Belgium Beckons

So often life gives you surprises. One such surprise, came along my way when I was in Torrance, California, USA during December 1998. My project manager threw a question to our group, "There is a Vantive resource needed in Belgium for six month. Who wants to go?". Silence prevailed as all of us were obsessed with the recent realization of the great American dream. We had come to the US just two months before and so no body wanted to let it go so soon. Eventually the manager chose me as a Chinese volunteer.

I looked at an European map to locate Belgium. I saw Germany, France, Italy. But Belgium? Oh! my God, where the hell am I going? I asked the guy at our travel department to show me Belgium. Poor guy, he himself wanted to know, where he is sending me. Together, we looked into the map and found a territory not even big enough to print its name inside its boundaries. Soon I was flying into the unknown.

I was greeted and received warmly by a young and a beautiful girl from our Belgian office. The first glimpse of Belgium wasn't bad at all. She was courteous, kind and spoke pretty good English. During our trip to the hotel and then to the client's office, she briefed me of the complicated mixture of regions, languages and working culture of Belgium. Listening, I looked outside the cab, watching tall buildings, green fields, unpronounceable street names, layers of bridges and clean, smooth roads. Clearly, I was into the unknown and I was alone. Unlike many other software postings, I wasn't in the company of fellow colleagues nor I saw any Indian around. Fear whispered, 'You will be lonely, you can't make it', courage shouted, 'Face it'.

Thus began the time of all things Belgian. It was a dream life in reality. I traveled extensively, had an independent lifestyle, made good friends, worked normal hours, could bring out my talent and was respected for it, contributed to social welfare schemes, read and discussed everything I liked and was growing in all sense. (I even had an unexpected growth - I started growing horizontally, instead of vertically)

It wasn't all roses and no thorns. I faced extreme loneliness, had racial troubles at work and I had difficulty in getting promotions and compensations, as I was singled out in Belgium. There were weekends, I wouldn't get out of bed because I was so discouraged. But I learned to enjoy the rose, despite the thorns.

I was becoming a Belgian in thought and deeds. I was simply enjoying. What began for six months extended year after year. Then came the thunderbolt - Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle made a hostile bid to take over Peoplesoft. This caused panic in the management circle in the client's place. We were supposed to migrate the Vantive application to Peoplesoft and with the hostile bid it seemed, they would end up in double migration. The project was put on hold and contracts were cancelled. I didn't receive any help from my firm in finding further contracts, and they refused to keep me any longer than the last working day. My Belgian trip ended the same way it began - unexpectedly.

When I look back, it does pain. But the fun and the joy that I had, compensates for the pain. In these pages I try to revisit those days. Hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. I should warn you though that thoughts on Belgian culture (and western in general) are how I interpreted them. I did extensive reading and discussions, however it is possible that I got few parts wrong.