Job Discussion Forums

[MixtecaMike]

New thread, so as not to hijack the Queretaro one.

Shopping at the mercado really is the pits, it's nothing to do with supporting my native culture (which is antipodean non-indigenous) but I would MUCH rather shop for many things at Walmart or Gigante or Carrefour (sp?) etc.

The mercado is for buying possibly fresher fruit and veges, but mercado meat is definitely not well prepared nor fresh nor refrigerated.

Canned foods, usually much cheaper at the super, and they don't sell stolen food-aid stuff either.

My wife agrees with me 100% and she is someone who grew up buying and selling in one of your cutsie indigena fly farm markets; so don't tell me she likes the supermarket because she can't adjust to Mexican markets.

Where I live there are no decent multinationals, if one ever comes here it will push the locals right out of business because every Mexican I ask says they would definitely prefer to shop in a real supermarket. Of course some of the gringos would still buy their stuff from street vendors, but that's because they are unable to adjust to the world reality of globalization.

Gringo Greg, I feel for you in Thailand, but do what I do and take the family or yourself to a big city at least 4 times a year, even if it's just to go window shopping in a real shopping center. I find it does wonders for the moral of my kids, my wife and myself.

[inmexico]

I agree to a point - mainly in regards to meat sold in the market. I would much rather go to the carneceria. Something about the exploitation of workers by the likes of Wal-Mart bothers me a little. Yes, they do have good prices on most things, but why do you suppose they charge so little? I think a large part of it is because they pay their workers crap! They often overwork their people without overtime etc.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a crusader out to fight for the rights of the common man...but buying a few "hot" cans of food from a market doesn't bother me a whole lot. If they weren't selling it....they would be the ones eating it.

[moonraven]

If you folks are going to support globalization--without, apparently, any idea of what that means, try going "global" with your news habits. The majority of the sweat shops in China are operated by WalMart. We're not just talking about low wages and squeezing out family businesses (folks who LIVE in the community--WalMart doesn't live in ANY community), we're talking about mega-exploitation of child labor--especially in China and Southeast Asia. Globalization is the spreading of three things around the planet: greed, violence and poverty. My attorney in Santa Fe has made a fortune--a BIG fortune--litigating class actions suits against WalMart. Before that he made a fortune suing the Catholic Church on behalf of folks who were molested by priests. He's a Buddhist now.

On a more pedestrian note, the meat at local carnicerias (ours happen to be in the mercado), may not be USDA Prime (i.e. pumped full of hormones and antibiotics), but it is from local animals. I eat very little meat, anyway (although tomorrow they will save me a nice piece of arrachera from the animal they will slaughter early in the morning), but I know the ganaderos in this region don't have the money to pump their animals full of crap. I don't eat canned foods--those of you who do might cock an eye at the ingredients in those cans sometime. They are loaded with chemical preservatives.

I am very perplexed by hearing about how much time it takes in Mexico to shop. One of the reasons I moved away from the rat race (which finally even put a chokehold on Santa Fe, New Mexico) is that I didn't want to be thinking about saving time, and rushing through my life. I simply don't have to do that here. Example: this beautiful Sunday morning I eased out of bed at 7, ground my coffee beans and made myself a big cup of caf� de la olla (I only get to do this on weekends--not because of lack of time but because I can't justify giving my body a drug like that on a daily basis). Then I went to the mercado (a block away from where I live) and bought red peppers and purple onions, potatoes, and a ripe papaya. Back in my digs I made a "tortilla espa�ola" with the vegetables, sprinkled it with thyme (instead of the traditional chorizo), grated some parmesan cheese for the final touch, peeled and sliced the papaya for a fruit plate, put Lisa Downs on the cd player and read NEXOS magazine while I ate an excellent breakfast. Upstairs, a parrot was shrieking "Stupid!" at someone. Synchronicity? I think not. Not for this bird, anyway....

[thelmadatter]

Spending a calm Sunday morning IS a wonderful example of getting away from the "rat race" but waiting 30 minutes to a couple of hours to get paperwork done or to go somewhere for an appointment only to be told - "oh ______ went on vacation Come back Monday" (for the 2nd or 3rd time) ... is NOT my idea of escaping the rat race.

Wal Mart does pay crap but the local employers (when the local stores CAN employ) dont pay any better. In fact, here in Toluca, they pay much worse.

[Gringo Greg]

I am sorry I dont have time to make a longer reply, but I just have to comment on the drugs and meat comment. In many 3rd world countries, the animals are pumped full of drugs by uneducated farmers. If a little is good then a lot is even better. Don't think those friendly neighbor farmers are not using drugs, just think about how educated they are. I know it is happening here and if it is hapening here, you can bet your life it is hapening in Mexico.

At least the larger meat producers have some quality controls and do know how to use the drugs they pump into the animals.

And next time you buy meat, try to find out the source, the chicken you buy may be a local free range but almost as likely is that it is a supermarket reject.

[moonraven]

This bird thinks that the human species gets way too upset about "losing" a little time. When you lose time, where does it go? Can you find it again? Would you want to bother looking for it? Mussolini made the trains run on time. Guess he must have been a great guy....

[moonraven]

Thelmadatter--Ask yourself since WHEN the local stores have scarcely been able to hire people. I bet it coincides with the arrival of WalMart and Sam's. Or Galerias Metepec--built in the image of US malls--might be a factor, too....

[MixtecaMike]

Local stores in this nasty little part of Oaxaca seem to be run as a hobby by a few family members. The service is terrible, the range of goods is terrible, for most things the prices are terrible, the wages they pay are terrible, if I could think of one word to sum up local business it would be,...




terrible?

Most of the money here comes from the US, many Mexicans would prefer to risk their lives crossing the border to be exploited in the US than be part of the local economy, that speaks volumes, for me at least.

[moonraven]

I suppose the logical (sic) extension of your argument would be to have the government of Mexico (that's who is responsible for the lack of opportunities and guarantees for its citizens) taken over by WalMart. Probably Fox would jump right on your bandwagon....providing WalMart took over CocaCola first!

[some waygug-in]

I am not a fan of Walmart, but I don't think your argument is quite correct.
If you want to stop the sweat shops in China, you have to stop shopping Walmart back home, not in Mexico. That's where consumers can have a greater effect. I prefered shopping at Commercial anyway.

Why blame just Walmart? There are literally thousands of foreign companies operating in and around Queretaro, all taking advantage of the low wages and lack of worker protection. While I don't like it, at the same time, the Mexicans who work there consider those jobs to be "good jobs" compared to what they are used to. So I don't know the answer, but I believe it is greater than just "boycott Walmart".

Perhaps making ethical investments would be a better option?

[moonraven]

Huh????Stop shopping at WalMart "back home"? I don't know where you are, but I have been living in Mexico for well over 10 years, so the idea of "back home" makes very little sense. Commerical Mexicana is part of Costco--you might want to check what I said about it earlier on this thread.

Obviously WalMart is just part of the problem--I used it as an example since it is the most visible one. Ethical investments????I am investing my time, energy, creativity and consciousness in Latin America--forming theater groups that present my plays about the history of these countries so that folks don't lose their historical consciousness; creating alternative agricultural cooperatives so that campesinos don't have to head for El Norte to survive, training teachers--and teaching a little English, too.

What are you doing?

[MixtecaMike]

Funny how it takes a Canadian/Gringa to help Mexicans preserve "their" history.

What do most Mexicans want, to do some stupid folk dancing or to have a decent education and lifestyle for their kids, if not themselves?

If you want to live an alternative lifestyle that's fine, for you, but I think you should accept you are in the minority (of course that does not make you wrong) and that most of us have a different agenda.

Re your comment about contracting the Mexican government to Walmart, I think a dollarized economy run along non-Bush American lines would imporve life for all Mexicans, and most foreigners here as well.

Won't happen, Fox is only a pseuedo-neo-liberal, unfortunately.

[moonraven]

I am appalled by the level of discourse--or lack of it-- in this forum. I think it has rapidly sunk to that of primary school. Preserving history is clearly a nasty job, but somebody has to do it...even a gringa? "Stupid folk dancing", indeed--precisely what kind of dancing would you consider to be "intelligent"? (By the way, I don't do folk dancing.) It seems that anyone who prefers to give something to the community he/she takes from is now considered to be living an alternative lifestyle? Give me a break. That term originated at the end of the Sixties --at the time I began teaching in universities in the US--and was a direct reference to "Tune in, turn on, and drop out"--the opposite of involving oneself in community projects.

I have zero idea as to what your "agenda"--rather mysterious allusion, by the way--is. But beating the pans for neoliberalism here in Latin America is a good way to get run out of Dodge (pardon the mixed geographical references). Even the World Bank and the World Monetary Fund have now come out publically and admitted that neoliberalism--far from being the solution to Latin American problems--caused them to intensify. The trend in progressive governments in South America--Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, for example-- is against neoliberalism and for endogenous development. Mexico, with the rightist government of Fox, has taken a peculiarly retrograde posture compared with most of Latin America, and instead of promoting dignity for its people is pumping petroleum at 100% capability and selling it for below market prices to the US--to the point that in the 3 and a half years of Fox's sexenio 42% of the petroleum reserves have been guzzled by the high level bureaucrats--with not one centavo of the windfall profits being devoted to social programs or education. Doesn't sound "psuedo"-neoliberal to me--whatever that means--but right down the misguided pipeline of "traditional" neoliberalism.

I also have no idea what you mean by a "dollarized economy run along non-Bush American lines (by the way, America refers to this hemisphere, not to the US of A), but I lived in Ecuador for several months last year in a dollarized economy. I did not meet a single person while I was there who believed that he or she was better off financially because of the dollarization (at that point 3 years of it), and considering that most of the people I met in the university where I was working as a Dean were--sadly--right wing oligarchs or wannabees, whose dream dictator was Pinochet!--I don't think dollarization has many fans there. Nobody was trusting enough to keep their money in the banks, anyway.

[MixtecaMike]

Hell, we're never going to agree on this one, you shop in the market by choice and I shop in the market because I don't have a choice, and lets leave it at that.

I do have to mention one point though, "America" in Spanish is the entire continent, in English it is an abbreviated form of The United States of America and refers to the conglomerate of states between Mexico and Canada, plus Alaska and Hawaii.

They are false cognates, I hope you explain this to your students, even though it does not mesh with your personal beliefs.

Even if you think I am a an ignorant bore (implied, not stated), I still enjoy your posts for their interesting alternative point of view. I think your 60s university teaching exposed you to too many hippies, but that's cool with me.

[moonraven]

You say you shop in the mercado because you don't have a choice. Is someone forcing you to live in a small town in Mexico?

I think you already might have guessed that there is a political/imperialist element in the USA's proprietary relationship with the word America. It has nothing to do with false cognates, either.

As for your decision to patronize me and my "interesting alternative view", that's another story. I find your attitude offensive.