Sep

25

Theater Treat

Filed Under Language, Life & Leisure, Migrant Life, Society & Culture | 7 Comments


When I first heard that Andrea, my Colombian classmate in my Monday and Friday morning German class, would have a stage performance in our town, I got really excited.

I love watching plays and musicals. But somehow, since I migrated to Switzerland as part of a ‘big romantic adventure’ (i.e. to fly to a strange land to be with the Swiss spouse and “suffer” the consequences of displacement later), I’ve never really sought out the Swiss theater scene.

I think part of the disinterest had something to do with the language barrier. Most theater plays, as is expected, are staged in either German or French — and most probably even in Italian — depending on the Swiss region they’re being shown.

At any rate, I told Andrea I would be watching Hairdreams, which she had explained to me would be presented in French and Spanish. It had an interesting theme: it tells the story of a Colombian hairdresser named Clara who struggles with integration issues in a European country with so many rules. So I texted a message to the reservations people last Friday morning for a guaranteed front seat. Two of my Mexican classmates, one of whom is a good friend, did the same a few days before.

So there we were, my Mexican classmates and I, at the cellar theater on a cold Friday night, watching Hairdreams. The show started at 8:30 p.m. with a soulful saxophone performance by a talented Swiss musician, the sole co-performer of Andrea, at the right side of the stage.

Andrea appeared on center stage soon afterward, delivering angst-inspired lines in French, and then Spanish, and sometimes, even a mixture of both — with a comic flair. To be honest, I didn’t understand 70 percent of the monologue, but I kind of expected that. It was a good thing that the theater show was a highly visual one, as aptly described by the Swiss husband of the lady director.

What I really liked were the song and dance sequences. Andrea was a great dancer who fully uses her body to express herself well — be it on the floor or on top of a mini table — without the use of words. The Swiss musician was equally top-notch with her saxophone playing and singing (what a powerful voice).

I went home feeling satisfied with my theather treat (it was worth my 50 minutes and CHF25). However, there was this part of me, wishing I had not stopped my French language lessons in the past (well, I’m taking refresher courses now). Being fluent in French could have eased up the understanding process. Oh well.

Overall, it was inspiring to see a fellow migrant — she’s also married to a Swiss and has been living in Switzerland for approximately seven years — who’s confident and well integrated in the community, doing the very thing she loves best.

Jul

31

Italian Job

Filed Under Family & Friends, Food & Drinks, Humor, Language, Life & Leisure, Society & Culture, Travel/People & Places | 7 Comments


We were in Lugano last week for four days and three nights. In this trip, I realized that the only Italian words I knew were “Ciao” (Hello and good-bye) and “Signora” (Madam). I totally came ill prepared on the linguistic front to deal with the locals, thinking that my German, one of the Swiss national languages — there are four (German, French, Italian, and Romansch) — would suffice.

On our last night, for instance, I was not able to communicate at all with the nice chap manning the ice cream shop.

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch? (Do you speak German?)”

The young man shook his head.

I therefore relied on my English since my French is as rusty as my old bike, which I left in Manila. “Do you have some ice cream here that doesn’t taste too sweet?”

The man just looked back at me with a blank stare. It’s one of those lost-in-translation scenarios again, I thought.

My husband then tried to mediate. He then spoke in what I perceived as the most broken Italian in the world. It didn’t sound impressive.

But it somehow did the trick.

In Italian, the ice cream guy said that “everything’s sweet here” (a duh moment). (Well, I knew that; I just wanted to know if they had a flavor that would not affront my highly sensitive tonsils with too much sweetness.)

My husband then proceeded to ordering our ice cream: chocolate flavor for me and stracciatella for him.

“Grazie,” I thanked the guy when he handed to me a cone of poorly scooped chocolate ice cream. (I learned how to say “thank you” in Italian on my first day in Lugano. It was important to me to show appreciation to the Italian-speaking Swiss in their mother tongue.)

My ice cream tasted fine, but it was rather too sweet for my personal taste and a little bit on the heavy side. Its texture was rather unique: something akin to a chocolate cake dough put in the fridge for a long time. Interesting.

Outside the ice cream shop, I remarked to my husband that my basic knowledge of German was utterly useless in Lugano. “And one would think that these customer service people in a touristy place like Lugano would at least understand or speak in English,” I added, as we strolled on the sidewalk with our cones of ice cream.

“Well, they actually do,” he said, citing the woman at the reception desk at the wellness hotel and the one at the hotel information counter at the train station as prime examples. “But this guy seems to be the non-touristy type. I guess he just happens to work at the ice cream shop in the neighborhood.”

“Ah, okay,” I murmured as I mulled over the already long list of linguistic struggles I’ve had in multilingual Switzerland.

There was a pause for a moment.

I then cleared my throat and blurted out, “So, when do we migrate to New Zealand?”

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