Old men in fancy dress, marching bands, and brownface
Before the burning of the Sechseläuten Böögg yesterday afternoon, Zurich’s 26 guilds put on an elaborate parade which wound its way around downtown for hours and hours. The parade primarily consisted of older men dressed up in period dress marching, riding horses, or being carried on various horse-drawn carriages.
Women aren’t allowed to be members of guilds, so they participate in the festivities by sitting along the parade route with large baskets of flowers. When a man they know/like marches by, the women run up to him, shove flowers in his hand, and collect some cheek kisses, all while disrupting the flow of the parade.
The Swiss apparently have a very different sense of ‘political correctness’ than Americans, as the parade contained about 100 Swiss dressed up like Bedouins, complete with brown face paint. Although they provided a break from the monotony of the other guilds, well, I can’t think of a good way to end this sentence.
Do you think that somewhere in the world there are Arabs putting on white face paint, dressing up like Swiss people, and parading through the streets?
I didn’t know that Statler and Waldorf were members of a Swiss guild.
If these guys are here, who’s guarding the pope? 
