I am either really really lucky, or really really blessed.
Goodbye Geneva, Hello Penn friends =)
In spite of how much I bitch about this country, saying good bye to my friends today was quite bitter sweet. People here are actually very nice if you invest the time to get to know them beyond their quiet demeanors.
Getting quite used to the feeling of leaving, up-ing and go-ing. Perhaps this will be my life for a few more years. Exciting, though transient.
Working at Schwab has been an inspiration that has confirmed I want to build a career in the social enterprise sector. It has fired my inspiration to think about my own entrepreneurial venture (mapping the social enterprise sector), and given me a big sense of agency. I guess looking at people who are “changing the world” everyday can have that effect.
There is so much hard work that lies ahead, and it needs good people to take on those challenges. Life is quite simple sometimes.
“Do you have a boyfriend… or a girlfriend?”
The funny people I end up talking to while walking through Geneva at night. Nice.
Things are looking up
They say that when one door closes, another door opens. The whole experience with the fascist Swiss room mate and landlord will probably be the defining, sour experience of my time here, but it’s also brought many unexpected gains.
For one thing it helped me get a good insight into the conservative Swiss psyche, in a way that you can’t get from cordial conversations and politely nodding away. In a sense I should have probably just stuck it to them earlier and moved out last month. It may have been unpleasant, just like being near-mugged in Guatemala, cheated in China, or taken for a ride in an Indian rickshaw, but at least I understand this place better now, which was kind of the whole point of the gap year. Talking to colleagues has also helped complicate my ideas of corruption and development – everyone’s references to the “Swiss housing mafia” point to the fact that corruption does go on widely in developed countries like Switzerland, in a very institutionalized fashion. It’s easy to turn your nose down at developing countries because they look like a mess on the surface, but when you take a good long look at things, one finds messed up behavior in the richest of surroundings. Likewise, while the BJP and Mohdi are the intolerant dudes in Gujarat, you see signs of the same intolerance for diversity here in Switzerland.
My misfortune and Geoffrey’s sojourn also led 2 helpful colleagues to reach out to me. Jeremy is a pretty senior guy who has run Davos before, who was just really down to earth in relating his story to us: about just following your passions, because even though things may change, you won’t have any regrets to live with. Along with crazy stories of a white guy mastering japanese martial arts, his 2 year old son Kai Rui was also an absolute bundle of joy. If kids were all this fun, I would love to get me one of those sooner rather than later!
I’m crashing right now at the house of Rodolfo, who has been a fabulous host and offered to let me stay here for a fraction of the cost of what I was paying previously. It’s just an awesome feeling being treated well by people without any expectation of return.
So I guess, the assholes in the world do get balanced out by nice guys. Human diversity is so cool.
Gotta love the Swiss.
Returned to my apartment for a very unpleasant confrontation with my dear room mate and the old landlady. After some threats, pointed fingers, and racist comments, I decided to move out, unfortunately dragging Geoffrey with me to a youth hostel.
Very sordid night, but I’m so happy to be out and away from the overbearing duo. Am safely at a youth hostel now, will crash here until I find a new place for the next month.
Culture Clash
It really does amaze me how different people can be.
I just had an extremely unpleasant run in with my Greek-Swiss roommate. Basically I took a shower at mid-night, and it resulted him barging into the bathroom and shouting at me in French to stop. The idea was that I was disturbing his beauty sleep. Obviously delighted, I confronted him in the hallway, which resulted in more shouting and what could have resulted in a fight. Very nice.
Apparently in Swiss Germany there are signs that say guys have to sit down when going to the bathroom after 10pm at night. Coming from an American college campus, nothing could be more insane. This week in the gym, I had to wear plastic coverings on my shoes so I wouldn’t dirty the floor. Needless to say I was looking cool with blue plastic bags on my Nikes.
In India, I realized that when people shake their heads, they are really “nodding in approval”, and that when people say “let’s meet at 3pm”, it can really mean 5pm. The things that gave me the most angst were people trying to rip me off, and my cleaner lady who would never stop shouting at me in Gujarati.
Reflexivity is important: for this room mate to have been so pissed off he threatened to call the police, I must REALLY seem like a wanker. and to the Indians, I probably was the weird Chinese kid who couldn’t take it easy and go with the flow. One stops rationalizing at some point of course.
When it comes to cultural norms, at moments like this I wonder if there can ever be universal standards. Anyway, I think I will be moving out to some other place soon. Can’t take this shit.
- Shijie the Anthro major.
Stale Post Warning: Berlin Wandering
After the Alps, I traipsed off to Berlin for a week. Admittedly by this point I was getting pretty tired of life on the road alone, and my bunions were really revolting against my style of traveling: walking everywhere because I’m too lazy to figure out transportation. Getting old, sigh. Thankfully the city was a modern history bonanza – I’ve never been anywhere with such a strong sense of place. The city was at the center of the darkest and most dramatic moments of the past century, and marks you with a voice that’s impossible to forget.
The most dramatic place I visited was Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, an early stage labor camp built by the Nazis. A thoroughly depressing place it is – that makes you wonder how Man can be socialized into such cruelty against his fellow beings. At one particular stop, we were shown how SS guards designed a more effective and less traumatic way of killing people for their guards: instead of using a normal firing squad and having prisoners break down emotionally before them, they decided to administer fake height measurements, while a guard shot the prisoners from behind with a pint-sized gun. Think of it as system design gone awry.
A less emphatic stop was the old site of Hitler’s bunker, which is really just a parking lot now – kind of ironic for the greatest bad guy of the past century. People just walk on by now, but I guess we should ponder over what circumstances could have led to the development of so much hate within one person. The scary thing is that the same environment that bred Hitler arguably exists in some countries today – when you take away a people’s path to progress through moderate means, radical and violent means are what remain. We’re all pretty numbed to media reports on terrorism, but if we try to put ourselves in the minds of people who’ve been labeled as such, I would imagine that their stories share similarities with Hitler’s.
Anyway, thankfully Berlin has also invited artists to put a more cheerful front to some of its dark past – a walk by the Eastern Gallery, a part of the Berlin Wall that has now been decorated by painters around the world is quite something! I also loved Berlin’s neighborhoods: those nearer to Mitte (where I was staying) had a real grundgey feel to them, while others were more bohemian in nature.
I’m going to let the pictures do the talking now: tough to summon inspiration that’s a month old.
Excellent bed-time reading
TV Tower: Hoenecker's Last Erection
Gate by Day
best way to clog your arteries in Germany
Pumba's friends gave him a tickle.
Sony Center Outside
Sony Center Inside
@ Potsdamer Platz
mysterious ball
Balancing Act
Psychadelic Bear
start of the gallery
oh yeah
reichstag
