marichiko

That has not been my experience. Certainly, I felt a certain pressure from my family to conform when I visited there, but who hasn't experienced such pressures from their family, in one way or another? Other than that, nobody ever seemed especially interested in what I was doing. Everybody is too busy leading their own lives, going to work or school, taking care of their families, etc. Of course, I was never attempting to break any laws, either.

The country where I felt under constant surveillance (and may well have been) was Brazil. Whatever pretty face Brazil attempts to put on it, they are pretty much a military dictatorship. Armed soldiers can be found on every street corner. I never saw any such show of force in Switzerland. In Brazil in the city where I was staying, complete strangers would come up to me and recite details of my life (that I was staying with a professor of chemistry who taught at the University of Pernambuco, that I had just recieved a large shipment of books from the US, etc). This was disconcerting, to say the least. In Switzerland's sophisticated cities I never had an experience that was even remotely similiar. In my family's home villiage I was met with curiosity and friendly interest as "Rosa's American daughter," but no one ever reported my movements to the authorities.