TALKING TIME
WE ARE TALKING TO: SUZIE
O´REILLY
Suzie O’Reilly is originally from Australia but is no stranger
to the term expat. Before moving to Switzerland, one year ago, she lived
and worked throughout Asia for 10 year based in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Suzie now juggles three young children aged 1, 2 and 5 years, her Master’s
studies and enriching her families’ life in Zurich.
What were your expectations before you moved to Switzerland and so far
is it how you expected it to be?
I had expected to be living in a bustling, multicultural, noisy city
with a busy, cosmopolitan atmosphere. My previous experiences of Asia
had technicolored my kaleidoscope of expectations and time spent in European
cities such as London, Athens, Venice, Paris and Izmir also influenced
these expectations substantially. Visions of dairy cows adorning traditional
cow bells I expected only to see in more remote areas of the mountains.
Living in an apartment, in a converted barn, on a farm did not enter
our minds but after searching for months we ended up living on the edge
of a beautiful field, serenaded by sheep and cows with neck bells, with
tractors, farm machinery, cows and horses holding up the traffic in our
neighbourhood and local shops closed for lunch and on Sundays. This all
felt quite surreal and often very amusing for my family and I although
also very agreeable in many ways but remote to expectations none the
less.
Initially I felt an overwhelming juxtaposition between enjoying the entertainment
of such a contrasting environment to our norm and expectations - loving
the clean fresh air and breathtakingly beautiful scenery and people who
were often welcoming and warm, against, an incredible overwhelming feeling
of loneliness and being misunderstood. Although we met so many wonderful
friendly English speaking people who made us feel instantly welcome I
could not help missing my family (I could no longer just talk to them
in the evenings due to time zones – somehow this made the distance
seem so much further), old friends and the Asian lifestyle. There was
a constant niggling feeling of being misunderstood due to my cultural
ignorance and lack of language skills and therefore communication in
local situations. Being uncomfortable with confrontation and impatient
to fit in and feel ‘at home’ any cold reception or ambivalence
to our efforts were difficult to understand and only exaggerated my feelings
of loneliness and homesickness.
Gaining some basic German language skills in those first few months made
life exceedingly better and visitors from Australia and Hong Kong were
welcome distractions and very restorative. In so many ways my initial
six months felt constrained by family needs, finding a home, exorbitant
childcare costs (for bilingual pre-schooling and care when taking language
classes compared to HK) and our baby daughter being constantly unwell
and in need of medical and maternal attention. My husband and I read
what we found available, supported each others needs to fit in and were
socially active but learning about a culture and a language takes a considerable
amount of time, time we did not find before relocating with 3 young children
particularly as baby Aoife was born only 9 weeks prior to leaving our
apartment in HK. We had expected to fit in so easily after our previous
experiences of comfortable and easy relocations.
My first winter in Zurich: By winter living in Zurich felt almost magical
- like living in fairy-land. From our home we looked out to snow covered
trees and fields; roof tops and steeples white, a brilliant too clean
white as the sun reflected off them, so white that it seemed unreal.
This reminding me of European Christmas cards I would look at when I
was little. I remember thinking how strange Christmas snow scenes were
when we were bound to spend Christmas basking in the sun, semi clad or
in our swimmers, swimming or messing about with water, dinning on delicious
sea food and nagging our parents for another cold ice-block (ice-cream).
After a year in Zurich: we now feel settled and comfortable, welcome
and accepted, our language deficiencies are often tolerated and more
often people make warm and friendly efforts to help us improve – we
have a long way to go with our German and understanding of local customs
but enjoying the ride!
Since you have lived abroad for quite a long time, how would you describe
your expat life in Switzerland from Hong Kong and Singapore?
The monumental shift in lifestyle from living in HK where I worked and
had a nanny, to living in Switzerland with no language skills, no job,
so far from family (10 hour time difference and daunting minimum 24 hour
flight with 3 small kids) and no help was huge. Moving to Zurich’s
rural lifestyle with the obvious pride in the obsession of having everything
in place and all neatly arranged, seems to be part of all the components
of peoples lives which on the surface makes Switzerland so beautiful
and picture postcard perfect but conversely must bring about social issues
and make people a little edgy and judgemental (beware parking on the
lines or speaking too loud …and children please don’t jump
on the beds in IKEA (wwooops)).
This new lifestyle stood in many ways as a sharp contrast to our life
amongst the sky scrapers of sprawling, bustling, dynamic, bespangled
HK with its barrage of sensory overload of sights, smells and sounds
where you are almost immune to the pungent smell of dry fish and the
sound of jack hammers tearing up the footpath, where you go to IKEA on
a rainy day with the kids to have fun; and possibly belittling all these
things to some extent is the shift from being a Gweilo (HK Chinese term
for foreigner) where you are treated with a combination of ambivalence
and respect to being a foreigner in Switzerland – from the East
to the West, the Chinese to Germanic, the warm to the cold, the chaotic
to the conformist.
How did your kids react, when you decided to move to Switzerland and
how are they adapting?
Our kids were too young to react dramatically to our move. Our 3 year
old was really the only one who noticed. He commented on the language
changes after attending a Chinese/English playgroup in HK and missed
his friends he had known since birth. He mentioned changes such as no
mini buses, no dim sum and how much he had to walk here, where was the
nanny, why was it so cold, what are all these animals and why are there
so many cows ?. He loved the new outdoor lifestyle in the parks, skiing,
ice skating, playing in the snow, hanging out at the Strandbad, swimming
in the lake, riding horses and so much more. On the whole he adapted
easily and happily. He started at Tandem (bilingual pre-school in Uetikon)
only weeks after we arrived and made friends quickly. Tandem was fantastic
and a school I highly recommend to new English speaking families wanting
their kids to learn German and cultural customs in a safe, nurturing
and loving environment. He has now joined the local Swiss kindergarten
happily thanks to our wonderful, supportive neighbours, and welcoming
school.
In Switzerland most mothers stay at home. How do you view your
career possibilities here?
I arrived in Zurich determined and enthusiastic to settle my family and
find a part time role in a bank. With a recent postgraduate education
in management, experience as a senior finance consultant and Asia regional
director for a large multinational, I assumed finding a part time role
would be relatively easy. After some interesting interviews, and discussions
I found that the role I wanted, which would provide me with a work and
family balance, was not so easily found. To satisfy my intellectual needs
I worked on a consulting project part time from home for a few months
prior to the summer break and undertook some voluntary work which was
enjoyable and reasonably intellectually restorative and since summer
I am back to studying my Masters on-line from Australia with the view
to matriculate before the turn of the decade with an MBA and Master in
Commercial Law. What a great opportunity to improve my German language
skills, finish my postgraduate studies and spend each day with my family.
I feel very lucky to be able to have this balanced life - hopefully this
will keep my brain stimulated and constantly resurfacing career desires
at bay.
How do you preserve Australian culture and language while living in Switzerland?
I love Australia. It is a beautiful country of open spaces and diverse
exquisite scenery. A relaxed culture built on the foundations of enjoying
the great outdoors, beach culture, balanced family lifestyle, chuck (throw)
a prawn on the barbi (BBQ) and relaxing with a tinny (can of beer) with
your mates (friends) – work and play hard and please don’t
take life too seriously. These are not too far removed from the Swiss
culture we have been introduced to by friends here. The Australian language
I miss from the perspective of Australian colloquialisms and local banter.
Looking forward to meeting more Aussie families living here!
Do you ever think about moving back to Australia?
I have loved our adventurous life in Australia, Asia and Europe but recently,
my husband and I find ourselves discussing subjects such as ‘where
will we settle?’ ‘where is the best place to educate our
kids?’ ‘where do we want our children to identify as home?’ ‘is
the expat lifestyle what we want for our kids?’. Having children
often makes you think about your roots and the children’s relationship
with your parents/their grandparents, your siblings and their cousins.
My family in Australia are wonderful, loving and inspiring individuals
and I would like my kids to spend time learning from them and growing
in their nurturing environment. I do feel a sense of loss that my children
are missing out on forming the strong bonds with cousins, aunts, uncles
and grandparents that I was so lucky to have as a child. The wonderful
sense of unity and kindred spirit that encompasses the family network
is something I would love my children to have and a powerful experience
which can not be emulated so easily.
If I could have a perfect life I would live somehow in Australia, HK
and Switzerland simultaneously! Three astoundingly diverse, remarkable
and wonderful countries and cultures.
| SUZIE
O´REILLY Born: Family: Education: |
 |
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Der
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