The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

culture shock

America, the land of dry hands

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Lesley’s husband Crayton is filling in this week with a few posts.

Oh how I crave your American technology. Mexico isn’t a total backwater, but every time I return to the U.S., I get the feeling I’ve stepped at least a few years into the future. Look at all those high-definition channels you guys have! Your Internet speeds are so fast! And OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HAND DRYERS?

Back when I lived in the States, oh those many months ago, public restroom hand dryers were a thing to be mocked. Everyone knew they didn’t actually dry hands. They just made them less damp, enough so that you could wipe them on your pants to finish the job.

But apparently in the past year, serious advances have been made in hand dryer technology. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Dyson Airblade.

What is this strange contraption?

Image from dysonairblade.com

The Airblade site claims that the device “literally scrapes water from hands,” which sounds painful. But all you do is dip your hands in the well and draw them out slowly as the thing basically vacuums the water off of you. BOOM. Dry hands.

I encountered the Airblade in a restroom at True Food Kitchen in Phoenix. I must have looked like an unfrozen caveman encountering this strange device, peering at its instructions skeptically, dipping my hands in gingerly. But it worked as advertised, smoothly and quietly, in about 10 seconds.

On the other side of the spectrum, but equally impressive, is the Xlerator:

ZOMG

Image from exceldryer.com

Found this bad boy at an Edwards movie theater in San Diego. Where the Airblade is delicate and refined, the Xlerator is an industrial-strength blast of air that nukes the water off your hands. Regular hand dryers feel like a summer breeze compared to this blowhard. Most impressive.

Will these technological breakthroughs change the hand dryer vs. paper towel debate? Both manufacturers claim, at least, that their devices are more energy efficent than paper towels.

Anyway, way to go America! Way to finally get those hands dry! This gives me hope that the next time I’m back home, my mother country will have tackled some other seemingly insurmountable problem. I’m thinking college football playoff.

Cuenta de horrores

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While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.

I had to go to the bank today.

Readers who have lived in Mexico just experienced an involuntary shudder of dread. It’s never fun to go to the bank, anywhere, but Mexico’s obsession with paperwork makes the experience downright hellish here.

And the thing is, my bank is actually relatively good! It’s one of the smaller ones, so there aren’t huge lines at the local branch, the people are pretty friendly, and the branch manager saw Lesley’s name on one of my forms and asked if a previous problem she had was resolved, which is like the closest I’ve ever gotten to a Jimmy Stewart, Wonderful Life-style banking experience.

(One downside of having a smaller Mexican bank: It’s harder to deliver money to anyone else. Most services in Mexico, from the electric company to a cooking class, require you to transfer money directly from your account to theirs to make a payment. This can be done through an interbank account number known as a CLABE, but for some reason, instead of just noting what their CLABE is, a lot of services will just provide a list of their account numbers at the nation’s largest banks. So for a fictional example, if I’m a client of Banco Gigante, I just look for the power company’s Banco Gigante account number on my bill and pay accordingly. It’s an intrabank transfer from one account to the other, and Banco Gigante can handle it. But if I’m a client of little Banco Chiquito, the power company probably doesn’t have a Banco Chiquito account, so I have to call the power company and ask what their Banco Gigante CLABE is before I can pay. It’s a big pain.

“Why don’t you just write a check?” you ask. HA! Checks technically exist here, but I have never seen them used. People don’t even write checks to family members. They just do bank transfers. Assuming they can figure out each other’s CLABEs. Anyway. Is this practice normal in other countries? I only know the American way, which is that we write checks, and when you get a check you assume it will clear. (Or maybe now you use Paypal, I guess.) That’s just how it’s done. But maybe the U.S. is an aberration? I do remember in India, our friend Vikas attempted to pay for a hotel with an advance bank transfer, but it didn’t go through and he ended up having to pay in cash. So there’s that.)

Even the good banks can’t get around that insatiable Mexican need, in government and in business, for clients to produce documents proving every detail of their lives. The phone bill is proof of residence, but the cable bill won’t suffice, unless you get digital phone service through your cable provider, I learned today. I also did not have an acceptable visa, not because my visa isn’t legit, but because they just don’t encounter visas like it very often. But they decided they could make an exception for me. Thanks, guys.

Once my transaction was approved in principle, the mounds of paperwork began. Banks like for you to sign, not just initial, every page of a contract. Including the copies you’ll be keeping yourself. They also like for your signatures to match as closely as possible, and they will scrutinize your handwriting like fortune-tellers to divine whether you are the same person who just signed that other page five seconds ago. (Actually the worst experience I had like that was in the tax office, where the clerk kept made me re-sign my name about five times to get my signature matching perfectly with the one in my visa.)

It took three hours to get my business done. On the plus side, they gave me free coffee.

Mailing off a Christmas present, Mexico City style

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How many stops does it take to mail off two Christmas presents from Mexico? I found out last week.

Click on the icons below for more info. (Hint: Start on the green house, and move clockwise, ending with the green push pin.)

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105662237355781038208.00047a3fd14f5530d9d86&ll=19.430132,-99.167173&spn=0.003541,0.00456&z=16&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

When a random Mexican dude offers to pick up the tab

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A few weeks ago, I had lunch with my new friend Mary Claire at La Moscota, a cool cantina in the Centro where the food is free if you order a few beers. We ordered sopa de médula and tostadas de picadillo and had a good time. When it came time to pay the check, the waiter removed the 100-peso bill I’d placed inside and said: “Te invitó.”

Me: “Huh?”

“Te invitó.”

I looked at Mary Claire. She looked as bewildered as me.

“I’m sorry,” I told the waiter in Spanish. “I’m a foreigner, and I don’t know what that means.”

“The man behind you wants to pay for you ladies.”

Whaa? This had never happened to me in Mexico. I didn’t want to turn around and see whom the waiter was referring to — that would be rude — so instead I looked helplessly at Mary Claire, and then back at the waiter.

“I’m sorry,” I told him again, in Spanish. “But this is the first time this has happened to me. If we accept, do we have to do something?”

“Nah.”

“But we should thank the guy, right?”

“If you want.”

His nonchalant attitude struck me as strange. I asked Mary Claire if she was cool with some random guy paying, and she said yes. I didn’t mind either. I could use that 100 pesos for a cab ride home.

So we said okay, and the waiter disappeared, and then it was time to leave. I turned around and saw two tables directly behind ours — one with two older men and a woman, and the other with three late 30s-ish men. I guessed it was the latter table. But what was I supposed to say? I eyed each of the men and they eyed me back. One in particular stared longer than the others. My brain scrambled for words, but all I could think of was: “Era…. tú?”

God, was that even grammatically correct?

The man slowly shook his head.

I had no idea what was going on, so I mumbled “gracias” and we left.

“I have no idea what just happened,” I told MC as we were leaving. She didn’t either.

Anyone out there know the proper response? I told Crayton about it later, and he said I should have just turned around and said, “Gracias, muy amable” to no one in particular. But was the waiter correct? If a random guy offers to pay your tab here, will he not be offended if you don’t pull up a chair and sit down? In the U.S., if a man offers to pay for a woman’s drink, 98 percent of the time it’s rude to not chit-chat with him a little bit. (Unless the guy is a complete jerk, or you’re already drunk and have no idea what you’re doing.)

Thoughts?

The etiquette of begging for money

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A Mexican fifty-centavo peso coin, worth about 1/26th of a U.S. dollar

One of the things I’ve noticed in Mexico City is the politeness people have toward the poor. Countless times I’ve heard Mexicans say “no, thank you” to beggars pleading for change.

It’s the same way with street vendors peddling their wares. The vendor may interrupt your shopping trip at the tianguis, or your conversation at a sidewalk cafe, to push the greatness of wooden salsa spoons, mesh strainers, plants, rugs. Instead of acting annoyed, it’s culturally acceptable to say no thank-you. If the vendor persists, the person being intruded upon might say, “No, thank you, very kind of you to offer.”

And the way the word thank-you sounds: It has this semi-regretful tone, as if the person with money really would love to help out, but he can’t right now, and he really appreciates the poorer person asking.

I’m so curious as to where this behavior comes from. Does it stem from Mexicans’ overwhelming value of work, and so beggars are not disregarded because they’re only trying to make a few pesos? Or are Mexicans just generally more empathetic toward the poor than Americans, because more Mexicans live in poverty, or know people who do?

In the U.S., when people asked me for change, I ignored them. Crayton and I did donate money to charities that helped the homeless. But I hardly ever looked a homeless person, or a poor person, in the eye. Here I do often. But (I shamefully admit), I only started doing it because everyone else was, too.

Any Mexicans out there care to elaborate on this? And for all the Americans, why aren’t we more polite to the poor? Should we be?

Is Mexico City turning me into a jerk?

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Tried to buy beer with my credit card at the Extra convenience store yesterday. The clerk informed me that they don’t take credit cards, and she pointed to the ATM. (As an aside: The very same chain A BLOCK AWAY takes credit cards. But whatever.)

So, I got money. I returned to pay for my beer. The clerk eyed one of my 50-peso bills.

“It’s torn,” she said. Sure enough, a tiny piece maybe half the size of my fingernail had ripped off.

“And….?” I asked.

“We can’t accept it.”

“But it came out of the ATM like that. The ATM in this store!”

“Sorry.”

“And what do I do now?”

“You have to go to the bank and they’ll change it for you.”

“What bank?”

“Any bank.”

Suddenly an old man smoking a cigarette decided to weigh in on the matter. He wore a convenience store uniform too.

“Yeah, we can’t accept that,” he said. “Just go to the bank. They’ll change it for you.”

I gave her another 50 peso bill and received my change in silence.

Walking home, I grumbled about the ludicrousness of this, the ridicularity, the lameosity. (I like to invent words when I’m mad.) Then I realized how flippant I’d been to the clerk. “And now what? What do I do now?” In the Yucatan, I’d raised my voice to a guy at our hotel who’d demanded to know where we got our free Chichen Itza passes. Maybe I’m running out of patience. Has anyone else experience this? Especially people who moved from slower-paced, polite Southern cities?

Crayton, my sweet Alabama-bred husband, suggested that maybe gruffness just goes further here. A French restaurant — an empty one — turned us away last week because we didn’t have a reservation. We’d dined at this restaurant before without a reservation. Walking away, we wondered if it would have been better to chew them out. “Yeah, reservation, right, because you’re so BUSY.”

Or maybe we just need a vacation.

I finally thought it: “I want to go home.”

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This morning, my arms full of dirty clothes, I opened the door to our tiny washer/dryer combo and discovered the sheets I’d placed there last night were still wet. I’d already tried to dry these sheets twice. Did this mean our dryer was broken, too? I screamed in my head, and I think it reached Mars.

The past few days have tested my patience. First we didn’t have water. Then we didn’t have hot water. Then I got a haircut from an aggressive Mexican stylist who gave me spiky bangs. Then the telephone installation guy broke Crayton’s nightstand. Then he said, Oh señorita, actually you can’t get a phone line in your building, the “network is saturated.” Then I woke up to find the wet sheets. Meanwhile three other loads waited, staring at me with their dirty eyes.

At that moment, the United States suddenly seemed like paradise. Hot water gushes from the faucets without anyone worrying where it comes from. A person can call up AT&T — or a carrier of their choice — and receive a phone line without much fuss. Few people worry about whether they’ll have water or gas tomorrow. And they don’t get scratch paper shoved in their faces during business transactions. GOD. What is it with Mexicans and scratch paper? Is it leftovers from the dearth of fliers people give out on the street? I got a Dianetics one today (headlines: “Depresion? Estres?”) and was seriously considering purchasing it.

So yeah. I thought it.

I wanna go home.

Eventually, after banishing myself to my room and playing with my new iPhone, I calmed down. I took some clothes to the cleaners and passed a quiet street that reminded me of what I like about this country. An old, osteoporotic woman walking ahead of me called “Buenos dias!” into a cafe. The man behind the counter yelled back, “Buenos dias!” His voice sounded raspy, like he’d smoked too much.

When I got home, the maintenance man in our building showed me how to light our water heater’s pilot light, and I read the instruction manual to learn how to keep the thing going. (The whole while feeling like a dumb American for not knowing a shred about water heaters.) About an hour later, our hot water had been restored.

The sheets went into the dryer a third time. At the end of their three-hour cycle, they were dry too. (I have now purchased a clothesline.)

One beer and a few Hershey kisses later, life is really not so bad. And I’m coming around to seeing the other side all this, which is that as an American, I’ve been spoiled to believe that natural resources like gas and water are in endless supply. Obviously they’re not. Readjusting my world view is part of the reason we moved down here in the first place. Just wish it was more “lazy conversations with Mexicans over coffee” rather than “wake up, surprise!, there’s no water.”

Remember all my talk about hailing cabs off the street?

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I’m not doing it anymore. This article from El Universal scared the wits out of me. The reporters combed through a bunch of the city’s crime data to show that taxi crime victims are overwhelmingly (90 percent) women. They’re beaten, robbed, raped. Most of the perpetrators aren’t caught.

A particularly telling quote from the story, from a female official who works with crime victims: “To ride in a street taxi is to play Russian Roulette — you might be fine, but in one of those chances, it might change your life.”

Next time we go to our local sitio, I’ll try not to grumble when they charge us an extra 40 pesos.

Not quite Mexican, and not quite American either

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When we got to the San Diego airport last Saturday, I immediately felt a twinge of culture shock. People were so much taller. The spaces were so much larger. Hell, the people were so much larger. And there was so much… stuff. Shop after shop of T-shirts, key chains, candy. I missed Mexico. I missed seeing fresh-squeezed orange juice on every corner and hearing the “Diez peso, diez peso, diez peso” over and over again from the people pushing their food carts.

Now that we’ve been here for six days, and wandered around the local lake, and sipped blood orange cocktails at Hash House A Go Go, my feelings have flipped. Part of me doesn’t want to go back. Life is so easy and comfortable here. We speak a language we know, we use the tap water to brush our teeth, I wear my wedding ring in public without a second thought. I can take as many things in my purse as I want — my entire wallet and all my credit cards! — and hang my purse on the back of my chair at a restaurant without worrying that it’s going to get stolen.

I know I just wrote a post about how safe I feel in Mexico, and it’s true, I do feel safe there. But I don’t think I’ve completely relaxed there yet. My guard is always up. Like Joy commented, you’re always taking certain precautions. It’s a fact of life. I just didn’t really realize how many precautions until I came back to the U.S.

We return tomorrow morning. I have lots of boxes to unpack, writing assignments to start. I’m looking forward to walking again and getting a big glass of orange/carrot juice from the guy on the corner of our street.

We moved. Time to adjust my American consumption habits.

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We officially moved into our new apartment on Saturday, yippee! Our furniture arrives from the States tomorrow.

Our new place so far has been… interesting. For the following reasons:

1. The day before we moved, our landlady called to tell us they’d shut off water and electricity in the whole building. The neighbors alternate paying the bill each month, and someone paid in the wrong place. (Long story.) Luckily, everything appears to be fine now. Although the faucets sputter a bit if you try to wash laundry at the same time.

2. The very-cute-but-tiny washer/dryer combination sometimes moans and gurgles like it’s alive. It also takes 55 minutes to wash maybe 13 articles of clothing. I’m considering a laundry service. Or dragging out the period of time that I wear a blouse or T-shirt. Oh god, I didn’t even think of towels. I think you can fit maybe two towels in there. (Ok, I’ll stop.)

3. We tried to cook a frozen pizza last night (oh how I miss Amy’s), only to discover that when we turned the oven knob, nothing happened. Only a strong odor of gas. I frantically called my dad, who has spent his life working for the Southern California Gas Company, and asked him what to do. Because, you know, he could fix the problem sight unseen. He promised to look up the stove’s model on the Internet.

Then I called my landlady, who said– DUH — you have to light the pilot manually. (And then she probably hung up the phone muttering, “What have I got myself into?”) But I didn’t know where the pilot was and I didn’t want to burn the house down. Crayton finally just leaned into the oven with a match, and the pilot ignited, and everything was fine. The pizza, unfortunately, was kind of mediocre.

I think things should feel normal sometime around April.

On the upside, we went to the tianguis on Sunday and bought fresh spinach and fruit. Also, there appears to be a cantina around the corner from our house. And a shop that makes “artisanal sweets.” Mmm.