Now i am a local of the fair city of Ypres in Belgium. I wouldn't be surprized if that name rang a bell with a lot of people here, it was a flashpoint of the first world war, it was where John McCrae wrote "in Flanders fields, wherethe poppy's grow". And yes plenty of poppy fields here.
In recent years, Anglosaxon tourism to Ypres really has boomed, to the point that for the locals the changes are visible. To give a few example's, i for one like to play some snooker in the weekend, and i used to do this in a snooker bar in Ypres. But now there aint no snooker bar in Ypres anymore, the last one removed his table's so he could make room for taking in more English tourists, i know for i know the owner and asked him about it, and he was fairly honest in telling to me that pandering to the English tourists like that would allow him to go on pension a few years earlier, i can hardly blame him for his logical reasoning but it does mean that nowadays i have to drive 10 miles out of town to play some snooker.
You could also see it at the Menin gate. Like 10 years ago there were only a few dozen people present to watch it, and so the whole ceremony would only take a few minutes. Nowadays it's more like hundreds of people, and therefore the ceremony has become longer like half an hour and streets are being closed off for the tourists. It has been a bit of a traffic hassle that, Ypres is for a large part a walled around city with at the south and East side having only 2 gates giving entrance to the city, the medieval Rysel gate which only allows 1 file trafic and the somewhat broader Menin Gate. So i had to wait like almost half an hour a few times at the Menin gate as to be able to pass trough, in recent years the City has invested quite a bit in road infrastructure to make acces for both the locals and the tourists better, with our tax money, though Ypres city is fairly rich as it is.
If youre going to see a big cultural happening in Ypres as a local, don't expect to get a prefferential treatement. Traditional feasts like the "cat parade" nowadays has more tourists watching than locals and you'd have it difficult to get a front spot whereas 10 years ago that was fairly easy still. Practicly all our shops and bars nowadays pander to the English tourists, billboards are ever so more in English and all the shop personell speaks fluent English too. There ar plenty of Elder English who like to live out their pension in Ypres so they have been active on the housing market with the result that housing has doubled if not tripled in price over the last 10 years here.
Do we complain a lot? I wouldn't have noticed that yet. Some people sure make good money from all that tourism but thats more like 20% of the active poppulation here whereas the rest has no rea interrest in it. Should we wonder, do English people come here just to look at some dirt holding a cross with their family name on it, rather than to take time to look at our various stylish medieval monuments like say our medieval marketplace with Cloth Hall? Like do they even care about Ypres? Somehow i'm of the oppinion that the rest of ypres is also nice enough for English tourists to want to see it.
Mind you, plenty of Manchesterians in the ground here. Look up the Manchester regiment and their deeds around Ypres, they were here in strenght, were crucial in the denfense of the city and by that token you would not be surprized to know that the Menin gate has a good section of it's walls filled with Manchesterians.
I think the general feeling Amon the locals here is one of respect and consideration for sacrifices. It goes 2 ways i guess, English sacrificed a lot of blood here, nowadays were sacrificing half our city to pander to Enlgish tourism. Honestly i can understand some sentimets when it regards such things liek that point system, though maybe thats more something to question the teams management for, eitherway having foreign players who have lots of home fans tends to often be in the finiancial advantage of a team, gets you more money abroad in various ways. i mean i guess i could complain about the sacrifices i have to make out here for the English, but it would feel disrespectfull given what the English gave to this city.
