WHAT DO SWITZERLAND AND JAPAN HAVE IN COMMON? - PART 2

In a previous post, I established how mountains feature heavily in the landscape of both countries, with the tiny difference that the Swiss tend to put up a flag at the top of their peaks, while the Japanese don't.

That brings me to the next topic:

What shows the identity of a nation more than anything else? Its national flag, of course. Another common theme between Switzerland and Japan. Their shapes may be different, but the colour scheme is obviously very similar: Switzerland with a white cross on red background and Japan with a red circle on white background.

Though some confusion can arise from the fact that the symbol of the Red Cross Organisation represents an inverted Swiss flag (as a tribute to its Swiss founder Henry Dunant).

And when you search for hospitals on a Google map of Tokyo, you will notice a symbol reminiscent of a Swiss flag (a white cross in an escutcheon-shaped frame on red background) popping up all over the place. When I saw that for the first time, I wondered just how many embassies Switzerland maintains in Tokyo... Well, until I realised that in Japan it's the sign for a hospital. Unlike other countries, where a hospital is represented by a symbol with an 'H'.

So perhaps the similarity of the flags has certain merits (the colours nicely complementing each other when side by side), but can be very confusing, too...

But if you think that mountains and flag colours are the only things the two countries share, then you would be very much mistaken.

So what else is there?

Both countries have a reputation of being very expensive.

I say 'reputation' here because three decades of a deflationary spiral and a recent weakness of the Japanese Yen have meant that it's actually not the case anymore for Japan. Good for tourists who visit the country, of course. Not quite as good for the likes of me, who want to fly back to Switzerland to visit family, as these days my money doesn't stretch nearly as far as it used to...

The currencies of both countries have high-value coins.

Switzerland has a large CHF 5 coin (the equivalent of around €5 or $5), while Japan sports a 500 Yen coin of a similar value. The difference is that Japan also has a 1 Yen coin (which is worth less than 1 Cent), while the Swiss don't even bother with that. Their smallest denomination is 5 Cents.

Both countries have excellent healthcare systems.

They may be run very differently (with Switzerland's being private, while Japan has a public system), but both countries pride themselves of being among the top countries in terms of the quality of healthcare.

Both have a reputation of being very clean.

When I talk to foreign visitors both to Switzerland and Japan, they almost always comment on how clean the country is. Unless it's Swiss or Japanese nationals visiting each other's countries, in which case they simply take it for granted, because it's just like home...

Both are considered safe. Of course crime does exist, but crime rates in both countries are low compared to global standards. If you forget your bags or wallet on the train in either of the two countries, you will - more often than not - find your belongings intact at the lost property counter. While I have experienced this myself, I still wouldn't want to try it out just to test the theory, though. Better be safe than sorry, as they say.

A penchant for quality and precision.

The Swiss skills that go into meticulous watch-making and the designing of precise weighing equipment are similar to the accuracy needed for Japanese engineering and robotics, or the manufacturing of cars. It may not come as a surprise then that Japan is also one of the top 3 watch-making countries. It is, however, interesting to note that Switzerland does not have its own automobile industry.

People tend to be private and reserved.

As a whole, Swiss people tend to be respectful of their immediate environment and social etiquette, but also rather private and reserved, which can make it difficult for foreigners to make friends. Rather similar to the Japanese, who are usually perceived as shy or reserved and don't open up easily to strangers.

I'm very aware, of course, that one has to be mindful of generalisations and stereotyping, as regardless of nationality, we are all individual human beings. Thus not all Swiss tick the same, nor do all Japanese share the same characteristics.

Both countries rank in the top 10 of the 'Global Peace Index'.

And in case you're wondering: Yes, such an index indeed exists, and the latest 2023 edition has just been published: Global Peace Index 2023

Both have a vast and reliable public transport system.

There is a saying that Swiss trains are so punctual that you can set your watch by them. But whoever coined that phrase had probably never visited Japan, where the famed high-speed bullet trains ('shinkansen') have an impressive on-time performance rate of 99%. One can blame the frequent earthquakes, sometimes force them to stop for mandatory safety checks, for the fact that they don't reach 100%...

Swiss train

Japanese bullet train ('shinkansen')

Punctuality in both countries extends far beyond train timetables.

It is etiquette to arrive on time to a meeting or a dinner invitation. Better be early than a few minutes late. Letting someone else wait is considered rude.

Life expectancy in both countries is among the highest in the world.

Both are ranked in the top 4, whereby Japanese females top their Swiss counterparts by almost two years, while for males it's vice versa, with a difference of about one year.

This is just as well, because if you live to such a ripe old age, you would want to do so in a country that is safe and clean, with an excellent healthcare system and where trains run like clockwork, wouldn't you?

Two ‘island’ nations: Japan for obvious reasons, as it is, after all, surrounded by the sea. Switzerland for perhaps less obvious ones:

An 'island in the middle of Europe', surrounded by EU countries.

An ‘island of neutrality’, as throughout its recent history, it has refused to pick sides in conflicts and is, to this day, not a member of the NATO alliance.

A ‘high price island’, with prices of goods and services significantly higher than in all the surrounding countries, but also with high incomes to match that.

For a brief period of time in the early eighties, Switzerland was even a ‘time island’: After all its neighbours had introduced the concept of summer time and set their clocks one hour forward in spring, the Swiss government in the famously democratic Alpine nation was forced to call a referendum due to the opposition in the country. Main opponents were farmers, who argued that the biorhythm of cows would be disturbed, resulting in less milk production.

At the ballot box, the voters promptly rejected the introduction of summer time. And when all of Switzerland's neighbours advanced their clocks by one hour in April 1980, Swiss farmers triumphed, while absurd scenes started to unfold everywhere:

Trains between Amsterdam and Rome, for example, had to wait one hour upon arrival in Switzerland, so as not to depart one hour early. The trouble is that when they reached Italy, they were one hour late. Then again, for Italy, a country with a laxer definition of what constitutes a delay, as compared to other countries, this might actually have gone largely unnoticed...

Similar confusion ensued in air travel, where they had to work out special timetables to ensure that planes were in the right place at the right time - whatever the definition of 'right time' may have been...

Even TV viewers in Switzerland faced disruption because they now suddenly had to make a choice whether to watch the main evening news on Swiss TV, or the crime drama on a German channe, both now running simultaneously.

And for those entering Switzerland by car, in addition to asking for passports and whether there was anything to declare, customs officers kindly reminded the passengers to to turn their watches back one hour... I kid you not!

Towards the end of the summer, most people realised that things could not go on like this - regardless of bovine biorhythms. And so Parliament decided to align with the rest of Europe, and the 'time island' was gone the next year. It does not happen often in this Alpine democracy that the will of the people is ignored, but when the common will lacks common sense, then it's good to know that the Constitution allows the lawmakers to rectify an obviously wrong decision...

Switzerland to this day prides itself on being fiercely independent and wants to do things differently to set itself apart from its EU neighbours, often for justifiable reasons, though occasionally in order to merely prove a point...

As for Japan, not only is it physically separated from its neighbours by the ocean, but there was a period of over 200 years between the 17th and the 19th century (referred to as ‘sakoku’ = locked country), when the nation essentially shut itself off from the rest of the world, a legacy that is still reflected in modern-day Japan. But that is a story for another day.

So as you can see, the two countries may have more in common than one might think, given their difference in size, location, history and culture, and therefore one would expect that if a Swiss comes to live in Japan, he might feel very much at home here.

But the devil - as always - lies in the detail.

Despite all the similarities, Japan never ceases to surprise me. Sometimes in positive and charming ways, sometimes in disappointing or frustrating ways. And very often in amusing ways. Living here can be a rollercoaster ride, constantly amazing me in a myriad of ways, mostly when I least expect it. Keeping a sense of humour through all this certainly helps!