Cultural shift from UK to Switzerland

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
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Hi! I’ve recently watched a few YT videos on cultural nuances of living in UK - or maybe better to say of living in England since it was focusing on England and therefore I don’t know if it’s correct to extrapolate it to UK. I only discussed it with Gemini briefly and it was pretty much it.

I guess some of users here are from UK and I wonder,

  • if these observations are correct, or it’s BS?
  • if you felt relief coming to Switzerland and leaving these rigid nuances behind

Now to things I disliked:

  • social mobility being discouraged, i.e. people are classified by their residence, dialect, making it difficult to go to proper schools and universities, get good jobs etc. and if someone tries to break out he’s seen as a traitor in his social class and as a pretender in the new social class
  • different vocabulary used by different classes: lower class to use simpler vocabulary, middle class to use advanced vocabulary, higher class to use simpler vocabulary (once again), as an example: napkin vs serviette, “pardon?” vs “what?” etc.
  • hardworking, being ambitious etc. isn’t perceived well, due to the culture that the royal achieve everything effortlessly and if someone is making an effort, then he isn’t good enough etc. if you think about it, it’s like a total reverse to the American culture, for example

Things I liked:

  • the queuing culture is incredibly developed, “invisible” queues on bus stops where everyone remembers who is next etc. - I think in Switzerland there’s a problem with queues
  • at least among the upper class, the culture not to show off, ie. wearing modest clothes without displaying a brand, even decades old / inherited from parents, spending money modestly
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I don’t. I think many British visitors (both short and long term) have a problem with the way Europeans queue and consider anyone that doesn’t do it their way as being intentionally RUDE!

Well when in Rome, Zurich, Glarus or Geneva you do as the locals do.

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No idea about the UK but after reading this, some things from Switzerland come to mind:

  • All you need in life is an apprenticeship: screw the “why” and focus on “how”, intellectual pursuits are a waste of time and energy…do, work, obey!

  • Secondos and their leased cars: the children of poor immigrants aspire to something better and all they get from society is scorn. They should know their place and stick to cars socially approved for poor people.

  • Working 100% (or above): are you a materialist who doesn’t care about the important things in life? Never ask about working extra to pay for people already in retirement that enjoyed a life of part-time work.

  • Dialect!!!

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This one is interesting, is it seen bad by the Swiss if a migrant buys or leases an expensive car? I did not know that. How expensive?

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Think about it for a second. You
see a group of young, 25-ish dark skinned guys driving around in a brand new 3-series BMW with toned windows blasting horrible music in a seedy area… what is the first thought that comes to mind?

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IDK that they have rich parents or that they leased the car and having fun?
My problem with that would be that they are making noise, it’s a universal problem, regardless whether it’s an old moped/old car/new car.
If it’s just a new car passing by, I wouldn’t even probably notice its driver, and just appreciate the view (say it’s a McLaren, or a vintage car which happens often etc.) Having said that I am not really a big car person.
SO you guys strictly meant this street show off aspect or more? I assumed you’d mean something like a migrant family having an expensive car parked in the underground parking space and a Swiss neighbour being judgy?

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I don’t either, the Swiss queue better than most, not as well as Brits/Nordics but well enough :wink:

Cutting a queue is rude, it’s disrespectful, it’s lack of spatial and social awareness, it’s self-centeredness and belief they are the smart one, and those queueing are dumb fucks.

Meh, not sure I agree with this after living there for 12 years. You go to a working class pub and people both look and sound different, but I didn’t feel much of “traitor/pretender” perception, and have a friend who’s from a family of Newcastle miners, he’s now working in a venture capital firm.

Overall the UK/English society is a much more open society than most, in my experience. You can be a total nobody in eg London, nobody bats an eyelid, I found Brits to be pretty egalitarian and welcoming, far lower racism/parochial mentality than Switzerland. I found it common to be invited to random parties and having a great time, but granted I was a student at the time. Other case in point: you walk in a pub, either alone or with company, and there’s no free table. It’s, or it was, perfectly acceptable to walk up to a table with empty chairs and ask if you may sit. This would be unthinkable in my native Greece, don’t know about CH.

On schools and universities: England was putting effort in more inclusivity in universities since I went there to study in 2000, esp Oxbridge (where I did study) made visible effort to reduce the “grandiose building intimidation factor” eg 2-3rd gen immigrant kids from Wolverhampton may feel.

That’s the thing, non-upper class people won’t ever breathe the same air as the real upper class, they have their public school old boys network, estates, private clubs, parties with funny hats etc but you won’t spot them on the street. I once happened to be invited to a party in an estate - courtesy of my Newcastle friend above, who himself got invited through a friend in the Cambridge rugby Blues team - and was astounded to see people wearing what I thought was costume (18-19th century clothing), and then realising this was not costume, they wore these clothes sincerely! Forget fish out of water, I felt like a fish on Mars. That’s perhaps the one real divide I’d say is still present.

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I don’t agree. By British (or Nordic) standards it is rude and disrespectful. But here children are not taught from an early age to form queues and there is little expectation that others will do so.

I recall being in a queue for a ski chairlift and watched a Swiss father teaching his kids how ro queue jump, right in front of me. I said “Monsieur” and raised my eyebrows. He then said to the kids, “let this guy go first”.

Don’t judge the locals by foreign standards.

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This was interesting. What was your motivation of moving to Switzerland - just to experience something you?

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Pensions!

Sure, and in some countries it’s acceptable for a man to beat the shit out of their wife and kids on a whim, am I to not judge their “culture”?

What is the message the queue jumper is projecting when there’re 10 people queueing for X amount of time, they show up and decide to try to cut right to the front?

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In his 80s book on the US class system, Paul Fussell dubbed them “Top Out of Sight.” Class: A Guide Through the American Status System - Wikipedia

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Let me rephrase that. Don’t judge the locals by your non-local standards. You don’t have to accept them. Just like the Swiss, in our country, don’t have to accept what other cultures consider “normal” either.

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Maybe not where you are but the kids here are certainly taught to wait in line from very early.
I volunteer at the local school and see it all the time.
Whether it carries on into adulthood is a different matter but short of asking them it’s hard to know whether all those people rushing to be first when a new till is opened in the supermarket are local or not. It certainly seems to he a national sport.

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And I’ve seen no comments as for the negatively perceived hardworking in the UK - is it really so? I.e. in the vlog I watched it was said that “yeah, he’s really keen” was a subtle negative remark about someone making effort

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Recently saw this in a bus in Basel, a school class was waiting for the bus, kid tries to jump in before anyone could get off and the teacher immediately corrected him fairly sternly. Let’s hope it sticks. But again, my experience and sensitivity to this tells me the Swiss are pretty respectful people.

Not really seen anything like that. “He’s really keen” could be playful, positive, or negative. If they said “He’s really sweaty/tryhard” it’d definitely be negative!

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The UK you describe from videos is changing.
Reducing disposable incomes are pushing the “classes” together, even worse is the inheritance tax for the “upper classes”.

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Gemini:

In traditional British class culture, the concept of “effortless superiority” dictates that success, intellect, and status must appear entirely natural and unforced. Rooted in aristocratic and elite academic traditions, this norm reveres the ability to achieve exceptional results without ever showing the “sweat” behind them. Being casually brilliant is seen as a hallmark of true nobility, signaling that a person’s standing is innate rather than manufactured.

Conversely, overt ambition and visible hard work are historically viewed with suspicion or disdain within this cultural framework. “Trying too hard”—or being aggressively driven, energetic, and openly striving—is often coded as vulgar, middle-class, or disruptive to the established social order. Explicit hustle is penalized socially because it shatters the illusion of natural grace that has historically defined the British elite.

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Interesting

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This reminds me of those conversations I had with freshly minted language students who had returned from 3 months in Brighton, Whitstable or similar with a concrete set of opinions that the food was shite, British people have wonky teeth, they like queuing, and anything beyond Watford was apparently known as ‘The North’ where there were reported to be dragons and everything was served with gravy.

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I wouldn’t have dragon without gravy.

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