Friday, January 06, 2006

Stereotyping the Swiss

Don't you love Stereotypes, especially when you're an expat moving to a new country. People tend to stereotype others no matter where you live in the world. Aren't Italians Hot Blooded, Germans Cold, and Canadians always nice. The list could go on forever, but usually they are completely wrong.

Stereotypes only exist because they are like historical rumors which we hear from tv, the media or in the work place through cultural jokes or what people think the "typical" stereotype of a certain country is.

For me, I've stereotyped people from my experiences and that is exactly what Swiss Info has done in a study. The survey showed the Swiss to be much different than previously thought.

Aren't the Swiss punctual, persevering, reliable, introverted and tradition-bound? I found that many Swiss Germans differed from the French speaking Swiss. This study found the Swiss to be more open-minded than one might have assumed and that was all. It's a pretty interesting study which turns assumptions into misnotions (if that is a word) after all and definitely not what I found the Swiss to be.

I'm sure we all have funny stereotypes - what are yours?

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