Being a native Los Angeles Californian,and living in Weggis & Luzern for some time;(being the only American,Californian guitarist in a Swiss progressive rock band.).
Many of my dear Swiss friends-musicians would come(and still) to visit,hang out with me in southern California...
Every time,every visit,my close friends before they went back home,would cry out to me and say" I am going to take that Californian friendly,open to others,help each other vibz BACK to Switzerland and be friendly,lovingly to other human beings" !!
They all would try for years,but always all ended up soooo langwilig(boring) again;and dream once again of southern California;and miss saying or hearing "Hey what's up" from people.
Recently I had a heart breaking affair with a really beautiful,smart,active married Swiss woman from Thun.Her langwilig-boring husband,manager of [name of company removed by moderator] treats her sooo horrible,like a prisoner.After 17 years of marriage,she hates to be always shunned to meet,greet and have any fun by her boring Swiss husband.
I strongly recommend you go and edit out that highly incriminating piece of information you just wrote which could be used to personally identify the person you were referring to. Seriously, dude.
To everyone else who is complaining about how boring Swiss Christmas parties are - I expect to see each and every one of you first in the line for the English Forum Christmas party next Thursday. And I also want to see you being the life of the party. Put your money where your mouths are folks...
I feel sorry for people who assume that everyone should be like them as well as being unable to adapt to their given surroundings. It suggests that they have not gone through certain developmental stages usually finished by age seven or eight, which would be really sad.
It might be terribly unfashionable, but I rather like most of those Swiss people with whom I have become acquainted over the years, and don't find them boring at all.
Maybe it's just the ones who work in financial services who are boring? In which case they are no different from their counterparts in every other country in the world...
My mother always used to say: "if you're bored, then it's because you're boring." I would agree that the Swiss are a more reserved culture. But what's wrong with a nice quiet and orderly commute on the train when you're tired out after a long day at work. It's a hell of a lot better than getting threatened by gang-types or puked on by homeless drunks like I have in the buses back in the States.
Mike, By my experience you have it completely wrong. The Swiss I have met are far from boring. I prefer anyway that everyone isn't pissed out of their head and unable to control their body and mind functions.
Seriously guys, if you had THAT much fun at your xmas-party, it's not about the nationality... you just have boring jobs in a boring company with boring colleagues (and maybe, if your not drunk, yourself a bit boring?) – Let me guess... banker? insurance salesman?
boring people are everywhere! same goes for fun people! i lived in greece and the uk, there were boring people in those countries, but i made sure i socialized with the fun ones! (being a fun one myself ).
i have much fun in switzerland and i (almost) never had a boring night out. yes people are different than people in greece or the uk but since when is that a bad thing? experiencing different things is one of the reasons why i moved my ass from greece in the first place! and that's why i can tell the difference between being loud and being fun! :P
poor Mike; it is obvious from his post that he's failed to make it out of Zurich and into the land of Subarus and lumberjack shirts. Strikes me that you hang out at the Kaufleuten but none of the chicks in there has taken to you.
Stray a little and the Swiss are actually quite normal. Reserved, yes - but boring? Aren't we all? Certainly most Brits are a) either very reserved or b) binge drinking themselves into an early grave. Oh, how I miss Ape Island
For cheese sake! (Maybe) it’s true, that in this country are less outgoing people living than in others. But is every american citizen stupid or are all the british people ugly?? All I’m saying is, that we could go with prejudices and generalisations, but that would take us back more than 60 years, when some people believed a lot in this bullshit! Go out, show the slowpokes how to party and I’m sure they’ll be grateful!
To make a clear point, I'm not the guest of anyone. I work, I pay taxes, I pay my rent and everything that is related to the life here. Nobody is sustaining me and I don't owe anything to anybody. I'm tired of hearing that I'm the guest of somebody. Nobody moved a finger for me since I came to Switzerland. This might or not have anything to do with the original post, but being a guest is a completely different thing to what most of the people of this forum are.
As a resident I have the full right to complain, with the right manners, to what I don't like of this place.
(stop quote to mikeybroomers)
Anyway a lot of people (and I don't think all of them are losers or idiots) find very difficult to integrate socially in Switzerland, so it's definitely a recognized aspect of this country. That for some this could have been easier, for a number of reasons, doesn't cancel or deny the reality for many others.
You teach how to bring respect to a country, but denying reality for others pointing that "you are certainly a boring person, etc etc" doesn't elevate you to an higher level.
I'm not sure I agree.... I've lived here for 20 years, both in Zürich and in Subaru-land and I love the Swiss for many qualities but being fun isn't one of them. I have to claim that they are, in fact, quite boring. Doesn't mean they are bad people, on the contrary. But boring never the less :-)
Many Swiss tend to take life too seriously. Organising a party, festival, even fassnacht has to be done with such perfection that the organisers are exhausted, and hence boring, by the time the the event takes place. In spite of that there are loads of Swiss who can indeed let their hair down.