One of the benefits of learning a foreign language is the insight that it permits into the culture. Most tourists to Mexico don’t venture far off the Malecon, visiting the beaches and restaurants that cater to English speakers. Interactions are limited to ordering beer and arranging dive trips, and not being able to read the signs prevents them from learning much about what is going on in town. Having lived in several other countries, I really believe that a visitor can not really appreciate the culture without learning the language. I remember well soon after I moved to Japan, when I finally was able to read enough Japanese to see that moneylenders were proudly offering housewives the chance to buy a washing machine at ‘ONLY’ 30% interest – rates that to us would be usury. This really allowed me to see the difference in money management between Japanese and American families.
Similarly, learning Spanish has already opened many windows for me into Hispanic culture. For example…as Bill (my fellow student and housemate) left for his plane, he bequeathed me with his stack of Spanish language magazines…reading material for the beach. One of his magazines featured Justin Bieber prominently on the cover, so I figured that it was targeted at an age group whose level of Spanish might not be TOO difficult for me. Yet, the first article I encountered was an article debating whether women with angry facial expressions were that way because they were sexually frustrated! So Justin Bieber must appeal to a different set than I expected…or the Bieber set is worried about things I did not expect a 14 year old to be concerned with!
Another example: three of us got tickets on Thursday for a show presented by a local amateur theatre and dance group. Consistent with the Day of the Dead celebrations, the story concerned a card shark who is dying of thirst in the desert amid a bevy of dancing cacti (of various sizes due to the various kids inside them). As he faints of thirst, a Catrina appears (the vampily dressed skeletons associated with Day of the Dead) to teach him some lessons of life and show him the errors of his drunk and dissolute ways. The two of them amuse the audience with witty repartee and a charming card game in which they each cheat shamelessly on the other.
Once the Catrina’s lessons are learned he falls asleep again and awakes expecting (as did we American watchers) to find that all is now resolved and forgiven. Yet, the dancing cactus are revealed to all have skulls in place of their faces….revealing him to be truly dead and amusing the heck out of the all (Mexican audience, The three of us (the sole Americanos there) were immediately struck by the fact that the equivalent US show (think Scrooge) would have expected a ‘happily ever after’ ending.
Last night, 5 of us went to a beginning Salsa class downtown….which started at 9 PM! I was pleased to find that I could understand at least 80% of the instructor’s directions (admittedly, a lot of it WAS uno, dos, tres….cinco, seis, siete….), and three of us will be continuing while we are here in La Paz. JAs in the US, there were many more women than men in the class, but Tino the teacher did not allow the women to pair up – rather he had the men form a line and the women rotated into and down the line. The two men in our group grumbled good-naturedly about not having had a break for the entire hour, while we got to sit on the sidelines for a few minutes. Photos of the class to come on Tuesday.
