How difficult can it be to walk the streets of ZH???

Although I've lived here for a couple of years I still can't get used to the fact that people seem to ingnore my presence and systematicaly walk into me. This happens everywhere - downtown ZH, Kuesnacht, wherever. They just walk streight and if I happen to be on their trajectory, well either I move aside or they walk into me. It is an amazing thing. Especially because I am no exactly a small guy.

In the beginning I thought there was something wrong with me but then my wife (also non-Swiss) confirmed that the same happened to her. I've done a bit of an investigation by observing what happens in other cities outside Switzerland, and noticed that even in super busy towns like Paris, NY, London and Stockholm people seem to have some sort of 'radar' which prevents them from hitting each other while walking in the streets. Thus, this seems to be a Canton Zurich specific phenomenon!

Do you also experience the same?
And if yes, why do you think this happens?
Could this be a sort of power game?
How do you behave? Do you move aside, do you play hard? Do you yell at them after they have hit you?

Am I just going crazy?

I'd be rateful to know your views on this.

don't be silly; from the Swiss POV, you've walked into them. It's their street, you know.

Related to:
http://www.englishforum.ch/complaint...highlight=tram
perhaps also a little to this:
http://www.englishforum.ch/general-c...hlight=driving

I read a book years ago called "Culture shock Germany". It touched on the same topic. The theory of the author was that in other societies people make more eye contact in order to avoid each other, but in Germanic societies eye contact is considered too agressive, hence the bumping into each other thing.

Personally I'm not so sure about that - I get quite irritated here by the number of times I find someone unashamedly staring at me - sometimes for up to 10 seconds. It's as if their parents never told them that staring at people was rude (along with chewing with their mouth open a host of other issues). I'm getting the point where I am no longer going to tolerate it and confront people when they do it. By the way - I'm not black and I don't look foreign, there should be no reason to stare at me!

Anyway, back to the walking thing. A few years ago I took my (now ex)girlfriend to London. She'd grown up in Berlin but he didn't look where she was going and kept bumping into Londoners (who became quite annoyed, but who were far too into avoiding conflict to say anything). We actually argued about it a few times because I found it quite embarassing. She'd snap back with "I've grown up in a big city, I know what to do". Finally at the end of the weekend she admitted that it was a problem and promised to try and pay more attention to where she was going.

In the last few years I haven't noticed this, but it could be because I have just become used to it.

By the way - I take it that this is a complaint? Shouldn't it really go into the complaints corner?

Thanks for your thoughts. It is and it isn't a complaint - ot at least it was not meant to be. I really stopped complaining about this (ok, it still happens occasionally) some time ago. I am more intrigued by this form a 'social phenomenon' POV.

You have an interesting theory there, though if this is Germanic-relatad thing, how do you explain that this does not happen for instance in Copenhagen, Stockholm or Vienna?

Well the thing about these things is if you raise an issue pretty soon everybody else complains, so I'll shift it to complaints corner anyway

Well it's not my theory - I just read it in that book and don't really agree with it. Like I said - the capability of people to stare at me without embarassment seems to throw the whole eye-contact thing out of the window...

You're not going crazy - I've noticed the same thing many times. People seem to have zero regard and awareness for those around them and thus pay no attention whatsover to avoiding them whilst walking about.

I put it down to a symptom of the lack of social empathy that I perceive here ... at the end of the day the people just don't give a flying fig about anyone outside of their immedate social circle. Why bother observing the niceties of adjusting your desired trajectory for a stranger?


Gav

Interesting idea - but I should make a contrast to Japan here. In Japan conditions are very crowded and there is the concept of Soto and Uchi (outside and inside). This means that once people are inside your circle you care about them, but you don't really care for the faceless masses that are on the outside. That said despite this they are always polite to each other and the way they move in crowded situations has to be seen to be believed.

So I'm not sure it's a lack of empathy, but perhaps more a lack of humility towards strangers? This could also be used to explain certain ways of dealing with service situations?

I haven't experienced the walking issue yet but not been here that long but I have however experienced the staring, i find people staring all the time on trams, cafe's, shops etc.... its very unnerving and I start to check if my skirt is tucked in my knickers or a piece of loo role is stuck to my shoe as i have no other idea why they are staring - the worst instance of staring i encountered was when some people moved into the block opposite us, I live on the roof of a building and I was sat outside with my husband, some people moved into an appartment opposite and they had friends round, they were all standing in their wintergarden just blatently staring over at us for ages, at least 10 mins, I felt soo uncomfortable I ended up going inside and eventually putting the shutters down to get a bit of privacy - maybe its because I am British and we are a particularly private nation but I really do find it uncomfoortable and was brought up not to invade peoples privacy and space.

This is the once side of swiss culture that I have struggled to get to grips with and accept.

Nicky

Yeah - but there's a difference between staring at someone and making eye contact. It seems that if you look or behave in any way out of the ordinary, people will gawp rudely at you. However, make eye contact and they generally avert your gaze.

At least you're not a woman .. the amount of staring that I've seen directed at attractive women here is unbelievable.


Gav

When I first experienced this I too thought thought that it was a deliberate act. Now when I anticipate this is going to happen I just stand still - then when the person walks into me they are put more on the defensive. I have noticed that stoping does seem to make people more aware and then they must alter course.

Might make the journey slower but you end up with less bruises .

Some days the staring thing drives me nuts and I've started to respond to starers by smiling and waving in an exaggerated fashion. Some have the grace to look abashed but mostly they turn away.

Guilty!

Actually my wife suffers from this a lot. Also she has random people coming up to her in the street and asking if she wants to go to Dubai.

She said (and this was last week), "I'll have to ask my husband" as said Dubai-bound geezer persisted to, well, persist.

I find if people stare at me, the best thing is to smile at them. They seem to hate that

I'm going to try a new strategy - walking straight up to them and asking them if there is something that I can help them with. If they ask why I'll simply explain that I noticed that they were staring directly at me and wondered why...

Social skills come into it quite a bit, I reckon. I've found that people here are generally hopeless when dealing with a situation that falls outside of a strict framework/set of rules. This means just about any situation where people have to deal with each other on a face to face basis. The moment there's a problem or issue, it all goes pear shaped and people lack the interpersonal skills to smooth things over.

Could it be that over-attention to rules has led to people being less able to think for themselves and less willing to tolerate that individuals don't always do things in pre-defined ways?


Gav

What's so fantastic in Dubai that a woman would want to go there with a random stranger who obviously has stalker tendancies?

Gav

Just on the walking thing - it is definitely not a phenomenon restricted to Zurich. We used to live in China (Shanghai), and there, people not only walk into you, but they also stop suddenly without any regard for who may be behind them. It has something to do with a big sense of self and lack of awareness of other people. Also, it has a lot more to do with the fact that in Chinese society, they are so accustomed to overcrowded (or what we consider as) situations, and there is no concept of personal space. Its 'selfish' to want to have your own personal space (especially around you while walking, or while talking or interacting with someone), yet many of us consider it selfish to not make allowances for the rights of someone else to walk down a public street without getting a whole lot of bruises!! It takes some getting used to, thats for sure....

This is so funny. I actually was starting to think I was developing spacial awareness problems! Being 6'2" and reasonably broad shouldered, I've noticed how many people I "clip" either on the streets or in stores here. I put it down to actually walking more or the "tight" spacing of shop aisles here. Or some eyesight/spacial awareness problem I had developed!

Glad to hear that someone else has noticed it. Probably goes hand in hand with the "tail-gating" that is prevalent on the roads here.

Oh and I get it on the train as well. Often sitting down and someone walking down the aisle smashes into my arm/shoulder. Quick check to see if I was protruding unavoidably in the aisle, nope!

Walking:
A colleague suggested walking straight ahead, staring off into the distance (think thousand yard stare), never make eye contact, never acknowledge.

And it works, but it doesn't feel right, and then you realise you're going native.

I find London the same as Zurich after being in Scotland, but then I've hardly been there.

Staring:
What is it with staring? We notice it on the train.
Probably more old folk do it, but plenty of younger folk as well.

We don't look any different (I think), and it is annoying, but I have spotted Swiss staring at Swiss as well. So it's not us, it's just them...

Good - makes me feel better to know that I'm not the only one to be walked into regularely.

On the staring thing - I agree I've experienced the same several times, from men and women, ether if I was wearing a suit or shorts - there seem to be no obvious reason for the starring, it just happens. But honestly this doesn't bother me that much.

What I find interesting though is that despite the starring phenomenon, in ZH I experience much less normal eye-contact than for example in Milan or Stockholm. Here people most times seem to deliberatly ignore who is around them, but then they could very well stare at you for 30 seconds.

It seems to go from one excess to the other - which I think is a common thing in many aspects of life in this country.

Or to put in the English venacular "You got an F'ing problem mate?"

A friend of mine, his partner and I were in a pub in Davos and while we were eating dinner, there was a group of lads who kept looking over and laughing. In the end he went over and offered to take them all on. What he failed to notice before launching his premptive alcohol-fuelled sabre-rattling, was that we were sitting directly in front of a group of giggling girls, and directly underneath the television set....

dave