californians, and what responses, if any, I could give to such questions. Sometimes I felt that I could respond well to questions, at other times I had to tell them that I had no good answer; either I was simply not informed enough, since I have am only very familiar with one out of fifty states, or else no simple answer would do. Do Americans know where Belgium is? Do many Americans speak French? Does everybody support the president? What are Americans like? Do Americans travel much? These are some typical questions people asked me. I learned as much trying to answer them as those I was speaking with did listening to me. Such a rich year was only possible for me through the Rotary cultural ambassador scholarship, which I enthusiastically support. I have recommended several acquaintances from my hometown of Oroville to Rotary scholarships and one of them has been accepted for next year; he will be in Tubingen, Germany, while another is a finalist among the next round of candidates. I will continue to recommend Rotary and hope to maintain contact with Rotarians in the future. I would like to thank the Oroville Rotary Club for having sponsored me and the Rotary Club of Liege for welcoming me. The generosity of both clubs was always profound and helped me greatly throughout the year. Both clubs gave me an excellent image of Rotary and I will be enthusiastic to continue contact with Rotary. This year has opened my eyes on the world and I realize that participation in my community and service to the society I live in is indispensable. Rotary is helping change the world. Let us continue together!

I will return from this year with an ever-larger perspective. It is almost strange to think of staying in one place for the years to follow. Over the last five years, I have moved five times, living in Aix, Paris, Belgium, and California. Maybe this is the first part of ‘settling down,’ at least for a while? In any case, these years have been rich with adventure and insight, and the future promises to continue to push me toward new horizons. I still have not lost the traveling bug though. My current pursuits: India, the Lake Victoria region of Africa, and Brazil. I guess I’ll take them one at a time.