by Tamara Imboden, on 13 September 2019 (view profile)
Monday evening, Langstrasse. Not the usual chaos and hubbub that the street is known for, but also not entirely quiet. The air is ripe with post-work bustle, people jostling to catch busses at Helvetiaplatz, cars honking nonchalant pedestrians back onto the pavement. I wondered what I would find at the house that I was looking for. I’d never heard of the Brasil Forum, where my evening’s programme was to take place. So entirely without expectations, I joined the little group of people that had already begun to gather outside the building.
At 8 o’clock sharp, we were ushered into the entrée of the building and asked to switch off our phones. And then we waited, some nervously, some excitedly. But as soon as Katia Franco Hofacker arrived, the tension dissipated instantly, to be replaced by anticipation. Hofacker is a professional actor of the MAXIM Theatre. To her friends, she’s known as Katia. Katia’s enormous enthusiasm and enrapturing vivacity enthralled us instantly.
She began by distributing Brazilian good luck charms in the form of arm bands and then she led us into the building and up the stairs. While walking she told us to feel at home. That meant, she explained, we didn’t have to worry about anything. We could completely let go. So we comfortably shuffled up the stairs, at least, until she stopped abruptly at the top. It’s an interesting concept, she told us, that of feeling at home. One that is sometimes difficult to adopt. She cannot simply cast off her worries and feel at home all the time. She is constantly being judged for everything. She needs to worry about every single word that comes out of her mouth, constantly translating and treading cautiously. So feeling at home isn’t always as easy as it seems.
This was my first impression of Bin ich angekommen?, a performance by Katia Franco Hofacker, directed by Jasmine Hoch that I went to see on September 9th. I had found out about this show in connection with the current cultural project on the diversity of Zurich called About Us. We fifteen viewers gathered to listen to Katia speak about her experiences as a migrant in Switzerland. Set in a beauty parlour crowded by cardboard chairs, the play took place in a strangely natural setting. We watched and listened as Katia had her hair washed and got her nails done, all the while telling us lightly about her experiences of adjusting to Switzerland.
I say ‘lightly’, but despite her tone, the issues she addressed are in fact momentous and unavoidable in the discourse about Switzerland.
She discussed what a multicultural society can do for Switzerland, especially with regard to what intercultural children can do for a society. And it’s an interesting question: of course, there are the obvious benefits of bringing new perspectives, traditions and values into the discourse. But Katia specifically addressed the question of how the experience of growing up with a parent who is, in Katia’s words, “eine Ausländerin,” can shape the child’s development. Katia explained that, as a child, her daughter was able to relate to some of her struggling peers with an empathy that is not always found in children. She somehow understood the struggle of others. What would a society in which we all understood each other’s struggles look like?
Katia grew up in Brazil. There, she studied and worked as a psychologist. Upon arriving in Switzerland in 2004, she was shocked by how restricted she became because of the language barrier. You study all your life, work hard and attain something, and then you come into a new culture with a new language and you have to start at the beginning. Not only that, you are suddenly dependent on others. She needed to wait for someone to translate for her to tackle the most insignificant, day-to-day issues. This is something many migrants from the non-German speaking world need to deal with. Life becomes much, much more complicated, and you are forced to take many detours, in Katia’s words, to achieve what you want. All this in the face of the given difficulties of having left your culture, of needing to meet new people and of having to set up a new life altogether.
It’s not only the language that you need to learn; you must adopt new cultural conventions and customs too. Katia explains this based on the habits surrounding phone calls. She explains that she comes from a culture where friends are available to each other 27/4. Call in the middle of the night if you need something. Then, come to Switzerland, and you suddenly need to learn new rules, not only of what to say, but of when to call to begin with; for instance, there’s the convention that you don’t call after 10pm. Or that you make plans well in advance of the day you are calling. Katia speculates, tongue in cheek, how someone might respond if she spontaneously asked them to go to out the same night:
“Wenn ich das vor zwei Wochen gewusst hätte,
hätte ich nicht geplant, heute zuhause zu sein.”
These were only some of the vital topics raised by Katia. Bin ich angekommen? is a wonderful way to delve into a world that many mistake to be so easy to handle. Why don’t you just learn German? Just get a job? It’s not that simple. And Katia can tell you, from personal experience, why that is so. And she isn’t the only one. Regular calls of agreement from the audience showed that this is a mutual experience. And if you just open your eyes a little, look around and maybe listen to the muffled voices of the 400’000 migrants in Canton Zurich, you will find similar problems reflected in them.
That’s why you need to be sure to catch Ruken Şahan’s performances on the 13th and 19th of September, potentially discussing what it is to be a Kurd from Turkey
learning German in Switzerland. And of course, the events of About Us are all a wonderful
way to give the diverse populations of Zurich a platform to be heard.
by Tamara Imboden, on 13 September 2019
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