Hi..

I am just wondering if "white foreigners" get treated differently to "non-white foreigners" out here by the navites...!!! I have been here for donkeys years.. and have many a times been treated in an unfriendly way...I am non white..!!! dont know if this was relevant or not..

Would like to know the opnions of others....

Tricky one as you can only really apply your own subjective experience. Im going to put myself on the ledge here judging by some of the comments i have heard from the natives. I would say that racism is a problem in CH. Its generally problem everywhere admittedley but the overtness / openness of racist attitudes here is quite stark in contrast to what I have experienced elsewhere.

you will find there has been a previous lively (now tedious) debate on this. Have a look, but over the last week it has denegrated into a bit of childishness. From inception, it was quite a good argument & I feel you will find plenty of answers to any questions you may have : Are the swiss racist?

non white and so far have had no problem with racism

...lucky you.

yes, i should say...I won't let anybody treat me like that....I will answer back and in their language too....

Yes.

Being an asian, I've have been at the receiving end of several rasist remarks, smirks and alienation.

The worst part is at almost every house party which I've been invited to attend, I'm also being alienated by non-swiss caucasians who speaks very little german.

After a while, I've learnt not to let these sort of things putting me down.

Polorise I love your avatar!

Would you actually know?

My parents in law, who are Swiss, were travelling near Lugano last summer and arrived late one night at a small hotel, to be told that there was only one small room left. They agreed to take it and took out their passports to fill in the registeration form. When the owner saw they were Swiss, he say: "Actually there is another nice large room you can have, sorry I thought you were Germans"................

Best Regards,

Jim

as long as i don't get to know it, then its not a problem for me....

What about white and non white swiss citizens...

I met a swiss black guy adopted and living in CH since ever..he grew up in Zug and had to go to Zurich for work...he has a quite interesting opinion...

"every thing completely changes from the moment that you show some perfect dialect...i think it is not about colour as much about how fluent your dialect is...."

I imagine that Swiss people find it easier to know who is an auslander when they are interacting with a non-white auslanders.

Swiss people whom I interact with are typically friendly when they assume that I am a Portugese woman from Portugal. When they realize that I am an American woman with Portugese parents, they treat me differently.

Then of course theres the first of May.
I don't know why I expect people in masks to act within reason or make good decisions. To be fair, the masks were initially for protection against tear gas which is a first of May tradition. However, I was surprised and disappointed at the damage that I saw done yesterday evening. The burnt cars, the broken windows, the spray paint, it all seemed quite senseless. True, the garage two streets over is a BMW dealership, but the people who were sweeping glass and towing burned-out cars were not the fat-cats whom I imagined were the target of the stones and matches.
Secondly, what the hell?! Although one demonstration that I attended was populated by many immigrants, but it was peaceful and interesting and had good food and music. On the TV, it was Swiss citizens saying idiotic things like "It's lots of fun to throw stones at the police!" By evening, the 100 protesters arrested, 8 protesters injured and 6 policeman injured were all Swiss.
Dagnabit! It makes me homesick for "Law Day". A good old day that is unobserved and makes absolutely no differences.

Happy Second of May!

I observed the same thing several times while waiting for the tram at Stauffacher. Imagine if you will...:
Loads of Swissies standing around doing the "thousand yard stare" with blank expressions. Bunch of black kids rolling up, about 10ish age-wise. Swissies hit <I> for ignore, there's even some in the air.
One of the kids makes a wise-crack in absolutely perfect ZüriDüütsch. Immediately, ears prick up, expressions flashing, changing into and even some .

Seems to cement the view that it's language (for the dissenters, dialect) that defines who's "one of us" or not "one of us", more than colour.

If it happens, it's rare,
as soon as they hear me speak English they mostly change their stance anyway. . .

I'd be interested to hear from any Thais as to their experiences. My wife is Asian, easily mistaken for Thai (Thai women will approach her and greet her in Thai). She seems to get a lot of sideways looks here and has been hit on several times by lecherous old men.
Our Swiss friends have offered the opinion that people will assume she's a Thai mail-order bride or was brought home from the bars and brothels of that country by some hick farmer and/or middle-aged loser. Luckily for her, she's pretty thick-skinned.
Perhaps a Swiss with a non-white spouse can offer an insight to this?

My missus is blue eyed blonde from Slovakia with cheekbones & slanty eyes to match ....
Just to give you a feel from the other side, she gets hit on all the time by randy middle aged types in Bern & has once or twice been physically harrassed in bars by Arab / Tunisian / Morrocan types ... so its not just an Asian thing.
I recently had a stand up row in the local bus, as someone heard her speaking with our son in Slovakish, immediate comment from a Swiss hausfrau .. " All these Eastern European prostitutes come here to find rich Swiss husbands" WTF ?????

I am not Thai but also non white (Swiss braun) married to a swiss...but have had some off putting experience as I go about my normal business and day. At the bahnhof - one creepy man decided I since I was always around there morning (going to German class) and lunctime (going back from class - I must have been on some `prowl` of sorts - After many times of hearing from him lecherous sounding ^kommt mit` , ich habe ein auto, wie viel geld? I had enough, At first I tried to ignore him - when he became too persistent and I felt I didnt have my freedom of movement at the bahnhof anymore - I blew up one day and shouted at him to everyones hearing : `was denkst du huh?...du denkst ich bin ein prosti.... oder was - Ich muss mein freiheit haben and a lot more scolding and shouting....I was suprised at how much german I could churn out in my anger at this creep. I even used the du version because he didnt deserve any politeness from me after all the harassment. He slowly slid away - since then I have never seen him again at the bahnhof - perhaps he escapes on the other side of the platforms - just incase he encounters my wrath again.... I think he though a dark skinned woman can only be synonymous to a Pr....Urrrgh. IT ANNOYS AND GETS TO ME!!!

Surprised by reading the comments here. Frankly, I have never had any kind of annoys and I don't wish to have either !!


This is my third country to live in Europe. First Germany, then The Netherlands and now Switzerland.

But mostly I am reserved to my workplace, back home and only limited trips outside !! (May be that was the reason).

Wow. Pretty ballsy that they call your wife a prostitute even while you're with her.

Agreed there are creepy, oversexed middle-aged dudes everywhere. Hell, I fit two out three of those descriptions! One the one hand I want to get a shirt printed for the wife that says (in German), "I'm not Thai and I wasn't bought from a catalog", and on the other I think it's amusing these people are so upset about assumptions which are all completely false, especially when I'm not even Swiss!

So this is my theory at the moment, based on what my friends have hinted at, and what I've read on this forum:

Swiss man with white, foreign wife: He's a rich asshole who doesn't appreciate Swiss women properly and/or can't get one. She's a hooker from Eastern Europe.

Swiss man with dark, foreign wife: He's poor white trash who doesn't appreciate Swiss women properly and/or can't afford one. She's a hooker from Asia or Africa.

Originally I was quite happy to go along with Swiss norms in behaviour and dress in order to fit in. Should I now try to look or act more foreign myself so that my wife gets less attitude when we're out together? Maybe I should walk around with a map in my hands at all times and try to look lost, or go around taking photos of everything.


j/k about that. It really isn't that often we run into this and on the whole the Swiss have been very kind to us both.

What would you then say about foreigners ( W or B) getting married to Swiss / French / Italian or German girls ??