The world of my childhood centered on a small farm in the American Midwest where my parents leased out the fields and kept a herd of cattle. We gobbled down all-you-can-eat catfish at small-town diners and overheard farmers discussing crop rotation. I never expected to travel outside the United States—a trip to Florida was exotic enough for me. As for learning a second language, everyone around me spoke English. Why bother with anything else?
Then, a year after college, I met a guy named Philippe who grew up in Europe and spoke fluent French. The son of American missionaries in Belgium, he grew up speaking English in the home and French everywhere else.
Within an hour of meeting him, I made a request. “Say something in French!”
“What should I say?”
“Anything,” I urged. “Anything at all.”
He looked up at the sky and said, “Uh, Le ciel est bleu; le soleil est brillant.”
I melted. Although his passport indicated American nationality, as far as I was concerned, this guy was a foreigner.
Less than two years later, I married him.
After our stateside ceremony, we flew to Europe for our honeymoon and another wedding reception—a seven-course meal with his family and friends. His two brothers-in-law, an Italian-Belgian and a French-Dutchman, told animated stories that my new husband translated for me. I quickly learned the standard greeting among friends—a light air kiss, la bise—and observed how the Belgians hold their forks in the left hand during meals, tines down, without switching to the right.
We returned to Belgium a year later for a more relaxed visit. I could say a few French phrases by then and had practiced holding my fork the Belgian way. Late one evening, Philippe and I sat in his parents’ living room with some of his siblings. Everyone spoke English so that I didn’t need a translator. They drank Belgian beers while I sipped tea.
I asked what it was like growing up as Americans in Belgium.
“Well,” his older sister began, “the years I was growing up, Mom was still adjusting to the culture, making embarrassing language and social faux pas.”
“Like what?”
She chuckled, “Okay, one example would be her coffee. She couldn’t seem to make good coffee for visitors, and every Belgian mother knows how to make good coffee. It was mostly little stuff, I guess, but we felt different.”
“All our friends loved her American chocolate chip cookies,” his brother interjected.
“True,” she conceded. “But my point is that by the time you two boys came along, Mom was fluent in French and made pretty good coffee. So you and Philippe seemed much more Belgian. In fact, compared with the rest of us, Philippe seemed to be the most Belgian of all.” She turned to her siblings. “Don’t you agree?”
His brother nodded, “It’s true.” Philippe grinned and shrugged.
“We figured he would come right back after college and settle in,” she said, “so imagine our surprise when he was the one who went and married the foreigner.”
I stared at her. Foreigner? Who’s she talking about? I glanced at Philippe. I thought I was the one who married the foreigner?
I lost track of what anyone said for a minute—my head was swirling, spinning, cracking open, it seemed. I gripped my teacup and absorbed the dizzying realization: I’m the foreigner!
It was like I’d glimpsed a Europe/Asia-centered map that splits the United States in two—the world I’d always known just shifted. I never saw my country, my family, or myself the same way again.
Several years later, Philippe and I flew to Belgium with our kids to attend the wedding of that same sister-in-law, the one whose story rocked my world. She married an Ecuadorian man. Friends and family feasted, sharing stories that were translated throughout the room into French, English, Spanish, and Italian. I listened to the laughter of men, women and children from several nations, tribes, people and languages—celebrating. Together. At a marriage supper, no less.
I felt I’d glimpsed what’s yet to come, and never saw the world the same way again.
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This post originally appeared at The High Calling and is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license.
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Thank you for sharing this delightful story! You were brave to cross the threshold here, and be carried over the threshold in a new country. Just beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you for reading, Lisa, and commenting. It was a dramatic moment in my life. I felt like Copernicus must have felt when he realized, wait, the sun isn’t moving around the earth….
It was axis-shifting stuff.
“…observed how the Belgians hold their forks in the left hand during meals, tines down, without switching to the right.” This is how we do it here too! Do Americans do it differently?
Ah yes… Whenever I have thoughts of migration, this is one thing that leaves me unsettled… the thought of being ‘other’. I look forward to that great Marriage Supper where we can all be ‘foreigners’ together. Oh how gracious is our God. 🙂
Ruth, it’s so good to hear from you–I love hearing your perspective! Yes, we have a more complicated system. Fork in left hand, cut with the knife in the right. Then set the knife on the edge of the plate and switch the fork over to the right hand. Set the left hand on your lap, and lift the fork to your mouth with that right hand. Switch and start all over again.
So inefficient and cumbersome. And hard to teach kids.
Though I haven’t lived in Belgian, I can tell from our visits that being “other”…well, it’s eye opening, humbling, fascinating, tiring, mind-blowing (the first time, especially).
Oh dear… the learning curve (re: utensils) seem quite steep, but it is always interesting to to learn how things are dealt with elsewhere in the world.
As a child, I dreamed of travelling the world but, many ‘detours’ later, I am not sure what to make of that dream. We’ll see… maybe one day.
I love this, Ann. You are such a good story-teller. We are awaiting the arrival of our daughter and soon to be new son-in-law in a month. He is french, and I know the grandkids will all ask him to say something in French. Our daughter has felt all those same things you did. She is quite fluent in french by now, but the minute she speaks when she is at home in Paris, they know she is an American. I guess she’s the foreigner.
P.S. Did you get my email?
Thank you, Linda! Indeed, you have an international family with your daughter’s marriage. She’s the foreigner, until he visits and then he is. I guess it just depends on whose couch your sitting upon!! 🙂
Ann, had to head over (having read your thoughtful, wonderful comment on my blog)….I loved this story. It’s so beautifully told, and riveting and, like all the best stories (to my mind), made me ruminate not only on my own life but, also, on larger issues (‘nationality’, ‘belonging’, ‘foreign-ness’,’home’). Especially loved it as these are issues that are very close to my own heart at the moment (I’m stuck in a foreign – developing – country that is far from home in so many senses, I sometimes feel I’ve lost myself so deeply, a complete extrication of my roots, that I don’t even see the way back any longer; I long for places that no longer even exist)….anyway, I could go on, but it was just to say ‘Wow! Love your writing, love your blog, love that you took the time to leave such a thoughtful, beautiful comment. You have, in no small way, restored my faith in humanity today’ and ‘Thank you’…..Helen xxx
So glad you stopped by, Helen, and left such a lovely and personal response. I’d love to hear more about your “foreign” experience. Perhaps by stopping over at your blog more often I would learn more! I hope that someday, somehow, after suffering through this sense that some of your identity has been lost, you end up finding your identity is strong and clear…perhaps more so because of the loss. I don’t know. Maybe that’s not how it will work, but I hope something beautiful and redemptive like that happens for you.
I love how you alluded the the marriage feast of the Lamb — what a day that will be! What conversations! I love thinking about the kind of feast our King will serve, and what an honor to be at His table.
Makes me think of a great book, The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon. Have you read it?
Indeed, I have, Julie! I once wrote a post about slicing into an onion, Capon style: https://annkroeker.com/2011/01/06/food-on-fridays-the-heavenly-onion/