I have a mate called Ewald, he is born in Latvia, in the capital Riga. He's been living here in Belgium for 10 years now. I have known him ever since and saw his evolution from a person who faced huge difficulties to express himself in Dutch to a person who knows how to speak fluently Dutch. He obtained a degree at Hogeschool Gent as Office Manager (Management Assistant).
I met him today at a pub in Ghent and we had a chat about Latvia (I thought that could be interesting because I have to write a blog, so...). Latvians are first of all calm and reserved but friendly people once they let you in their personal group of friends (he as well). He speaks both Russian and Latvian (although his Latvian is detoriariting because his mother is an ethnic Russian and there are hardly any Latvians in Belgium). Woman enjoy, like in our society, equal rights. So Latvia is really a masculin society.
Some Latvians are more nationalistic than we Belgians (almost everyone is more nationalistic than we are, for making things easy I will ignore the flemish-nationalist movement). Ethnic awareness is important for them. Because of the Soviet Occupatian of the Baltic States Russians are not seen as equals and are sometimes discriminated against after the fall of the communist regimes, than is still a problem in Latvia.
What is also something positive about Latvians, is that a friend really is a friend they don't make friends easy but will try to defend them if necessary, he says. This making Latvia also a bit of a particularist society, if a friend breaks a rule you will try to help him.
He is also quite ambitious and want to get a job quite quickly, more than we do. This is because he wants to make something of it and doesn't want to face poverty anymore like he and his mother did in Latvia ( 100 a month is not what you call luxury). But to adapt yourself to another society is not that easy, it asks perseverance and patience. Not everyone is able to do that very easy, a friend of his is now in jail because of criminal activities he warned him several times but it didn't work out.
With my class 3 OMBV I went on a school trip to Burg Reuland, a place in the East Cantons of Belgium. We attended some lectures over there and we also had to make a presentation about some of those lectures. We could sleep in a little school over there. What was quite special was surprisingly enough the food, that is to say, the large portions of it. Everyone over there also speaks German (you hardly hear a word of French on the streets). I think that those people feel more German than Belgian because of the history of the little place of course. We also went to Trier during the trip. People are more polite than here in Belgium (they name each other with Herr und Frau not with their name). The idea that Germans are more reserved than Belgians for example is not true in my opinion. On the contrary, there quite open and friendly towards us, students. In Trier we also saw the market, it was almost the period of Christmas, and there was a lot of kitschy stuff over there, Christmas is quiet important over there, just like in Belgium (it is also a christian nation, you can't say catholic because there are also a lot of protestants in Germany and of course some other religions like Islam, Buddhism, Judaism etc.)
I had to make a task for intercultural communication. We could make in the task in group. I worked together with two Erasmus students (Monia Dubini and Mariana Araujo). Both are from southern Europe, that is to say, Italy and Portugal. We worked well together but the attitude of the Erasmus students was clearly different than mine. I wanted to do the task as quickly as possible. They said: 'Don't worry, we will do the task but we have still some time'. So, although Belgians are not so strict and structured as the Swiss and the Germans, the difference with countries like Portugal and Italy. (Of course, I'm generalizing a little bit to make my point clear, not every Belgian is strict and not every southern European is relaxed).
An uncle of mine, called Antoon, is married with a woman from the Philippines. They married 30 years ago. At that time, it was a huge change for my family (I wasn't born yet). But things worked out quite well. Things were of course complicated sometimes because the culture of the Philippines is different than ours. There are to start with, less individualistic than we are. As we bring a visit, she cooks huge amounts of food. It is even to much for an entire army. She also sends some money to her family in the Philippines (they are less fortunated than she is). The country is known for doing so. The family is very important, and even the extended family is regarded as close family. Which is a difference with the situation in Belgium.
A lot of the time, she travels to the Philippines or the US with my uncle to visit some relatives. This was a big adventure for him, being the son of farmers, he had never been anywhere than Bruges or Ghent. The fact that she wants to visit her family so often, is also a sort of pressure, she has the obligation to maintain steady relationships with her family. It also happens the other way around, some of the family members come to visit Belgium.
One of the things that was quite strange for him was the fact that in Philippinean households woman do most of the work and listen to their husband without complaining (of course, things are getting different concerning the younger generation). The Philippines is a masculine society (see Hofstede). This is a example of it.
I certainly hope that they will stay happy because in my opinion, it's a nice couple.
I had quite a interesting discussion today with a friend of mines, called Abdel. We talked about the situation in the Arab world, that is to say, we talked about the Arab revolution and the underlying reasons of it. The fact that free elections cause victories for islamic parties isn't a coincidence and doesn't mean that those people are hardliners. The fact is that a lot of these people are religious and don't know anything else. They also had bad experiences with more western-oriented idea's (dictators, colonialism etc.). So the Islamic Parties are the only alternative left. The Islamic Parties are also very active in daily life (for example Egypt and even Tunisia, that is more western-oriented) and help the poor via their social activities. But mostly those parties get to much power and interfere religion into politics, and that's were things go wrong...
He had another opinion on religion. For us, religion seems not that important anymore, but for many muslims it still is, and we should respect that without losing our sense of reason of course (if Muslims want to live here they also have to adapt there way of thinking to the European Convention on human rights). I also think that we have more in common than we think, and that we should focus on those points and not on our differences.
