Swiss watching, Part 1
I'm currently reading this book called "Swiss watching, inside the land of milk and money" by Diccon Bewes. Turned out that if you are a foreigner living in Switzerland for a long time, and you are happen to be a writer, eventually you begin to write about the things you see around.
Originally being from Britain, where, I suppose, the waste disposal system or the transport system are not too different from the Swiss ones ('cause if it was me, the first thing I'd write about were those two), Bewes writes about the people, about the nation, it's history, customs and behavior, as well as about the country's geography, languages and religion, so pretty much about everything :) And again, being all British he does it in his own way, in a unique style with a specific humor. As far as I've read - I like it.
I've decided to write here some interesting phrases and facts from the book that I liked the most. Just to show you how fascinating it could be - learning about the country you live in and about the people you live among, when you actually have or never have noticed something similar around. And I think I would gladly read the same book about Ukrainians or Russians, written by some British who lived in Zhmerynka or Voronezh for long enough to still have a desire and inspiration to write.
So, here it comes. The first page already tells a lot. It's how Swiss see their neighbors and how they associate different parts of the country. My favorite one is Italian 'cause even I think they are a bit loud :)
I've decided to write here some interesting phrases and facts from the book that I liked the most. Just to show you how fascinating it could be - learning about the country you live in and about the people you live among, when you actually have or never have noticed something similar around. And I think I would gladly read the same book about Ukrainians or Russians, written by some British who lived in Zhmerynka or Voronezh for long enough to still have a desire and inspiration to write.
So, here it comes. The first page already tells a lot. It's how Swiss see their neighbors and how they associate different parts of the country. My favorite one is Italian 'cause even I think they are a bit loud :)
So basically when you say to some Swiss "Last weekends I went to Fribourg" he will think "Cheese", or "Bad weather in Neuchatel" - "Watches". That's funny.
"... CH is the international registration code for Switzerland ... The answer is not cheese or chocolate, though you'd be surprised how many people could believe that, but Confederatio Helvetica."
"In German, ... it's Schweizerishe Eidgenossenschaft ... means something more like "the brotherhood of men who stood in a field and swore an oath of eternal cooperation and friendship"; confederation is a lot simpler."
"... the Swiss are coconuts. ... Breaking through a coconut's outer shell isn't easy, just as it can be hard to get onto first-name terms with Swiss people ... The inner part is reserved for closest friends and family, who use first names and whose relationships last a lifetime. ... societies in the English-speaking world are all peaches. In the soft outer part every stranger is a potential friend..."
"...Brit, coming in from outside: "Brrr, it's so cold out today."
Swiss: "It's winter."
"... Switzerland never had one big capital ... but a group of more or less equal cities. ... Bern is the political centre; Basel ... the industrial one; Lausanne ... the legal; Geneva ... the international; Zurich ... the economic."
"Zurich, as the economic powerhouse, sees itself as superior to the rest, who in turn view its inhabitants as brash and arrogant, with mouths as big as their heads."
"... the Bernese ... are dismissed as slow, quiet and rather old-fashioned."
"As for Basel, ... no one likes its football team; even the Bernese would rather have Zurich win than Basel."
"Walking and hiking are a Swiss national obsession. As soon as they can toddle Swiss children are taken on a walk, and it's fairly common to see a gaggle of eightysomethings setting off for a hike..."
"... the point is to be a hiker not a walker... One is serious, the other not... If it takes less than three hours, involves negligible height differences (under 400 metres), doesn't include at least one mountain view and has any part that is asphalted, then sorry but it's just a walk, even if you are a panting wreck by the end of it."
"If you want to look like a local, then wear a pair of red shoes. ... standing in Bern station ... I counted 28 pairs in ten minutes, which is my record so far."
"As the nation's only conqueror Napoleon has a special place in Swiss history, even if it's the one they don't like to celebrate ... One by-product of Napoleon's intervention was a creation of a Swiss national flag."
"The Swiss don't wear their history on their sleeves. There are few statues of past heroes, few monuments of forgotten battles and few memorials to the dead. That's not to say that history is ignored, more than the focus is on other parts of the past: traditions are defended, customs are cherished and buildings are restored, all with a passion that outsiders don't expect from the Swiss."
To be continued...
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