Apr

30

Spring Festival

Filed Under In the News, Special Events, Travel/People & Places | 10 Comments

Truth be told, it was a bit spooky for my taste.

I’m talking about last Monday’s traditional spring festival in Zurich. Called Sechseläuten (six bells), the festival featured a long parade of men on horseback clad in period costumes — they probably thought they looked dignified and glamorous based on their demeanor, but they actually looked amusingly silly, wig and all — and the “symbolic execution of winter.” The latter part involved the burning of a gigantic snowman called “the Böögg” which was stuffed with firecrackers and placed on top of a pyre.

The idea was to await the explosion of the Böögg snowman’s head to predict this year’s summer conditions. Tradition has it that the faster it takes for the explosion to happen, the longer and hotter the summer will be.

Despite a terrible migraine headache that afternoon, I managed to time the whole explosion business — from the time the huge woodpile was lit by two prominent Swiss figures I don’t know (the president of canton Aargau’s government and the Swiss Finance Minister) at 6 p.m., up until the ‘explosion proper.’ When the snowman’s head blew up with a big bang, the crowd cheered, and lovers kissed (it was like a New Year celebration of sorts, albeit with a ‘witchcraft’ twist).

The process, according to my rough calculation, took more than 10 minutes, but less than 11. Online news sources reported later on that it took only “10 minutes and 30 seconds” (ah, the beauty of Swiss precision) for the Böögg snowman’s head to explode. This meant that there’s going to be a warm summer — good news for most Swiss, but definitely not for me (I’m no fan of summer). Not that I believe in any of this stuff.

It is said that the Sechseläuten festival, in its current form, dates back to 1818. Whoever started this weird tradition must have hated winter so much so as to come up with a freaky way to show it.

(Note: Click here and here to view my Sechseläuten festival photo sets.)

RANDOM TIP: When suffering from an intense migraine attack, don’t go to Zurich to witness the annual spring festival. You might “feel” just like the post-explosion Böögg, and it’s not funny.

Apr

26

Laundry Detergent

Filed Under Health, Home Management, Migrant Life, Society & Culture | 13 Comments

Once upon a time, my Swiss husband went to buy two hypoallergenic duvet sets in an association run by social workers. There, a well-meaning Swiss lady had a long chat with him and later told him that she would like to visit our apartment to teach me — the “Asian wife” — the proper use of laundry detergent.

Asian women, who marry Swiss men, get so excited when they see laundry detergent for the first time, she told my husband in French. She went on to say how Asian women get carried away and use lots of detergent when they use the washing machine. She surmised it must be due to pure excitement — Asian women, who are married to Swiss men and who now live in a rich country like Switzerland, tend to optimize all the resources that are now within easy reach (unlike in the remote jungles of Asia, perhaps?). But my husband knew better, and told the social worker that my case was different. He even said something about his wife not being a great fan of detergent.

Nevertheless, my husband relayed to me the message of goodwill. Asked whether I wanted to set an appointment with the fortyish social worker — who, my husband added, speaks relatively good English — I told my husband, “That’s actually nice of her to think of my welfare. Thanks, but no thanks.”

Detergent is something I’m used to seeing (and using) in Manila. I know what it is and what it is for. I’m actually allergic to it; I get eczema every time my hands are exposed to this white, powdery stuff that many Asian women married to Swiss men go gaga over. Or so the social worker thought.

This episode happened two years ago.

Today, as I do our monthly laundry in the communal washing room, I wish the English-speaking social worker were here to lend me a hand. I can pretend I don’t know anything about washing machines and detergents. I can pretend I can’t read. I can even pretend I don’t know any English word. It’s fairly easy to sound like Tarzan. Just to heighten the drama. Who knows, she might even be inspired to finish my five to six loads of laundry task — all in the name of social work.

RANDOM TIP: Make sure you read properly the labels on detergent boxes before doing your laundry.

Apr

21

Toddler Rules

Filed Under Family & Friends, Israel/Jews, Motoring & Transportation, The Philippines | 10 Comments

That’s my three-year-old niece Yannah posing beside her grandma’s small, yellow car parked in the family garage-cum-garden in the Philippines.

One lazy afternoon, during my recent month-long vacation in Manila, we played a pretend-we-are-driving game using my Mom’s reclining chairs. I let her “drive” me to places — to Quezon City, to Cavite, and to Tagaytay — with imaginary seatbelts securely in place which she had insisted on. Unlike most Filipinos who loathe seatbelts, my US-born niece has a great love affair with seatbelts. She has been trained well by her parents to follow the rules on road safety.

At one point, Yannah asked me: “Tita (Auntie), can we drive to Switzerland?”

“Not really,” I responded with amusement. ” We have to take the plane. But we can drive around Switzerland when you go visit me there one day. However, we have to watch out for those electronic police radars. We cannot drive there the way we do here in the Philippines.”

“Oh, okay,” she muttered as she stared at me blankly. She understands the concept of seatbelts, I know. But that of radars’? I doubt it.

“Let’s take the plane to Israel then.” (Yannah, together with her engineer-parents and her baby brother, will fly to the Holy Land next week and stay there for 20 months. Her knowledge of Israel exists only because the whole family will be transported once again to another foreign land.)

“Is Yaya Glo going with you to Israel?” I asked her about her nanny Glo who’s in her mid-fifties.

Pausing for a bit, Yannah replied, “Um, no.”

“Why?”

“Old people are not allowed to visit Israel,” replied my niece who’s accustomed to making her own rules.

I then asked her if Grandma and Grandpa could join her in Israel. She said “no” because “Grandma’s too dark” and “Grandpa’s sick” (my Dad has Parkinson’s Disease).

“How about me?” I challenged her. (I really want to revisit Israel, one of my favorite countries in the world.)

She answered my question with a question, “Are you old already?”

“Not really,” I meekly responded, though I do feel old sometimes (especially when I’m here in law-crazed Switzerland). “Ok, drive on.”

We then resumed our make-believe driving game.

Ah, the innocence of children. And the rules they make — funny and endearing. (Although I fervently hope my niece won’t become a legislator someday for obvious reasons.) I’m pretty sure Yannah had nary an idea of what I was talking about when I mentioned to her Switzerland’s electronic police radars.

But then again, she’s just a child. No need to stress her out with complicated talks about the purpose of those dreaded and super precise radars (i.e. to catch motorists who violate traffic regulations and fine them accordingly). No need to explain to her that constantly looking at the car speedometer can be a stressful driving experience. No need to share with her that Swiss police fines can be quite hefty.

Life is complicated as it is. Let her be a child with her weird rules. And let her aunt, who’s losing a considerable amount of hair by the day, deal with Switzerland’s plethora of rules and regulations intended for grown-ups.

RANDOM TIP: Have fun with kids. Don’t discuss rigid Swiss laws with them. They have rules of their own.

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