Halle Berry has nothing on this mix

I haven't even started, and already I know what you're thinking: "Not another article about being half Pakistani, half Swiss. The last thing I want to hear is another one of them mocha-coloured, watch-crafting, Taliban-joining, giant-turd-eaters rant about their heritage."

To which I'd have to respond: Easy with the racial assumptions there, Hillbilly Jim. We blended beauties, as a group, are frankly sick of the stereotypes that trail our mix.

So let us drive past the readers stuck on Racist Road to delve into the mysticism that awaits us on Biracial Boulevard. For any of you readers who have ever doubted the depth and research that goes into my columns, I can guarantee that right about now is the time that your cynical eye-rolling will come to a screeching halt. (Warranty not applicable to Valley girls, epileptics, panic-attack suffers or Fernando Valenzuela.)

That's because 20 years of first-hand, authentic Pakistani-Swiss examination preceded this column's fruition.

Note: Although half of me urged me to keep the races of each parent neutral, this table may contain references to my personal parental cultural split ... and traces of peanuts.

 

THE PROS OF MY BIRACIAL BLISS, BEING PAKISTANI/SWISS

You are graced, at birth, with a permanent tan.

While your ghostly pale friends head to the Cancer Parlour to prevent from blending into the snow during the winter, your brown hue shines yearlong.

You are introduced to life's eclectic religious approaches.

Your Pakistani quotient guides you in the ways of Islam. Because you're also half Christian, though, you can choose to what degree you'd like to embrace your Muslim faith's customs. For example, I usually don't feel the need to cover myself with a burqa. And that's okay, because I'm half Swiss. That being said, on poker night I usually feel a strong religious pull to wear the headdress. That's not cheating, I'm Pakistani!

On your 14th birthday your Swiss grandmother sends you a gift certificate to go to German school.

When you're in that "parents are sooo not cool" stage and are forced to make public outings with your Swiss mom, it's easy to disassociate yourself as you look nothing alike.

When you get older your racial mix is perceived as exotic and cool. At university parties drunk hipsters carry you around like a trophy offering people 20 bucks if they can "guess where this little brown girl's from!?"

You have a place to stay when you're backpacking in Europe.

Hostels smell bad. But your Swiss aunts and uncles are forced to welcome you into their neutral arms. Explore the beautiful country of Switzerland!

There's no doubt, if you're biracial, that you're made of a harder working sperm'n'egg combo than you can get in any McDonald's breakfast sandwich.

Think about the distance that stood in the way of them joining. Not only that, bravery is undoubtedly in your genes. While purebreds were the result of a typical progression, a leisurely meeting, several bottles of wine, perhaps conceived while their hippie parents were getting stoned ... my father got married to a Christian, white woman in rural Pakistan. He risked actually getting stoned.

 

 

THEN THERE'S THE CONS

The Pakistani/Swiss (abbreviation: Piss) arrangement ensures, pre-pubescently, a permanent moustache. This is slightly uncomfortable for a young Piss boy ... Absolutely torturous for a young Piss girl.

Sadly, the 'stache is a genetic time bomb of hair that doesn't discriminate between genders at all.

You will never wake up to the smell of bacon. Your mother's taunting stories of sausages and wiener schnitzels always start with "Once upon a time," so as to enforce the fact that although such delicacies exist, to you they are fairy tales. While white kids glorify the culinary perfection of pig meat, you are restricted to protein derived from cows, goats, chickens and lambs ... and even those had to be facing the right way when the axe hit.

On your 14th birthday your Pakistani grandmother sends you a marriage certificate and a date. (Note: she will not accept "I'll be at German school that day" as a viable excuse)

When you mature and start deepening the mother-daughter bond, you'll find yourself taking hand-in-hand strolls in our wonderfully diverse city. Unfortunately, your innocent mother-daughter love is easily mistaken for a "creepy sugar momma and her young misguided brown girl" lesbian fling.

You're different. Being different as a child in elementary school is the equivalent of having herpes in university.

The beautiful country of Switzerland's population is as white as the cheese it's famous for.

Your plans to bond with your long-lost relatives are interrupted by a certain thing that evolves from ignorance and rhymes with gaysism. The time you had planned to spend picking your grandma's memory for nuggets of the past are instead spent picking the best excuse to leave her apartment while she stares at you like the Pakistani Puzzle of a grandchild that you are.

The grandmother on the Pakistani side isn't always a bowl of curry and smiles either. She has always had a hard time pronouncing your Swiss mother's name. It's a short and simple name but no matter how many times you try to correct the spin her accent throws on it, she still pronounces it, "MISTAKE!"