The Romantic City of Bruges

Figure 1: A glimpse into the romantic city of Bruges.

Today, we took a day trip to Bruges, the most romantic and beautiful city of the Low Countries. Turns out, if any tourist would come to the Low Countries, they would only see Bruges and nowhere else because it is a city that’s stuck in history. Ever since the Middle Ages, the government gave money to the “more important cities”, such as Antwerp and Brussels, so that they could advance and move on, but Bruges just stayed the way it was, as a city in the middle ages. So tourists come to Bruges to experience the middle ages and the romantic city it is. In the middle ages, the population of the city was double its current population, which implies how Bruges was once an important city in Flanders.

Figure 2: An ancient document of the archive.

Our first stop in Bruge was the city archive, where the director, Noel Geernaert, showed us some of the huge collection of documents that record the city’s administration and history. One of the documents even recorded this religious creed that was given to Bruges. Another document had all the laws that were applied to the city of Brugeduring the time of the Flemish movement. It was interesting to see how some of the documents were of animal skin, wood, and then paper. Seeing the progression of material for these documents showed me how civilization advanced throughout the ages. Printing techniques were also invented as time passed, allowing some documents to be printed by machines instead of by hand. Although printing techniques may have allowed people to produce documents in an efficient manner, some documents were not as legible as others, so some ancient documents were more legible than later documents.

Afterwards, we were given a tour of the city and visited the City hall and the Chapel of the Holy Blood. I was astounded when I heard people could pay to see the “Holy Blood”. I was talking to a classmate, and she and I both concluded that we thought it was fake blood being displayed for commercial purposes. Scientifically speaking, blood is bright red when oxygen is still present in the blood. The moment blood leaves the body, the oxygen will escape from the blood too, which is why blood does not stay bright red for long. Logically speaking, do you really think the blood displayed at that church is the blood from 2,000 years ago when Christ died? I don’t think people back in the day had the technology or science to preserve oxygen in blood so that it would last into the 21th century for people to see. I find it amusing how people use the name of the church or other religious objects to raise money. Other than that, I was able to sense the religious atmosphere of the church since the church had so many images of Christ nailed to the cross and religious sounding music playing in the background. The atmosphere certainly rouses up anyone’s emotions to feel the religious atmosphere. I do appreciate how people respected the rules of the church, and it was interesting to see how some believers were mesmerized by the statues and images of Christ on the cross. If only they knew exactly how to contact the Lord what the Lord desires…

Figure 3: The Last Supper by Sustave van de Woestyne

Lastly, we visited the Groeninge Museum, which has collections of Flemish medical masters, including Jan van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch. I was impressed by the “Last Supper” by Sustave van de Woestyne in 1927. It was this huge painting telling the story of The Last Supper in the style of Flemish Expressionism. The facial expressions of the men were a little distorted; I couldn’t make out how the artist thought the men felt during the last supper. I observed how there were many thick and spontaneous brushstrokes, which is very much the style of Flemish Expressionism. This piece of art was perhaps the largest piece of the museum, catching most people’s attention. Because the artist chose this piece to be gigantic, I’ll assume he holds the Last Supper as a very important event in history.

Arrival in Leuven!

We took the bus to Leuven and arrived midday. Our first stop was Leuven University, one of the most reputable universities of Belgium. We were received by Koen Brosens who gave us a lecture on the history and educational system of Leuven. It is one of the oldest universities in the Low Countries (and the world), being established in 1425. The only two universities established before this was Bologna, established in 1088, in Italy, and Oxford University, established 1167, in England. At first, the purpose of the university was to transmit accepted wisdom or knowledge known to man, so the university did not concentrate on teaching students how to critically think. It was not until around 1518 when the university started to teach students how to think critically about what they learn in class. The university has many well-known alumni such as Pope Adrian VI, who was the tutor of Charles V, and Erasmus, the one who introduced the concept of critical analysis to the school. Erasmus also established the Collegium Trilingue, where the classes were taught in three languages: Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. (I was impressed by this, because none of those languages are really spoken nowadays, and to think that classes were taught in those languages is difficult for me to wrap my head around.) Other famous alumni include Lipsius, a classical scholar and political theorists; Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy and empirical research; and Mercator, who is known for his Mercator projector map. In 1835, the university was reestablished and named as the Catholic University of Leuven, and the languages the classes were taught in were French or Latin. It was interesting for me to hear that even though the university is Catholic, none of the principles were applied to university policies. For example, Koen Brosens isn’t married and his son isn’t baptized. So I wondered what the whole point is of having the university name have the word ‘Catholic’ in it, when it doesn’t really apply to the university. Another thing that really impressed me is the difference between the application system between Belgium and the US. In Belgium, as long as a person has a high school diploma, you can go to Leuven University. However, because there is no screening of students in an application process, the fail rate (or drop-out rate) is 60 to 70%. The mentality is that because it’s cheap to pay for university, there’s no harm in trying to study at the university level because you don’t know what’s going to happen. In order to study at Berkeley, on the other hand, one needs to obtain high grades in high school, do a ton of after school activities to become a well-rounded person, and apply. The admissions office will determine who is well suited to step on their campus, so the drop-out rate at Berkeley is only 10%.

Figure 1: The town hall meant to be a shrine for the saints, but now symbolizes the liberties given to the people of the city.

After the lecture, Professor Patrick Pasteure gave us a tour of the city. The center of the city is shaped like a star because all the main streets stretch out from the center to point to the main cities surrounding Leuven, such as Brussels and Antwerp. The city hall was meant to be a shrine to house all the saints, but now it’s just a symbolic building to represent the liberties given to the people of the city. We also visited the Catholic Church right across the city hall and Pope College, a student dormitory. Afterwards, we saw the building where many women chose to stay in isolation and live their lives according to religion.

Figure 2: The architecture of the entrance to the library. The clock tower is somewhat visible in this photo.

After the tour, we visited the University Library with Luc Rombouts. He mentioned how the library was burned down during WWII, but American institutions donated money for the rebuilding of the library. There was also this interesting sculpture of a beetle being skewered by a needle. It was meant to represent the 19^th century practice of collecting scientific knowledge, which needed the killing of animals and insects. He also mentioned how the needle being used to skewer the insect was a sewing needle, which gave the sculpture an interesting, humorous side to it. The Virgin Mary is placed at the center of the library with an Allied helmet and a sword. The library clock used American stars as its digits instead of the normal figures of a clock. The clock tower is exactly 48 meters high because the US had 48 states at the time the library was built. The animals along the roof of the library represent different countries. Lastly, we climbed up the clock tower were Mr. Rombouts played different songs on the bells, which included one of my favorite Disney songs, “Beauty and the Beast.”

Ostend!

We arrived in Ostend, the biggest city our Professor grew up next to, so he gave us a tour of the town. We visited the local Fishing Port, the James Ensor House, and saw a Memorial of Leopold II.

Figure 1: The living room in Ensor House.

I was most impressed by the Ensor House and the Monument of Leopold II. Both of these men are very accomplished and the people who admired their works decided to commemorate their contributions to the town by dedicating a museum or statue to them. The Ensor House was very artistic, which makes sense because he was a talented artist. He even said “Je crois etre un peintre d’exception…” (I think I am an extraordinary painter…) Usually, when people think of something, those thoughts become their words, and if they really mean it, their words become their actions, their actions become their character, and then their character defines who and what they are. Ensor thought he was a talented painter, thus he produced many paintings that is today at the top of western art history, here in the ‘Queen of seaside resorts’! His works were worth preserving and displaying in his house because they express the culture of Ostend. He spent most of his life there and his inspirations for some of his works came from the souvenir shop which sold items such as shells, beads, toys, and masks. His works express a combination of his personality and life as an inhabitant of Ostend.

Figure 2: Leopold II monument. The slave to the left has his arm chopped off. All the Belgians and Africans look up to Leopold who is not pictured.

The Leopold II Monument also impressed me because of its duel function: it commemorates Leopold II as the Belgian king who established Ostend as a stylish and fashionable seaside retreat, but it also represents the price that was paid to achieve all the rubber and ivory from the “Congolese Free State”, powered by forced labor that lead to the deaths of 3 million Congolese. The monument shows the King on horseback above the clambering figures of his subjects, both European (Belgian) and African (Congolese). Initially, the monument was to commemorate him and thank him for bringing Ostend the reputation it has now, but after the hand of the slave was cut off, the monument portrayed a different meaning. Whenever a bullet was shot, a hand had to be presented to Leopold as payment for the bullet and as proof that work was being done at the Congo. The missing hand makes the monument’s meaning a little more controversial, especially since the monument was meant to commemorate the King’s good deed for the city. In any case, the monument now shows the full story of what resulted from the “Congolese Free State”: 3 million Congolese were forced to extract rubber and ivory which were used to help the European economy to produce a pleasant town such as Ostend.

WWI from Ieper

Today, we took a long train ride to Ieper, a city of the former war front of World War I, where the trenches and war cemeteries are also located. We received a lecture by Wouter Sinaeve, who grew up in the city, heavily influenced by the aftermath of the war. We then spent a good amount of time in the interactive museum “In Flanders Fields” on WWI. Lastly, we attended the Last Post Memorial Concert, to commemorate all the men who died in WWI.

I was most impressed by the opening word of Wouter’s lecture. He asked why anyone would want to care about the war when the war is well done and over with. I actually asked that question when I studied WWI in high school, and the feeling of not caring about the war was even stronger because I didn’t feel any connection to that part of history: my parents are born and raised in the Philippines. They moved to America, so I’m far removed from the rest of my family in the Philippines, let alone European history. So I had no interest in learning about it! But fortunately, Wouter sparked my interest since he actually grew up with the aftermath of the war. He would walk around and find bullets on the ground, remnants of grenades and other weaponry. He has access to the cemeteries and what the city looked like before and after the war. He grew up surrounded by people who would tell stories of the war. I could tell just by the way he delivered his lecture with great enthusiasm and energy that he was greatly influenced by the aftermath of the war, and this enthusiasm and energy, along with being in the land where this major event happened, finally made me interested in European history.

Figure 1: The interior of the Memorial for WWI. The carved writings  are just a portion of the names of  the people who died on the battlefield.

He mentioned a couple things in his lecture that interested me. The first is that the reason why WWI existed was so that “this war will be the one to end all wars. If you kill off everybody, then the peace will begin.” My opinion of this statement is heavily influenced by the fact that I know the result of the war, but killing off everybody and hoping peace will start by killing off the people who disagree with you is not going to bring peace to the world. War, as seen from the WWI memorial in Ieper, results in 55,000 deaths. Peace can only be found when people understand each other. All human conflicts result from misunderstanding or miscommunication, which is why the Dutch way of communicating and having everyone’s opinions expressed is ideal. Clear communication and the willingness to understand other people is what will develop peace between people.

Figure 2: The German uniform for war. Observe how the helmet's horn at the top of the head is used to impress people.

The second set of facts that interested me is how the uniforms and helmets of the armies were mostly designed to impress people. The German helmet had a horn sticking out of the head to impress civilians whenever they walked the streets of Germany. The German front line can also impress the opponent on the other of the field by wearing the helmet. Unfortunately, the helmet didn’t really offer the soldier any protection, so I wondered why soldiers wore dysfunctional armor. What’s the point of impressing people, and is it worth it to the point where you sacrifice the necessary function of your clothing to impress people? When a person tries to impress someone, they desire to catch the attention of the other person, so German troops catching the attention of civilians would be beneficial when they gain the support of their country for the war, but impressing the opponents on the battle field isn’t necessary. If anything, it would be best if they could hide themselves from the enemy so they can use stealth to defeat the enemy. After having these thoughts, Wouter started lecturing on how the German and French armies altered their war gear in order to better protect and suit their soldiers.

Figure 3: A display of some of the long range weapons used in battle, such as the machine gun.

It was very interesting to see all the types of weapons used in the war. Grenades were engineered to explode and hit people surrounding the grenade, increasing the chances of killing people. Chemistry was also used to create a lethal weapon via chlorine gas! I find it hard to believe people would actually go that far to find a way to kill people, but most of these long range weapons were created in order to make it much easier to kill another person without seeing it. Wouter shared the testimony of a soldier who killed another person with a deadly club and how that greatly affected him the rest of his life. I think it is safe to say that people are greatly affected by death. There were many sections in the museum dedicated to how people didn’t want to nurse the soldiers because they knew they would eventually face near death situations again. Nobody wants to see another person die, let alone deliberately take another person’s life. In general, people are not naturally built to kill other people, unless they are trained and raised to know nothing else, but everyone was born with emotions to experience, a mind to think, and willpower to choose what to do. Perhaps when everyone is trained or raised to use their minds, emotions, and willpower to understand other people and respect their viewpoints in life, then war may never come up as the solution to peace again.

Flemish Locals!

Today, we took a trip to Ghent, a very beautiful, medieval city. Professor Prevenier gave us a tour of the city, where he also gave us some historical information of how Ghent was important in the Middle-Ages. We went to Saint Bavo Cathedral where we visited the most famous Flemish medieval painting; the Mystic Lamb by Jan van Eyck. We then visited the Ghent City Museum where we learned a bit more about the history of Ghent. Afterwards, we split up into small groups and had dinner at the house of a Flemish family.

The dinner with the local Flemish family was the most enjoyable and amusing activity we did today. The food was amazing, and it was interesting to hear about the culture of Belgians, especially about what it’s like growing up in Belgium. The begin learning Dutch in the homes, then French when they are 10, German when they are in middle school, and English somewhere in between. Their teachers teach the language to them using Dutch in the beginning levels, but once students reach the higher levels, teachers teach the language to them in the language they are studying. This is a huge difference compared to America because most of the language classes I took in high school were taught in English, regardless of whether or not we were in the higher levels. In addition, right after we exit the language class, we immediately start speaking English, and lack practice in speaking the language to anyone else. The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in an environment where you are forced to speak the language, read the language, and even listen to the language. I only started to become somewhat proficient in French when I studied it in Berkeley, where the language classroom was completely run in French. They encouraged and even urged us to speak French whenever we could. They provided us with a radio station played on the internet and encouraged us to listen to the news or music in French, just to get our brains to think in the language. In Belgium, it is very easy to find channels and radio stations in another language, so students living here have an easier time immersing themselves in the language. They are also in very close proximity to the countries that speak the languages they study. America, on the other hand, doesn’t really give their students that luxury because everything is conducted in English, and it is the one official language of the nation. That’s definitely one disadvantage of having only one official language in the country.

It was also slightly amusing because I would ask every so often if I’m picking up the food right, or eating my food in a proper fashion because I was very conscious about whether or not I would do something that would be considered rude. The reason why I acted that way is because in the Ann Frank house, back in the Netherlands, my American colleagues and I took many samples of the food that was offered to us, thinking it was okay because that is what we would have done in our country. If offered something, take as much of it as you want to show how much you appreciate and enjoy what you are offered! To the Dutch, that is not the case. It’s considered rude to take more than one sample of what is offered to you, so when I heard I did something to offend our hosts, I became a bit more conscious about my actions, so I explained to my Flemish hosts that I would rather make a fool of myself first and make sure I don’t offend anyone before I actually offend someone without even knowing I did. So we had a little inside joke going around, where our Flemish hosts would be like “That’s not considered rude” and “Oh yes, that is not considered rude either.” The most amusing comment they made was “That’s the difference between the Dutch and the Flemish. We don’t consider things to be as rude as they do.”

Figure 1: The most delicious French white wine you will ever run into in your life!

As mentioned before, the food was amazing! I want to comment mostly on the wine because they served us some high quality wine from France, and apparently, if the Flemish has guests over, they serve wine at the dinner table. Perhaps that’s a way of showing their guests that they really appreciate their presence since they are willing to offer an expensive drink to them.

Eugeen van Mieghem Museum and Antwerp's Seaport

Tuesday was an exciting day because most of it was spent exploring Antwerp’s Sea Port. We started off by seeing a museum dedicated to the painter, Eugeen van Mieghem, who painted people from all over Europe who immigrated to the United States from Antwerp sea port.

Figure 1: An awesome staircase.

I really liked the museum because it fit my preference and expression of the subject of interest: nature. The stair cases exhibited the style of Art Nouveau, where the inspiration for the work comes from nature. I felt like the stair cases and the walls of the museum did a very good job presenting nature the way it appears in real life. The only difference is that the colors of the leaves and plants changed to more royal, uplifting colors, such as gold, golden brown, and dark brown. The curvature of the lines gives the stair case some energetic movement, which contributes to the atmosphere of the house, implying that you are with a different group of people. The cloudy white forms below the golden plant images on the walls remind me of the movement of water or the form of plants in a field. The circular, cloudy white image on top of the plant like images reminds me of the radiant sun that rises every day to supply energy to all forms of plant life. Climbing up and down that stair case gave me a taste and feeling of walking with nature. Perhaps I felt a little bit different when walking through this museum because of the Art Nouveau. The style is a little more abstract and open to interpretation instead of restricting the audience to whatever the artist wants to portray. Abstract art gives a little more flexibility for interpretation.

One of the things our tour guide mentioned is that “a lot of rich people buy paintings because it’s a good investment, not because they appreciate the art.” I find this really interesting because some pieces of art can be considered very expensive to some, but not to others. In a previous entry from last week, the most expensive piece of art was just a gradient of the color turquoise, and the purpose of the piece was to express the feeling of love. People thought that work of art was expensive because it was hand made by tissue paper, which implies that it took a very long time to put that piece together, but for others, they may think that it wasn’t worth that much. I’m not entirely sure if investing in art is the best thing to invest in because the value of the piece can vary, depending on preference. It seems like people raise the prices of the art of deceased artists, so the prices of their works keep going up since they can’t produce any more art, but what exactly is the point of that? Surely, people are like grass and flowers. The grass withers and the flower fades, so the artist will eventually wither and fade, but the ideas and remnants of the expression of the artist’s mind can last if the people who live after him/her keep people interested in the art. One of the most difficult things to get people to do is have them understand or be remotely interested in the same things you are, but some people put so much interest in just one person’s expression, ideas, and emotions portrayed through art.

Figure 2: A glimpse into Antwerp's seaport.

The rest of the day, we spent the time exploring the Antwerp Seaport, which I found impressive because its geographical location would make someone think that this seaport would not be the source of much commerce for the country. The seaport is on a river, which is not the most ideal place to  hold a seaport because it will be difficult to get in or out of the river since the movement of water will control where the ships or boats will go. In addition, it will be difficult for anyone outside the country to make it into the seaport since they will have to meander and follow the path of the river to reach the seaport. Doing so would take a lot of time, and I'm not sure how many countries will be willing to do that. On top of all that, the mouth of the river is located in another country, so if Belgium and the Netherlands go to war and the mouth of that river is closed, then Antwerp's Seaport will no longer be able to function. Despite all these downfalls, the seaport is still very successful and active today.

The Diamond Stock Exchange and the Definition of the Church

Today, we visited Antwerp’s Our Lady’s Cathedral and climbed the Tower. It was 400 feet high and had an awesome view of the city. I also appreciated our tour guide’s demonstration of playing the bells on top of the tower. It definitely reminded me of the people who played Berkeley’s bell tower, The Campanile. 

Afterwards, we visited the Antwerp Diamond Stock Exchange and visited the old Sephardic Synagogue. We took a tour of the neighborhood surrounding the Diamond Stock Exchange as well, and it was interesting to see the attire of the Jewish community living around the area. They wore black hats and black suits, which definitely distinguished them from the rest of the people walking around the area. It was an interesting way to “fulfill” the Jewish male attire requirement by covering their heads with the black top hat. It made me think of them as magicians who did magic in the neighborhood by running the diamond business with everyone. The diamond business in Antwerp was said to be very successful due to the fact that business was done with everyone, making it open and easily accessible to people of every trait.

Figure 1: A mini shrine in Our Lady's Cathedral. Observe how they reserve sections of the church for prayer. It's a little silly from my point of view because anyone can pray wherever they want to pray.

The activity I reacted to the most was our visitation into the cathedral. After being in Europe for almost a month and having seen all these churches in the Low Countries, I finally came to the conclusion that even though these countries were very religious at one point in time, they were still very far off from the real definition of the church. It seems that whenever people think of a church, they think of this amazing building with all these different sculptures and paintings that give an image of Christ and other Biblical stories, when in Bible, the church is defined as a group of people who have been called out of the world because they have chosen live a life that expresses God’s nature and character. (The word “church” is derived from the Greek word ekklesia, meaning a gathering or assembly of people who have been called out.)  It has upset me every single time I entered a “church” with all these unnecessary images in paintings and sculptures that implant a man-made concept of God and the church into other peoples’ minds. An example of an unnecessary painting is that of Pieter Rubens, The Raising of the Cross, which was displayed in Our Lady’s Cathedral.  Looking at the image makes me feel uncomfortable because it makes Jesus look like this pathetic man who was nailed on the cross, which is why I chose not to show the painting here, but the work of art shows Pieter’s interpretation of the story of cross which gives his audience a concept of what the cross is all about. All these images in the “church” give people ideas about God, which influence people to think a certain way about religion and God. Perhaps it’s a good idea to be open-minded about the definition of the church because what people say is not necessarily what is, especially when the primary source is available to you.