Sun, 8 November 2009
A guide to doing gaffe-free business here.
Includes geography, people, government, economy and transnational issues.
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Belgium is a modern western European country but like everywhere it has its own special cultural quirks that any expat should be aware of. Here's a guide to doing gaffe-free business here.Belgium has a population of just over 10 million people.
A little over three million live in the southern part of the country, which is known as Wallonia. They speak French. There are just under 6 million Flemish Belgians living in the Flanders region in the north. They speak Flemish, a variant of Dutch.
Brussels and its surrounding region has just under a million inhabitants and is officially bi-lingual, though 75 percent of the region's inhabitants speak French. There is also small community of around 70,000 German speakers in the east of the country.
Belgium is divided into linguistic communities and Belgians do not tend to identify themselves with a national culture but with the culture of the language group they grew up in.
Therefore there are three major cultural value systems in Belgium; the French, the Flemish and the German.
Try, indirectly, to find out the cultural background of the person you talk to or work with.
How to address the Belgians
The Flemish do not like to be addressed in French and the Walloons do not like to be addressed in Flemish. In case you do not know the cultural background of a person try to address him or her in the neutral language of English. Most people in the large cities speak English.
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