As we were having our hair cut yesterday, this very typical exchange took place (my slightly liberal translation from Chinese):
Hairdresser #1: So, Sweden. That’s the place with the watches.
Me: That’s Switzerland.
Hairdresser #1: Right, Switzerland.
Me: We’re Swedish, not Swiss. Ruidian and Ruishi are different countries.
Hairdresser #2, to Hairdresser #1: Do you even know where Sweden is?
Hairdresser #1: (silence).
I’ve had more or less this same conversation many times and in many parts of the world over the years. In English, Sweden/Swedish and Switzerland/Swiss are to many (especially, it seems, Americans) confusingly similar; in Spanish, Suecia sounds a lot like Suiza; and in Chinese, it’s tough for people to keep track of which one is Ruidian and which one is Ruishi. Maybe it’s especially difficult for people to keep the two countries apart since not only do they seem to end up with similar-sounding names in almost every language, they’re also both small, historically neutral, wealthy, and essentially unimportant countries in Western Europe. And when Sweden has a population of 9.3 million, compared to Wuhan’s 9.7 million, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that our brand recognition isn’t better than it is (despite the valiant efforts of Volvo and IKEA). What should probably be more surprising is the number of people who do know where Sweden is, like our taxi driver in Wuhan last week: “Sweden, huh? Capital is Stockholm, right? And you have a really young prime minister, with a receding hairline. I saw him on TV”.
But still. They don’t sound that similar, do they? The most classic example of Sweden/Switzerland confusion for me still has to be this conversation, which took place with a new classmate my first week at Harvard:
Classmate: Where are you from?
Me: Sweden.
Classmate: Oh, so do you speak Swiss at home then?
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