Reflections on Binche and Eupen
| Trip to Europe
Visiting Binche has been a transforming
experience for me. I don't know why, but I never studied French. Instead, I
chose to study the language of my mother's people, German. My dad and uncle
spoke French occasionally, but when I was in high school, no French course was
offered. I did take about six weeks of private tutoring in French from my eleventh
grade teacher, Miss Thelma Geiger. But her German courses were very popular
and fun. My course was set. I took scientific German in college. Later in life,
my mother's vivid recollections of her German grandmother set me on a path of
discovering my German roots.
But now that I have visited Binche,
Belgium, I am suddenly motivated to learn to speak French. Granted that I met
a fifth cousin in Selchenbach, Germany, and that was very exciting, the fact
is that I have a living kinship with my many Binchois relatives. I want to know
more about this part of my family. My brother says that the Belgians he has
known are warm, generous and friendly, and stand in stark contrast to the treatment
he has received in France.
At last, we had to leave Le Zouave
and head back to our condo in Gemünd. It had been a remarkable day, filled
with adventure. The autobahn drive in the pouring rain, the appointment with
the ditch just outside of Binche, the hospitality of Suzanne and Aginor, Pierre
and Jeanette, the communality of the bar and our other cousins, all these things
were swirling in our minds and the topic of conversation as we drove back to
Germany.
We
began to discuss where we would eat supper. It was getting quite late, and we
weren't at all sure we would even find a decent restaurant open. We decided
that we would drive into Eupen, a Belgian city near the German border. We wound
our way through the sinuous streets and came to an area that had many shops
and restaurants. We parked the car and began to look for a good restaurant.
Right away, Tom spied a Chinese restaurant and said, "I could go for Chinese
tonight." I thought it was kind of bizarre for Americans to eat Chinese
food in a Belgian restaurant, and I encouraged us to look other places.
And so we did. Only trouble was,
we stopped a an upscale Euro restaurant and it looked like it could be an hour
before we ate. Everyone in the restaurant was dressed up and drinking white
wine over candlelight. So we walked some more and eventually passed the Chinese
joint again. I said, well, let's look at the menu and see what is in here. The
menu was quite extensive. We could see that it was virtually deserted.
I'll let Vicki tell part of the story
now: "When you tell the story about the Chinese restaurant (which I know
you will tell much better than I ever could) please include that when we were
deciding about the menu at the door, I asked if they had Cashew Chicken and
a little voice from inside said "yes we do." It was Rocky as he was listening
to us as he set the tables.
And that was our introduction to
Rocky, a delightful and charming young man of Asian extraction, who was the
sole waiter "lurking" in the establishment. He was quite slight of
build and walked with a noticeable limp. We began talking to him--I was concerned
to have a vegetarian dish, and that was available. What happened next was that
Rocky and Tom began to have a "contest of languages." Rocky had made
his English ability clear to us. Now Tom said a few words in German, and Rocky
responded appropriately. Next, Tom tried French, and still Rocky held in there.
However, Rocky became more and more impressed with Tom's linguistic ability,
and said so.
We got our food ordered, and as we
chatted with Rocky, we discovered that his native language was actually Dutch.
That is the third language of Belgium, along with German, French, and a Brussels
patios. He had discovered that he had an ear for language, and was certainly
putting it to good use in this restaurant. During the meal, as our dinner began
to unfold, and Tom was making wisecracks, I kept reminding us all to "remember
that Rocky hears everything we say." By the end of the meal, he and Tom
were chatting as if they were old friends. We left him a big tip, and as we
left, Rocky said, "Goodbye, Tom." It was odd, but it almost felt like
we should "keep in touch."
We were driving at night back to
Monschau along the more or less straight road (as you can see on the map), with
pine trees and "fenn" or swamp on either side. Then we were back on
the winding, but good, roads through the western German hills. We had truly
had a wonderful day.
Created by Jim Andris, September
26, 2000.