Any expat in Brussels will inevitably raise the issue of the unique mix of laissez-faire and 27+ driving styles that charaterises the traffic here at some point during an introductory conversation. Having driven in India I initially felt fine about driving here, afterall it is far less chaotic and crowded and there are fewer sacred animals to deal with. I have found myself with a driving instructor who is, in equal measure, also a one man vigilante as far as the Belgian Highway Code is concerned.

Cars that cut me off inevitably set him off in a flurry of flashing headlights (he has controls to do this) or leaning over to beep the horn at the unfortunate offender or, in particularly enraging circumstances, to roll down the window to give the finger.

We’ve already got into an altercation at the traffic lights with a bus driver on who had the right of way at a roundabout (me but he said I lost priority when I stopped which I don’t) and I am also learning driving instructors strong views on the fact that neither the French nor Italians are to be trusted on the road and anyone in a car with central or eastern European plates should be avoided. Passing through Molenbeek he educated me on this country’s faulty immigration policy (of which he is a beneficiary BTW) by pointing out there was not a single Belgian in sight and that the failure of the authorities to force integration was a huge mistake.

Who knew driving lessons could be quite so instructive?

Yesterday we were in a 30 zone in Ixelles when a police car overtook us at a junction without his lights or siren on. Driving instructor threw his hands in the air and sat open-mouthed (while I laughed) but strangely didn’t attempt to impose any retaliatory measures….

1. It is close to Antwerp: I am not being facetious here (OK, maybe a bit) but Antwerp is an amazing city. The shopping is fantastic, lots of quirky boutiques.
2. Pierre Marcolini: I have seen the man in the flesh. I worship at his altar.
3. Cafe Modèle: Our new favourite brunch place.
4. Art Deco.
5. The generous sprinkling of bank holidays.
6. The way the place closes down “de quinze à quinze“.
7. The cake shop up the road from work that shall remain nameless. And tempting.

That’s all for now.

Ever since the Belgian schools finished a couple of weeks ago, our quartier has been very quiet. A huge chunk of people have gone back to Morocco and other parts of Africa to catch up with family and friends.

All this means the metro is weirdly empty and I can walk to the metro after work without a jacket.

The other thing that characterises a good summer is the opening of BBQ season. Having a nice back garden, Mr B and I have hosted a few already. Last night, a serious summer storm blew in, casting away a friend’s patio umbrella and bringing the action indoors. Somehow it ended up in a bar in Uccle and a taxi ride home with a friend as the birds were singing. It was beautiful.

Except for the short periods every few summers during either the World Cup or the European Football Championship, when Brussels generally and the EU Quarter in particular go quite mad.

The epicentre is Place du Luxembourg (Place Lux or PLux) where huge TV screens are put up and everyone claims to have “networking meetings” to go to and furtively sneaks away for a few hours to yell and exchange nationalistic banter. There is also an attempt to lure people to Parc Cinquantenaire.

So, here is Remedial Wife’s rough guide to finding the appropriate “quartier” in which to express your jingoistic tendancies this World Cup season according to nationality. Please feel free to add or amend as appropriate.

And look out for Remedial Wife at Plux – she’ll be the one in the England shirt yelling herself hoarse with the best of them.

Ireland – The Emerald Isle may have been robbed of their opportunity to go to S.Africa but should you wish to indulge in some anti-England rhetoric (we’re big enough to take it, go ahead) head to the Schuman area, where the multitude of Irish pubs, especially on rue Archimede/rue Franklin/rue du Baille will see you right.

USA -Waterloo is the obvious choice, as is Woluwe-St. Pierre. And of course NATO HQ or further afield SHAPE at Mons.

France – head to Uccle.

Italy – Remedial Wife needs to check with Tuscan Foodie on this one and will get back to you.

S.Korea/N.Korea/Japan: Auderghem is a good bet to find the Japanese community. The South Korean community tends to be a little outside the centre around Wezembeek or Overijse. North Korea is anybody’s guess.

Portugal: Place Flagey is the (noisy) epicentre.

Cameroon/Nigeria/Algeria/Ghana/Ivory Coast: Traditionally, the African community in Brussels can be found in the Matonge district at Porte de Namur (junction of Chausee d’Ixelles/Chausee de Wavre). There are also sizeable Cameroonian/Algerian/Nigerian communities in Anderlecht around Gare du Midi.

Spain: Gare du Midi is the historical home of the Spanish community, although Remedial Wife has to confess complete ignorance of where to find the S.American communities in the city.

*Now that she’s working, Remedial Wife is part of this den of iniquity.

HSBC is running its annual expat survey. It can be found here if you are feeling bored or just want to let off some steam about your current posting.

I’m very curious to see if our feeling that things are getting tougher for expats (first to be cut, fewer expat postings than ever, woe is us etc etc) is reflected in their findings.

Prepare for a long-haul in terms of filling it all out and the inevitable indirect sell of their off-shore expat services which, together with Citibank, have annoyed me greatly over the last few years in Asia, especially when we were searching for ways to get money out of mainland China without eye-watering levels of paperwork.

It must be nice to have the spare 10 grand lying around that you need as a minimum balance to qualify for their expat accounts. Not all expats are equal…

PS Remedial Wife was also not amused to realise she is now in another age bracket in terms of these kinds of surveys. Sigh.

The all-powerful Commune (local authority, borough, township, district, call it what you will) has, over the last 4 months, been a thorn in the proverbial for Mr B and myself.

Normally as an EU citizen I should have no trouble entering Belgium and getting the requisite ID/SIS (social security) card. However, because I had no job on arrival, the embassy in Beijing told me I would need to enter under the “dépendant” process. Sensing doom ahead, I had no choice but to grimly agree.

All expats are forced to the infamous “Bureau des Étrangers” in the part of the city where they reside. Last time round, before we were married, Mr B and I lived in the central Brussels Commune.  When we left, Mr B vowed never again to live there due to the painful nature of the process involved in the annual renewal of his work permit.

And so we find ourselves instead living in the Commune that is agreed by all Belgians we know to the be absolute worst in Brussels. It has the highest proportion of non-Belgians and some of the highest unemployment rates in the capital**. Yet, armed with the self-confidence that can only come from having dealt with bureaucracy in the developing world, Mr B and I prepared for registration with a sense of steely determination.

Our first trip to the Commune was a strong reminder of our time in India. Absolute anarchy.  Gross incompetence and lack of organization meant at 7.30am when some unfortunate official tried to hand out the 50 tokens necessary to be processed that day, there were scenes of near rioting. Fearing for his safety the official retreated indoors, shouting he was calling the police. Not to be outdone, the assembled masses shouted back that he should and started pounding on the door demanding he come out. One woman was screaming, “Malorganizé!  Malorganizé!”,  at the top of her lungs, another bewildered man muttered,  “mais, c’est pas le Congo ici?”, as if to reassure himself that he was, in fact, in the right country.

Reinforced with two minders, the official re-appeared and hurriedly handed out the tokens. We were lucky enough to be seen, were given a raft of requests for additional documents to show that Mr B could support me financially and told we would need to come again together when the police had been to check our doorbell and mailbox for name-tags to verify that we lived where we said we did. This whole doorbell inspection thing is an odd Belgian requirement within an odd Belgian process that provokes a lot of headshaking and bewilderment amongst expats.

This was all done, we got the requisite certificates translated and notarised. I   went a second time to the Bureau, arriving at 6.15am to find the crowd had self-regulated, with a Congolese man writing people’s names on a bit of orange juice packing case as they arrived and presenting it to the official who in turn called everyone’s names and handed out tokens.

And then on the home stretch, disaster struck.

The final, necessary part of our file was a certificate from the Hygiene Service who are responsible for inspecting people’s houses if they come in as a “dépendant”. The process allowing the government to enter private homes has recently been challenged in the Belgian Courts and, as a result, the process is frozen.

This means no “dépendant” can have their papers processed without  jumping through major hoops and going in person to the Foreign Ministry to beg for their lives. I had to try and explain this to a bemused Indian who did not speak French. Naturally, he took it in his stride.

Thanks to the immense efforts of Mr B’s HR lady, we managed to get an appointment with the Chef of the Bureau des Étrangers to beg him to process our files at local level given the fact that in the intervening 3 months I had managed to get a temporary work contract and so could go through the normal EU citizens process.

We arrived at 6.05am for this begging appointment to scenes of more near-rioting. Despite the self-organized list system, the backlog of processing has got to the point in our Commune that people are arriving at 2am to try and get one of the 50 daily slots to beg for a resolution.

It is almost impossible to do anything in Belgium without an ID card, for example to get kids into schools. Everyone is desperate. And tempers are running short. The Commune has introduced bouncers to enforce crowd control on the advice of the police. That’s how serious it has become.

The long and short of it is that the Chef was (wearily) accommodating and, fingers crossed, within the next month Mr B and I should be fully ID’d up.  The bad news is we have to go through it all again next year.

I’ve heard, incidentally, the process in Waterloo is a breeze, and that Forest is the best commune in Brussels proper. I’m sure the Woluwe’s (home of many an embassy official) are pleasant, brief experiences too.

*Here is Belgian Waffle’s take on the Commune experience. As normal she captures it beautifully.

** More on this later…

I know I keep banging on about this, but I am still finding it odd to be in Belgium for the second time. It’s like one of those dreams where you’re being chased and realise at some point that instead of escaping all you’re doing is moving in circles.

The good thing is that after 4 months I find myself sinking into a vague sense of acceptance (acquiescence?) at being back. I think having some work is helping with that.

The bad thing is my Mandarin is rapidly disappearing. I’ve taken to bringing flash cards and podcasts on my commute in a desperate attempt to hang on to it a bit longer. I’m also still looking for a teacher who can come to the house to give us some lessons (if anyone has any recommendations pls let me know).

More than that, because Brussels is so familiar, it’s starting to feel like maybe we never actually left. Which I’m pretty sure we did and I pray we will do again before too long.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about reverse culture shock and lo! I found these great articles. Enjoy.

*not near, not far

One of the things expats in Beijing like to discuss is how the business environment has changed over the last 5 years as China has developed economically but more importantly in terms of self-confidence.

In both Mumbai and Beijing, it was evident that governments and the national business community had reached the point where they wanted to strike out on their own in terms of management and personnel. In theory there is nothing wrong with this at all – some would argue it is a sign of  successful economic development. Each government has a duty to nurture national economies as they see fit.

The other side of the coin are expat workers who increasingly feel marginalised, dismayed and concerned that companies in India and China are now trying to run before they can walk.

While many companies (both subsidiaries of western businesses and national companies) could demonstrate perfect mastery of technology and business processes, we heard many discussions about limits on critical thinking/the ability of employees to think outside rigid systems they had experienced directly and the problems this often posed for HQ. Most pointed to the rote-based education systems in both India and China that reward memorisation as opposed to abstract reasoning/independent  research more common in the western education system.

I’m well aware of how arrogant this sounds.

Most expats are experienced senior managers, sent to solve problems or set up new businesses and recruit the best local talent. Most of them accept if they do their jobs correctly, they’ll eventually make themselves redundant and either go home or move on to the next posting.  That’s expat life. Always has been.

Even during our short time in Beijing, however, we felt the times a changin’; the real problems friends and trailing spouses had in obtaining or extending visas, the increasing blocks on the internet, the visibility of police and PLA personnel on the streets, the growing frustration and concern of Mr B’s clients about ever changing rules on doing business there and subtle limits imposed on those trying to expand market share.

All this is a very long way of saying yesterday’s Financial Times carried an interesting Op-Ed about changing  business conditions in China which is worth a look. It’s not just Goggle re-considering whether the promise of billions of new consumers is either possible or desirable. I question whether EU-based businesses are the most competitive or those best placed to transfer skills to China but it is an interesting barometer of current thought amongst the expat business community in Beijing.

The Chinese have a proverb about perseverance, “with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown”. It seems western businesses are increasingly feeling the fruits of their efforts might resemble the “Emperor’s New Clothes”.

1. You have to pay for the privilege of using public toilets. In some places even if you are eating or drinking there (if this annoys you, stay away from L’Ultime Atome in Pl. Boniface). This rule is enforced by grumpy ladies known as “mesdames Pee-Pee”. They do not smile. Then again neither would I.
2. The universal lack of concern shown by others when you need to get something done, “c’est pas moi”. Indians were always slightly apologetic about this. The Chinese got things done IF you could make yourself understood. Does this mean, as I suspect, that Belgium is, in most regards, actually a developing nation?
3. The fact recycling is collected once a week but non-recyclable rubbish twice a week.
4. How often it rains.
5. The vast majority of shops close around 6pm and almost nothing is open on a Sunday. I am torn on this one because it allows local markets to flourish.

I will be adding to this list as time passes, I’m sure…

I’ve failed to take my own advice and get a routine up and running so I’ve made it harder on myself.  This means I’ve been struggling with my own broodings. And indulging myself with black thoughts far too often.

I’ve been going through a cycle of trying to hold on to the positive  outlook I’ve gained from being away from Europe, failing, getting depressed by Belgium, being amused by how much Belgium is like India, getting frustrated at the job market, getting annoyed by having no money, being very lonely and bored, meeting old friends and loving them, thanking the Gods of the  Interweb for Skype and long chats with dear friends in distant climes, having Mr B introduce enforced socialising to get me out of the apart-hotel, and becoming worryingly addicted to Under the Hammer, Charmed and Oprah.

Last week, I took matters back into my own hands and went to an expat wives coffee morning which, it turns out, had the added complication of being a Francophone affair. Quelle horreur!

And, of course, since then, a few things have appeared on the job horizon which is somewhat of a relief.

And Mr B and I LOVE our new home in the ‘hood. Despite the fact one of the streets very close by has been, according to our quartier newsletter, voted one of the worst in Brussels by the Belgian police. On Sunday, on said street, we saw two young guys casually breaking into a car, in broad daylight with the world and his wife walking by.

I’m still struggling with it all. I’m trying to look at it as a new posting rather than thinking we’re “back” here again, if that makes sense. Being surrounded by our own things again has definitely helped a lot (no two ways about it the apart-hotel phase of expat life sucks).

Onwards and upwards.

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