Culture Shocks 1

The lights in the big Boeing 767 had just come on and Aaron woke up from a quite unsatisfactory 'night's sleep.' Not being a big shot in the company, he had been assigned (sentenced) to fly economy (cattle class), okay for domestic hops but a lot less than okay for the 8 hour slog over the Atlantic. And to add insult to injury, he didn't get to fly a European airline where alcoholic drinks are free - even to economy passengers. No, Aaron was on AA64 outbound from JFK and now a half hour out from Zurich.

It was Aaron Fleischer's first overseas business trip for his new employer, Kohlhof AG, a maker of construction chemicals. Indeed, aside from Canada, this would be his first visit ever to a foreign country.

Having joined Kohlhof six months ago and having completed the probation period, he was being sent to the company's headquarters in Switzerland for a one-week training course.

The job with Kohlhof, although a far cry from Aaron's original hopes and dreams of becoming a famous architect, was like a breath of fresh air after his first two short lived jobs. After high school, he had had the good fortune to be admitted to Cornell University's famous College of Architecture. After graduating with honors and a B.S. in architecture, he had enthusiastically signed on with a big A&E company in New York City, but had quit after just 6 months - the hours just plain sucked and he'd done nothing but detail utility rooms. Then he had gotten a job in the planning department of Westchester County and quit that even sooner -- boring as hell and he couldn't even begin to see what he was accomplishing.

Utterly desperate, he had been ready to start driving a taxi or apply for a job at Home Depot when his Uncle Donald showed him a headhunter's help wanted ad for field engineers. Although Aaron was an architect, the ad said that a degree in architecture or civil engineering was the education requirement. He applied and surprise! They hired him in spite of having quit two jobs inside of slightly over a year.

When Uncle Donald found out that the company behind the headhunter ad was named 'Kohlhof', he had tried vehemently to get Aaron to back out. "Don't go to work for no goddamn Kraut company!" It was no use trying to tell Uncle Donald that Kohlhof was a Swiss company. To Donald, if German was the language, then they were Krauts and that was that.

Now close to landing in Zurich, his mind wandered back to the family dinner the past Friday night. His married sister, Rachel, had invited him, his parents and his Uncle Donald and Aunt Ruth. The dinner party was meant as a celebration of completing the job probation period, but it ended up being a bon voyage party where everyone had some travel tips to offer. However, most of the tips came from Uncle Donald who couldn't emphasize enough how hard it would be to avoid eating pork: "They put it in everything and don't give you no warning. It's how they get Jews to convert, first pork and then suddenly you're going to mass. Watch out! They're worse than the goys here in the City."

And on and on it had gone. Aaron's mom and dad had said nothing. His dad, a quiet and serious industrious man, was just the opposite of his brother-in-law, Donald. It had taken some sharp words from Aunt Ruth to get her husband to shut up. Aaron actually liked Uncle Donald and got lots of laughs from his jokes, but there were times when he really could be a pain in the ass.

Anyone listening to Uncle Donald for the first few times would think he was a man of the world and a business genius. Only when people really got to know him did they begin to realize what a complete and total fuckup he actually was. When he had met Aunt Ruth, he had let on that years ago, he'd emigrated to Israel and did some serious stuff as a member of the IDF. In fact, so serious that the Mossad had tried to recruit him. Of course Aaron couldn't help but brag to his grade school friends about his really boss uncle who'd come close to joining the Mossad.

Then when Aaron was in the fifth grade, he had to stop bragging about his boss uncle. Aunt Ruth had once in a tipsy moment, let out that Donald had not only never served in the IDF, he had actually been deported from Israel. The reason for the deportation was never really clear, just that it was connected to his big mouth and tendency to tell self-deprecating Jewish jokes in the wrong company and at the wrong time.

Donald had never held a job for longer than a year or two, usually much less. No one ever really said it outright, but Aaron was certain it had to do with Donald's big mouth. He'd even started a business once and had nearly bankrupted the family. Since quite a few years, Aunt Ruth, Aaron's father's sister, a high school principal, had been supporting the family. She had in fact cut off Donald's access to the family bank account and put him on a cash allowance, not even allowing him a credit card.

Aaron's girlfriend, Kellyanne, had not been at the dinner party. Although he and Kellyanne had been intimate for some time and regularly spent nights at one another's apartment, neither Aaron's parents nor Uncle Donald and Aunt Ruth had ever heard of her. That situation was mostly due to Uncle Donald's ranting warnings about goys, especially goy girls. And Kellyanne really looked the part of the stereotype goy girl -- blonde hair, slender, moderate pointy tits and a convinced feminist whom you knew would never shy away from a fight with Uncle Donald.

But Uncle Donald wasn't the only reason Aaron had never introduced Kellyanne to the Fleischer family. Aaron just wasn't sure he wanted to bring her out because to do so would represent a commitment to Kellyanne and that was a commitment he wasn't ready to make. There were, however, lots of advantages to the relationship: She wasn't too boring to talk to and she was one fantastic fuck - her blowjobs were monumental and her climaxes more like volcanic eruptions. When they fucked, Aaron loved to look down and see his shaft sawing back and forth in her blond pubic forest. Sometimes though, he wondered if, outside of the sex, there was much that held them together.

Tradition had it that after a meal, the men went to the basement den to shoot a game of pool. Rachel's husband Bernie had finished out that part of the basement and was quite proud of it. Actually Bernie didn't really like pool very much, he just welcomed the opportunity to show off his basement rec room to the men folks. For Uncle Donald, the men-only pool game was his big chance to tell the dirty jokes that were his specialty. That evening in the male-only environment of the basement rec room, Uncle Donald had gotten his chance to give Aaron all the advice that even a crude guy like him would never give in the company of women, especially Aunt Ruth.

"Now listen up Aaron, them Kraut women, they wear these dresses they call Dirndls or sumpin' like that. They got built in push up brassieres so it looks like they got all kinds of cleavage. Hell, their fuckin' cleavage that you see, it's like the fuckin' Grand Canyon. Trouble is on most of 'em, the cleavage is phony. You unzip 'em in back and get that blouse down and what do see? A couple saggy bags with brown pimples on the ends."

Aaron, enjoying Uncle Donald's bullshit, looked at him with feigned interest while slyly tossing grins to his father and brother-in-law who rolled their eyes.

"There's nothin' trickier than that phony tit. You start staring at all that phony cleavage and you'll miss the rest, which is all bad, real bad. It's true. Shit they're fat, bad complexion, ugly legs, hair in their armpits, real number 10's, disgusting, pathetic, real dogs. But you won't notice all the bad stuff. All a New York Jew boy like you is gonna see is tit and cleavage."

It was Donald's shot and Bernie tried to tell him, but Donald was too wound up.

"But you know what? One thing they're really after? Money, that's what! Shit, they think ever' Jew owns a bank! But lemme tell you Aaron, that's not all them Kraut broads are after. Guess what? They're fed up messing with stinky foreskins when they give blow jobs. What they really want is a smooth circumcised Jew dick. Yeah, that's what they all dream about. They all dream about wrapping their lips around a big smooth circumcised Jew dick."

Aaron's father tried to shut him off. "Dammit Donald, that's enough of your bullshit! Aaron's grown up enough to know how to look out for himself."

"The boy's grown up because I've always shared my life experiences with him. It's the advantage of being a traveler instead of a tourist. The traveler goes places and gets into the local culture. The tourist goes on a tour -- 11 fucking countries in 5 fucking days! Big fucking deal! What a guy needs to do is get into the local culture - the local shmushka. Haw, haw, haw. Get into the local shmushka! Haw, haw, haw!"

Aaron's father tried again: "Donald, sha aroyf!"

The other three men in the room had gradually found out over the years that Donald's single overseas experience was the unlucky sojourn to Israel. That, however, didn't stop bullshitter Donald from carrying on like he'd travelled the world over. He had more 'experience' to share. "You know something else. All over Europe, the women, they never shave their armpits. Girl wears a sleeveless dress, lifts up an arm, all you see is hair. First time it happened to me, I think maybe her shmushka's in the wrong place."

Now the other three men couldn't help but laugh and that encouraged Donald to go on. "There's something else you get into over there. European girls fart. Ever hear an American girl fart? Of course not. And not only do these Euro girls fart, their farts stink. It's sad. It's pathetic. It's true."

Aaron and Bernie buckled over with laughter. Even Aaron's father laughed at that one.

Donald was really getting warmed up. "Hell, you take one of 'em out for a nice meal, you're sitting in a fancy restaurant and what's she do? She don't just let a fart, she lifts her leg before she lets it rip. That's when you can spot all the Americans in the place too. They all cough from that special girl fart stink. The Europeans though, they're used to it, they go right on eating."

And on and on it had gone. Uncle Donald had a way of speaking that in spite of the racist tone, his 'advice' had come across as a hilarious rant. The nonsense would have continued but Rachel called from upstairs to say that desert and coffee were ready.

A half hour or so after the lights came on, 'breakfast' was served. For the economy passengers that was some sort of doughy pastry with a cheese-like filling. After two bites, he gave up on it and finished sipping the dishwater tasting coffee. Back in the office, they'd told him that the bread and pastries in Switzerland were terrific so he decided to put off breakfast until he was on the ground.

Aaron got his first look at a traditional Swiss woman in the airport train that takes international passengers from Terminal E to the main terminal. A sort of light show on the tunnel walls shows an idealized Swiss countryside with cows, chalets and a pretty young Swiss girl with pigtails. Unfortunately, that picture went by too quickly for Aaron to see whether the cleavage was anything like Uncle Donald had warned him about.

After an expensive breakfast of pastries and real coffee in the airport shopping arcade, Aaron took an escalator down to the airport railroad station and boarded a train for Chur where he would change to the narrow gage railway that goes to Thisan (pronounced teesahn), the city where the Kolhhof home office was located.

The company had reserved rooms for the trainees in the Krone Hotel. Including the time to change trains, the railway journey took over two hours and it was mid-afternoon by the time Aaron arrived at the hotel. After giving him the room key and directions to his room, the desk clerk, a fit looking middle aged lady with a name tag identifying her as 'Marlene', informed him that dinner would be at seven.

Determined to make good the nights rest lost on the overnight flight, he went to bed immediately. Unfortunately, Aaron wasn't immune to jetlag. Failing to fall asleep, he decided to go jogging, if for no other reason than to work up an appetite for dinner.

In spite of having a fairly good command of English, Marlene seemed not to know what to make of his question about a park where he could go jogging. (Only later did Aaron catch on that the people here didn't necessarily go jogging in parks, they just went jogging, park or no park.) Then he remembered Aunt Ruth's advice to keep questions simple and just told Marlene he wanted to go jogging. Marlene went outside with him and directed him to take this and that street and then up some small residential streets and pointed out some meadows that seemed to be at least five or six hundred feet higher than where they were.

At home Aaron jogged regularly and prided himself on being in good shape. But back home on Long Island, things are fairly flat -- the highest point on Long Island is only 400 feet above sea level (Jayne's Hill out near Huntington). Before leaving home, he'd looked up Thisan on Google Earth and saw that the central part of town lay at 2400 feet above sea level and that getting just a kilometer out of town involved gaining over 400 feet. In short, Aaron knew he was dealing with big vertical gains so he started slow and then picked up the pace. About the time he thought he was doing fine, he got his first big culture shock: A man and woman, looking to be in their 60's, passed him -- all the while nonchalantly chatting with each other.

After leaving the town behind him, he was on a wide trail that rose gradually through pine forests. Imperceptibly the trail became wider and turned into a forest road -- probably used for logging. Further along, the forest road broke out of the forest and he found himself on a field road crossing a very steep meadow. That was when he realized he had reached the meadows that the hotel clerk had pointed out. Now in the open, he enjoyed a refreshing breeze. That's when it hit him. Shit, it's mid-July, the temperature can't be over 75 and the humidity can't be much more than half that. What a climate!

Basking in his good fortune at being in such a forgiving climate, he didn't see it until he was directly above it. Some 90 feet below him on another narrow field road was a small tank trailer standing at angle not in line with the farm tractor that had obviously been used to tow it and was now uncoupled. Sheep were grazing nearby. Then he saw the source of the sound that he had been hearing and what he had thought was a bird or some animal seeking a mate -- a person in work clothes, obviously a farmer, on the downhill side of the tank trailer. Then more distinctly he heard what sounded like and turned out to be a call for help: "Hilf mir! Hilf mir!"

In a series of jumps, Aaron bounded down the steep slope. The 'farmer', whose long brown hair wrapped in a scarf gave her away as female, was trying to keep the trailer from rolling off the field road and down the steep slope below. When Aaron moved to help her push, she uttered something that to him was unintelligible. Hearing his American English reply, she gasped, "The brake, the brake!" Aaron pulled the brake lever on the trailer and the woman nearly collapsed with relief. Tears streaming down to her chin, she couldn't seem to say 'thank you' enough. Then it was obvious to Aaron what had happened. She had unhitched the trailer before setting the brake. As it had started to roll towards her, her shirt sleeve had gotten caught on the hitch release and she could no longer reach the brake. Had he not come on the scene when he did, the 100 or so gallons of water in the tank would have eventually pushed her off the field road and down the steep slope -- to an almost certain death.

After he helped her get loose from the hitch, she sat down on the meadow sobbing with relief. At first when she didn't respond to his words of comfort, Aaron thought it might be language. Then he thought she might be in shock so he checked her pulse -- in the 80's but not weak and thready -- no shock, just relief from the big scare.

When she got up, her hands were quivering too. She stammered, "Can you drive a tractor? I need to go home." Extending her quivering hand, "Oh, by the way, I'm Mona."

Aaron couldn't help but notice how rough her hands were, like a working man's. Aaron responded, "I'm Aaron, nice meeting you."

Another thing to get used to in Europe -- hand shaking. Europeans shake hands a lot more than Americans. It occurred to Aaron that couples might even shake hands after sex. Kind of like "Congratulations, that was a real nice fuck."

Aaron's macho streak wouldn't let him admit to a female that he'd never driven a tractor. Anyway it couldn't be that hard and he was a good guesser and a good bluffer and unlike most young Americans, he had experience with a stick shift. However, starting the engine and operating the tractor was one thing. Driving it on the narrow field road with hundreds of feet of very steep grassy slopes below him was another thing and it did scare the living shit out of him. However, the same macho streak that wouldn't let him admit that he'd never driven a tractor before kept him from letting on to a female that he was scared shitless.

Mona on the other hand had always lived in the mountains and wasn't affected by steep slopes and big vertical drops. Sitting on the fender of the tractor, she was slowly recovering her composure and began to eye her rescuer more closely. Brown hair, a hint of curls, prominent angular facial features. Not tall, not short -- maybe a shade over or under 6 feet. Slender build but not the weak kind of slender. From his jogging clothes, it was pretty obvious he'd been -- what else? Jogging. Clearly a good looking guy with a well kept body.

In the normal course of things, a virile young guy like Aaron, after saving a female's life, would start thinking about how to take advantage of the situation and try to bring things to an intimate conclusion. In this case though, bulky work clothes, head scarf, dirty tear stained face, the smell of sheep, rough workman's hands -- nothing about her was much of a come on. Moreover, Aaron remembered Uncle Donald's cautions against fiddling around with Swiss farmer's wives and daughters. What was it he'd said about those farmers? "Oh they're wild fuckers, they are. And they're stronger'n bulls. Hell. back when the rest of Europe was kissing the nobility's asses, them crazy farmers, they cut the dicks off all the noblemen. That's why the Swiss don't have any of them fucking counts, dukes, princes and such free loading bastards around anymore."

Aaron couldn't help but smile, almost laugh remembering the serious way Uncle Donald had said that. And Mona could not help but notice. "You're laughing at me?"

Of course Aaron couldn't say what made him almost laugh, but he was ready with a lie. "I was just thinking, four hours ago I landed in Zurich and here I am driving a tractor in the Swiss Alps."

That seemed to convince Mona that she wasn't being ridiculed. "Oh sorry, I guess I'm just upset. You're from the States?"

Aaron gave her a brief rundown about working for Kohlhof, the training week, the bad flight and going jogging to beat the jet lag.

The field road ended at a narrow paved road and she directed him to turn left. After less than a quarter mile of gradual uphill, they came to a farmstead consisting of an older house with barn attached and a large modern barn. Mona directed him to turn in and park near the newer barn. That's when he got another culture shock. Not only were the windows on the house fitted with flower boxes, both the old and the new barns had them too -- all full of geraniums in full bloom! What American farmer ever had flower boxes on barn windows? He couldn't even remember seeing window flower boxes on any house windows back home. Come to think of it, there weren't all that many flowers around the houses that he could think of.