Culture: “A Dog of Flanders” revisited
June 8, 2006
This article is the second part of “Do you know “A Dog of Flanders“?”, published on June 3rd.
I had a strange sense of déjà vu as I entered the cathedral of Antwerp. Although it was my first visit, the subtle gothic decorations on the walls and high ceilings seemed quite familiar. Standing speechless in front of Rubens’ paintings, I felt solemn and yet comfortable. Nello must have felt just the same, I imagined.
The climactic scene of the animation series “A Dog of Flanders” is almost like a common memory to all Japanese. No wonder many Japanese tourists weep for Nello as they think how he must have felt on that fateful Christmas Eve.
But I was surprised to learn that the Japanese are almost the only ones who get so emotional. Why do Belgians or Americans or British tourists not cry in the cathedral of Antwerp?
Some might say the Japanese are just too sentimental compared to all the realists in the world. But is that all?
“Well, we have learned there are more reasons to it,” say Didier Volckaert and An van Dienderen, a couple in Ghent who makes critical documentary films on current social issues. Their sixth and latest collaborative film, “Tu ne verras pas Verapaz” (2002) revealed the hidden historical facts of Belgian colonisation in Guatemala.
A Dog of Flanders revisited
The subject of their next documentary is the story of Nello and his faithful dog Patrasche, the main characters of “A Dog of Flanders”. An and Didier were curious to know how their homeland was pictured abroad, and the story just seemed to fit perfectly in their project.
They have already travelled to Japan and gathered material for their film. An kindly shares some of their findings: “As Belgians, this story reminds us of the poverty our forefathers suffered back in the 19th century. We simply cannot enjoy reading it,” she says.
“But a more important factor is the cultural difference in the acceptance of sad endings,” adds Didier. “Unlike the Japanese, we do not have the tradition of telling sad tales to our children.”
One may see an extreme but interesting example in how Americans have adapted the story. According to Didier and An’s research, there have been six different film versions of “A Dog of Flanders” in the U.S. since 1914, but none of them has a sad ending. American filmmakers always revise the tale into a “Happily-ever-after” story. Nello and Patrasche survive the cold winter night, Nello becomes a famous painter, marries his girlfriend Aloise…
It is a completely opposite approach from the Japanese animators who believed that the ending of the story was its most essential part and left it untouched.
“Americans think the original Patrasche story is just too harsh to confront children with,” Didier speculates.
Jan Corteel, a tourist officer in Antwerp and an expert on the story, also admits that there is a big perception gap.
“In our Western countries, one loses when he or she dies. But Asian people don’t see death as a failure. Devoting all your life with a true heart to the pursuit of a goal makes you an everlasting hero. And that is exactly what Nello did.”
As Jan puts it, “nobility of failure” may be another key factor. In Japan, there are traditional stories in which “the loser” receives more sympathy from the public than “the winner.” The Japanese even have a word for this: “hangan-biiki” which means feeling sympathy for a tragic hero.
Why do Japanese tell sad stories to their children?
“It has to do with how you raise your children in your culture,” discloses Akira Takahashi, a professor of developmental psychology at Musashino University in Tokyo.
In Japan, a basic principle of moral education and parenting is the idea of empathy. Children are taught to first consider what other people think and then decide how to behave. Parents and teachers will say: “If you act like this, think about what your friends will feel” or “It might make your mom feel sad.”
“But in the United States and maybe most other countries, parents and teachers act as the ‘authority’ figures and simply tell children what is right or wrong. Moral principles are social rules which exist outside of human relations. In Japan, morality is considered as something that you nurture by yourself as you grow up. This is just the way it is, and we can’t say which way is right or better.”
Takahashi suggests that children tend to empathise more deeply with sad feelings. Therefore Japanese people appreciate sad endings because they can use them as a kind of tool to teach children how to care for others.
He researched child-raising manuals for American parents and could not find any sad stories in their lists of recommended books. “Children tales are supposed to give them dreams. Efforts should pay off at the end. Just like violent movies, sad stories are avoided in the U.S.”
Takahashi also found that the famous sad endings of Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and “The Little Match Girl” have similarly been changed into happy ones in American versions.
What is Flanders?
Just as my quest is inseparable from the question: “Who is Japanese?”, the Patrasche story is also a way for Didier and An to explore the question “Who is Flemish?”
“The author of the book, Ouida, was British, and the book became popular in the U.S. and Japan. Everything comes from outside Flanders. We can see the Japanese animation series and exclaim: ‘This is not Flanders.’ But, then what is Flanders? We really don’t have the answer because we never asked ourselves this question,” An says.
The historical background of Flanders has made Flemish identity ambiguous. Since the 12th century the region fell under the rule of various neighbouring countries. Nowadays, an influx of foreign immigrants brings continuous social tension.
We will find out Didier and An’s answer when their film is released next year…
But do you like the story?
“So, did you like the story?” I asked Didier and An, who are both very fond of Japanese culture.
Didier, a fanatic of “manga” (Japanese comics), grinned: “I really like the way the Japanese animators arranged the original book, but I had to laugh when it snows in the film. It’s like Siberia!”
OK. Forget about the little details for now.
But, I insisted, after all their research and interviews, I suppose they now see the story’s universal message, the celebration of friendship and devotion? They are surely moved by the sad ending?
“Not really,” An honestly admitted. “It is just too sentimental for me and I cannot concentrate on reading it through.”
“I liked the ending,” said Didier, “I now see the point in the death of Nello and Patrasche. But, did I cry? No.”
So maybe Japanese people are a bit sentimental after all.
By Masaki Takakura
Masaki Takakura, a staff writer for Japanese national daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, is currently doing an internship programme at the European Journalism Centre’s office in Brussels. His speciality is child welfare.
Update 27 October 2007:
More information on Didier Volckaert and An van Dienderen’s documentary about ‘A dog of Flanders’ by can be found on http://www.dogofflanders.be
The documentary gives an insight on the book, the writer, the American film adaptations the Japanese Anime series and the cultural implications in Flanders and Japan.
Watch the trailer of the documentary
Update 9 July 2006: Crossroads articles published in Kosovo newspaper
We are pleased to inform our readers that Masaki Takakura’s feature articles about “A Dog of Flanders” have recently been published in Bota Sot, a leading Albanian-language Kosovo newspaper.
As Masaki put it: “It’s fun to act as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe. Helping to understand each other is something I always dream as a journalist, not just for Europe but for all over the world. I think it is one of the best part of being a journalist. The Patrasche article might help people understand more about Japanese culture and how we think. I found it really meaningful since Japanese people have never been very good at speaking about ourselves.”
Here are the articles: “Do you know ‘A Dog of Flanders’?” and “A Dog of Flanders revisited” (in Albanian, pdf format).
There is a bench in front of the cathedral of Antwerp commemorating the story of Nello and Patrasche with an explanation in English, Dutch and Japanese. But most tourists just don’t understand what it is all about, except the Japanese. It is funny to see their queer look!
Another explanation for the fact that the story of “A Dog of Flanders” never really caught on in Flanders - nor in the Netherlands for that matter - could be that it is too much a product of the naturalist theory, which had many followers at the beginning of the 20th century in France, Great-Britain, Germany and the United States, but not in Belgium or in the Netherlands, where it was ill received and widely criticised.
According to naturalism, a person’s fate is determined by their (social) background and their environment, and there is always a strong sense of doom in most naturalist novels. Characters have no free will and their dreams of improving their condition are almost always crushed.
Maybe this philosophical movement never became popular among the Flemish and the Dutch because it went too much against their more equalitarian social ideal.
In “A Dog of Flanders”, Nello and Patrasche cannot escape their fate, no matter how good they are or how hard they try. It is this unfairness that is so difficult for the Flemish and the Dutch to take in. But in more hierarchical societies, people will maybe be more complying and less prompt to challenge it.
But ultimately, I think that in order to appreciate this story, one should maybe look beyond its naturalist message. I agree with Masaki Takakura when he suggests that what moves the Japanese the most in the story is its celebration of friendship and loyalty, represented by the unconditional attachment that Nello and his dog Patrasche feel for each other.
I think that the Japanese also love the “couleur locale” inherent to the story, with its strong Northern European flavour (albeit somewhat stereotypical and not always accurate), its cultural scenery (Rubens’ famous paintings, the architecture of the cathedral of Antwerp) and its fascinating historical dimension…
I would still be very curious to see how the animation series or the film would be received by the Dutch public, were they to be broadcast one day here in the Netherlands…
Thank you for your comment, Sueli.
I think the story is easily acceptable for Japanese people because we are familiar to the idea of accepting one’s fate as it is. It is actually the spirit of Buddhism which has a strong influence on our way of thinking even today.
Near the end of the story, Nello and Patrasche found the miller’s wallet and brought it back to him, and then Nello ran out into the snowy, cold winter. I felt strange when one Belgian person pointed out that Nello should have stayed in the miller’s house. He said that what Nello did was “like a suicide” and he could have saved his life by deciding not to leave the house. But I (and probably most Japanese people) don’t recognise his act was wrong at all. Nello must have felt so lonely at that time, and only hope left was to see the Rubens’ paintings.
In Western countries, your future is something you create by yourself. You take charge in shaping your own destiny.
Mr. Takahashi, the professor of psychological development, told me a good example: People in Western countries fight against cancer. In contrast, Japanese people tend to use the expression “to live (or cope) with the cancer.”
It is so fascinating that one little story can show us all the cultural difference between us.
Love is patient;
Love is kind and envies no one.Love is never boastful.not conceited.not rude; never selfish,not quick to take offence.Love keeps no score of wrongs;does not gloat over other men’s sins.but delights in the truth.There is nothing love cannot face. there is no limit to its faith.its hope.and its endurance. (Corinthians13:4-7)
I could find this message in this story “A Dog of Flanders”
This story is my treasure.
Sorry I can’t write my e-mail address:
http://www.patrasche.net/postmail.html
“The book of Job could be a bestseller in Japan whereas in the western world it is one of the most problematic ‘holy’ books.”
As Masaki explained very well, a fundamental difference in culture is probably the main reason for the unpopularity of “Nello” in the occident. However it does not explain why the story is less popular in Flanders than in America or France. If it was really such a great story, the “Americanized”, happy-ending version should have conquered the hearts of the Belgian youth a long time ago. But it did not!
I believe it has more to do with a mismatch of the “couleur locale”.
Just like most Belgians do not recognize themselves in Hercule Poirot.
It is maybe similar to the story of that Dutch boy who poked his finger in a dyke. Every American seems to know it, but in Dutch school I never learned his name.
When I first told my sister Marcia that Crossroads was going to run an article on “A Dog of Flanders”, she judiciously remarked: “What a coincidence, 2006 happens to be the Year of the Dog in Asia!”
Then she started reflecting on the importance of the dog in Japanese culture, giving as examples Japanese folkloric tales featuring dogs, such as “Momotaro” (The Peach boy) and “Hanasaka Jisan” (The Old Man who made the Trees Blossom).
And she also talked about the famous dog Hachiko, whose unfaltering loyalty towards his master has moved generations of Japanese people.
The Japanese appear to be traditionally very fond of dogs, whom they see as loyal, sensitive and caring companions.
Maybe this special affection for dogs can also explain why the Japanese feel so touched by the character of Patrasche in “A Dog of Flanders”?
Dogs are also very popular in British and American culture. A simple internet search gave me a long list of famous dogs in Great-Britain and in the US: Lassie, Nipper, Owney (the official United States Postal Service dog), Rin Tin Tin, Snoopy etc. I even found a list of United States Presidential Pets, which featured mainly dogs.
As for famous Belgian dogs, everyone knows Tintin’s companion Milou and Boule’s friend Bill but one could argue that these comic characters were imagined by Walloon authors, not Flemish.
The only result I found on internet linking “Flanders” and “dog”, apart from Patrasche of course, was a reference to Kludde, a folkloric “shapeshifting creature that roams the Flemish countryside”, usually appearing “in the shape of a monstrous black dog that walks on his hind legs”. Kludde “hides in the twilight of dawn and sunset and attacks innocent travelers”…
(see http://www.pantheon.org/articles/k/kludde.html
and http://wiki.dumpshock.com/index.php/Kludde)
Not quite the image of man’s best friend!
This discovery has left me rather puzzled… and now I am wondering about the following:
As Masaki’s first article revealed, Ouida, the author of “A Dog of Flanders” had a deep affection for dogs. So maybe a clue to her novel’s success in Great-Britain, the United States and Japan could also lie in the fact that these countries are also dog-loving nations? And maybe the Flemish are not that extremely fond of dogs?
In support of Sueli’s conjecture that Japanese people are very fond of dogs, I would like to add a few remarkable facts.
- In 1687, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi enacted a number of edicts protecting living things, especially dogs, known as Edicts on Compassion for Living Things (犬生類憐れみの令).
- A Japanese proverb says:
Feed a dog for three days and it is grateful for three years. Feed a cat for three years and it forgets after three days
[犬を三日飼えば三年恩を忘れぬ。猫は三年飼っても三日で恩を忘れる。]
- In Japanese there exists a very polite way to address a dog: oinusama.
(source: http://www.japanesepod101.com)
However, I was a little amazed reading Sueli’s argumentation for a possible dislike of dogs in Flanders.
Some points:
- Belgium happens to be a very small country. A simply calculation shows that even if every person in Belgium would have a website about dogs, they still would be outnumbered by American and British sites. Consequently, the probability that a Anglo-Saxon person puts a list of famous dogs on the internet is far greater than the probability a Belgian person does so.
- “Lassie” has been transmitted many times on Dutch and Belgian television. It was (and maybe still is) a very popular series. Lots of albums (comics) about Lassie and Rin Tin Tin in the typical “Van der Steen”-style have been published and devoured by the Dutch and Belgian youth.
- The story about “Kludde” is indeed very scary, just as Conan Doyle’s story about the Hound of Baskerville. But there are still a lot of Dutch/Flemish children books with many cute dogs. Just as an example: “Cheffie is de baas” by Kaat Francken, a tale about the very bossy dog, has been awarded with the “Zilveren Griffel 2005” (second price for Dutch children literature).
- Most dogs are bred in the UK, but there are quite a few Belgian breeds, many more than the three Japanese breeds Akita, Shiba and Mameshiba.
I wish I could have agreed with Sueli - I have stepped too many times in dog-droppings to like them – but I have found no indication that the Belgians love their dogs less than the British or the French.
Interesting point about which cultures have the custom of telling their children sad or frightening stories. I had always seen this essentially as a difference between the United States and Europe. My experience in a playgroup with American “moms” showed that British nursery rhymes and children’s songs were often adapted in the United States to make them more optimistic or egalitarian. The more bloodthirsty ones seemed not to have made the transition at all.
I don’t think people of Flanders would not be moved by this story. Although the name ‘Nello’ doesn’t sound very familiar here, as also the landscape in movies looks more Dutch than Belgian, I recall it more like a typical Belgian story, as the movies that are made in my homeland are also quite depressed and showing the common poorer men in their failures and misfortunes. As one may look in the history of these lands, there were a lot of Nello’s to find. Child labour was a painful tradition as Flanders was destroyed several times by the hard wars of Europe. The industrial revolution made Belgium one of the most prosperous nations in the 19th century, but the wealth was unfairly divided and families of sometimes 19 children had to send their children to the fabrics from the age of 6! (’Daens’) The fact is that much has changed now, and so only the elderly can give us their story, as Flanders has changed fundamentaly since the fifties, both in welfare and landscape. The real truth is that the story of Nello and Patrasche is not known at all here. In the library you would hardly find a translation for children, and the three recent movies that came out were never broadcasted on the local television screen. A comic came out from ‘Suske and Wiske’, and that was it. I have no friends who are familiar with the story. Probably the Japanese are so moved when they come here because the story was in their hearts, yet from their childhood. When you are grown up it’s hard to have the same amount of empathy, and it will stay ‘just a story’. I have read the story when I was young, and I was impressed, and it touched my heart even till now, and when my grandfather tells about his past, collecting World-war I iron on the battlefields of Ypers in 1928, just to exchange a whole sack of lead for a slice of bread, also he dreamed of a better place to live, the image of Nello comes on my mind….
I really love this anime since im 8 years old….
This anime make me feel strange and I always compare it to myself….
Full of emotion because if Nello died how about the friends he left…? What is the feeling of it…?
His friends always happy and Nello dying while remembering the past…..
Pain and envy in the cold…
and death cannot escape…
Some people didnt understand the life of Nello but some yes…
Nello… Nello… Nello…. hmmm… that’s all T_T
Lieven mentioned an adaption of “A Dog of Flanders” (titled “Dreigende Dinges”) in the comic book series “Suske en Wiske”. I remember reading this book in my childhood and disliking it throughly because of its gloominess and unfairness that permeated the story. It ran counter to the optimistic nature of almost every other Suske en Wiske edition, in which in the end every character gets what he deserves. In fact, I can’t think of any other Suske en Wiske in which someone dies.
I also agree with Lieven that the names Nello and Patrasche don’t ring familiar in Belgium or Antwerp and that most Belgians don’t recognize themselves in A Dog of Flanders. The story after all was written by an English woman, born from a French father and an English mother, and her cultural luggage may have been to different to appeal to Belgians.
Another possible factor for the story’s unpopularity in present-day Belgium is that natives aren’t very religious or at least keep their religion to themselves. The idea you’d go through such great lengths to die in front of a religious work is incomprehensive to most.
“A Dog of Flanders” is a good one, in Hong Kong market, not now but in my teenage around 20 years ago, some translated books /comics from Taiwan, TV cartoons from Japan, etc.
HK is a small place in Asia, and is much imfluenced by Japanese culture, coz we’re very close to it geographically.
I am very sad to know that Mr Jan Corteel the modern bridge-builder of the touching story between Japan and Belgium, actually killed his own Japanese wife early this year.
What a sad ending and irony enough.
I’ve read your articles about A Dog of Flanders with great interest.
I’m Flemish, and even though I have known the story since I was young (through Willy Vandersteens “Dreigende Dinges”) I never thought about it a lot.
I was very surprised to find out that this story is so popular in Japan, and so little known here in Belgium. Ever since I found out I’ve wanted to see the anime, but I haven’t been able to find it yet.
I have however watched parts of it on Youtube, including the ending, and it did bring tears to my eyes, so you see, not all Belgians are untouched by the story.
Even though the characters do look more Dutch than Belgian, I can clearly see this as a story from Flanders.
I must also say that I am grateful to the Japanese. It’s great that you preserved the original ending. I generally dislike the Western (American) tendency to make all stories happy. I would tell this story to my children anytime, with the sad ending, it’s just so beautiful and touching.
If this is the way Flanders is seen abroad, I’m very happy. So I want to say thank you for preserving the story, and I hope that I’ll be able to find the anime so I too can watch the story that touched so many Japanese’s hearts.
The only reference I have for this story is from the anime film that was translated in the vernacular in our country. It is one of those tales that always brings sad emotions for me to this day… and the fact that the protagonists died without being able to uplift themselves from their predicament brings to mind one of the teachings of my former professor. He says: “There are 2 kinds of poor people: one who is poor by choice, who doesn’t lift a finger to change his state; and one who is poor by circumstance, who is unable to change one’s state despite of everything one does”. The story for me speaks of the inequalities in life that many face up to, some of them subvert, some are flagrant. We know that people bear their own problems and give them their own degree of severity… one may find it hard to get the next and newest gadgets, while another finds it hard to simply put food on the table.
I tried to find more meaning to the tragic end of this story by thinking that death was his release from all his burdens. And when you believe in salvation, the more comfort you can have. For that is where he will no longer feel the pangs of hunger, the bitterness of the cold, and the indifference of people. For dog lovers, well, one cannot prove that that there is no dog heaven for them as well! I do think you got to have some spirituality in you to appreciate the value of the story