10961
Bucharest
state> calm
soundtrack> Stevie Nicks - edge of seventeen
Our stay in Lugano was short, a few hours only. It was also very instructive.
Only about one hour on the freeway from Milano, Ticino is very different from northern Italy. Yes, the people speak still Italian, but the cultural "air" is quite different, because you get the feel of a Anglo-Saxon country. Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, something like that.
The impression I had in Switzerland was that people were taking proper care of every single square inch of the land, and the contrast to northern Italy (which is quite a developed area) is transparent. But, while a comparison to Lombardia could be made, I don't think you can compare Lugano with Prahova Valley for instance. And it is a pity, because the natural surroundings are very similar in the two cases. The degree of care is different, unfortunately.
I tried to find the right description for Lugano and Switzerland, and what I finally came to was "extreme normality". Something like: everything goes well, everything is in place and well fixed, everybody does his job properly; nothing too bright, just - I repeat - a state of normality which represents, in my view, not only the result of the protestant ethos (Switzerland - "the Max Weber country"), but also the result of almost two centuries of peace. That being said, I think Switzerland should be, in the current international situation, a member of NATO and the EU. Ambitious, I know, if you look at the current climate in the country.
In the end, a sort of confession: I wanted to get there for a long time. My MA dissertation (which I began writing 5 years ago) is about intercultural communication in Switzerland. If you speak Romanian, you can find it somewhere on the Internet - it was published some years ago - in case you are curious, although I do not think its conclusions stand anymore.
What made me curious about Switzerland was the success of its project. In some aspects, it could be a model for us. I'll always keep a degree of interest for what happens there - after all, I'd like to publish, properly, (a better version of) my work sometime in the future.
With love,
Bucharest
state> calm
soundtrack> Stevie Nicks - edge of seventeen
Our stay in Lugano was short, a few hours only. It was also very instructive.
Only about one hour on the freeway from Milano, Ticino is very different from northern Italy. Yes, the people speak still Italian, but the cultural "air" is quite different, because you get the feel of a Anglo-Saxon country. Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, something like that.
The impression I had in Switzerland was that people were taking proper care of every single square inch of the land, and the contrast to northern Italy (which is quite a developed area) is transparent. But, while a comparison to Lombardia could be made, I don't think you can compare Lugano with Prahova Valley for instance. And it is a pity, because the natural surroundings are very similar in the two cases. The degree of care is different, unfortunately.
I tried to find the right description for Lugano and Switzerland, and what I finally came to was "extreme normality". Something like: everything goes well, everything is in place and well fixed, everybody does his job properly; nothing too bright, just - I repeat - a state of normality which represents, in my view, not only the result of the protestant ethos (Switzerland - "the Max Weber country"), but also the result of almost two centuries of peace. That being said, I think Switzerland should be, in the current international situation, a member of NATO and the EU. Ambitious, I know, if you look at the current climate in the country.
In the end, a sort of confession: I wanted to get there for a long time. My MA dissertation (which I began writing 5 years ago) is about intercultural communication in Switzerland. If you speak Romanian, you can find it somewhere on the Internet - it was published some years ago - in case you are curious, although I do not think its conclusions stand anymore.
What made me curious about Switzerland was the success of its project. In some aspects, it could be a model for us. I'll always keep a degree of interest for what happens there - after all, I'd like to publish, properly, (a better version of) my work sometime in the future.
With love,
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