Introducing me, and something about Mexico.

Hi,

This is my first blog; I think sometimes the hardest part of doing something like this is to actually start it, therefore I will start writing about something familiar: Me and my country.

My name is Alfredo, I am 22 years old, and I live in Monterrey, Mexico.

What do I do with my life? Well, I work in sales of mechanical and electrical equipment; I also carry some administration and purchasing functions. Now talking about what could be slightly more interesting to you, my main hobbies are languages, music, and sports (not so original). About languages, I am a native Spanish speaker, I can speak English (not so perfect as you may see), and I’ve been study some other languages, all by myself; I am intermediate level in German, by now it’s the only other language that I can use to communicate, but I’ve been studying some basics of another languages, thus I can understand and speak some Swedish, French, and Italian; I want to learn all these languages plus Japanese and whatever comes next, but I am letting it flow naturally. I like to study languages, and with that I don’t mean that I just like them as a study subject, I really do like to them as a time to spend my time, to the point that sometimes I am excited about returning home and resume my learning, or sleeping late studying, then waking up early to follow, just as a child who loves to play videogames; I like to read a lot about another themes, as history, philosophy, and even some art, therefore I’ve decided to study a degree in languages, which I would start next year if I get accepted at my local university.

To make it shorter, I’ve been playing music for 10 years, mainly guitar, I’ve had some bands but I have never taken it too seriously, as I just want to have fun and not to live from it. On the other hand I like to watch a variety of sports, like MMA, Box, Tennis, I do like Association Football a lot, but I think that my favorite sports are American Football (or Gridiron) and Baseball. I’ve played so many sports in my life, and have a lot of stories that I don’t think you’d be interested to read, but nowadays I just play Baseball and Softball at amateur leagues.

Now let’s get to something more interesting: My country.
*Please note that all of these are personal opinions*

Oh, dear Mexico, what can I say about you?
Well, there must be a lot of things you already know, and maybe some things that you will learn today, I will just throw some random things, as this is intended for curiosity reasons, not informative; Mexico is not really a whole different universe, is actually very similar to a lot of countries from South America and that frontier between Europe and Asia, because of this I will write you mainly about lifestyles tradition.

First to know, in case that you fall here someday, people on streets:

We really don’t live thinking about how we are with the people that we meet up on streets, rooms, elevators or whatsoever. We are not like some European countries who say that you shouldn’t talk or even smile to strangers, but we are neither like American people who will most of the time smile at you and lead a small talk about anything while you are with them. And here’s the tricky part, (though I don’t think we are unique at this) you may never know what’s the best choice, some people wished that we all were open and smiled, and talked, some of these do it, and some are too shy for it; some people don’t like to be talked to, and just act as if you were a freak, some people will happily talk, some people will smile back, some people will think that you are a jerk if you smile them, a lot of people even look at you as if you were a “freaky freak” if you just say “good morning” to them, so sometimes the best option is just to be polite and just answer if someone says you something.

What about the famous Mexican food?

Well, I have never taste Mexican food outside the USA, but I can tell you that the flavor is totally different. Actually, the things they make are the usually same that we make, but cooked different, I think the key is in the fat; Mexican food is really loaded with fat, and even though it is unhealthy, but that, alongside the wide variety of salsas and condiments, really does give the food a whole different kind of flavor that you might not find elsewhere, and maybe you wouldn’t even like Mexican food being here, who knows?

Do we really eat Tacos and burritos every day?

It’s not a rule, and people will even find that thought racist (you have to be careful with that), but I can’t lie; we do eat “tacos” almost always. The difference lies here: It’s not considered the same to make “meat tacos” that making meat and eating it with the same tortilla you would use to make a taco; yeah, it actually tastes different because the cooking, but at last, we do eat things inside a tortilla almost always (some people can’t actually eat without tortillas, never). And with this, all these Mexican food “Tacos, burritos, flautas, enchiladas, gorditas, sopes, etc” is anything inside a “tortilla” with a different size, or kind of cooking, but funnily it does make a huge difference.

Another question I’ve received: Do we use “sombreros” and sleep in cactuses?



Well, no, of course no, that would be like saying that all the girls in Germany dressed with dirndls or that everyone in the Netherland used clogs.

It is just folklore, mostly from the times of revolution, people dress like that to celebrate the revolution (and other days, as if Americans used thanksgiving clothes for every holiday) and that’s all. You should be careful with this too, as some people will also get offended of “Racism” if you talk about “sombreros”, why? I have no idea.

I don’t know certainly where the cactus thing came from. My guess (and popular belief) is that it came from America, people think that they painted us so because they were racist, but I think that is because most of the northern side of the country is a desert area, therefore when Americans crossed the border, they saw nothing but cactuses and sand, even though the rest of the country has many different kinds of floras.

 What about sports?

The most popular sport is by far Association Football, follower maybe by Baseball. We play basketball; have some good box fighters, and some pretty good tennis competitions, but nothing gets near to football. Even with this I don’t think that football is as important for our culture as it is in another countries; stadiums are only full when they play the finals (except for my city, it’s the only place where both stadiums are always full), and we have only some really major teams. Naturally kids are always playing football on streets, and people are playing at parks or fields, but I just don’t think that football is something proper of our culture. Wrestling, on the other hand, is something really proper of our culture, still it is not so popular nowadays, and American wrestling gets more attendances when it hits the city. We also play American football, but only at college level; the NFL is widely popular here, but we have to stick to watch the games on TV, usually with some drinks, and that goes to my next point…

Alcohol 

People here, naturally, drink alcohol, I couldn’t say how much or how little, but I could say that it is neither a part of our culture as it could be elsewhere, especially in some European countries.

Drinks (most of the time “the local” beer) may be taken probably in the same situations than in your country (unless you’re reading me from somewhere where alcohol is banned), but we are not in a situation where we support breweries, look for tastes, or simply get a life where tasting beers is included, actually most of the time if you are going to drink is because you are planning to get drunk (a lot or a little) and not just because you want to have a nice drink, you don’t even think if it has a flavor, if it is for a season, or if it goes along with something; people usually just buy a lot of the most common or cheap beer (although we have some different national brands) and go mad.

Of course, this is not the rule and there are every kind of people, and I also know that everywhere people just buy cheap beer and go mad, my point is more the importance of brewing itself.

What else?

I think it’s important to say that we are usually very attached to our families, we usually make everything with them, and usually won’t let them down, never, we have a really close relation with our parents, grandparents, uncles/aunts and cousins, maybe that is why there is that cliché about the Mexican who has a relative who makes every kind of thing, we usually do get close with all our family, thus we usually have someone to help us.

I think this relationship might be dangerous, for example, a lot of parents still want their children to study and devote to the same as they did, as they grandparents, and all the lineage, because they are a “family of doctors/enigneers/whatsoever”; another thing about this, is that they really want you to be CLOSE, I mean, if you can’t go to a holiday party they will start talking about how you don’t love them. A common problem is when people move from the city, families tend to cry because they think that their child is moving because he wishes to be far, because he doesn’t love them, and how he is so ungrateful because he is abandoning them after all what they did for him. This also happens when they move to another neighborhood, because families are also used to live within the same (or a really close) neighborhood.

All of this is changing, as our cities are growing, but it still can be seen.


Well, people, I don’t know what else I could write for you at the moment, I am a little dry but you can feel free to ask me. I will try to build up a thread and write every week, so let’s hope this gets better with time.

Thanks for your reading and we’ll meet another time.