« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »
March 31, 2006
How To Make Friends and Influence Sofa Dealers
Want to know how to get a 40% discount on a sofa in Mexico? Just take a taxi.
We have made the acquaintance of a taxi driver (in Spanish, taxista or chofer) who was born in Baltimore, despite the fact that he's lived in Mexico for many years. This is handy for Shawn because he speaks English. Shawn has mastered a surprising amount since coming to Guadalajara, especially if it concerns something with which he is familiar, but when something novel and complex comes up, it's nice to be able to fall back on English.
In addition to being linguistically handy, our taxi driver is very friendly, a fun guy, and perhaps most importantly, doesn't rip us off with what Shawn calls "the gringo tax." For those of you who may not be familiar with this all-to-popular scheme on the part of taxi drivers from around the world, I will briefly explain it.
All taxis should have meters (in Mexico, medidor, but in other countries contador). However, sometimes they are missing, or legitimately broken. Yet many times you get in a cab and the meter is not on. In this case, you'll get to your destination and your taxi driver will tell you that you owe him a certain amount of money. In many cases, it's too much (even up to twice as much as it should be, in our experience). There are some honest cab drivers out there with broken meters that will charge you a fair price. However, many just don't turn their meters on unless you insist on it, and even then some will just not turn them on, telling you, "No funciona." In this case, you ask how much they will charge you to take you to your desired destination, and you decide if you are willing to pay it. If not, you refuse and find another cab. There are places where you have to worry about whether a taxi driver is licensed or if his photo on his permit matches his face, but Guadalajara is not one of those places. This overcharging thing is about all you really have to worry about here, and if you're right off the plane from someplace like the United States, even if they overcharge you, you still won't believe how cheap it is.
Shawn gets really upset by this practice, and I don't blame him. It's not ethical to exploit people for their national origin, their race or their ignorance. We know all too well about this scam, and dealing with it is uncomfortable because asking a taxi driver to turn on the meter shows that you know that they are not being ethical. It seems Mexicans do not really deal with confrontation or conflict very well, and furthermore, we're guests here. It's not polite to call your host a lying, cheating bastard.
Still, it's a rip-off, and if there is one thing Shawn hates, it's to have someone get by with thinking he's a fool. If we take a cab, he now always asks first thing if the meter works, but for the reasons I've explained, this does make for an awkward situation. With our regular cab driver, we never ever have to go through this. He either uses the meter, or if he forgets to start it, he tends to undercharge us, if anything. Most cab drivers will run the meter while they're waiting, but ours tends to turn it off. If we're going in somewhere to do business and he can help by translating, he comes along and serves as interpreter at no extra cost. This in particular is a ridiculously good deal.
When we went to buy our couch, I was prepared to handle the entire transaction. I did not anticipate it to be difficult. How hard could it be? "I want to buy one of your couches, this model, this fabric. Here is my address for delivery, and here is your cash." However, our cab driver came into the store with us, and allowed us to do the preliminary introductions and the telling of the model we wanted. The woman quoted a price which was a little lower than we had been quoted upon seeing the couch at the furniture expo, but we did not have a problem with that. While we looked through the book of fabrics to be sure that we had seen all the options, our cab driver chatted with the woman assisting us.
I don't know if other people do this, but when I'm in a situation where my native language is not spoken, even if I know the language well enough to follow along, I just tune out any conversation that is not directed toward me. Therefore, I was not paying attention to what was being said, but I did notice that there was a lot of giggling and smiling going on. When we stopped to tell the woman our desired fabric, our cab driver told us that we were going to get a very special price, the price given to distributors. This was over $300 USD less than the original price.
Furthermore, the woman, who certainly was friendly to begin with, became even more friendly with us, to the point that we got into a discussion about tamales. We were unaware that tamales, which I have always seen eaten "plain" (just out of the husk or the banana leaf on a plate), are placed inside a roll before being eaten in Mexico City. The woman said that her initial reaction had been the same as ours (referring to our look of horror and disgust), but she had tried one once, and it was actually quite good.
As we were riding back to our place with the cab driver, we thanked him for helping us out. Shawn commented that he didn't know what they had been saying, but that he knew enough to realize that the cab driver had been flirting with the representative. The cab driver has a fiancé to whom he is very attached, and she is quite beautiful. He was not trying to set up something on the side, but rather just "facilitating our transaction."
"And why not?" our driver asked. "I probably made her day and got you guys a better price on your couch."
Why not, indeed? Now we just have to wait six weeks while it is built before we have a couch. Yet maybe we could have our cab driver do a follow-up call to check, and maybe we could get it much, much sooner.
Posted by crispy at 02:06 AM | Comments (1)
March 27, 2006
Bad Jugs
Detail, Public Safety Announcement About Illicit Tequila Vendors
While I have not yet seen anyone selling homemade tequila on the street, the following PSA would lead one to think that it goes on.
I'm not going to provide a complete translation of this document into English at this time, but let me give you the skinny on what it says. You can also open a popup window with a large-sized copy where the text is legible, although Movable Type does not build image popup windows that scroll, so you might have to save the image file from the popup window to your desktop and open it in another image viewing application to read the entire thing.
Basically, the PSA warns people to not buy tequila from some random person in the street, tells them what all authentic (licensed) tequila must show on the bottle, and then describes different classes of tequila. It warns not only that tequila from street vendors in unmarked jugs could not only damage your health, but also that one is putting their "wealth" or "assets" at risk when they do not buy the real deal.
Bear in mind that this is printed in El ocio, the entertainment supplement that is included in the Friday edition of El Publico, a local newspaper, so it is aimed at Mexicans. Therefore, the line that reads, "Cuida tu patrimonio..." is aimed at them, saying, "Take care of your assets..."
To my knowledge, while it is true that the tequila industry belongs to Mexicans more than it does nationals of other countries, all Mexicans do not receive periodic dividends from any of the distillers. In fact, if Herradura were to sell out tomorrow to Coca-Cola®, I don't think Mexicans could do anything to stop it (even though I suspect they would not because they probably think it would make it más rico). So while it is true that certain Mexicans make money from real tequila, it's lame to imply that tequila is an asset like something the average Mexican can put down on a loan application to increase their net worth.
Most Mexicans I've spoken to about it are a little annoyed that the price of tequila has gone through the roof here in Mexico because very effective advertising and a suprising upward trend in the taste of Americans in their alcohol preferences have increased demand for tequila in the United States. Half of all tequila is produced for export, and of that, 80% goes to the US. That's great for the tequila industry, and in the long run, that's good for Mexico. For most Mexicans, it just means that the price for a bottle of good tequila is much less affordable.
Overall, I find the ad funny, for the icon if nothing else. Yet it's mildly annoying to me that the tequila industry is trying to keep people from buying cheaper, bootleg tequila through an appeal to their patriotism and some false notion that they participate in the profits. For many, the street vendors are probably the only means through which they can afford a bottle (or jug) of the national beverage, or a facsimile thereof.
Posted by crispy at 02:56 PM | Comments (1)
March 22, 2006
XXI Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara
Despite the fact that they didn't even have a list of the films being screened on the website until a few days before the festival begins, el XXI Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara [English] is a big deal.
In addition to all the groovy films from all over Latin America that will be shown, they're screening a restored version of Battleship Potemkin, the 1925 classic by Eisenstein, which will contain scenes deleted by Soviet censors and is believed to be as close as possible to the original director's cut.
Gabriel García Márquez will be continuing a workshop in which nine scriptwriting students from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Spain and Mexico work on their own short films that will eventually be compiled into a feature film.
Perhaps the coolest thing of all is that Mexican film star Silvia Pinal, who starred in several films by one of the best directors ever, Luis Buñuel, will be in attendance to be awarded the Orden de Isabel la Católica. One of her films, La Soldadera, will be shown at the festival.
By the way, did you know you can download a Quicktime movie of Buñuel and Dali's 1929 surrealist classic, Un chien andalou at the Internet Archives? If you don't already know why you should download and watch this film, you should read about it at Wikipedia. I'll warn you though, since the file is 93.3 MB, if you have no taste for surrealism, you might simply find it disturbing and pencil.
Posted by crispy at 11:45 PM | Comments (3)
March 21, 2006
Benito Juárez
Benito Pablo Juárez García
President of Mexico 1861–1863 & 1867–1872
Today is the birthday of President Juárez, and it is a national holiday here in Mexico. It should be. He rocked.
He was Zapotec and came from a small village in Oaxaca. His childhood was rough, but he was determined to get an education. He studied at a seminary in Oaxaca, and then after graduation, started his study of law. He became a lawyer, then judge, then the governor of the state of Oaxaca. He lived for a while in New Orleans when the military dictatorship of Santa Anna controlled Mexico. He returned to be Chief Justice and Vice-President under Ignacio Comonfort. After a conservative uprising which he helped to defeat, Juárez was elected president in 1861.
One of his first big acts as president was to declare a moritorium on payment of foreign debts, as the Mexican government was on the brink of bankruptcy. This did not please Mexico's European creditors, and France invaded Mexico in 1862 in retaliation. The defeat of the French by a smaller Mexican force at Puebla on 5 May 1862 is now what is celebrated annually on that day in the United States, and to a significantly lesser degree, in Mexico. In 1863, the French were able to establish a foothold in the country, naming Maximilian of Habsburg as "Emperor of Mexico" in the following year. Juárez and his government had to flee to the north, but they continued to do their work from there.
It's a bummer that Maximilian was actually a relatively cool guy, at least compared with other Europeans that had been sent over to conquer and rule Mexico. He shared liberal and Mexican nationalist sentiments with Juárez, and offered him amnesty and the post of prime minister under the monarchy. Juárez refused the idea of Mexico being governed by a foreign monarchy, and with threats of intervention by the United States to restore home rule to Mexico, France began a pull-out from Mexico in 1866. With the last of Maximilian's troops being defeated the following year, Maximilian was sentenced to death for treason. Some sources say that Juárez offered him a chance to escape, but Maximilian was a man of his principles and preferred to accept his defeat instead of fleeing. Juárez was asked by several people around the world to commute the death sentence, but he refused. Maximilian was executed on 19 June 1867 by firing squad. His last words were: "I forgive everybody. I pray that everybody may also forgive me, and my blood which is about to be shed will bring peace to Mexico. Long live Mexico! Long Live Independence!"
In 1872, Juárez died of a heart attack. He is remembered for his defense of national sovereignty and the passage of important liberal reforms that stripped the Catholic church of their power in state affairs and advanced civil rights and capitalism. This year is the 200th anniversary of his birthday, but starting next year, Mexico will celebrate his birthday on the third Monday of March.
Juárez is pictured on the Mexican 20 peso note, with the monument to him in Mexico City pictured on the reverse.
Posted by crispy at 03:23 PM | Comments (5)
Correction: Why Are the Trees White? (continued)
Okay, the latest opinion is that the trees are not coated with concrete, but rather with quicklime, which is known in Spanish as cal. Still, it is applied for the same reason.
Posted by crispy at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2006
Some (Mexican? Guadalajaran?) Spanish Oddities
I've learned a lot since I've moved here to Mexico, and among the things I've found out are some things I never learned in Spanish class. If you're moving or planning a trip to Mexico, knowing these things might make you sound a little less like a gringo.
One of the first things I noticed here was that when you ask someone how they're doing:
¿Cómo está?
The standard reply that I always expected to be a simple "Bien," is actually doubled, like:
¡Bien, bien!
This is not to say that if someone's having a rough day, you won't hear them say it just once. Yet I seriously think that 95% of the time, they will say it twice.
When you go to the store and you need something, I would have thought you'd say:
Necesito unos clavos de 20 milimetros.
You don't. Instead, they use the ver ocupar, which usually means, "to take up," "to hold, fill," "to occupy," or "to squat (in a place, as in squatter)."
Ocupo unos clavos de 20 milimetros.
An "elevator" is usually called un ascendedor, but not here in Mexico. Instead it's un elevador.
And when we were looking for apartments, I expected to see at least one sign that used the typical Spanish verb for "rent," which is alquilar. Still, I saw not a single one. Instead they all say, se renta (for sale), using rentar as the verb.
It could be argued that these two things are examples of English encroaching on Spanish as Mexico borders the United States, and I suspect this is true. Yet while some regard this as a shame, I think it's kind of nice to see some sharing between the two cultures - as long as it's not unidirectional, and we all know how much Taco Bell has contributed in bringing Spanish to English-speaking cultures.
The most popular word for "cool" down here (as in "That's really cool!") is chido. I would expect that this is chida for a cool feminine object, but I have not been able to confirm this.
For those of you who want to know all those phrases they don't cover in textbooks, check out the Alternative Mexican Spanish Dictionary. But I warn you. It's naughty.
Posted by crispy at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2006
Correction: Why Are the Trees White?
Some of you may remember seeing photographs of trees in a past entry which have the first few feet up from the ground seemingly painted white. Mark Allen left a comment asking what was up with the white trees. I answered him in a personal email that this was probably because the drivers here are idiots and that is done to make them more visible so that people don't drive into them.
Recently, Shawn heard another answer that is far more interesting.
He heard this from Charles Nuckolls (pronounced "NACK-els"), a taxi driver that we often call directly and who, being born in Baltimore, is fluent in English. He explained to Shawn that the stuff on the trees is not actually paint but cement, which somehow protects the trees from this really strange type of ant that we have down here known as leafcutter ants.
If you don't know about leafcutter ants, I strongly suggest you follow the link given above and read the brief Wikipedia article on them. If nothing else, just go and look at the pictures. These ants are seen all over the place here, in long caravans toting enormous (relative to the ants themselves) pieces of leaves that they have cut from trees. They carry all these pieces back to their nests where a specific kind of fungus grows on them. This fungus is what they eat. Basically, they are fungus farmers and the fungus feeds on the leaves. Our friends here have seen them strip an entire tree overnight, and all those bits of leaves get tucked away underground, which gives you an idea of the magnitude of their nests and how much fungus they're growing underground.
Go ahead. Read the article.
Now I know you're asking why cement on the trees would prevent these ants from stripping the leaves from them, and at this time, I don't have an answer for you. I'll try to find out and post the answer in a follow-up entry.
Posted by crispy at 02:13 AM | Comments (0)
Crash
Non-injury Accident at Avenida Cubilete and Calle La Ermita
I told you people here drive like maniacs. Here's the aftermath of an accident that happened here a while ago, in the intersection just outside our apartment. The Volkswagen (left) ran the light when it was red and hit the truck. The two drivers are examining the damage to the passenger side of the truck in this photo.
The idiotic thing is that the guy driving the truck, which worked well enough to drive away later on, just stopped in the middle of this busy intersection in order to deal with the Volkswagon driver, which nearly caused two other accidents when other drivers speeding along the street nearly plowed into him. Notice that he hasn't even turned on his lights or hazard signals.
Posted by crispy at 01:53 AM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2006
Mexican Pizza
Pizza varies a lot from coast to coast in the United States, so I should not have been surprised to find out that down Mexico way, they have their own peculiar variations.
I first realized this when I saw listed, right alongside the classic cheese and pepperoni pizzas, hot dog and bologna pizza. Upon seeing it, I commented to Shawn that people who would eat that stuff on pizza are crazy. He insisted that this wasn't crazy, because people in New England eat hot dog pizza all the time. While I do not see how this is an effective argument against my claim, I did find some evidence to indicate that hot dogs on pizza are not only a Mexican phenomenon. And when I say that they had bologna pizza, I do not mean pizza topped with bolognese sauce, but pizza topped with the sliced meat usually served on sandwiches with white bread and mayonnaise.
I did not have any other disorienting pizza experiences here for some time after that. We would often eat at a fantastic restaurant in our neighborhood called Mio Cardio [Avenida Tepeyac 189, Colonia Chapalita, Tel: (33) 35 87 57 90], where they serve some of the best pizza I've ever had. The crust is thin and uniformly crispy, the sauce seasoned con gusto and they have a few rare, but not strange toppings, like arugula and a pesto that is, well, chunky, for lack of a better word. I have confirmed that both are delicious through extensive hands-on research.
But the other day, I went to a restaurant in Centro Magno called Italiani's. [Disclaimer: I usually refuse on principle to eat at a restaurant if it has a name like this, turning a common noun or an adjective into a posessive noun, but we often go to the cinema in this mall, and it has the best vegetarian offerings there.] The place is fairly expensive, so I usually forego the baked ravioli with two sauces and go straight for the pizza, because it is more filling and two-thirds the price.
The waiter placed it on the table and I let it cool a bit, since I scalded my lip once on one of their pizzas, when the blistering (literally) hot sauce squirted into my mouth on the opening bite. As I was sitting there with the pizza at a safe distance, the waiter returned to the table and put down a bottle of Tabasco® sauce and a bottle of Heinz® ketchup.
Let me repeat that last one: Heinz® ketchup.
This was the first time that I'd had this put on the table, although before, I'd had waiters ask me if I wanted anything to go on the pizza, listing off ketchup among the more standard items like parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper. I thought at that time that they probably just think gringos are wacky and who knows what they like on their pizza, so they list off a bunch of stuff they have in the kitchen as an option. Yet putting it down on the table without my asking for it made me realize: Mexicans must tend to put ketchup on their pizza.
And indeed it is true. I have found an article online that backs up this shocking discovery. In fact, the article mentions that Mexicans also put Worchestershire sauce on their pizza, but for some reason, this doesn't sound so odd to me. I want to ask around to find out the general application technique, like whether they put it on top of the pizza or if they keep the ketchup on the side and dip it in. I mean, I'm not yet to the point where it sounds even remotely interesting to put ketchup on pizza, but if I ever do try it, I wouldn't want to do it wrong. I'd hate to have people think I'm some kind of freak.
Posted by crispy at 01:35 AM | Comments (6)
March 16, 2006
Ha, ha!
Mexico Ousts U.S. From World Baseball Classic
Posted by crispy at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2006
Olney
I've been alerted that the band Oblivion has a song about the punk scene in the town of my birth, Olney, Illinois.
Posted by crispy at 02:17 AM | Comments (4)
Wacky Mexican Television
It's 1 am on a Tuesday and I'm watching one of Mexico's most revered female authors, Elena Poniatowska, being interviewed on a show called "Show del Insomnio." Yet she's not being interviewed in a studio or any place befitting her stature in the country's literary landscape. She's being driven around what I presume to be Mexico City in a flatbed truck that has been set up like a bedroom, complete with bed, nightstand and a television.
Elena Poniatowska on Show del Insomnio
This is the only aspect of the interview that is so campy; she is discussing other authors, recounting her early days as a journalist, and talking about the advantages of being small.
Elena Poniatowska on Show del Insomnio
Although we get it on channel 80 here in Guadalajara on Megacable, it's a Canal 22 production.
I love this country.
Posted by crispy at 12:13 AM | Comments (5)
March 10, 2006
How Insensitive
I learned yesterday that Hewlett-Packard México, which has several different facilities here in the Guadalajara metropolitan area, does not give its workers time off for Mexican holidays. Instead, they get the hoidays of the United States, which do not correspond to their own holidays, apart from Christmas and New Year's Day. Now this does make sense to a certain degree, since many of them are dealing with American customers of HP, but the crappy thing is, they do not really give them all the official American holidays. HP México employees didn't get Martin Luther King Day or Presidents' Day off, for example.
Posted by crispy at 03:13 PM | Comments (7)
March 09, 2006
The Sounds of Service
Here in Mexico, a lot of things that you have to go to in the United States come to you. It's kind of like the idea of the ice cream truck, but with things like knife sharpening. You never know exactly when what you need will show up, so that's why you have to keep an ear out for the sound of the different vendors that come through the neighborhood.
Every day, sitting here writing blog entries or mopping our balconies, I hear wacky sounds that indicate that a certain person with something to offer is making their rounds through Chapalita Sur. For example, when the trash is about to be picked up, you hear a cowbel ringing over and over. That is the guy on the garbage truck letting you know that they're about to show up at your place and that you should get your trash out, if you didn't do that already.
We also have a guy that comes through blowing a brief little jingle on something like a pan flute, and he sharpens knives.
The man that sells fried bananas blows a whistle that sounds like a train whistle.
Although they don't do this here in Chapalita Sur, I have heard the gas truck (a truck with a big tank of propane that can either refil your tank or sell you a full small tank) in el centro histórico and Tonalá, with a looping recording that says, "¡Está GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!" Yeah, it's pretty annoying.
These are the ones that go through on a regular basis. I have also heard jingle bells and gone out to see that it's a guy selling ice cream. Twice I have heard chanting and drums and discovered that it is a group of indigenous folks in full regalia dancing through and accepting donations. Unfortunately, we have not seen anyone in our neighborhood like we did at Café Madoka, who goes around playing the marimba for tips.
I'm still waiting for the person that goes around selling tequila, but that's a different story altogether which merits its own entry.
Posted by crispy at 11:24 AM | Comments (2)