Elvetia forum < Why is it so hard to make friends in Switzerland??

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    no problem

    postat de către  Roger B în Elvetia forum 

    no worries! Sometimes I kind of forget myself when answering and so the answers end up looking more like an article than a reply. It's just that there is so much to say about this topic.

    I see your point. Unfortunately, you are right that being brown or black skinned makes things probalby harder and makes it harder to adapt. I senserily hope thought that this will change the more tourists visit us and the more very talanted immigrants come to live and work here from countries such as India. Of course the media plays its part in this as well, by not further presenting certain sets of countries, such as many African states, as hopeless basket cases - and therefore cementing in the heads of people the equitation of "darker skinned = refugee". By the way, I'm quite confident about the fact that the media has been presenting India in a much different, far more positive light over the last couple of years. It might be a somewhat shallow and annectdotal aspect, but I think one can also see the acceptance of foreign cultures by the proliferation of certain aspects these or knowledge about in our society. A visible aspect of this might be, again taking India as an example, the number of Indian restaurants (which, luckily for me, is on the rise), the enthusiasm about basically Indian arts such as Yoga or the general knowledge about India's history, culture and society. Once a critical mass of knowledge has been achieved, I believe the sceptisism should abate.

    I'm somewhat surprised what you say about Basel. Afterall one would expect that the population in Basel is more used to "international crowd", given that it hosts some of our big multinationals. In that way Zurich really might be different as you really have many more international companies settling there with employees from all over the planet.

    That the kanton can be a pain in the arse, I hear that a lot from both Swiss and expats. With their 9-to-5 attitude and their seemingly "stick-to-the-letter" approach of work, they really come across as being a lazy bunch of bureaucrats, not even wanting to go an extra inch too far to help. Of course one of the big obstacles, which really should be changed, is the total lack of offical forms and instructions in English. That's not just a problem many people encounter but also businesses. Granted, one can not expect from each and every official to speak English, but at least in "big" cities such as Basel and Zurich they should have a designated office or person able to handling and assist with these questions.

    So again, my answer is turning more into something akin to an article. Well, I think the points you rise are valid. Unfortunately not all Swiss are cosmopolitans and being of other colour than white can make things harder. However, I am confident that the more international Switzerland gets, the less important such things will become.

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