My wife is Swiss.She hears what they talk about...

Okay. And what does she tell you that they are saying?

If it's "just" random personal racism (i.e. "Shame your mother didn't marry a proper Swiss man") they see it for what it is, namely not personal. It is meant to be personal, but as far as they are concerned, the flaw isn't with them, but rather with the racist... and that is exactly how they respond.

They said they never really noticed any institutionalized racism, and their mother agrees with that. They may have had individual teachers who were racists, but the school system itself wasn't behind those (idiot) teachers.

I doubt that yangpopov is completely misinterpreting people randomly smiling - I take it that English isn't his mother tongue, so his description may be foreshortened.

As you know, there are many forms of racism. When we went to the first parent's visit day when our son was in the 2nd Grade, when we came out I said to my wife "I think we need to get our son moved to a different class" My wife asked why, and I said "She names every single child at the beginning of each and every sentence. Didn't you notice that for every single child who's name isn't English or Germanic the sentence always starts with ahhh... or umm...?" She hadn't. In the end we didn't change schools, but that teacher continued with that kind of crap all the way through, and she's probably still doing it. Subtle enough that it's there, but not explicit enough that there is anything one can actually do about it.

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If everyone you know agrees with you consistently, they are either not listening, or not capable of critical thought.

A Little odd in the long-run,


but hey make people try to pronounce "JagWaugh" or "yangpopov" is no easy task, again.




And German probably is neither.


I.e. general risk of having really no clue at all is quite high.


Btw. laughing is culture, too.


And what really doesn't fit is the that among the first things people who complain about "racial" attacks they live and work in places like ZH and BS with an immigration proportion of 50% or more, but nobody likes them as the Swiss are racist.


Also Schöftland has a foreigner rate of 17.1% (at least Wikipedia says so), not counting the naturalized.


Impossible to meet only the "real" Swiss on the streets that love on "strange looking" foreigners, technically.

It's still light here....if you were in Italy, they might have called you monkey and threw bananas at you if you were black

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-for-tolerance

My daughters both have names that are unpronounceable (despite being English), or even unspellable, in Italian (due to the letter K not existing in the Italian alphabet), and both of my wife's kids have Vietnamese names, and look the part.

Never have seen a problem. Worst case, teachers had to ask how to pronounce their names. All are adults now.

Hell, nobody here can even pronounce my last name correctly, not even the Brits!

Tom

The "gh" in my name is pronounced exactly the same as the first 3 "ch" in "Chuchichäschtli", so after growing up in Canada, where nobody could make that sound, emigrating to Switzerland gave me back my (Scottish) surname.

And... the teacher was doing the "umm..." thing with given names, not family names - those she could get right without "umm...", though she did tend to stress "ic" at the end of family names a bit too enthusiastically.

@Yangpopov, I'm not laughing at you, honest, but if that is even remotely what your surname is like, then you're just going to have to get used to people mispronouncing it and smiling.

__________________
If everyone you know agrees with you consistently, they are either not listening, or not capable of critical thought.

The Brits can't pronounce Norris? I didn't know that.

.....or Chuck ? Umm.....

Exactly. Norris rhymes with Morris, and Chuck...

































isn't a common first name in the UK.

Italians can't pronounce 'Chuck', it comes out as 'Kook'.

(on the other hand, I have a friend named Chuck who is a bit of a Kook)

Tom

Astonishing, considering they don't have a K in their alphabet


I didn't know that about the Italian alphabet although I do speak some Italian (yes, like almost all my languages I learnt it "in the streets").
I can't seem to get going today ..... but thanks to you the day is not wasted. Hey, it's even worse: <<Die Buchstaben „j“, „k“, „w“, „x“ und „y“ sind jedoch nicht Bestandteil des normalen Alphabetes. Diese Buchstaben treten nur in Fremdwörtern, Eigennamen und Dialekten auf.>>

They would spell it 'Chuuch'.

Still pronounced like we would pronounce 'kook'.

Makes playing scrabble more fun!

Tom

Get with it.

The thread has moved on from the Russians to the Chinese!!

Was the original post supposed to be satire? I am a very introverted American who has made multiple friends here in Switzerland. I've been here for 2.5 yrs living in Bern and can hardly agree with any of your posts. I also look very "American" and as an ex-bodybuilder, am almost 2x the size of the normal Swiss national. I can't even begin to think of why our 2 experiences are so different. I will say I made a very real attempt to be polite and adopt as many Swiss customs as possible (eg not j-walking, being punctual), perhaps these types of things were the key to enjoyment.

Bicycle, is it you?

He is a troll who started as "bicycle" and is an Indian guy who pretended to be Russian and now switched to Chinese.

I'm just surprised that people go out of their way to pick up on any foibles that others have and immediately decide that they are being racist,

If people laugh at you, laugh right back at them. Smiling is very good for your health. If you walk around with a face like thunder no wonder people think you're odd. I must say "Bonjour" a hundred times to complete strangers every day. Always get a nice "Bonjour" or smile back. I wave and smile when someone stops their car to let me cross the street, say thank you to bus drivers etc. Simple things that seem to make people happy. Certainly makes me a little happier, even if I'm in a bad mood!!

just read through most of this and WOW, my experience has been completely different and quite positive barring one or two small ignorable incidents....

I've been searching for a good apartment and visited many Gemeinden in Zürich over the last few weeks, pretty friendly folk everywhere...

- 7/10 times they would Grüezi me first on the street, the other 3 times I would and they would greet back

- Most of the cashiers have been friendly and I never got any money thrown back, OK 9/10 times I am paying with my card unless its a few chf

- My landlord is Swiss and he preferred me over a few other applicants, mind you I did not have any Betribungsauszug, I also decided to go with a private person instead of an agency and it has been a positive experience...so far

- In one Gemeinde I randomly chatted up a guy with his two kids in a supermarket, introduced myself and asked him how the local school was since I was looking at possible apartments. He was a bit reserved the first couple of minutes but then opened up and gave some good information about the area as well

- In another where I like the apartment I wrote and called the school office to inquire about the timeframes and the classes for my kids, she offered to arrange a call with the Schulleiter, who was very patient and not only answered my queries but also had very helpful advice and insights into how they would go about integrating the children

- Finally I took an apartment and my neighbour opposite is an old couple, the wife met me on the stairs.....introduced herself and welcomed me to the Haus

Not sure if this is supposed to be just some kind of early starters luck oder have the Swiss all read OPs post and turned around within an year ... Anyways I usually always smile and greet people, even the bus drivers, one bus driver waited for a few seconds when he saw me trying to catch the bus...I guess it's important that my wife and children also like it here and I am hoping they do......We don't really know how long we would be here but we are looking forward

Spot the Swiss