[tooki]

What the articles don't tell you is how unfriendly the people are. (The Swiss are never rude, but they view any stranger, regardless of provenance, with suspicion.)

[amazing]

Originally Posted by tooki 

What the articles don't tell you is how unfriendly the people are. (The Swiss are never rude, but they view any stranger, regardless of provenance, with suspicion.)

I suspect the Swiss genome doesn't actually come with any emotions, except perhaps for a fondness for cows and muesli? No insults intended to the cows and muesli, naturally, which are well deserving of a certain fondness.

The typical NYT travel article doesn't ever actually indicate any interactions with locals, it's as if you never come in contact with another culture, as if travel only consists of dining, drinking, sleeping, sightseeing. It's a particularly sterile travel viewpoint.

[tooki]

Which for Zurich, is a good thing. It's a great place to visit as a [well-heeled] tourist. But Zurich keeps winning "best place to live in the world", and I honestly don't get it. I just don't. I find it to be impeccably clean*, always modern, but incredibly hectic, totally un-spontaneous, snooty, and socially difficult. (And though this doesn't affect everyone, given Zurich's role as The Big City for the entire German-speaking part of Switzerland, its goth-industrial and gay scenes both leave to be desired.)



*except for the train stations smelling of urine since they don't have free bathrooms, so hobos and drunks just go... wherever.

[ghporter]

I'm trying to rationalize the concept of a "goth-industrial" scene in a regimented society. It doesn't seem to click. Maybe this is the core of the problem-too much Germanic "there are rules and you will obey them!" influence?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by tooki 

Which for Zurich, is a good thing. It's a great place to visit as a [well-heeled] tourist. But Zurich keeps winning "best place to live in the world", and I honestly don't get it. I just don't. I find it to be impeccably clean*, always modern, but incredibly hectic, totally un-spontaneous, snooty, and socially difficult.

Actually, it shows how bad the process for rating the "best places to live" is.

The people who decide just go in visits, and experience the city as a tourist, which is perfectly fine with Zurich. They really don't take into consideration what it takes to live there.

Those "best places" statistics are really mostly crap.

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I'm trying to rationalize the concept of a "goth-industrial" scene in a regimented society. It doesn't seem to click. Maybe this is the core of the problem-too much Germanic "there are rules and you will obey them!" influence?

No, I wouldn't say it's a Germanic problem par se. You find plenty of what tooki is looking for in Berlin, or to a lesser degree in other northern cities. It's really more a southern thing, paired with the mental secludedness of Switzerland.

-t

[tooki]

Actually, the goth-industrial scene has its roots in Germany, with Sweden filling in most of the rest; only a tiny, tiny bit comes from the English-speaking world.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Actually, it shows how bad the process for rating the "best places to live" is.

The people who decide just go in visits, and experience the city as a tourist, which is perfectly fine with Zurich. They really don't take into consideration what it takes to live there.

Those "best places" statistics are really mostly crap.

My point exactly.

I won't dispute that Switzerland has a lot to offer, but it has its drawbacks, too.

[amazing]

I couldn't help but laugh as I read this article about the imminent publication of Jung's Red Book.

"Given the Philemon Foundation’s aim to excavate and make public C. G. Jung’s old papers — lectures he delivered at Zurich’s Psychological Club or unpublished letters, for example — both Martin and Shamdasani, who started the foundation in 2003, have worked to develop a relationship with the Jung family, the owners and notoriously protective gatekeepers of Jung’s works. Martin echoed what nearly everybody I met subsequently would tell me about working with Jung’s descendants. “It’s sometimes delicate,” he said, adding by way of explanation, “They are very Swiss.”

What he likely meant by this was that the members of the Jung family who work most actively on maintaining Jung’s estate tend to do things carefully and with an emphasis on privacy and decorum and are on occasion taken aback by the relatively brazen and totally informal way that American Jungians — who it is safe to say are the most ardent of all Jungians — inject themselves into the family’s business."

I think that says it all: "(the Swiss) are very Swiss."

[Phileas]

A gay friend of mine has just married his Swiss partner of 10 years and is, with huge trepidation, moving from Toronto to Zurich. His husband owns his own business, so it would be extremely difficult for him to make the move to Toronto. My friend works for Air Canada, which helped making the long distance relationship work for as long as it did, but in the end they both wanted more commitment.

Still, he's worried about his reception is Swiss society. He's a Canadian of Arab background. Here in Toronto he's just another face in the crowd, in Zurich he's going to stand out in more ways than one.

[tooki]

No kidding. The Swiss are not open to outsiders. It was just in the papers here about a yodeling group from some podunk alp who went on TV, during which they expressed their hatred for the “goddamned Yugos” (roughly translated). And the Swiss have the gall to call Americans racist, even after electing our first black president…

Anyway, tell your friend to get in touch when they get here!

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by tooki 

The Swiss are not open to outsiders.

Are we sure that this is the case? Are we sure that it isn't more along the lines of "the Swiss aren't open to anyone deviating from the restrained conservative norm"?
I mean, it's one of the most conservative nations on earth (possibly the most conservative in the west) and you're there with face and ear furniture.

[tooki]

Quite certain, for two reasons: for one, there are plenty of pierced and tattooed people here. Two, all the foreigners they complain about are not all pierced and tattooed.

And third: every outsider makes the same observations about the Swiss.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by tooki 

Quite certain, for two reasons: for one, there are plenty of pierced and tattooed people here. Two, all the foreigners they complain about are not all pierced and tattooed.

And third: every outsider makes the same observations about the Swiss.

Right, get ya.

Next question: Is it all foreigners, or just specific nationalities? Do the folks in Geneva whine about the Frenchies, for example?

(This is just FMI, nothing else, BTW)

[tooki]

I don’t think they have enough French in the country to worry about. But they complain about the ex-Yugoslavs, the Turks, the Germans, the Africans… and moreover, they have a lot of racism they wouldn’t even recognize as such, because they are so convinced of their “obvious” superiority, to them it’s not racism, it’s just a statement of “fact”.

[OreoCookie]

I was actually quite surprised when I found out Swiss don't like Germans a few years ago. (Switzerland is actually one of the few European countries we did not try to invade ) You have to know that Germans typically have a rather good image of the Swiss, sort of like slower, even more precise Germans (`Denen kann man beim Laufen die Schuhe besohlen.') But conversely, Germans are seen as arrogant.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

But conversely, Germans are seen as arrogant.

Treppenwitz der Geschichte.

-t

[Doofy]

Bizarre.

[tooki]

Well, I can understand the Swiss not liking being bullied by the German government. (There's a huge ongoing fight right now between the two countries over air traffic corridors, because to prevent aircraft from flying over some 1000-person village in Germany on approach to Zurich, Germany is trying to force the corridor changed so that it flies over a 300,000-person region of the Zurich suburbs, in blatant violation of pan-European air corridor routing rules.)

That said, I find both the Swiss and Germans (among other Europeans) to be arrogant, though the Swiss are worse!

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Treppenwitz der Geschichte.

You don't understand: it's a pot-kettle thing. Before talking about this to my colleague, I assumed Germans and Swiss were so similar that one telling the other to be arrogant is also implying you're arrogant yourself.

[OreoCookie]

@tooki
On a global scale, I think this is peanuts. There will always be problems among neighbors and Switzerland's banking system is another one. However, on the level of the people, Germans really have no beef with the Swiss, the populous has a positive impression of them.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

There will always be problems among neighbors and Switzerland's banking system is another one.

...not so much a problem with the Swiss banking system as a problem with the German tax system.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

...not so much a problem with the Swiss banking system as a problem with the German tax system.

Switzerland used to be a sort of Cayman island right at your doorstep (you Brits also have some obscure channel islands, I think). Be it large German parties that have parked bribes there (well, they officially called it campaign contributions, but have given a promise not to tell where from) or rich individuals that traffic money -- even by car -- to Switzerland. My sister's ex bf now has an investment company in Switzerland -- specifically geared towards Germans (he worked in premium customer service for a large bank and he took some clients with him). His official policy was (and probably still is) that he doesn't ask his customers how they got money into Switzerland … 

It's not just Germany vs. Switzerland, it was Europe + US vs. Switzerland. In any case, let's not get too far off-topic here.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

...not so much a problem with the Swiss banking system as a problem with the German tax system.

Triple Amen to that, brother.

-t

[tooki]

So, finally an update of significance: the citizenship is done. Nothing more to mail in, nothing more to pay. Now the village is supposed to mail me passport/ID form, should I want one.

:: big sigh of relief ::

[imitchellg5]

Congrats!

[turtle777]

Awesome. Hope this is the first in many good things to change.

-t

[tooki]

Thanks! It's a big relief. Now I can choose what I want to do, not just what I have to do.

Of course, right now would be a foolish time to move back to USA, financially.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by tooki 

Thanks! It's a big relief. Now I can choose what I want to do, not just what I have to do.

Of course, right now would be a foolish time to move back to USA, financially.

Heck, let me know if you wanna swap.

I'd move to Switzerland if I had a job opportunity.

I'd probably bite my ass later due to he reasons you wrote about, but the economic situation in the US is heading into a huge disaster.

-t

[ghporter]

This is a great bit of news, tooki! It sure took long enough, but now you'll be "one of them" at least on paper. Maybe it'll grow on you. But at least traveling will be miles and miles easier on you-those Swiss passports seem to work really well.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by tooki 

Thanks! It's a big relief. Now I can choose what I want to do, not just what I have to do.

Options are a good thing. I am in the middle of working on a dual citizenship scenario myself right now.

[turtle777]

Hey, maybe we should start a dual citizenship thread. Gotta put this on my to-do list.

-t

[tooki]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

But at least traveling will be miles and miles easier on you-those Swiss passports seem to work really well.

Yep! Cuba and North Korea, here I come!

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Hey, maybe we should start a dual citizenship thread. Gotta put this on my to-do list.

-t

As the son of a Greek citizen, I qualify for Greek citizenship, which would enable me to live and work anywhere in the EU, but it would also open me up for compulsory service in the Greek military, so I have no interest in obtaining dual citizenship at this time. Ask me when I'm 46, and it might be another story, though.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

As the son of a Greek citizen, I qualify for Greek citizenship, which would enable me to live and work anywhere in the EU, but it would also open me up for compulsory service in the Greek military, so I have no interest in obtaining dual citizenship at this time. Ask me when I'm 46, and it might be another story, though.

Pfff, in a short while, Greek will not be able to afford compulsory military service. Easy fix

-t

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

As the son of a Greek citizen, I qualify for Greek citizenship, which would enable me to live and work anywhere in the EU, but it would also open me up for compulsory service in the Greek military, so I have no interest in obtaining dual citizenship at this time. Ask me when I'm 46, and it might be another story, though.

Are you sure? Here in Switzerland, if you didn't do boot camp by age 30, you never have to.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by tooki 

Are you sure? Here in Switzerland, if you didn't do boot camp by age 30, you never have to.

Yes I'm sure. I've researched it. In Greece if you're under 45, you can be drafted. Also, even if you're not a Greek citizen if you stay for longer than three months you can be drafted if they consider you to be Greek. And the government definitely knows about me. My brother and I are on my father's "family register" as his sons, because he owns a house in his home village and he wants us to inherit it when he dies.

Now, once I'm over 35, I could pay € 8505 and get out of serving but I'd still have to do 45 days of basic training... and the other conscripts do NOT treat people well during basic training if they find out you're paying off your military obligation (you get labeled as a "rich person" and the military looks the other way when it comes to hazing).

[turtle777]

-t

[Laminar]

One of my co-workers moved from Russia to the US about 10 years ago. He can't take his 16-year-old son back to Russia for fear of him getting called in and required to serve two years. As long as he stays out of Russia he's fine, though.

[Phileas]

When I lived in England I was friends with a guy who's mom was from Israel. One day, out of nowhere, he received his call-up papers for the Israeli army. He called the embassy and was told that he was expected to show up for service.

He of course laughed at them, but he hasn't been to Israel since.