Half Black Canadian moving to Switzerland for a job

Hi Alex,
As you can see, there are different political parties in Switzerland, (as well as different languages, food, habits, valleys...) but rarely any bomb threat so people use their right to discuss about politics openly. Don't ask them about their salaries or their house rent. That's a secret.
Swiss people are mostly SLOW, REASONABLE, SIMPLE, TRADITIONAL, take these adjectives in their positive and negative meanings, and up to the extremes.
On the other hand you may get a biased answer if you ask a Swiss French to give you some infos about Swiss German people, or a mountain lad about city people. That's also what Switzerland is about.
Welcome, Switzerland is not better and not worse than any other place.

I am Swiss and live near Zurich, Switzerland. While your questions are of course quite justified, I am a bit surprised about some of the answers - not sure whether they are just hearsay or stem from personal experience.

I really encourage you to take this Swiss opportunity!

Some things to consider:
1. Zurich is a very international environment. Swiss Germans may be somewhat guarded towards foreigners, but even if you don't make many Swiss German friends, you will easily be able to meet people from all over the world. You will find out that the people you work with will be a good start to build relationships.
2. As in any other country, how you are received depends a lot on how you act. Swiss people do not have any special animosity towards black people (or people of any other skin color for that matter). There is a right-wing political current whose followers basically try to keep our country closed against any foreign influence. In daily life, however, you will meet few of those people, particularly not in the urban areas.
3. Zurich nightlife is of course not comparable to New York, Hongkong, London, Paris ... but it still has a lot to offer, especially on the week-ends. We have an opera, theaters, lots of concerts, music clubs, cinemas, festivals ... If you are a sports fan, Zurich is a great location both for summer and winter sports. We have a beautiful lake, and you can reach good skiing spots in just over an hour.
4. There are some initial bureaucratic hurdles, as some of the replies said - getting a phone, Internet access, a bank account etc. will take some effort, but thousands of people get this done every year.

I hope this helps ... get back to me if you have any specific furthere questions :-)).

I am a Swiss who has been living abroad for five years and I am getting quite tired of the stereotypes about the Swiss being unfriendly/racist etc. If you have a job and you are not totally shady looking Switzerland is the easiest place you can go to. The city of Zurich (like other major cities, too) organizes welcome events for new immigrants each month in English, Spanish, Turkish etc. You get the best public transportation system in the world. There are fantastic night clubs that don't close at 2am like most places in New York, London, and other "world cities". And on top of it all it's beautiful and you can reach Europe's best skiing resorts and many major European cities easily in a matter of hours.

As for the language, yes, do try to learn it. As is the case in any place in the world, it's the one and only key to meet the locals. Enjoy!

I'm not sure if #1 lives in the same Switzerland that I do. It's open, friendly and tolerant, and the reality behind all those minaret related stories that you hear is that the right wing party that pushed it through lost a lot of support in the recent elections.

I do, however, find that there can be quite a negative attitude towards the Swiss from the expat community here. I think that tells you more about the expats than about the locals. Try not to fall into that trap yourself.

To answer your questions:
Swiss German people are very friendly, though there is not such a strong culture of socialising at work as there is in some other countries. You will find a lot of other people in your situation that you can be friendly with.
Some Swiss are not very tolerant of foreigners (just as some Canadians are not). You will not find many of these people in Zurich.
The nightlife and cultural life in general is outstanding. It is expensive, but your wage will likely also be much higher than you are used to (your biggest concern should be ensuring that you get a fair wage compared to Swiss people doing the same job as you).

Edited by: greencelery- removed reference to post 2

One of the things that is being pointed to in most of the posts is that the nature of your question is subjective and therefore only subjective responses are possible.

It seems like what you are trying to do is predict what experience you will have upon moving to Switzerland? If you examine most of the responses, what they appear to have in common is people giving their "view" of Switzerland based on their knowledge of it's history, each persons personal experience etc..

The thing that is unnoticed or at the very least undiscussed is that whatever combination of data we are evaluating, it is all colored -- filtered through our own individual view of life. This is clearly illustrated by the comment "I don't know if [person a] is living in the same Switzerland I am".. for the purpose of these kinds of discussions.. the answer is no.. they are not.. they are living in the Switzerland given by their own experiences, views of life, values etc.. those can vary greatly from human to human.

For the best "guess" (and they are all guesses), I would ask your question of other black professional ex patriates in your industry who are now in Switzerland or who've recently left.

They will have their own filters, but consider that many of our personal filters are inherited by our own culture, background, locale etc.. you may find people similar to you have similar filters (which is more likely though in no way perfectly) a more accurate predictor of what your "experience" will be..

That is not said to invalidate any other persons response at all, only to highlight that what each person is answering from may not come close to how you see the world and therefore, in the same set of circumstance if you were standing side-by-side with someone who has a different set of filters, you both would walk away with very different experience.

In my own personal experience, the Swiss are a bit cold and distant compared to where you're coming from. People have said here that they are friendly -- and I think that might mis-communicate. Swiss people are "polite".. this is not the same as what you and I call "friendly".. The North American definition of "friendly" is "you and I interact casually about our personal lives to some degree".. and what the Swiss mean is to say "please, thank you, smile somewhat when interacting with people but not too much"..

To the Swiss, personal is private. It is a big, big deal to have a Swiss person invite you to their home.. usually this takes a long time of getting to know them. It's not impossible, but it doesn't happen with the velocity and ease that many North Americans are used to.

All of that being said..

(I am an African-American ex-pat that works for a Swiss Bank)..
and yes.. to the point of opening a bank account.. the rules of customer service are much different for people who have a lot of money.. The laws are tough.. but just as sometimes people who fly First Class get "escorted" through security -- the same type of thing happens when opening an account with lots of cash here.. (but to be fair it happens in NY and London too)...

All other things being equal, my personal experience of life is, when I am not looking for racism, I generally don't find it.. or it doesn't find me.. :)

Zurich is very very central to the rest of Europe.. and it can be a really great opportunity.