Quark

Ever eaten quark?  No, not the elementary particle defined by physicists to be a fundamental constituent of matter (although by that definition, I suppose the answer is clearly yes).  I refer instead to the dairy product used in German-speaking countries  to prepare a variety of dishes, including cheese cake.  Or at least they call it cheese cake.  Talk about false advertising.  Think cheese cake made with chalk.  A quark derived cheese cake looks exactly like New York style cheesecake but will desiccate your mouth as it sucks all of the moisture from your body.  It’s not that it tastes bad, only that if you’re expecting real cheese cake it’s like a slap in the face.  Not surprisingly, Starbucks sells the real thing here.

Learning German - 2

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ll come back to this topic from time to time.    Sadly, I’m still not fluent but give me some credit for the creative strategies I’ve developed to overcome my learning disability (as an American).  It appears that once you attain a certain proficiency level,  courses are surprisingly difficult to find, especially if your schedule is not infinitely flexible (i.e. you’re employed).  Several  years ago, I paid a neighbor kid to speak with me once or twice a week.   He’s now a law student at the Uni Basel and has partially paid his way by teaching German.  I like to think that I kick started this for him.  More recently, as part of an effort to improve my Swiss German, I joined the “Tandem Partner” program at the university.  This is a program through which you get together with people who are native in your language of interest and you split the time, speaking your mother tongue half the time and theirs the other half.   It’s not very time efficient but has led to my meeting some interesting people.   One of them was Jonathan,  a terrifically nice young man who had just finished medical school and was applying for a fellowship in the US.  In order to do this he had to pass the US Medical Licensing Exam so he wanted to polish his English.  For him, I was the mother lode.  Not only could I help him with his English, which was already very good, but I could hook him up with Erica (daughter #2 who just graduated from Columbia P&S), who had just taken the exam herself.  The only thing I couldn’t do was imitate a strong African American accent, which he’d heard was something he might be faced with in the simulated patient interviews.  I could offer Boston, more Brahmin than Southie, but that wasn’t likely something he’d need to deal with.   Over Christmas, when Erica was here, they discussed the exam and this past Spring he passed it.  Another success story.

The one tool that people most often suggest is the one that I haven’t used, intentionally so.  This is, of course, Paige.  Speaking with Paige in either German or Swiss German would be a sure fire means to accelerate the process.  The problem is, Lisa and I are Paige’s only opportunity to speak English and that's clearly more important than my German language hobby.    When you speak with her she sounds like a normal American kid but sometimes her phrases come out a bit “translated”.   We’re together at most a few hours in the evening each day so need to make this time count.   When we visit the US, we don’t want Paige to sound like an immigrant in her own country.  I'll keep plugging away but not at the expense of my daughter's future. 

Zürich

I suppose every country has it’s city or region that considers all other localities to be backwaters populated by country bumpkins with no other options.   In France, it’s the Parisians.  In England, the Londoners.  In the US, anyone on either coast.  In Switzerland, it would be the Zürchers.  My son once had a college interview with a local representative of a prestigious ivy league institution.  The interview was arranged via email and they agreed to meet at the Starbucks in front of the train station.  When the appointed time arrived, my son was there but no interviewer.  After waiting a bit he called the lady who said that she was there but didn’t see him.  Cutting to the punch line, she was at the Starbucks in front of the train station in Zürich while he was at the one in Basel.  While she knew where he lived, he knew nothing about her so had no reason to think she meant, clearly, Zürich.  From her perspective, silly boy.  Of course Zürich.  I should say that I also interview for a prestigious ivy league university, a different one, and I also often use Starbucks as a meeting place, but I would never assume the applicant would clairvoyantly know that I mean Basel.   

Direct democracy

Switzerland has a system of direct democracy that has held together a multilingual, multicultural, and multireligion country without any significant disagreements for over 150 years.   Structurally, there are many similarities to the US government but this is not one of them.  In 1848, the Swiss constitution was established,  modeled after the US version with a separation of powers rooted in three branches of government.   There is a Legislative branch, for making laws, an Executive branch, for carrying out the laws, and a Judicial branch, for interpreting the laws.   Taking the similarity one step further, their Parliament (our Congress) has two houses, one in which each canton is equally represented (like our Senate) and one in which the cantonal representation is proportional to population (like our House of  Representatives).   Those are the similarities.  Now the differences.  First, their Executive branch is made up of seven people, not one, and those members are elected by their Parliament, not directly by the people.   Now, you might be say, “I thought that the Swiss had direct democracy.  What’s this about indirect selection of the Executive branch ?”  The explanation has two parts.  First, those seven people, who also function as the cabinet, are selected from parties in proportion to the parties’ representation in the Parliament.  Second, and most important, no matter who’s sitting in those seats, they cannot enact new laws without direct approval of the people.  This happens via referendums which occur four times each year.  I should note that this post is not intended as a primer on Swiss government.  I bring it up only to provide a bit of background for our first personal taste of the system last year.  Naturally, not being citizens we cannot vote.  We can, however, participate in the process by collecting signatures to place an issue on the ballot.  And this is precisely what we did.  The part of Basel in which we live is one of the few remaining green spaces.  We hold it dear, as do all of our neighbors for it is a principal reason why we chose to live in this little corner of paradise.  What caused us to rise up and shake our fists was a proposal by the Basel city council to re-zone our area to allow construction of additional residential housing.  “No!”, we shouted (politely of course) and sprang into action to collect the 2,000 signatures necessary to place the referendum on the ballot.   Lisa and I didn’t collect all 2,000 of course but more than any other Americans.  Our neighbors were very impressed.  Once this was done, the next step was education, specifically of those who could actually vote.  The committee driving the referendum, with the catchy name, “2 x Nein zur Verbauung von Basler Grünflächen” (2 times no to the  obstruction of Basel greenspace) developed the cute little poster below.  I especially liked the little girl fleeing the monstrous excavator with her cervelat (ubiquitous Swiss sausage).   The posters were displayed, the brochures were distributed and the issue was civilly communicated .  In the end,  the forces of evil were driven back by the will of the people.  Our green space was preserved.  

Sport

The term used in schools here for gym is “Sport”.   It’s taken very seriously too.  To give you an indication of how seriously, the Bundesrat, or Federal Council, which is the top of the Swiss governmental pyramid, is made up of seven people.   Each of them is responsible for a federal department, for instance like our State Department or Department of Interior.  One of these is the Departement für Verteidigung, Bevölkerungsschutz und Sport, which translates as Defense, Civil Protection and Sport.  This is sort of like combining the positions of Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security under one person and adding Gym to their job title.   Like I said, they take it seriously.   When a student passes their Matura here, which is the university qualifying exam, regardless of their grade they are automatically qualified to pursue any course of studies at the university level save three.  One is medicine.  One is veterinary medicine.  And one is Sport.  For these three, an additional exam is necessary.   Paige’s scout group receives government funding for their two week camp each summer.  There is one stipulation for receiving this subsidy.  The leaders must ensure that the program consists of five hours of Sport each day.  This past Spring, as part of the Track and Field component of her Sport class, Paige took her sprinting exam and received a “3”.  This is failing.  Granted, she’s not a jack rabbit but she did run forward.  Shouldn't that be sufficient to at least pass?   I should mention, since Paige would insist, that there were ten other kids who failed the sprinting test (out of 23).  Perhaps their teacher wasn't very good.  

Basketball

A few years ago I joined a basketball club.  Did you know that you need a license to play basketball in Switzerland?   Just because it’s recreational doesn’t mean it isn’t official.  I play in the fourth division and technically speaking, I could work my way up to the pros.  The dream is still alive.   It’s been fun but I really must improve my Schweitzerdeutsch.  At least to the point where I can trash talk.  Early on, I was chastised by our coach when, after our first game, I packed up my things and left.  Nothing special I thought.  Game over.  Time to go home.  At our next training he explained to me that the custom here is to shake hands and greet each other upon arriving and when leaving.  I’d sort of observed this behavior but hadn’t realized it was so…rigidly expected.  Now I know.  To be honest, this is one of the reasons I decided to step out of the cocoon of playing exclusively with the expat gang.  After nine years, it’s time to take our assimilation to the next level and, clearly, I must study their customs more closely.

Learning German

Learning a language when you’re old as dirt is generally pretty difficult.  Learning two languages simultaneously is a huge stretch, even for the most motivated, and make no mistake about it, Swiss German and High German are two different languages.   I suspect that I will come back to this topic again and again since it’s been such a huge element of our integration here but let me be clear on this.  It’s hard.   If I’d thought that after nine years of living here I’d be where I am now I’d have heaved a huge sigh of disappointment.   My German is okay, I’m classified as B2,  but it’s a far cry from fluency and I still can only barely understand Swiss German.  It gives me some comfort knowing that, as an American, the expectation bar in the eyes of others is extremely low.   Americans are assumed to know two words, danke schön and gesundheit (which doesn’t mean God bless you), so when I actually hold a conversation with someone they think I’m a genius.   A veritable polyglot.  They’ve no idea  how hard I’ve worked for  this measly B2.   Not to make excuses but a significant disadvantage to learning German while working at a multinational is that our lingua franca is English.  German is not the default and as strange as it sounds,  one must be intentional about speaking German, even in a German speaking country.  Which brings me to lunch.  Once I attained a certain competence level there was a temptation to hold meetings in German, especially when I was the only non-native speaker.  The problem was that usually I was supposed to be leading the meetings and I just couldn’t do it unless speaking English.  I needed the confidence  that was, for me anyway, attached to my mother tongue.   While I really wanted to learn German, I had a job to do so I ditched that idea and decided to use lunch for this purpose and, to make it most effective, this meant one-on-one.  I therefore built a rotation of colleagues who were kind and patient enough to speak with me and I discovered a terrific side benefit.  I got to know them personally.  For the most part, we didn’t discuss work.  We discussed family, hobbies, travel, pets and even, as my skills improved, politics.  Politics is an area that really tests you.  The vocabulary of course but more significantly, the subtleties.   The shouting at Fox News and MSNBC may have drowned out the subtleties but I don’t identify with the extremes so when I want to express my views I need to communicate the nuances.   I’m still not there quite yet but I’m much more inclined to dive in now and search for the words as I get going.