Brown & Yellow Hues
With Covid-19 sticking around like the smell of a dirty wet towel, exercise options aren’t plentiful. Walks and jogs are the default since I moved to Meilen, a sleepy town on the outskirts of Zurich. Meilen’s claim to fame is that Tina Turner lives here. If you went “Tina who?” your reaction mirrors the blank looks directed at the tour guide when she excitedly recounted this fact as the sightseeing bus I was on rumbled through Meilen’s Seestrasse. Shortly after taking that tour, I moved to Meilen and found out that Tina Turner actually lives in Küsnacht, a smaller town up the coast. But what’s Tina got to do, got to do with this blog post? Nothing but the faintest of hopes that Google’s search engine will pull this post from complete obscurity when an unsuspecting user types the singer’s name into that search box.
Back to the topic I was on before the click-bait digression. My usual fitness regimen starts on Stelzenstrasse near the Midor AG cookie manufacturing facility. I recommend starting the exercise routine by taking a couple of deep breaths at this point. Just a couple, mind you, else the Pied Piper- that sweet smell of shortbread that wafts invitingly across parking lots here- will lead you into the Midor Ladeli store to pick up some freshly baked cookies. Desire to exercise exits stage left.
On the days when you are filled with resolve, you’ll avert your gaze and continue regretfully past Midor Ladeli. If by any chance you sport a self-congratulatory smirk for not ducking into the cookie store, Pfannenstielstrasse will wipe that smug look off your face in seconds. Inaccurately named (Pfannenstiel translates to Panhandle, but a more apt name would be Pain-in-the-middle), this street is relentlessly uphill reducing mere mortals to agonized clutching of their love handles more than a few times. My gait is soon a labored stumble as I make my way up Pfannenstielstrasse. Further up that street and just before I cross the more helpfully-named Haltenstrasse, I halt for my heartbeat to sound less like a jackhammer.
After this mini-breather I cross the road to the gravel trail on the left. That trail is even more sharply angled upwards than Pfannenstielstrasse which just adds insult to injury. I’ve given up jogging way before this point, and I have no hopes whatsoever that I’ll ever be fit enough to jog all the way up here. On the gravel path, the terrain levels off but that’s just like Mike Tyson faking a left before sucker punching you. On the left is a long flight of stone steps (going up, of course). Imagine now having to climb the 126 steps (yes, I’ll admit it’s hard to keep count when it feels like you are summiting Mt Everest but I’m fairly certain it was all of 126 steps) to the Helsana trail.
A couple of days ago, on my usual walk I was nearing the bottom of the flight of steps consuming more than my fair share of Oxygen, when I noticed an older couple up ahead climbing the stairs in a slow but steady manner. The gentleman was fitter than his companion and he seemed a genial sort. When he saw me walk up the stairs, he moved to one side and motioned me ahead. I raised my hand and gave him a weak (I have to conserve every Joule of energy for those god-awful stairs) smile to indicate I was fine with their pace. Pantomine is my usual mode of communication with the natives since I’ve managed to learn all of one word in Swiss German in my last 6 months of living here.
The man waved his arms about in a manner that communicated “Nonsense. We don’t want to slow you down.” I passed them with my usual “Grüetzi” and he responded with a smile and a couple of Swiss-German words ending with an admiring “Speedy Gonzales!”. Compliments like these I detest because I feel the pressure to perform, not wanting the complimenter to feel like he or she had made a bad call. In this situation I had to make like a middle-aged Speedy Gonzales and ascend those 126 steps at twice my usual speed.
At the top of the stairs, sounding like the huffed and puffed-out wolf at the third piggy’s brick-walled house, I paused for a few so the cacophony of complaints from multiple organs in the vicinity of my midriff subsided. It was then that I thought about the possible connection between my brown skin and being compared to the speedy Mexican cartoon rodent. Could I recall any cartoon characters that were fast and white? The Road Runner came to mind but that’s a bird so does not really qualify. Not the Tasmanian Devil, for sure! I had to admit that Speedy Gonzales would be the first thing to pop into my head, too. I chided myself for being hyper-sensitive and kept walking.
To the left of the Helsana trail are farmlands with innumerable rows of corn plants. Walking by those green six-feet high stalks, I was approached by an elderly gentleman who had a smile playing on his lips. I try not to make eye contact with people who smile without any obvious reasons since (a) either they are in conversation with someone via Air Pods or some newfangled innovation or (b) slightly batty. Either one is grounds for giving such folks a wide berth. As this gentleman drew near, I realized he was smiling at me; He stopped, motioned to the corn field, and shared this observation “Look at these young corn stalks-so many of them, standing straight up like obedient and smart Chinese.” I don’t recollect how far my jar dropped but I quickly cranked it shut, gave him a somewhat glacial smile, and hurried away.
Clearly, the planets had aligned that day to present me with multiple moral conundrums. Was my acquaintance’s observation patronizing and borderline offensive? I’d say so, but I have the advantage of having sat through interminable hours of mandatory sensitivity training. Maybe he wished to be friendly and shared a “profound” thought? But, surely, he’s heard of Chinese dissidents? Or seen the iconic images of the lone Chinese “Tank Man” halting the advance of a column of armoured vehicles in Tiananmen Square?
And what if both these people I chanced to meet were not natives but expats like me? That would explain the Speedy Gonzales reference and passable English. And really, who was I to judge with my sorry record of having learned one word of Swiss-German in a year?
By the time I hit the steep downhill Toggwilerstrasse, I was Speedy Gonzales incarnate, my moral conundrums being swept aside for the moment as cookie smells from Midor AG wafted up to greet me. A comforting reminder that I was in Switzerland, where all men are friendly and all children come out of their mothers’ wombs ready to ride their bicycles.
Originally published at http://teepeem.com on June 17, 2020.
