Belgium in Twenty Categories Trivia Quiz

Answer: Giant panda

Pairi Daiza is a zoo in Brugelette (province of Hainaut, in the southwest of Belgium) that opened in 1993 - then under the name Parc Paradisio. The name was altered to Pairi Daiza in 2009.
In 2014 Pairi Daiza obtained two giant pandas: the male Xing Hui and the female Hao Hao. June 2, 2016, the couple had a cub, named Tian Bao.
Giant pandas are listed as "vulnerable" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature list, and the survival of the species can only be guaranteed by special management measures.
Reproduction of giant pandas in captivity is rather rare. So the news that a giant panda cub had been born in a Belgian zoo made international headlines, and Pairi Daiza attracted many more visitors than before.
The official website of the Pairi Daiza Zoo contains a diary of Tian Bao, and several of his activities are posted on YouTube. You can for instance watch Tian Bao "helping" to mop the floor.

Answer: Ypres

In Belgium many cities carry a dual name: one in Dutch and one in French. This specific city is known as Ieper in Dutch and Ypres (pronounced Ippre) in French. But when the British Expeditionary Force came to Belgium at the start of the first World War, they did not get used to the French pronunciation. So they made their own pronunciation, somewhat like "wipers".
Ypres was the last major Belgian city held by the Belgian army and the British and French allies against the German forces in August 1914. It stayed in Belgian hands up 'til the end of the war, but each and every building was destroyed by the heavy guns.
After the war, the city was rapidly rebuilt. The Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) and the Saint Martin's Cathedral were rebuilt in the original style, while the rest of the city was reconstructed in a modern architecture.
The Menin Gate is an impressive memorial to all the Commonwealth soldiers who died in and around Ypres and have no identified grave. Every evening at 8 o'clock there is the Last Post ceremony to remember those who died. If you want to have a good outlook at the ceremony, be certain to take up your place at 7 o'clock - before the masses arrive.
Ypres is also the place of a traditional Cat's Parade once every three years. This was a remark my cat insisted to add - she'll always try to catch my attention. Luckily she didn't insist on writing questions herself, I'm afraid none of you would decipher it.

Answer: Jean-Claude Van Damme

Jean-Claude Van Vaerenberg was born in 1960. Between 1976 and 1982, he had a career in karate (semi-contact and full contact) and kickboxing. In 1982 he moved to the USA to start a movie career, and adopted his alias Jean-Claude Van Damme.
His breakthrough was the movie "Bloodsport" (1988). Other important movies were "Kickboxer" (1989), "Double Impact" (1991), "Universal Soldier" (1992), "Hard Target" (1993), and "Sudden Death" (1995).
All four of the actors I've mentioned here played in the movie "The Expendables 2" (2012). Statham (born 1967) is a Brit, Stallone (born 1946) is an American, and Schwarzenegger was born in Austria in 1947.

Answer: Walter Van Beirendonck

The "Antwerp Six" was a group of fashion students who graduated from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1980-1981. They include Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Bikkembergs, Dirk Van Saenen and Marina Yee. Together they showed their collections in London in 1986, and they caused a small revolution in the fashion industry.
Van Beirendonck (born 1957) has made his own colourful collections since 1983.
Vermeulen (born 1957) is known as the fashion designer for the royal families. Scherre (born 1977) designs only lingerie. Pompilio (born 1961) is a hat maker.
 

Answer: The Fearless Triplets

"The Fearless Triplets" (2004) tells the story of triplet sisters Lien, Sien and Fien, born into a dysfunctional family and behaving rather impishly. When they accidentally burn down their school, they are banned to a private reformatory. Much to their surprise, they are pampered by the staff. Surely the staff wants to get something from them. And why have many of the other children all these scars on their backs?
"The Fearless Triplets" is based upon the books of the Belgian author of kid literature Marc de Bel (born 1954).
The red herrings are three movies based upon the works of the British author of kid literature Roald Dahl (1916-1990).

Answer: According to superstition, whoever touches the arm will have a year full of love

Everard 't Serclaes (1320-1388) was a Brussels citizen who drove the enemy out of town in 1356. In a later conflict he died at the hands of the lord of Gaasbeek.
In 1898, the Brussels city council ordered Julien Dillens to make a statue of 't Serclaes, to be put up next to the Grand Place.
Soon after the inauguration of the statue, some market vendor spread the story that whoever strokes 't Serclaes' arm, will have a year full of love and happiness. Other variations are that a tourist stroking 't Serclaes, would make sure he would once return to Brussels. Whatever the superstition, people started to reach out and touch the statue - or even the wall, when the statue was just removed for restoration in 2011. In 2013 a replica was put in place, and the original statue was stored indoors in a museum.
The red herrings are all figments of my imagination - one even more fantastic than the other. The acid rain story may be a bit believable, and I could understand some sculptor trying to emulate Dali's extremely thin elephant paws. But the inferior material is of course pure poppycock.

Answer: Senne

Belgium has only three rivers that flow out into the North Sea. The Yser, the Scheldt and the Meuse all have their sources in the northern parts of France and flow through Belgium. The Yser mouths in the North Sea near the Belgian harbour Nieuwpoort, while the Scheldt and the Meuse flow into Dutch territory and mouth in the North Sea.

The best known cities on these rivers are Diksmuide on the Yser, Liege and Namur on the Meuse and Ghent and Antwerp on the Scheldt. The Senne, which flows through Brussels, is a tributary of the Dyle, which forms the Rupel after merging with the Nete.

The Rupel finally ends up in the Scheldt.

Answer: Neutral Moresnet

The history of Neutral Moresnet is quite astounding. After Napoleon's defeat, the victorious countries (Austria, Prussia, Russia and England) redesigned the map of Europe with vague hopes of eliminating future conflicts. To deny France the harbour of Antwerp, they decided to create an independent nation (the Netherlands) which took up roughly what nowadays is the Benelux region.
But there was a zinc spar mine in the region, and as there were only a few mines of that type, it had a tremendous strategic impact. So both the Netherlands and Prussia were eager to lay hands on this mine. As a compromise, the area of the mine and the housing of its employees (an area of roughly 3.5 square kilometres, and a population of 3,000) was declared a neutral and independent state. Neither Belgian independence from the Netherlands (1830) nor the independence of Luxembourg (1839) had any impact on the status of Neutral Moresnet.
When the mine became exhausted, the inhabitants of Neutral Moresnet sought means to keep their independence. There was a call to make Neutral Moresnet the first nation with Esperanto as national language, and a national anthem in Esperanto was prepared. Many inhabitants took courses in Esperanto, and the new name proposed for the country was Amikejo (translated: Friendship).
Canton Island is an island in the Pacific Ocean, attributed to the Republic of Kiribati in 1979.
Sikkim was a small monarchy in the Himalayas, integrated into India in 1975.
Saarland was briefly a protectorate of France, but joined (West-) Germany in 1955.

Answer: Coconut

The Siroperie Meurens established in Aubel (Plateau de Herve, a bit more than 30km from Liège) started production in 1902. It makes syrups from apples, pears, dates, apricots, and plums. The website stresses that there is no synthetic addition in the products, and that 4 to 7 kg fruit are used to make 1 kg syrup.
The sirop de Liège is a fruity and very sweet delicacy. You can smear it on your bread or on pancakes, but it can also be used to sweeten a casserole or to make the vinaigrette for salade Liègeoise.
There are some other products available, but coconut doesn't lend itself well to make syrup.

Answer: Paul Delvaux

Paul Delvaux was born in 1897 in the province of Liège (Wallonie). He studied architecture in Brussels and worked for the last years of his life in Veurne (Flanders), where he died in 1994.
His surrealist paintings frequently portray nude women in decors consisting either of classical Greco-Roman architecture, or of train stations as they were constructed around 1900. Another frequent theme is a departing train in the moonlight. A typical painting is "Street of the Trams": on the left foreground, we look into a mansion with two nude women, while across the street a woman in a red shirt (bare-legged up to the navel) is sitting on a balcony. In the background a tram is leaving.
Memling (1430-1494) and Rubens (1577-1640) lived long before the train was invented.
Khnopff (1858-1921) created impressionist and surrealist paintings with female nude, but as far as I've found he was not fascinated by trains or trams, as Delvaux was.

Answer: Hugo Claus

Claus (1929-2008) was a versatile author. He wrote novels, theatre plays and poetry, most of which has not been translated into English.
"The Sorrow of Belgium" is a novel about a young boy (Louis Seynaeve, born 1928) growing up in the 1930s in a family that sympathized with the Nazi party in Germany. The first half of the book ("The Sorrow") is written as Louis Seynaeve's autobiography up to 1940, while the second half ("Of Belgium") is a third-person overview of what happened in the period 1940-1949. In a certain way, Louis Seynaeve is the alter ego of Hugo Claus: most details from "The Sorrow" also apply to the real life of Hugo Claus.
Mulisch (1927-2010), Reve (1923-2006) and Hermans (1921-1995) were famous Dutch authors.

Answer: Rosetta

Luc (born 1954) and Jean-Pierre Dardenne (born 1951) started in 1987 with writing and directing their movies together. In 1992 they started producing their movies together, too.
The movies they wrote, directed and produced were very successful in the movie festival in Cannes. "Rosetta" (1999) and "Le fils" ("The Son", 2002) won the Golden Palm, while subsequent movies were nominated for the Golden Palm: "L'Enfant" (2005); "La silence de Lorna" ("Lorna's Silence", 2008); "Le gamin au vélo" ("The Kid with a Bike", 2011); "Deux jours, une nuit" ("Two Days, One Night", 2014); "La fille inconnue" ("The Unknown Girl", 2016).
"Rosetta" is a typical Dardenne movie: it tells the story of a young unemployed girl in a dysfunctional family.

Answer: Eugène Ysaye

Ysaye (1858-1931) started playing the violin at age five. He went on grand concert tours (from the USA over Europe to Russia). In 1886 he became a teacher in the Brussels Conservatory.
One of Ysaye's pupils was Elisabeth of Bavaria, the Belgian queen from 1909 onwards. She started the Queen Elisabeth Contest in 1937, named in the first two editions (1937 and 1938) after Eugène Ysaye.
Ysaye left various compositions, among others the "Six Sonatas for Solo Violin" - each one dedicated to and written in the style of one of his contemporary colleagues. In 1931 Ysaye completed the opera "Pierre il houyeu" ("Peter the Miner"), the only opera with a libretto in the Walloon dialect of French.
Paganini (1782-1840) and Corelli (1653-1713) were famous Italian violinists. Menuhin (1916-1999) was a great violinist born in the USA.

Answer: Leopold II

Leopold II was born in 1835 and succeeded his father as King of the Belgians in 1865. He believed firmly that a nation could only thrive if it had one or more colonies. In 1885 he finally managed to obtain on an international conference the rights to Congo Free State, the territory which nowadays corresponds with the Democratic Republic of Congo (with capital Kinshasa).
But instead of making Congo Free State a full Belgian colony, Leopold bought the territory himself (with a loan from the Belgian government). The profits of this vast territory contributed to making Leopold a very rich man, and he funded many (Belgian) buildings with these profits.
According to Leopold's last will and testament, Congo finally became a colony of Belgium. Leopold died in 1909.
In 1960 independence was proclaimed in Congo, and the new independent nation chose Leopoldville (renamed Kinshasa) as its capital city.
Albert I (1875-1934), the nephew of Leopold II, succeeded him as king of Belgium in 1909. He was succeeded by Leopold III.
Baudouin (1930-1993) was the fifth King of the Belgians, from 1951 until his death. He was succeeded by his brother Albert II.
Philippe (born 1960) succeeded his father Albert II in 2013.

Answer: Saint Dymphna

Dymphna was born in Ireland at some time in the Seventh Century - exact dates cannot be ascertained. When she was 14, she took the vow of chastity and prepared to enter a convent. At that moment, her mother died and her father, grief-stricken, began to show symptoms of mental illness. Most notably, her father became obsessed with marrying another noblewoman resembling his late wife. Alas, the only woman bearing enough resemblance to the late Dymphna's mother, was Dymphna herself... Dymphna fled from her enraged father to Belgium, where he found her in the vicinity of the town of Geel (nowadays province of Antwerp, in the northern part of Belgium). Reconciliation failed and her father beheaded Saint Dymphna in a fit of madness.
The city of Geel has ever since had the tradition of volunteers (not necessarily trained in the trade) taking care of people with mental deficiencies. Because of the emphasis on professional nursing, this tradition is slowly becoming obsolete.
Saint Barbara, the patron saint of dangerous professions, was also beheaded by her own father.
Saint Lucia was perhaps another martyr, but sources are deemed untrustworthy. Contradicting sources state that either she blinded herself to avoid marriage to a pagan, or that she was blinded as one of the tortures she was submitted to.
Saint Agatha was another martyr. One of the tortures she would have endured was the removal of her breasts (without anaesthetics, of course).

Answer: Ilya Prigogine

Ilya Romanovich Prigogine was born in Russia in 1917. His family moved to Germany in 1921 and to Belgium in 1929. In 1949 Prigogine obtained Belgian nationality.
Pirgogine studied chemistry in Brussels, and became a professor of the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1950. His best known research was the behaviour of dissipative structures in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium. Some examples of these structures are cyclones and living cells.
In 1977, Prigogine received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry thanks to this specific research. It was the tenth Nobel Prize awarded to one or more Belgians, and the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Belgium.
Bordet (1870-1961) won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1919. Heymans (1892-1968) did the same in 1938. Christian de Duve (1917-2013) and Albert Claude (1899-1983) shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1974.

Answer: Ingrid Berghmans

Belgian sports journalists vote for the sports woman of the year since 1975 (as a spin-off of the title sports man of the year installed in 1967).
Ingrid Berghmans was born in 1961. She practiced judo and won six world championships (twice in her weight class, and four times in the open class). Moreover she won seven European championships, and in 1988 she topped her career with Olympic gold. Berghmans was the first to win the title of Sports Woman of the Year eight times: 1980, 1982-1986 (five times in a row), and 1988-1989.
Kim Clijsters, the tennis player born 1983, won the title Sports Woman of the Year also eight times (between 1999 and 2011). Justine Henin (born 1982, tennis) won four times (between 2003 and 2007). Carine Verbauwen (born 1961, swimming) was the first Sports Woman of the Year in 1975 and also won in 1978 and 1979.

Answer: Tik Tak

"Tik Tak" is the only Belgian show mentioned in the options. Some of the items were a little shepherd's house where a number of sheep went out and back in (sometimes followed by a shepherd dog or by a cat), a nine-piece puzzle revealing a well-known animal (for instance a duck or a parrot) and the silhouette of a young girl rearranging a number of random shapes into something familiar (for instance a pile of shapes that together make an ice cream cup, when everything is placed exactly where it belongs).
"Teletubbies" was a British show running from 1997 until 2001. This was another show for pre-school kids.
"Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" was an American show. It ran from 1968 until 2001.
"Sesame Street" was an American show which debuted in 1969.
"Sesame Street" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" were made for Kindergarten school kids.

Answer: Sunset

"Sunset" is the only Belgian game in the options. It tells the story of an immigrant doing household chores in a wealthy family, at the backdrop of a violent revolution in the (fictitious) country where everything takes place.
It seems to me a quite original game, for I don't know many games about household chores. But I'm afraid the synopsis is not quite inviting. After all, mopping the floor does not seem fun (unless there were a lion cub or a young giant panda helping out...)
"Sunset" was released in 2015 by the Belgian game studio Tale of Tales. As the sales were quite beneath standard, the independent game studio decided to quit the industry.
"Need for Speed" is a racing franchise by various developers and published by Electronic Arts .
"Doom" is a first-person shooter developed by id Software.
"Assassin's Creed" is an adventure game series developed by Ubisoft.

Answer: English

The Belgian constitution determines the three official languages: Dutch (about 58% of the population), French (about 41%) and German (less than 1%). Official documents such as town council decrees or notary acts all have to be redacted in one of these three languages, and the local authorities have to use only the official language designated for their territory. Even the labour contracts between Belgian employees and foreign (for instance British or American) companies have to be made up in the official language determined by the exploitation seat.
This legal situation does not exclude that in private communications (for instance sales talk in a shop) other languages can occur. An American going to a restaurant in a touristic centre, will probably be helped in English.
Many Belgians try to master at least the three official languages and English. I personally speak Dutch, French, English, German and a bit of Italian.