Day 5 in Brussels: Crotchety and Ready to Go Home

I'm kinda aggravated, because the agenda for our Brussels meetings has been packed, and I haven't had a chance to get out and see things in the daytime (the only time things are open here) since Sunday (when everything was also closed). The only thing I do know is that I've been forced to look at a lot of marketing content that has the same brand stock photography in it, and it's getting on my nerves: a really annoying shot of this random blonde guy sniffing a cantaloupe has been brought up on the presentation screen a painful number of times over the past three days, and it's just wrong. I feel like I never want to eat another canteloupe again as long as I live, which is a shame. It's not a bad fruit, the canteloupe. It's just bad photography.

I also haven't had much time to write, or see enough to have material for interesting observations on this trip. Here on my last night in the city, I should head on out to search for notable happenings, or go to dinner with my colleagues, but I'm totally grumpy and antisocial. I don't like it here at all.

Brussels is a very expensive place, and it's a very sterile place, and, it's just... I'm not sure what words to use to describe it. My thoughts are a little difficult to sort out right now, but my current stomach cramps may have something to do with the increasingly anti-immigrant sentiments flying around here (Google "Belgium" and "vote" and "immigrant" if you want to read about the frightening local happenings of the past couple of days). I'm not so sure that explains it, however, considering how anti-immigrant my homeland has become.

I had been feeling a vague, nagging sense of unease ever since I landed in Brussels. It's different from my crankiness in Dubai, which was more a reaction to the preponderance of the dust and the construction cranes and general ugly expensive commercial character of the place than it was to people I met there. The feeling seemed to crystallize today at some point, helped along by a few comments that were made during my meetings.

First, it was the perky, young German who considered herself an authority on "rap culture". She was loud, blonde, and wore hip, chunky glasses. She kept insisting it was typical in the United States to greet people by saying, "Yo!" whilst holding up the right hand with one's thumb, forefinger, and pinky extended.

We started the training sessions after lunch with a game-show quiz thing, including a section with questions on popular trivia, some of it American. The German loudly called out the answers, claiming to know everything there was to know about black musicians, athletes, and actors. After she piped up a couple of times with the claim, "I know ALL about this!" whenever we asked a question where the answer was Tupac Shakur, Mohammed Ali, or Jamie Fox, (not like there was a dominating theme -- there were exactly three questions about these three people) I thought to myself, "Um, WHAT EXACTLY makes you an expert?" It just irritated me.

Later in the afternoon, we were discussing translation. The representative from Lisbon complained about the quality of Portuguese translation in our company, insisting that its Brazilian basis is inadequate. A new associate from his region chimed in, "Yes! It's unacceptable! The way the Brazilian Portuguese expresses things, it's horrible!" Then she made a sort of spitting-on-the-ground type of gesture, and said some more stuff.

I didn't hear anything she said after that, I just sat there and fumed. I wanted to counter that, whatever her understanding of the importance of her country may be, the driving factor in translating our content is the sheer number of people globally who speak Portuguese, the majority of them being Brazilian. Brazil is a gigantic country, and there is a huge Brazilian diaspora. Portugal itself, though it had very active explorers back in the day, is tiny. Brazilian Portuguese is widely spoken and written and admired the world over.

I sat glued to my seat, as my eyes grew a little wide, my neck craned just a bit, and I thought, "WHAT is it about the Brazilian Portuguese that is so offensive?" The reaction I had to the Portuguese woman's comments came from a slightly different place than the reaction I had to the German woman's comments, but it irritated me just the same. I responded, very carefully, with the comment, "Brazil is VERY large, and so is the Brazilian diaspora. Portugal is a very SMALL country, and the number of people who speak peninsular Portuguese, is, relatively, LIMITED. But I'll make a note of your concern."

I don't know why I'm so cranky, but it's probably a good thing that I'm getting back on a plane to New York tomorrow.