At ZRH

I got off the plane and headed toward the transfer area. Zurich Airport is clean, efficient and beautiful in a minimalistic way. On the sky bridge was a panorama view of mountains ranges and lush green hills with cattle grazing. "Get natural", that's the motto of Switzerland. It seems to be a word people like to use, a word symbolising purity and being down to Earth and close to nature. Even on the plane, when I said I didn't want any milk or sugar in my tea, the cabin crew smiled and asked to confirm in German "Natural?" 

When I got to the passport check area, a large wall was plastered with an ad for the instance company Zurich. There were a few simple words: "For those who truly love". And so reflective of my sentiments, in a way that made me smile yet also ache a little inside, was a picture of a beautiful cat wearing blue mittens. 

I eyed the passport counters, and of five that were open, one was reserved for European Union / European Economic Area (EU/EEA) citizens. I went to stand in the shorter queue reserved for Union citizens, and within a minute a lady came up to me and asked me in English if I was European. 

"Ja, Europaer..." I curtly answered in German while flashing my little burgundy-coloured travel booklet in front of her. She looked at me a brief moment and then walked away. 

Perhaps she thought I was some lost tourist, some kind of first time traveler on his first trip from Asia. And she was I guess, to be fair (yes, she was fair...), just doing her job of directing people to the correct counter. However, I could not help notice I was the only person of colour in line. No one else was asked. 

This was not the first time something like this happened. Once I got questioned at the gate about how I got my passport. But only in Europe, only in the continent where I lived for almost  two decades of my life am I questioned and eyed with in a way that reminds me again and again I am not from here and that I will never be from here, even if I am a citizen of the Union. Not even in the US, where everyone seems to be suspect, where concerns of security, identity and the threat of terrorism is taken to the extreme have I ever experienced such an implicit form of racial discrimination. 

Welcome back to Europe. 

Welcome back.