Dear readers, we can have fun, enjoy this beautiful city full of sights and culture, while we deal with cultural shock with locals.
These are one of the first words of my handbook for tourists. We can take some of the cultural ideas there...brief and practical!!!!!
ARGENTINA’S
HOLIDAYS: LET’S MAKE IT SIMPLE!
I am Argentinean;
my name is Liliana Ester Long. Why this handbook?
Loving to foreigners should be a life
principle which helps us to enjoy life.
We as
human race are foreigners in the other parts of the unknown universe.
Everybody
outside his own country is an outsider.
If we
are good guests, we will be well received when we travel abroad.
Give
and it will be given.
BUENOS AIRES Cultural Background (1)
Not
all Argentineans are thieves or robbers or cheaters….
But
if we know a little bit about our cultural background, it will be helpful to
distinguish strange and dangerous
behaviors from cultural habits.
Especially
in Buenos Aires, but it includes other provinces capitals (Rosario, Tucumán,
Córdoba) there is a mix of European cultures. In XIX, Argentina was a recipient
of the so called Great Immigration. We commit a mistake if we think that in
Buenos Aires everyone is descendant of Italians or Spanish people.
In
the appendix of this book you will find all the communities in Buenos Aires
coming from this Great Immigration and surely you will be surprised.
I
include it because you can drop a call for any help you need if you speak their
native language and English is your second language.
-
Cultural Background (2) The Shining Side of the Argentineans
-
Friendly and open. It can include that Argentineans kiss (both
sex and all ages), embrace, speak loudly sometimes, perhaps more times than
expected!
-
An example of our open spirit is when we share our “mate” a green infusion drunk from a
pumpkin, called by the same name and shared only with friends or relatives.
When you share a mate you mean, “I am
your friend”, “I trust in you”.
-
Faithful “until the end”. We Argentineans have a kind of
strong resilience over adversities; in football we call it “garra” (as the “paw” of a fierce
animal).
-
Gifted artists: you will find plastic artists, singers,
writers, musicians of high quality, artisans.
-
Love football and rugby and all sports in general!
The Dark Side of the Argentineans
-
The negative side … is
that we do not keep people’s
personal space!
-
Making a personal space for us could be safer than
letting them to enter freely as they do. We gently apologize, or keep silence, but we keep ourselves safe from
cheaters and robbers.
-
In general, there is a lack of punctuality Latin habit. If
you make an appointment you can fix the time half an hour or fifteen minutes
before…J the former appointed time!
-
Perhaps there are more common places concerning our culture;
we are nostalgic, we dream with the past and consider the 80’s as it was
“yesterday”.
-
Herein I copy and paste a You Tube site where you will find
to CARLOS GARDEL singing his song,
“VOLVER” which means: “ To Come Back”.
It is a fully nostalgic and
melancholic song. Even a beautiful poem, but the core idea is that: “life is
like a breath” (es un soplo la vida)“twenty years mean nothing” (veinte años no
es nada)“to live with my soul grasping a sweet remembrance that I cry once
again” (vivir con el alma aferrada a un dulce recuerdo que lloro otra vez).
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The man beside Mafalda is her author, Miguel Quino.
