Cultural Understanding

Last weekend I visited with friends a popular event in Tilburg called Festival van het Levenslied. You could translate this into Festival of the Songs of Life, but I guess more explanation is needed. A levenslied is a sentimental song, mostly sang in the Dutch-language and the lyrics are bitter or sweet. Central themes of the songs are love, death and misery, but it could also be about nice, sunny and exotic holiday places (think of some famous songs Viva Espana or Mexico) and about family affairs and broken relationships. If the song is about misery the Dutch term smartlap is often used. Related is the German equivalent Schlager and some would argue that it is a Chanson for the lower class audiences. Italian equivalents are songs such as Buona Sera and Volare. The best smartlap or levenslied is when it is with full of predictable, clichéd rhymes, so everybody can sing along easily. Gossip goes that the most famous singer of all times of these songs, André Hazes who passed away in 2004, used a rhyming dictionary when he wrote his lyrics.

Although the levenslied is seen as low culture, many people are ashamed to admit that they know these songs and will sing in unison in bars and at other occasions. In fact, if you do not know the classic Dutch smartlappen, you are a culture barbarian. I think that every international student would enjoy going to the Festival van het Levenslied. Not only for having a good time and drinking lots of beer, but also for understanding an important part of Dutch culture. Learning at least a few of these famous Dutch songs should become mandatory at the Dutch Language course at the university.

Hans-Georg van Liempd is program manager internationalisation at TiU and president of EAIE. He blogs for Univers.

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