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How much of the Füdlibl blood can it be?
by Ümit Yoker
The best from the land of bear paws
12.9.2017
Translation: machine translated
What can and do I want to pass on to my children from the country where I was born and lived until a few years ago? Can Switzerland be a home for them, even if they grow up in Portugal?
I want my Portuguese sons to know what it sounds like when Jörg Schneider plays Punch and Judy. They can sing the first verse of "Det äne am Bergli", even though hardly anyone within a radius of two thousand kilometres can sing along. They know the taste of bear paws and marzipan carrots from Migros go on their birthday cake, even though we always celebrate in Lisbon. They love cipollata and ovi, are familiar with Badi Allenmoos and have their toenails cut to Swiss German counting rhymes.
Three years have passed since my husband and I moved to Portugal with our boys. The older one was one and a half years old at the time, the younger one just a few weeks. What will Switzerland mean to them one day? Can it be a home for them, even if they don't grow up here? What do I want them to learn from the country where I was born and lived until recently, and what not?
What they don't need to know about Switzerland: How the national anthem goes. That there are still places where you're not allowed to do laundry on Sundays. What's in the Weltwoche.
My children don't have to be Swiss in every fibre of their being to feel at home here. After all, some things have always remained foreign to me too, even though I was born here. I still wonder where all the people actually disappear to Sunday after Sunday, leaving whole neighbourhoods lifeless. It's also a mystery to me how you can already know today that you'll be meeting Sabine for a coffee on 9 December. At half past ten. In the Tibits. At the back by the games corner.
On the other hand, like many Swiss people, I am convinced that you can trudge through the forest with your children even when it's raining, that modesty is a virtue and that a vocational apprenticeship is in no way inferior to an academic education. I realise just how much of a privilege it is to be Swiss, as well as the fact that I did absolutely nothing to come into the world in such a safe and prosperous country, so there is no reason for me (or any other Swiss person) to be proud of it.
I actually want my children to grow up knowing that there is more than one answer to most questions. That their identity is not primarily based on the one or other country whose passport they have, but on the fact that you can feel at home in more than one place. Presumably, home is simply a place where there are people waiting for you.
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A passionate journalist and mother of two sons who moved from Zurich to Lisbon with her husband in 2014. Does her writing in cafés and appreciates that life has been treating her well in general. <br><a href="http://uemityoker.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">uemityoker.wordpress.com</a>