Swiss Watching Quotes

“The Swiss are rich but like to hide it, reserved yet determined to introduce themselves to everyone, innovative but resistant to change, liberal enough to sanction gay partnerships but conservative enough to ban new minarets. And they invented a breakfast cereal that they eat for supper. Privacy is treasured but intrusive state control is tolerated; democracy is king, yet the majority don’t usually vote; honesty is a way of life but a difficult past is reluctantly talked about; and conformity is the norm, yet red shoes are bizarrely popular.

It is perhaps no surprise that the Swiss are contradictory, given how divided their country is. Since its earliest days Switzerland has faced geographic, linguistic, religious and political divisions that would have destroyed other countries at birth. Those divisions have been bridged, though not without bloodshed, but Switzerland remains as paradoxical as its people. While modern technology drives the economy, some fields are still harvested with scythes (all the hilly landscape’s fault); it’s a neutral nation yet it exports weapons to many other countries; it has no coastline but won sailing’s America’s Cup and has a merchant shipping fleet equal in size to Saudi Arabia’s. As for those national stereotypes, well, not all the cheese has holes, cuckoo clocks aren’t Swiss and the trains don’t always run exactly on time.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside Europe's Landlocked Island

“How odd it is that the Alpine republic has managed to make its products famous the world over but hasn’t produced many well-known citizens.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“And in Bern there’s a physical reminder of his army’s presence: the street signs in the city centre are still in four different colours, a system used to help illiterate French troops find their quarters. In some streets signs are green on one side, yellow on the other; a little historical anomaly that modern tourists barely notice as they take photos.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“Most Swiss people understate everything from their own wealth to the winter temperatures. If they say they only speak a little English, they’re probably nearly fluent;”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“Life in any country is all about the rhythm of the year. Not just its seasons, but its festivals and customs, holidays and traditions, all of which combine to make the year as individual to a country as its flag.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“There’s nothing like an external threat to keep internal divisions at bay.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“Of the historic fault lines in Swiss society, the religious one is the least obvious today, mainly because it's the least clear-cut. There are French-speaking Protestants and German-speaking Catholics, and vice versa. [...] For most Swiss people, where you live, how you vote and what you speak are all more important. Having helped create the Switzerland of today, Christianity has moved from conflict to consensus. A Catholic nun walking through Bern as the Protestant cathedral's bells ring would have once been unthinkable; today it's normal. [... It's] a moment to cherish [...] because it shows what a society can achieve if it tries.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside Europe's Landlocked Island

“Invitations almost never state a dress code because that would break two cardinal rules: you are implying that you don’t trust your guests to come dressed properly, and you are invading their privacy by telling them what to wear.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“For many English speakers up is synonymous with north, and down with south; you go up to Scotland or Canada and down to Devon or Florida. For the Swiss it’s about gradient not direction, making up short for uphill or upstream, which is logical for a mountainous country. So the Bernese talk about going down (north) to Basel but up (south) to Interlaken.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“Here’s a typical British–Swiss chat about the weather: Brit, coming in from outside: ‘Brrr, it’s so cold out today.’ Swiss: ‘It’s winter.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

“The Glacier Express shows that for the Swiss the mountains are a challenge rather than a barrier, there to be tunnelled under and driven over. They are also a playground, to be walked up and skied down, as much as a defence against the outside world.”
― Diccon Bewes, Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money