What has happened in Switzerland recently (regarding in particular the anti-foreigner sentiment in the country) is beyond shocking — my latest joke is that we have just created the new “island continent” of Helvetia, Latin for “Switzerland”. Of course it’s a bad joke, and it’s also bad what has happened in Helvetia today.

United we stand, divided we fall. We (Tracy and I) were never for sums that took things away; we always liked sums that had a “plus” factor. Of course Switzerland today failed us and it will probably have to make do with knee-jerk reactions, not least negative impressions and disappointment, as well as other measures.

Tracy and I have decided that beginning tonight, we will be World Citizens. The countries of China and Switzerland will only have nominal “special-ness” as they were our countries of origin by birth (and Switzerland is currently the country of my nationality). We plan to travel the world and will no longer feel happy permanently locked up in Beijing or Zurich.

We have decided to come together to promote better understanding amongst cultures, and to this extent we have decided to tell everyone we work with that discrimination in any form will not be tolerated. We hate racism and condemn xenophobia; these have no place in modern society. Where we previously may “misunderstand” a culture, race, or country, we might actually very well be travelling there — to see how things “really work”.

We will no longer subscribe to “blanket tags and stereotypes” of one specific country or the other. We firmly believe human beings of all races and nationalities are the same. We believe the different countries of the world add up to a holistic whole for our planet. We believe humans and everyone, everything on this planet has the ability to “add up for good”.

We will integrate concepts from any society into our daily lives, wherever it is used for our good. We will learn and speak multiple languages and truly have friends all over the world. In future, we will let our next generations live in international environments where they have friends from Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. We will travel to as many places, both old and especially new, by any means of transport. We look forward to shaking hands from persons of any country, and we look forward to sharing voices freely with everyone on the planet.

We are World Citizens David Feng and Tracy Liu. We love this planet and we love all on Earth.

David Feng
Tracy Liu
10 February 2014