Switzerland has turned up on international news radars as it prepares for elections, mostly because of an initiative that has been proposed by one of the parties (any initiative, once it has enough signatures, can be put to a national vote). This particular initiative concerns whether non-citizen felons and their non-felonious families can be automatically expelled from the country, and was proposed by the same conservative party that successfully blocked the granting of Swiss citizenship to third-generation, Swiss-born, fully-integrated immigrants.
This right-wing party has about 27% of the popular vote, and they have been splashed all over international newspapers over their ad campaign that depicts several white sheep (representing good Swiss people) standing on the Swiss flag, kicking out a black sheep. There are games on their website where you can kick black sheep. I don’t know who thought this ad campaign wouldn’t be offensive to foreigners or minorities (but then again, this is also the country where a couple years ago, the transportation authority, wishing to prevent musicians from begging on trams, posted signs depicting a man wearing a poncho and sombrero, because clearly anyone who begs on a tram is a stereotypical Mexican).
In any case, it’s a little lesson about stereotypes – just as not all tram singers are Mexican, and not all foreigners are criminals, not all Swiss are neutral and polite. In some ways, I feel as if I’m in junior high again – back then, being Asian and intelligent (and having a bad perm) marked me as an outsider, a black sheep to kick out from some fabled inner sanctum of acceptance. And here I am again, a black sheep in a country full of white sheep. And I don’t even have a perm anymore.
Anyways, planning for Kenya continues. My new passport came back less than two weeks after I sent the old one in – how’s that for efficiency? The new one has been mailed off to the Kenyans to get a visa. I went to my doctor to get some “just in case” prescriptions for antibiotics and so on. My German isn’t great, and her English isn’t great, so we get by in a mixture of the two. I sometimes forget that when language is an issue, sarcasm often goes undetected, so when she mentioned the possibility of getting bloody diarrhea, I said, “Ooh, that sounds really fun,” and she very earnestly told me, “No, actually, it’s not fun at all.” Oh, really?
My two travel buddies and I went to the university travel clinic last night to get all the necessary shots. We showed up, took numbers, and sat and waited to be called. Then we were matched up with doctors who reviewed our travel plans and told us what shots we would need. Then we waited in line to pay. Then we waited in line to get the shots. With all the red tape and long lines, it was sort of like Disney World meets the DMV.
The consultation with the doctor was done in German (looking back, I’m still amazed that I managed to tell her all the necessary information, and even more amazed that I was able to understand everything she told me), and covered the exotic risks I would have expected, like polio and malaria, but she also spent a fair amount of time cautioning me to stay hydrated on the plane, and to periodically stretch my legs to avoid blood clots. While waiting in line to pay, a German man told me that he was told that because he often leaves Zurich to go into the mountains (in Switzerland), he should get a special shot.
It's apparently a dangerous world out there, once you venture forth among the black sheep.
This right-wing party has about 27% of the popular vote, and they have been splashed all over international newspapers over their ad campaign that depicts several white sheep (representing good Swiss people) standing on the Swiss flag, kicking out a black sheep. There are games on their website where you can kick black sheep. I don’t know who thought this ad campaign wouldn’t be offensive to foreigners or minorities (but then again, this is also the country where a couple years ago, the transportation authority, wishing to prevent musicians from begging on trams, posted signs depicting a man wearing a poncho and sombrero, because clearly anyone who begs on a tram is a stereotypical Mexican).
In any case, it’s a little lesson about stereotypes – just as not all tram singers are Mexican, and not all foreigners are criminals, not all Swiss are neutral and polite. In some ways, I feel as if I’m in junior high again – back then, being Asian and intelligent (and having a bad perm) marked me as an outsider, a black sheep to kick out from some fabled inner sanctum of acceptance. And here I am again, a black sheep in a country full of white sheep. And I don’t even have a perm anymore.
Anyways, planning for Kenya continues. My new passport came back less than two weeks after I sent the old one in – how’s that for efficiency? The new one has been mailed off to the Kenyans to get a visa. I went to my doctor to get some “just in case” prescriptions for antibiotics and so on. My German isn’t great, and her English isn’t great, so we get by in a mixture of the two. I sometimes forget that when language is an issue, sarcasm often goes undetected, so when she mentioned the possibility of getting bloody diarrhea, I said, “Ooh, that sounds really fun,” and she very earnestly told me, “No, actually, it’s not fun at all.” Oh, really?
My two travel buddies and I went to the university travel clinic last night to get all the necessary shots. We showed up, took numbers, and sat and waited to be called. Then we were matched up with doctors who reviewed our travel plans and told us what shots we would need. Then we waited in line to pay. Then we waited in line to get the shots. With all the red tape and long lines, it was sort of like Disney World meets the DMV.
The consultation with the doctor was done in German (looking back, I’m still amazed that I managed to tell her all the necessary information, and even more amazed that I was able to understand everything she told me), and covered the exotic risks I would have expected, like polio and malaria, but she also spent a fair amount of time cautioning me to stay hydrated on the plane, and to periodically stretch my legs to avoid blood clots. While waiting in line to pay, a German man told me that he was told that because he often leaves Zurich to go into the mountains (in Switzerland), he should get a special shot.
It's apparently a dangerous world out there, once you venture forth among the black sheep.
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