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| Contents: Canada/BC: Student's Country: Language 101: Photo Page!
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I will give you some information about Switzerland in general. Please don’t confuse Switzerland with Sweden like most Americans do.
Data: Switzerland is a small country in the middle of Europe. Our neighborhoods are Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Liechtenstein. The longest distance from north to south is 220.1 km and from the west to east 348.4 km. Even though it is so small and cute, 7,000,000 people live there in the 26 different Swiss federal states, and 65% of those speak Swiss-German, 18% French, 10% Italian and 0.8% Romanian. Everybody knows: When I start to talk with people from other countries and they find out that I am from Switzerland, I always hear the same things: “Aaahhh, Switzerland, Swiss-Banks, Swiss-Cheese, Swiss-Chocolate, Swiss-Army Knife, and the Swiss-Alps”. And you know what, it’s true, we have all these things.
I was a little bit embarrassed when I start thinking about this topic. We don’t have very many actors, singers or sport-stars that are well-known all over the world. To say the truth, almost nobody. In the Olympic Games our athletes aren’t very successful. In Athens we won only one gold, one silver, and three bronze medals. We have a few good ice hockey players like David Aebischer and Martin Gerber. Because they can’t earn so much money in Switzerland with this, they go to play in the NHL, where they start as complete rookies, so on the NHL games they just keep the bench warm. However, maybe you know the sailing crew Alinghi. They won the American Cup in 2003. I think this is a praiseworthy work, eventhough we have no sea in Switzerland! Maybe we haven’t so many famous people from our country, but famous people from all over the world live in Switzerland. For example, Tina Turner lives somewhere near Zürich. Michael Schumacher, the Formula 1 World champion, built his house near Luzern in a part where the taxes are very low. Charlie Caplin used to live in Switzerland, too. But there are two famous fairy tale figures you’ll maybe know. One is Willhelm Tell, who is very important for the history of Switzerland. He was for Switzerland something like Che Gevara for Cuba. The other figure is Heidi, the girl from the Alps. I was surprised that my roommate from Japan knows her. Later he told me that they have like a TV-Sitcom in Japan, the Heidi Story. Swiss Army: Switzerland is a very small country and we are neutral. Anyway, we have an army. Incredible, isn’t it? Yes, and every Swiss male has to do his military service when he’s 20 years old. For 21 weeks we have to go to the army and do the basic training. Afterwards we have to do 3 or 4 weekends a year, until the age of 30. Part of my title for theis story is “we aren’t all farmers”, which is true. Only 27.5 % (source: www.bfs.ch) of the inhabitants are in the business of agriculture. But of course, there were more 100 years ago. Today some people just make decisions like farmers (sorry Switzerland). And here I will tell you a real story I was really embarrassed about. The title of this story is: PIERO and the “Swiss Idol”
Nobody in Europe voted for him; such a shame. The only person who said that this song can become the summer hit for 2004 was Piero himself. Therefore, I think, this is a disaster that Switzerland will suffer from for the next ten years. Because whenever Europe watches this TV show and the Taskmaster announces Switzerland, everybody in Europe will remember “Oh, Switzerland, so bad”, and they will go to make popcorn or to the washroom. Even if the song is good, nobody would listen to this while they where in the kitchen or somewhere else. Sport: American Football or Baseball are not very popular in Switzerland. We play more soccer or go skiing or snowboarding in our mountains. There are some typical Swiss kinds of sports like “Schwinge”, which is a soft version of Wrestling and “Hornusse”, which is like Baseball.
Sources: Data: http://www.oli.li/wissen.asp?RubrikID=19&InhaltID=58 by Daniel Cafourek, from Switzerland |
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We Aren’t All Farmers! 
Famous People from Switzerland: 
I’m sure you know this TV Show where people can show their talent and the audience votes by phone for the best. Here in Canada it’s called “Canadian Idol”. One TV Channel in Switzerland can’t let it be and did the same TV Show. After three months there where only 4 people left to win the final. Piero was one of them, but he was not as good as the others so he was fired from this show. But the TV Show “Swiss Idol” helps him with the first CD and a lot of other things, but he was never really popular. Once in a year in Europe comes up a TV-Show called “concours d’eurovision”. Each country from Europe can send one singer to this contest of singing. I was shocked to hear that Piero represented Switzerland on this show. Terrible, because I think we have a lot of other great singers in our country, but the TV channels had the biggest power in this decision against the smaller TV channels, and so they decided to send Piero. This song “Clap Your Hands” was the worst song I’d ever heard. And his performance was terrible too, so I was not surprised when the taskmaster sad: “Switzerland, zero points”.
