It's time for this week's So Your Character is ... Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I'm hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven't checked out last week's So Your Character is from Denmark ... be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!
Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.
(None of the Images are Mine)
Hey, everyone! So my name is Stéphanie (known as Phannie on the blog universe) I’m a 22-year-old economics and management student. I’m a ginger, therefore, my blog name Phannie the Ginger Bookworm. I love to read and write. I do play the guitar sometimes and I’m doing horseback riding once a week. Currently, I’m living in the southern part of my country and I have since I was born. I’m studying here in Luxembourg but did two years of communication studies in a college in Brussels before. However, these studies were not really my cup of tea so I decided to do a restart!
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What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?
What is certainly unique about my country is the language. You only hear Luxembourgish in Luxembourg. And that’s a great thing! It’s nearly the same as Dutch or German. We have some important traditions: the Hopping procession of Echternach, funfair of Luxembourg (Schueberfouer), Bonfire festival (Buergbrennen), Candlemas Day (Liichtmesdaag), Carnival (Fuesend), Pretzel Sunday (Bretzel Sonndeg), Octav Pilgrimage, and of course our national day that is held every June 23rd. During Summer we have lots of cultural events. Some are even free.
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| the Hopping procession of Echternach |
What’s great about Luxembourg is that it’s green. At least Luxembourg City. We have lots of parks, where you can just lie around and de-stress. But I don’t really have a favorite place!
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| Luxembourg City |
We have some dishes that are only existing here. So I don’t even know if there is an English word for it. But for example, we have a soup called “Bouneschlupp” (I’m not even sure if I’ve written the word correctly). It’s a soup with lots of vegetables and meat. Boune means Beans so the main vegetable is beans, but you also find potatoes in it.
Tell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as “biscuits” instead of “cookies”?
As Luxembourgish is a language that’s not spoken in other countries, I can only give you some examples of words. Cookie: Kichelchen, Potato: Gromperen, Carrots: Wuerzelen, Sleep: Schloofen...
Describe briefly a regular day in your country.
I guess that our days are exactly the same as in any other country. In the morning you wake up to go to work. You take your breakfast with your family members or you go to a café. After work, you either go out with colleagues or go home. There are always traffic jams. (But I guess that’s not unusual) And in the evening we spent some time with our loved ones. We have lots of foreigners in Luxembourg that are working there.
How does your country compare to others, especially the States since my audience is primarily American? Environmentally? Politically? Culturally?
Our political system is completely different than the American one. We all (all those that have the Luxembourgish nationality) have to vote. We also have different parties like Belgium, Germany... We don’t have democrats and republicans.
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| Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg |
The independence, allowing same-sex marriage, of course, having had a Grand Duchess reigning (Grand Duchess Charlotte).
What are some stereotypes about your country that irk you? What media portrays your country badly be it a movie, a book, or a TV show?
None in the other countries, I don’t know of any book or movie talking about Luxembourg. (Apart from our own media) If I’m wrong you can always tell me! :) However, something that irks me is that people think we Luxembourgers are all rich just because our wage is better than in other countries. Because that’s not true. Things are also expensive here so just because we have a higher salary than other countries, that doesn’t mean that we are all rich!
What media portrays your country well be it a movie, a book, or a TV show?
Same as above!
Who are your top three favorite fictional characters native to your country in books, movies, or shows?
None existing!
Thank you, Stephanie, for this very informative post! Come back next week for a post all about Spain!
Are you interested in participating in this project? Check out the tips archive to see which countries have been filled and if you're from a different country, shoot me an email at howellvictoriagrace(a)gmail(dot)com. I'm especially looking for Cuba, Venezuela, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, and Iraq.
Do you have any characters from Luxembourg? Did this inspire you to write a Luxembourgian character or set a book in Luxembourg? Are from this or been to this country and you have further input? Feel free to share! Do you have any questions for Stephanie? Be sure to thank her!
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