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The House Where Audrey Hepburn Was Born (No.25)
1st of August 2013
Last month, Crown Prince Philippe was sworn in as the new king. He is the 7th king of the Belgian Royal Family. It is well known that the Belgian Royal Family is closely connected with European royalty and nobility. As previously explained, Leopold I, the first king, came from a German noble family and the queen was the daughter of Louis-Philippe d’Orléans (later the king of France), a result of the dynamics of European international politics. Spanning five generations, the successive queens came from Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Spain and Italy. Queen Mathilde comes from a family of Counts in Bastogne in Wallonia (her grandfather lived on the outskirts of Ghent in Flanders) and she is the first Belgian-born queen in the history of the Belgian Royal Family. Furthermore, in terms of blood relatives, looking at the lineage of the Queens’ mothers, they are connected to Poland, Portugal and Denmark as well. It feels as if the new King Philippe has royal and noble blood of all European countries running through his veins. Also, from the perspective of relatives by blood and marriage, if we look up the families that the princesses of the successive kings have married into and the birthplace of the marriage partners of the princes, we can see that in addition to the countries mentioned above, they are also related with the UK, Austria and Luxemburg. Moreover, considering that the Queens’ siblings married into European royal and noble families, the ties with relatives by blood and marriage spread out without end. What an amazing internationalism when viewed from the eyes of Japanese people living in an island country.
< A Major Agricultural Event Called ”Libramont” >
 At the beginning of this week, I visited the “Libramont Fair” which is said to be the biggest agricultural open-air fair in Europe. The venue is a small town called “Libramont”, located on the southeast tip of Belgium, in the Ardennes close to Luxemburg. In addition to the exhibition of various types of agricultural machinery, all fields of agriculture such as forestry, fisheries, livestock breeding, food industry, and aquaculture are represented. It is a huge fair with 1800 participating companies (of which 800 exhibitors) that welcomes more than 220.000 visitors for four days on a site of 30 ha. This year is the 79th time that the fair takes place, how surprising. A large number of VIPs from political and business circles showed up and Prince Laurent (younger brother of King Philippe) visited the fair together with Princess Claire, their eldest daughter Princess Louise (9 years old) and their sons. The theme of this fair being “Trees”, forestry-related exhibitions stood out. The reason for my interest in this event is because the organizer is the son of the former landlord of the Japanese Ambassador’s residence in Brussels and soon after I arrived in Belgium, he gave me an explanation about the fair and wanted me to visit it by all means. Besides his business in fir trees for Christmas trees, he breeds farm horses called the “Ardennes Horse” (characteristics are thick and short legs and a short and stout body). These horses could be admired as well and were even prominently featured in this fair. These horses look like a little version of the horses that compete in the Ban’ei horse race in the city of Obihiro in Hokkaido. Also the huge beef cattle breeds such as the Belgian Blue and the Blonde d’Aquitaine attracted a lot of attention. Of course, in addition to the horses and cows, a variety of farm animals could be admired as well, which made it an event that could be enjoyed even by children.
< Vilvoorde and Komatsu city >
 At the beginning of last month, I paid a visit to Vilvoorde (12km north of Brussels) and met with Mr. Hans Bonte, mayor of Vilvoorde. Until recently he worked as Alderman at Vilvoorde and at the same time he has been a member of the federal Chamber of Representatives for the past 18 years. Currently he holds an important position as President of the Parliamentary Commission for Public Health. Vilvoorde is a relatively old city that built a transit station when the first railway was opened on the European continent (between Brussels and Mechelen) in 1830, but there are no prominent historical buildings and there is a sober feeling to the town. However, geographically adjacent to Brussels, the population is increasing by 1.5% annually in recent years to the current population of 42.000. As for economic activity, Vilvoorde is mainly active in the automotive (the French Renault) and food industry (the American Cargill). The headquarters of TV and media such as VTM stand out as well. The proximity to the airport of Brussels, 10-15 minutes by car, is also attractive.
 Vilvoorde has a sister city relationship with Komatsu-City in Japan since 1974 because of Komatsu Ltd.’s operations in Vilvoorde and various events have been planned for the 40th anniversary next year. One of the events is a high school student exchange: 8 selected high school students from Vilvoorde will visit Komatsu later this month and high school students from Komatsu-City will visit Vilvoorde next year in return. Also, a project to build a Japanese garden in a park of the city for the 40th anniversary is in progress. Mayor Bonte himself showed me around on the planned site for the garden. Komatsu-City on the other hand plans to build a rose garden. I had a look at the plans and it is truly magnificent. Both cities will start the works in the near future and both gardens are expected to be completed by May next year. I am really glad that the sister cities are developing concrete projects while deepening the exchanges this way.
< Japanese Junior High School Students Invited to Belgium >
 Last week, I met with two groups of Japanese junior high school students who were invited to Belgium. The first group were 8 junior high school students from Himeji-City in Hyogo Prefecture who came to Charleroi (60 km south of Brussels). Being sister cities, every year close to 10 junior high school students are invited from Himeji-City to Charleroi. The students did a 6-day homestay, interacted with local students of the same age and went sightseeing (see Ambassador’s Chat No. 24). I attended the welcome party right after their arrival where officials of the city and the host families gathered for the first time. As Charleroi is a central city of the French-speaking region in the south of Belgium, the Japanese junior high school students introduced themselves in French which they had just learned for this purpose. Junior high school students have just begun to study English at school as well, so there is some anxiety about the communication with their host families, but I hope that they will be able to express themselves somehow using gestures and I hope that they will have a good time.
 The second group were two male students from Ishinomaki-City in Miyagi Prefecture (a high school and a junior high school student) who visited Louvain-la-Neuve (30 km southeast of Brussels). This is an invitation program that was started last year to support the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake by a NGO group called MIRAI, active in the City. These two students do a homestay of about two weeks and I attended a BBQ party, held when one week of their stay had passed. Many local university students and the homestay families attended the party. This NGO held an event to introduce the food culture of Japan for the purpose of raising invitation funds in cooperation with local universities and several Japanese restaurants. The proceeds were applied to the travel and living expenses of the invited students. Naturally it was a modest “homemade” project, but for that reason alone it was a warm-hearted event.
< Two Women Who Left Their Name in History and Ixelles >
I mentioned already several times in my “Ambassador’s Chats” that the Ambassador’s Residence is located in Ixelles, the southern part of the city of Brussels. However, it is not very well known that two famous women who left their name in history have lived in Ixelles in the past. One of them is Maria Malibran, who is said to have been the best opera singer of the 19th century. In the 1830s, when Belgium had just gained its independence, she lived in Ixelles with Charles-Auguste de Beriot, her second husband. Their house is the current town hall of Ixelles and also the place where I had a meeting with the mayor, Mr. Willy Decourty, last month (See Ambassador’s Chat No. 20). Maria Malibran, who had achieved popularity in the United States and all over Europe, died in a horse-riding accident at the young age of 28. She is a legendary woman in the world of opera.
  Another woman is Audrey Hepburn, a great actress of the 20th century. I had heard that she was born in Belgium, but I never knew that it was in Ixelles. The other day, I visited the house where she was born. A small plaque at the entrance of the apartment indicates that this is her birthplace and a flashy picture of the actress is painted on the wall directly opposite the street. She lived in Ixelles until the age of five, moved to the United Kingdom when her parents divorced and later crossed over to the Netherlands, her mother’s native country. In the Netherlands, she spent a childhood full of emotions and when World War II broke out it is said that she threw herself into the Resistance movement to resist the German occupation. Having the same age as Anne Frank, it is a well-known story that she suffered a deep wound to the heart knowing the misfortune of another girl, written down in the “Diary of Anne Frank”. Beautiful as a fairy in the famous film of “Roman Holiday”, it is impossible to imagine that her early life was full of difficulties.
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