Ali – There are many things I took for granted living in comfortable, familiar America, place of my birth. For example the state of cultural comfort is never given a second thought when we are immersed in the norms, familiar gestures and common neuroses of our own people. But moving to a new country is a trip down the cultural rabbit hole, and you get a table-side seat to the mad-hatter tea parties. Let’s consider greetings. Americans are huggers while Swiss are cheek kissers. Americans squirm awkwardly and uncomfortably when forced into the friendly cheek kiss, fumbling with the number of kisses expected and degree of lip-face contact as well as what to do with hands and body during this miserable ritual. The Swiss, on the other hand, look like constipated deer in the headlights when wrapped in a friendly embrace, equally unsure of hand position and requisite length of body contact. Luckily these cultural differences are explicit and easily navigated after the first encounter. But some cultural peculiarities are inexplicable and unexpected, sneaking up upon the unsuspecting foreigner with violent and uncomfortable force. Unfortunately most of these things are only learned through experience but I was fortunate enough to be pre-warned about one particular Swiss oddity: apparently a sure way to throw a Swiss person into a tizzy is to open a window to let in a little cross breeze. Eh?!?! What? Cross breeze?? Surely you jest!!! Turns out this behavior is well documented if you do a google search:
Now having had both brother Ed and sister Paula spend time abroad and regale me with stories of cultural clashes, I was actually prepared for this state of cultural disequilibrium. What I hadn’t considered was how much I took literacy for granted. Yea. The simple ability to read. I am reduced to the reading level of a 3-4 year old, totally able to handle sentences like ‘see Spot run’ but quite at a loss to make out the standard fare that comes to us via the Swiss Postal Service. We get letters from the bank, the university, the city of Zurich, fliers, catalogs, all manner of documents that I can’t read. Now google translate is truly a wonder and most of the time gets you close but it’s a laborious process to type all that in just to find out the deal of the day at the local Bau und Garten store. The other day I got my University of Zurich ID card and spent 30 minutes translating the accompanying letter about using my card:
Feeling pretty self satisfied at conquering this translation task, I happened to flip the letter over to find the English version mocking my illiterate lameness:
The other problem is google translate doesn’t always get it right. I think the German language proclivity for amalgamating words to form a new, better and only tangentially related word really gives the Google translate programmers headaches. Here is a fine example from a letter I received today. My German has gotten good enough to allow me to determine that I was to present myself to the Zurich authorities within 14 days and bring with me the letter (shown below), my Swiss ID, my passport and some 4th item that I didn’t know.
So no problem, just flip that big word in Google translate and I’m all set. Yup. Totally clear.
