Cultural Differences

Ok so I know I've mostly just been saying how everything is super cool here and I've been going to visit all these cool places, and how things aren't really that different here and they eat spaghetti and the metro is fast and people are all nice.  This is true.  However, I am in another country and all and I realized that while some things are quickly becoming a part of my everyday life, they might be slightly interesting to people back in the US.  Or at least to my Dad, who I will assume finds everything I say interesting because he has to.  Thus...

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

1. Mullets A lot of guys here have mullets.  Like legitimate ones.  Others have rat tails, or the ever popular single dreadlock rat tail combo.  I have no idea why these are the current hair trends, and I am not saying everybody's doing it, but a lot of people are.  Also, Chilean guys definitely can rock the mullet better than American ones.  Some of them even look attractive.

2. Milk Milk is some sort of powdered and reconstituted thing.  It comes in a box, and you don't have to refrigerate it until you open it.  I have not seen regular milk in a gallon that you have to keep cold.  Not once.

3. Cheese Every bite of cheese I have seen here has been the exact same kind of cheese.  I'm not 100% sure but I think it might be a lesser form of gouda.  I have not seen cheddar.  I have not seen mozzarella.  Exception: there is powdered parmesan cheese to put on your pasta.


4. Pizza I have only had a few pizzas so I can not vouch for all of chile, but my host mom made me a pizza, and it had ketchup, whole tomatoes, ham, and that same gouda-ish cheese.  It was tasty.  It was not pizza.

5. Bread, salt, mayonaise, and hot dogs.  Americans are supposed to be the fatties.  The great consumers of fattening foods such as these.  But in reality? These four belong to Chile now more than they do to us.

Subject A, Bread: I probably eat a loaf of bread every three days.  Toast at breakfast, bread at lunch, toast with tea, and bread with dinner.  Bringing a snack to school? How bout some bread, with jam, butter, or palta (avocado).  The fact that we aren't all fatties yet is actually some sort of miracle.

Subject B, Salt: THEY SALT EVERYTHING.  In the US The only thing I put salt on is steak.  I don't even put salt on my corn on the cob, or on my mashed potatoes, so the salt thing is really different for me.  They salt every vegetable- beans, tomatoes, corn.  They salt all meat.  I think there might have even been salt on my pizza.  There's this awesome place we go to get "fajitas" which are giant wraps filled with meat and veggies and beans and rice and stuff, kind of like an open faced burrito.  They don't even ASK you if you want salt on it.  They just load a bunch of salt on your wrap before you wrap it up.  And the worst part is, I'm starting to LIKE it.  Sometimes I even put extra salt on my veggies.  Ew.  I've got to stop doing that.

Subject C, Mayo It still surprises every chilean I tell this to that they eat more mayo than we do.  However, this one I know I'm not making up because I read in my orientation booklet that Chileans eat the most mayo per capita out of any country in the world.  Mayo on corn.  Mayo on burgers.  Mayo on hotdogs.  Mayo on casseroles.  Mayo on ALL sandwiches.  The fajita place is actually so into mayo that they have FIVE different options of mayo (light, normal, with dill, with garlic, and another one I forgot).

Subject D, Hot Dogs  Equally as prevalent here as empañadas are hot dogs.  I have had hot dogs only 3 times at dinner since i've been here, but others have them almost every other night. They sell hot dogs on pretty much any street with food on it, and of course they pile them high with avocado, ketchup, and mayo.  They also always expect us to love hotdogs because, we're american.  (Luckily I do)


6. Spicy food There is no spicy food.  I have literally  not encountered a single spicy thing yet.  The only way to make your food spicy is with tobasco sauce, which legitimately costs like $14 USD for a teeny tiny bottle.  You can buy three handles of vodka for the price of an itty bitty bottle of tobasco sauce. Priorities.


7. Liquor Is really, really cheap.  At least the cheap liquor is, I don't buy expensive liquor because I'm 20 and have no taste, but I would assume the expensive liquor is cheap too.  I'm talking like $4 for a handle of vodka, you can't beat that.  Exception: CLUBS.  A shot in a discotec (club) will still cost you $4-6 for just one shot.

8. Drinking culture Seeing as the drinking age is different here (18 I think?) so is the drinking culture. For example, as a "welcome week" sort of activity the school sponsored a concert in the park, in which you were allowed to bring in as much alcohol as you wanted.  If this were to happen in the US someone would probably die form alcohol poisoning, whereas here everyone pretty much drank responsibly, I only even saw one guy puking.  They just know how to drink responsibly here because they have been allowed the opportunity to do so.  (Stupid US drinking laws.)

9. Cat calling Whistling to girls, yelling things out to them in spanish or english, or making kissing noises at them is considered normal here.  I have been told this many times, that Latin Americans are just more "affectionate."  This does not make the guys doing it seem any less unattractive to me, nor has it stopped me from giving them the dirtiest of looks.  (Being more affectionate also applies with PDA- people making out EVERYWHERE.  In parks, on the metro, in the supermarket, whatever.  It's normal because they can't make out in their apartments because everyone lives with their parents through college and often later.)

10. Dogs There are a lot of stray dogs.  It makes me sad.  A number of people have told me that when a family moves to a new neighborhood or goes on vacation and can't find someone to watch their dog, they just leave them on the street.  There are some shelters but no where NEAR enough to care for the over 200,000 stray dogs there are in the Santiago area. In fact, some have to keep their locations secret because if they were known they would be overflowing with people coming in to abandon their dogs.  I think they just think of dogs as more of a fun thing to play with, and less as a person like we tend to treat our pets.  Note: this does NOT apply to everyone in Santiago.  There are plenty of people like my host mom and others I have met that treat their dogs as if they were their own children, and are deeply upset by the stray epidemic.

11. Health care There are pubic hospitals here (I think) but they are apparently so awful that no one who can afford to go elsewhere goes to them.  I also don't think health insurance is really a thing here, health care is just cheaper and you just pay for it.  Not that it's cheaper than it is with insurance in the US- a visit to the clinica still costs $120 USD, and that's without any tests or anything.  But the price is just listed right there in the waiting room: Between these hours, this much money, between this hours, this much, a visit for children, this much.  Like at a coffee shop or something.  (Clearly not like at a coffee shop, just the way the prices were listed).

12. Taking a number Chileans really like taking a number.  When you get to the clinica, take a number to been seen.  When it's time to pay at the clinica, take another number to wait to pay.  At the pharmacia, take a number.  At the deli, take a number.  Buying a bus ticket? Take a number. Everywhere.

13. Bureaucracy Here I think it is better to put a quote from Isabel Allende, one of the best known modern Chilean authors.

"Al chileno le gustan las leyes, mientras más complicadas, mejor.  Nada nos fascina tanto como el papeleo y los trámites.  Cuando alguna gestión resulta sencilla, sospechamos de inmediato que es ilegal.  (Yo, por ejemplo, siempre he dudado de que mi matrimonio con Willie sea válido, porque se llevó a cabo en menos de cinco minutos mediante un par de firmas en un libro.  En Chile eso habría tomado varia semanas de burocracia)."

(my rough translation):
"A chilean likes laws, the more complicated, the better.  Nothing fascinates us more than paperwork and formalities.  When a process is simple, we immediately are suspicious that it's illegal. (I, for example, have always doubted that my marriage with Willie is valid, because it all happened in less than 5 minutes with a pair of signatures in a book.  In Chile this would have taken weeks of bureaucracy.)"

This is what I have had to do to be a student in Chile:
1. Apply for a VISA.  With this application I had to submit an FBI background check, a letter from my doctor saying I have no diseases, a separate lab test saying I don't have HIV, a letter from my school saying I have paid for school, and a letter from the school here saying I will be attending school here. When I applied for my VISA they took my fingerprints, even though I already had to be fingerprinted once for the FBI background check.
HOWEVER, that was clearly not enough to be sure I'm good to be in the country. SO.
2. I had to go into some office to get my picture taken and register my VISA with the local government here.  Then I had to
3. Make copies of this registration and my passport, and
4. Go to some other government office where I had to have my picture taken AGAIN and get interviewed and leave my copies and get more fingerprints taken.  Now I get to
5. Go back in three weeks or so to pick up my Chilean ID.  Until I have this ID I have to carry a copy of my passport with me at all times in case a police officer stops me and asks for ID, which they can at any time.

But with ALL OF THIS.  I am still not allowed to have a student metro card.  That process, I'm told, takes so long that when other exchange students tried to apply for one in the past they didn't get  it until two weeks before the semester ended.

In their defense, I did hear someone say at some point (don't remember who) that all this bureaucracy  and number taking is for a reason.  During the Pinochet era (or according to some during the Allende era) there were a lot of violations committed against the people here and a lot of things that were done with less than legal votes and paperwork.  Now, everyone just wants to make sure that everything is done legally, and everyone waits their turn in line, and everything is fair.  The taking a number thing is actually pretty logical, at least.

13 is an unlucky number to stop on, but it's lucky in my family so I'll stop there for cultural differences for today- not that there aren't a lot more.  Now then...

What have I been up to?

So far it's been a bit challenging to remember each week exactly what I've been doing, but I will try once more.  No guarantees on accuracy.

Monday
Can't remember.  Went bowling I think?


Tuesday
Went through the whole "applying for my Chilean ID (carnet)" thing which was very time consuming (see above, under bureaucracy.  Waited in line for like an hour and a half I think).  Went to the ZOOOO.  Yay zoo, small but nice, saw all da animals.  GOT LICKED BY A REAL LIVE GIRAFFE.  It just stuck it's tongue through two fences and licked us, just to say hi.  Went to an informational meeting about possibly leading an english conversation group.  Should definitely look into joining a spanish conversation group when I get back.

Wednesday
Had my first class.   It was on politics and I couldn't figure out if the professor was german or from argentina, but either way I didn't pick up much.  Turns out you are expected to already know some stuff about politics for the Latin American Politics class.  This one could be a doozy.  Later that night we went to Miércoles Po again and it was indigenous themed or something so I wore a flowered shirt and got face paint.  It was fun.  Danced lots.  Drank pisco sours. The usual.

Thursday
Went to buy a ticket for a party/concert thing (see below).  Tried to see the Crypt of Bernardo O'Higgins, the city's liberator, but it was closed.  BUT I WILL GO BACK.  You can go underground and see him, and he's in a glass coffin so I think you can see his bones or he's preserved or something super cool like that.  No one else in my entire group finds him interesting, so I will have to go alone.

Friday
Giant party in the park with lots of music and alcohol for all kids going to my school.  Made friends, danced a lot, but felt sick when I got home and couldn't rally in order to make it out again later that night.  Note: pineapple juice and white wine is a good combo, as is white wine drank out of a mellon.

Saturday
Felt increasingly more sick and feverish, looked at my throat in the mirror to discover it was a disaster zone.  Went to the Clinica with my madre, which was expensive (Thanks Dad!! <3) and had lots of waiting in lines, but was generally a succes.  The doctor was impressed with my ability to speak spanish to him and I described my symptoms just fine.  After a bit of pantomiming with my mom to see what "amigdalitis" is, I realized I have tonsillitis.  I told him I was allergic to zithromax but when he prescribed me "azithromycin" i was a little suspicious and asked if he could look it up to see if they were the same drug.  Turns out there WERE good thing I'm so smart or I would have had a big ol allergic reaction and could have died.  Now I'm on amoxicillin and slowly getting better.

Sunday
Slept all day

Today
FINALLY had some classes.  Went to buy a bus ticket for this weekend, then went to an environment class (SUPER HOT PROFESSOR) where I tried a million ways to explain deforestation when it turns out it's just called "deforestación."  Felt pretty stupid.  Then I had a break because our Spanish professor was sick so I got some ice cream and took a nap.   Then I had a class on development and poverty which is definitely my favorite because although the professor is less cute, he was super intelligent and made it very engaging and very, very interesting.  Then I had a little lesson on how to lead an English conversation group for Chileans (because I'm going to be doing that once a week! Yay volunteering) and then I finally got to go home and eat dinner.

And now it seems mi madre feels close enough with me that she feels comfortable scolding me that I am never going to get better if I don't go to sleep.  (She is 100% convinced I got sick because I go out too much and don't dress warm enough and now has put an extra blanket on my bed and insists that I wear socks and long pajamas.)  So I'm gonna go drink my amoxicillin and go to sleep.

Chao pescao!