Real Life in Mexico

it's true, fbaezer is very knowledgeable -- but you aren't useless, joe, says jo. Listening.

Thanks!

But I've never said useless. :wink:

(if only I could wink in real life)

Re: Real Life in Mexico


Generalizations and ignorance are all but one, dear Edgar. I put your friends' on bold.

I'll be back later. But I tell one thing, JoeFx knows a lot more than I do about living in the most unequal border of the world (I got a lot of friends from TJ, but been there only once -and got sick).

I've been to TJ a few times and, well, there are some stories, and not the ones you might expect.

Back in the later sixties I suddenly and very pleasingly to me had a group of girlfriends (I guess I should mention I am a heterosexual woman). Some on a2k will remember my mentioning the Smart Ass Group. One was a girl (we called each other that then, heh) I had worked with at our local hospital, and she had these friends she had met at our city college, in some sort of cheering the team thing. No, not cheerleaders, some sort of dance step group. Anyway, suddenly I had four new friends, and they are still friends, all this time later.
Two of the new friends were mexican american and two were german american. The salts and the peppers.

Making a long story shorter, two of the mexicanas had strong ties to Mazatlan, and one to Tijuana. So we went as a group to TJ for some weekend, my very first time to mexico.

I remember being afraid to order food. (My mother told me Mexico was dirty.) Let me add now that I don't think Mexico is dirty. People take a lot of care.
But I remember staring at my first menu in TJ.

I also got one of my first clues about my odd eyes... when we went into the Nicte Ja (spelling?) nightclub and I sat on the floor instead of the chair, and hadn't had anything to drink yet... it was sooooo dark.

They got us all dates. I think mine was thirteen, or was it sixteen. Well, not dates, escorts. It was fun. No, not that kind of escort. I spoke the merest espanol and he spoke the merest english.

El Cordobes was at the ring, or was it Dominguez. I think that time it was Cordobes and people threw pillows at him. I know I saw them both, but cannot now pinpoint when.)

I remember the ladies' room at the bull ring.

I remember ML and MA getting their hair done at the Rosarita Beach hotel and the rest of us shopping somewhere. They came out of there with sausage curls, particularly ML, who has been known to us these decades later as La Choriza.

Cutting all that stuff out, MLC and her Tijuana family were regular folks, on a regular street.
That first visit opened my eyes both to poverty and also to how my mother was wrong.

Oh, and one of MLC's cousins called us the smartass group, and it stuck.

The salts and the peppers went to Europe together in 1966, meeting and splitting up and meeting, for about six months. Two of them were in the famed Florence Flood.

I think you give me more credit than I deserve, fbaezer.

Thanks for sharing, Osso. Have you come recently to Tijuana?

How did you both like the city?

No, it wasn't recent. Joefx. I am sure the city has built up a lot since I've seen it. I liked the city fine - that is a bit of what I was getting at, that the city has more to it than meets the eye of the average day or night trip visitor.

No sh¡t, JoeFX, the US-Mexico border cities are foreign turf for me, and sure bad news to my stomach.
My first wife lived her pre-teen and teen years in Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito (and El Centro, California). Part of her mother's family lives in TJ, San Diego and Calexico (the Americans were Reaganites, can you imagine that?). She loves the place. I don't understand it, I must admit.
I haven't been in any of the border cities in 10 years. Honestly, I try to avoid them.

Osso, you got to see El Cordobés! Wow! He was the most charismatic bullfighter in the second half of the XX century.

Yes. I remember it wasn't a good day for him.
The other fellow I saw at some point was not Domingues, but Dominguin, I think.

So you saw Dominguín, osso? Wow, again.
Dominguín was not a bullfighter. He was a myth.

Luis Miguel Dominguín was 12 when he first fought a bull. Son and brother of matadors. He was a close friend of Picasso. His rivalry with Ordoñez inspired Hemingway's "Bloddy Summer". He retired at 47 and died at 70, in 1996.

But Dominguín is renowned for being the ultimate Spanish casanova. He's said to have had affairs with Ava Gardner, María Félix, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, and his own cousin. The beautiful Czech actress Miroslava Stern killed herself because of him (there's a film about it). His motto: "It's not worthwhile to conquer a first class woman if you can't tell your friends about it".

Dominguín is the father of famous Spanish androginous actor and singer Miguel Bosé, best known for his role as a transvestite judge in Almodovar's "High Heels".
The bad vibes between Dominguín and his son are also well known. Dominguín was angry at Miguel Bosé "dressing like a woman". The son replied that his father liked to appear in public and move provocatively in a bright tight costume, embroidered with sequin, with pink stockings, a pony tail and a ridiculous hat (a perfect description of a bullfighter's suit).

Well, the years don't fit... I must have seen him in the late sixties, and by what you say he would have been retired.
I'll ask my pals if they remember, and get back on it.

I'm sure about Cordobes, I saved articles on him at the time.

Dominguín retired in 1973. The time line fits.

Ahhh. Good.

TJ has grown in a really accelerated rate. The main reason for that is the people wanted to live the american dream. Some come with the idea of crossing to the US, others because of the industrial scene in the city (the factories called 'maquiladoras').

Because a high porcentage of that people is poor, they start living on the outskirts of the city. A local newspaper said some months ago that Tijuana grows 3 blocks a day. So there are many streets with no basic services: electricity, water, pavement, etc. The government refuses to acknowledge some of these set of neighbor streets as official 'colonias'.

The growth of many Mexican cities is often presented as urban expansion. Mexico City is considered by some to be one of the two largest urban centers in the world (Tokyo, I think, is the other). But if one considers that the millions of people living in make-shift shacks (not even "jacales" (rural huts), on the city's outskirts lack lack all the basic services listed by JoeFX of urban life, one concludes that Mexico City (like TJ) are really smaller urban centers surrounded by quasi-urban or virtually rural make-shift communities of wannabe urbanites.

My sister-in-law used to date another bullfighter celebrity, Alfredo Leal, who later married the Mexican singer, Lola Beltran. He was much more stable than the legendary Dominquin, a man suffering, obviously (as did Hemmingway and Picasso) from pathological masculinity, with testosterone functioning in the brain in the place of serotonin.

Hemmingway had the good sense to lower is testosterone via shotgun.

I guess you guys are in a lot of luck today, I live in Mexico currently. And I will give you a slight report of life in Mexico for a foreigner and for a local.

Pro's:

-If you are a foreigner people always believe that you know what your talking about, whether it be in business or philosphy etc.
-It is better being a foreigner outside of the U.S than American(U.S.A) or as the locals would call a "gringo".
- Money talks, due to the semi-high level of corruption you can basically do whatever you want.
- Laws are not as strict as it is in the U.S
- It's cheaper
- Beautiful Woman and some virgin beaches, depending where you are of course
- Culture, alot of culture
-Monterrey , Nuevo Leon is the beverly hills of Mexico, kids that are 16 years old driving $50K cars, I mean they drive some serious machinery.
-There is alot of oppurtunity if you are foreign to do business because of their "whatever is outside of the country is better" mindset
- The people in general are some of the nicest people you can meet, except for a small part which I would like to refer to as "Pinches Pendejos"
Etc.
- The food is awesome!
-And some pretty cheap booze, with some good quality

Cons:

- At times people disrespect you for being foreign, this obviously doesnt happen much, but it happens.
-They believe that because your foreign, you have money, hence, they will be looking for bribes from you.
- The corruption could be a problem at times
- the roads
- Technology is a bit more expensive, but nothing ebay can't solve
- Sometimes the entire mañana syndrome could be a problem, this si where you expect your car to be fixed soon and you ask them, when is it gonna be ready, and they reply mañana(tomorrow), prepare to be without your car for a couple of days.


Thats about it....Ask me what you want and I will gladly respond to my fullest of knowledge

In other words, Mexico is pretty badassed!

I'd take away the "virtually rural" communities: in any case, quasi-urban.
And, what does it mean to talk about "smaller" urban centers? In the case of Mexico City, we'd be talking about 16-18 million living in the megacity and 2-4 million in the "quasi-urban" situation.
I don't know the stats for TJ. Maybe 1.5 million vs. .25 to .5 million people?



Alfredo Leal, that's one I did see bullfight (won two ears and a tail, that afternoon).

furiousflee, I'm interested to hear about your experiences with Mexican corruption. It would be a refreshing view.

One of my friends in the bunch I used to travel with - the one whose cousins' house we stayed at in TJ - became a PanAm stewardess (two languages, y'know) and a long time substitute teacher of Spanish in the Los Angeles high school system. When we were in Mexico people called her a 'pocha', which I gather is not all a good thing, or wasn't back then.

I know we've talked about Oscar Lewis and Children of Sanchez, JL, but I forget what you thought about it. As an avid beginner in learning about Mexico, I loved it. It was one of the first things I'd ever read that told a story from multiple points of view, ala 'Roshoman', in this case written as a nonfictional account by various family members.

The book was controversial in that Lewis developed the concept of 'culture of poverty'. That rang true to me, that when you don't grow up handling money in an organized way, you blow the money you finally get your hands on right away (usually). Since this is somewhat true for myself, I wasn't offended, but I did take it as not a generalization to be counted on, but an observation in certain circumstances.

So they called your friend a "pocha", Osso.
That has changed. A LOT.

When I was a child there was this rhyme:

"Los pochis de California
no saben comer tortilla;
sólo ponen en su mesa
su pan y su mantequilla".

(California pochos don't know how to eat tortillas, they put their bread and butter on their table)

Stupid, blatant political and cultural nationalism made Mexican-Americans something less than a Mexican.

Pocho (or "pocha" or "pochi") is now a very politically incorrect word, at least in this part of the country.
Now Mexican-Americans are "paisanos". Mexicans on the other side of the border.