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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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 Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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| MELEE wrote: |
| Another thing. In Mexico loads of people wear "tourist T-shirts" With anything from Acapulco to Zatatecas on the front. T-shirts are a common gift/souvenir among Mexicans and foriegners alike. |
Yeah a lot of that in DF. Also get a lot of this...
EMO everything it seems. Are all cities like this? They seem to congregate in packs around metro stations and secondhand clothes stores. |
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MO39
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Posts: 1970
Location: El ombligo de la Rep�blica Mexicana
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| naturegirl321 wrote: |
| MO39 wrote: |
| I agree with a lot of the information in naturegirl's interesting and informative article, but I take exception to the comment that "most people have a decent grasp of English". If that were true, most of us would be out of a job! |
By decent I mean that they can give directions more or less and understand what you want to eat  or buy. |
If that's what you mean, then I suggest changing "decent" to "very basic". |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| By decent I mean that they can give directions more or less and understand what you want to eat or buy. |
That's what I took it to mean- isn't true in Ecuador, though. Many people here can say "hello," and someone has been teaching the street kids to say "geeeeeve meeeee moooney pleeeeees." But communication, as in people who understand even basic English isn't common. If you don't speak Spanish, many tourist focused restaurants have an English or "semi-English" menu, in which you can point.
Best,
justin |
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lozwich
Joined: 25 May 2003
Posts: 1536
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| Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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| MO39 wrote: |
| naturegirl321 wrote: |
| By decent I mean that they can give directions more or less and understand what you want to eat or buy. |
If that's what you mean, then I suggest changing "decent" to "very basic". |
For Colombia, I'd change it to "non-existent" except in the more upscale places where it would be "exceedingly basic". |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:34 pm Post subject: |
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Second that- my time in Colombia was enriched by a lot of conversations about English, but none in English.
We like the article, naturegirl- but the consensus seems to be that the "decent grasp of English" bit doesn't fly. You live and learn.
Best,
Justin |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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That's ok. thanks for the feedback |
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matttheboy
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Posts: 854
Location: Valparaiso, Chile
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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There's only ever so much you can do to blend in. I'll never look like a local here in Chile, for example, if only because my sense of fashion has moved on from the mid-90s...as mentioned, you can blend in in a way that says that you're foreign but that you live in a place and know what you're doing. I think that's as far as many of us foreigners will ever get in Latin America. And as a guy, I like the fact I stand out...back in England I'm just an average guy in a crowd. Here, I'm different. And that often translates as 'popular' 
I have just given myself a mullet in an experiment to see if I blend in any better...you can see it here...Fitting in in Chile: Get Mulleted
http://corrugatedcity.blogspot.com/2008/06/fitting-in-in-chile.html
Last edited by matttheboy on Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:30 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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Welcome back, Matt.
RE: your mullet.
WTF were you thinking?
Saludos,
justin |
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matttheboy
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Posts: 854
Location: Valparaiso, Chile
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Justin, i've been off the Dave's radar for a while due to more interesting interests. Now, I have no life again
As for the mullet, it's a scientific experiment. I haven't had many opportunities to sport it in public yet but I'm hoping to prove that, if you get yourself the worst haircut ever, you won't stand out so much as an obvious foreigner in Chile...
Of course, if I don't get taken for a foreigner then I'll almost certainly get mistaken for a rich cuico and this will most likely get me mugged and beaten up. Great. |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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I'm probably just jealous. I can do the "short at the sides" part of the mullet. But the part on top...well, there just isn't much of anything on top these days. Cept for a few freckles. And bald never seems to blend in, in a country where octogenarians still have full heads of hair...
Justin |
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Manaus
Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 52
Location: Orlando, FL
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| Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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| matttheboy wrote: |
Thanks Justin, i've been off the Dave's radar for a while due to more interesting interests. Now, I have no life again
As for the mullet, it's a scientific experiment. I haven't had many opportunities to sport it in public yet but I'm hoping to prove that, if you get yourself the worst haircut ever, you won't stand out so much as an obvious foreigner in Chile...
Of course, if I don't get taken for a foreigner then I'll almost certainly get mistaken for a rich cuico and this will most likely get me mugged and beaten up. Great. |
Hahaha, that's so funny about the mullet. I studied in Montevideo, Uruguay a few years ago and the mullet was in full effect there.
It was easy for me to blend in there, people assumed I was Uruguayan. |
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kingkristopher
Joined: 11 Feb 2006
Posts: 62
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| What's the deal with blending in anyway? Personally, I go to great lengths to make sure that I DON'T blend in... |
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