Expat author describes Swiss culture shock

When Italian expat lawyer Flo Regina set out to write a book about her experiences as a newcomer to Switzerland she sought advice from her former manager at a large bank in Lausanne.

The book includes anecdotes –not always flattering - about the bank’s staff and her former boss advised her to use a penname.

She followed the advice, using a nom de plume for her first publishing venture, a 171-page book entitled Paradise (Apparently): Welcome to Switzerland, which takes a funny and sometimes critical view of the country based on her personal experiences.

The Swiss obsession with punctuality, laws banning lawn cutting on Sundays and the willingness of citizens to “spy” on neighbours violating regulations were among the surprises for Regina that she describes upon her arrival in the mountain country.

Contrasting her experiences with the “messy” but easy-going life in her native Bari in southern Italy, Regina details her adventures while house searching, looking fruitlessly for work, returning to university to seek a master’s degree in law, finding a job in a bank and introducing her two children to an international school.

Along the way, she discovers that, yes, Switzerland is expensive, that you must budget for fines, you can’t make noise in an apartment after 10 pm and that the Swiss can be a bit, well, unwelcoming to outsiders.

Shortly after moving to Geneva from Brussels with her Dutch engineer husband, who works for a multinational company, she encountered a neighbour in the lift of their apartment building in the upscale Champel neighbourhood.

To make conversation, she asked the man, a retired bank official, whether there had been any cases of burglary in the building.

“He replied intolerantly: ‘Madame there are no Swiss thieves. It’s only the Italians or French that cross the borders to come and rob our homes.’”

Regina, who doesn’t want to be identified by her real name, said the book has struck a chord with other expats who sent emails to the author saying they have had the same experiences. She acknowledges though, that much of the reaction from Swiss has been hostile.

But Regina insists that the book is not meant to be anti-Swiss. “My objective was to say this was my experience here,” she said. “If it comes out like that, that’s not what I wanted.”

Nonetheless, she wasn’t taking any chances about causing offence. She has changed the names of her husband’s employer, the international school where her children are enrolled and various characters she encountered.

She also left out the name of the Vaud “Rive Gauche” community where she lived.

Regina was particularly careful to avoid mentioning the bank out of respect for her boss, who she admires, and the institution, which she said is a fine one. Her description of petty office politics though, could well apply to many companies in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Her first day at the bank was frustrating, because she was denied access to her office after she forgot her magnetic swipe card.

Earlier, she writes of being booted out of a law class by a professor at the University of Geneva irritated because she had arrived one minute after the lecture started.

Her children attend an international school because tuition fees are covered by her husband’s multinational employer. Regina writes how this unexpectedly brought her into contact with super-wealthy families also sending their offspring to the school.

“They’re very simple, very nice people,” she said of the women she calls the “VIP Mothers” who come in limousines to pick up their children from the school.

But Regina describes the shock when her children were invited to a birthday party of one school-mate, whose mother was usually casually attired.

It turned out to be an extravaganza in a chateau overlooking Lake Geneva, with 20 entertainers to divert the attention of the 50 children invited (along with parents).

The kids were given complimentary swimming costumes and towels and invited to plunge in the swimming pool, separate buffets were offered for parents and offspring, and the cake was two metres high, by five metres wide – the size of a car.

Regina wrote the book in Italian in three months and had it translated by two British expats living in Geneva, Julian Plumley and Paul Jarvis.

In the last chapter she writes about how her husband has been offered a job in California, so it looks as though the couple will be leaving “Paradise.”

Since the book came out earlier in the autumn, however, circumstances have changed. The economic crisis has put the US posting on hold.

Regina and her family have indeed moved to another country – France. They are living in Divonne-les-Bains, where she says she is enjoying living in a house twice the size of the one in Vaud in a community where the rules are less stringent.

Regina has set up a website where she is accepting emails from other expats who may have experiences to share. She said she has received a lot of feedback and will be posting responses on the site shortly.

Meanwhile, for those interested in meeting the author and buying the book, which retails for 18 francs, the author will be appearing at the OfftheShelf book store in Geneva on Saturday from 1 to 3 pm.