Today I went to a career fair at a junior high today. I forgot about how at the beginning of school there is announcements and they play the national anthem and everyone stands. It's amazing that for a few years of our young lives we hear the national anthem. After that we hear it rarely, sporting events. Presenting to the Jr. high students was interesting. Showed them lots of cool x-rays.
Fun to pretend I was young again.
Till Tomorrow
Jenn
1 comment:
Oh do they play the national anthem in Canada as well? Not in the high school I attended in Creston, BC. I thought that playing the national anthem in school was an American phenomenan. It sure is something we do not know in Europe.
And Belgium is even worse: I don't know my national anthem. I truly don't know the lyrics although I can sing the melody a bit. I am not an exception, I am the rule...people who know the words are the exception!
Belgians don't really have a strong national feeling or at least Flemish people don't and a national anthem is not something we care about. When I went on a Rotary exchange the Rotarians actually had a one hour session to teach us the national anthem and they gave us a booklet with the words...which I soon lost. I never learned it either since we were 4 singing in Dutch and 80 singing in French! When I attended RYLA in Idaho in '99, I always sang the Flemish anthem instead of the Belgian one :p. Nobody knew.
In international sports events you rarely ever see a Belgian singing along although we do try to look solemn and respectful. We are proud of our country at that moment... just not feeling a connection with the words of our anthem. Our national soccer team usually holds hands to look more "sympathetic" since they are the only team in tournaments not singing along.
Cultural differences huh. I don't get the attention that a song or a flag can get, but I guess the rest of the world does not understand us :p
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