Borders and Things

Belgium:

I met two guys from the Flemish part of Belgium (Flemish being, essentially, Dutch with a different name) and was surprised to hear them refer to their language as Dutch. Then I was further surprised by how vehemently they insisted that Dutch is the correct name - would you refer to Austrian German as "Austrian"? they asked. Or American English as a language known as "American"?

In English, so far as I know, we generally say "Flemish" when we talk about the non-French-speaking part of Belgium. But I've since looked it up and it seems the Dutch-speaking Flemish guys are right (not that I doubted their ability to know best, but it seems they're right in English too) - the language is known as Dutch both in the Netherlands and in Belgium.

(Just to further confuse matters, there's also a small bit of Belgium that's German-speaking. But let's put that aside for the moment, shall we?)


Austria and Switzerland:

An English student of mine just came back from a skiing holiday in Austria and told me he also skied...in Switzerland. He skied into Switzerland, actually. The resort was situated right at the border, and you could ski over to check out the duty free shops. He said he also saw customs officials out patrolling the border area...on skis.

Switzerland, I love your quirkiness! Sometimes you almost rival England!


(The former) East Germany:

The same English students – they're in their late 40's and come from what was East Germany – had friends coming over just as we finished our lesson for the evening.

It happened to be International Women's Day (which is more of a big deal in Europe than I ever was aware of in the U.S., and was definitely a big deal in the East), so one of the friends had brought the hostess red carnations. "With good Communist greetings!" he told her, and everybody laughed.

As he saw me out the door, the host explained, red carnations were what we always gave on International Women's Day. Well, and on May 1, International Workers' Day. Actually, there weren't very many different kinds of flowers in East Germany in general... basically just three. And if you wanted to buy them, you had to order ahead.