Was ist die Expat Bubble? Unsere Spezialistin für interkulturelle Fragen klärt auf.
Dear Auntie SAM: What do you mean when you talk about the expat bubble?
I was a teenager the first time I explored a city with a Chinatown. My girlfriends & I were in Toronto. They insisted upon eating lunch & shopping at familiar chains. So, I broke free &, like Alice following yet another white rabbit, was introduced to a world so very unlike my own.
Vibrant colors, rich textures, unfamiliar staccatoed sounds, & seductive aromas all welcomed, enveloped, and beckoned. I ate my first crispy duck there. Spilt rice onto my lap failing to use chopsticks correctly. And bought a jacket so unique & cool classmates later asked if I would sell it to them.
Chinatowns were largely built by laborers. People coming to North America to build railroads, shipyards, & roads. But they were developed by private & public investment in an idea that, on the one hand, created a support network for immigrants & on the other restricted integration of immigrants.
It was the practical, hard working people living there who made the best of things. Transformed their potential ghettoization into magical enclaves supportive of exploration & growth.
In Basel, there is no Chinatown. The area right of the Rhine called Kleinbasel is as close as one gets to it because Kleinbasel is where hard working, practical immigrants – many manual laborers – often live.
The expats who come to Basel for Pharma are cerebral. They bring spouses often equally as cerebral, & raise children whose closest experience to manual labor will be bagging groceries part-time during college.
Before arriving, we read all the books & blogs we can find on what it is like to live here. We research Swiss culture, Swiss history, Swiss politics. We talk with other expats online & after we arrive.
We believe them when they say how things are & must be.
Because words matter to us.
Our ability to use & understand words – ideas – language … this has proven very successful for us. It’s what we’ve always relied upon.
Because, up until now, we could always trust words.
One of my favorite experiences being in the Expat Bubble happened, as many of your dear Auntie’s anecdotes do, in a bar.
It was noon on a Wednesday & a forlorn Tag-along spouse downed an ale as he explained to me why he felt frustrated being in Basel.
He had ideas about how he would start a business, create, & contribute. How he would do something he’d enjoy that would allow him to connect with like-minded people.
Except he always had to be in support of his kids & wife’s career.
And, besides, The Swiss do not want expats to thrive. We all know how They – The Swiss – want us to behave: Perfectly.
They don’t want us here. They don’t want to be reminded we’re here. They will tsk-tsk if you step out of line, try something new, evince personality, be human, risk.
I joined him in another beer … or five.
But, only after I had hung posters & plakarts promoting what became my second SRO show in Basel. Largely supported: funded – encouraged – attended by Them: „The Swiss“.
The Expat Bubble is the ghettoization of our minds.
XO
AS
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What happens when a FINN, a CROATIAN, a BOHEMIAN, & a SWISS CREATE MUSIC in a bar? PREKMURSKI KAVBOJCI: an EXPLOSIVE COMBO STIMULATING WANDERLUST & the DESIRE to DANCE. Vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, percussions, clarinet, alto sax, & accordion. TRATTORIA BAR da SONNY. FRIDAY, 7:30-10:30.
SATURDAY: HOUSE, TECHNO, & ACID COLLIDE at METAMORPHISIS #2. VINYL DJs: FRST, DADA GLOBAL, & ALA (BLACK MASK’s alter ego) TRANSFORM us all TO OR FROM MONSTROUS CREATURES. HIRSCHENECK KELLER, 11PM.