Mexico-lindo (III)

Mexico, Mexico lindo (II)

We have been in lovely Mexico roughly two weeks. Mexico is one of the culturally hybrid countries that results from the random mixture of a variety of cultures, including a handful number of ethnic groups, imigrants from all over the world, especially descendants of the Spaniards - in broad sense, including the Catalans and Basque- that progressively went down there in search for a new life. Their culture seems to be 60% influenced by the US (with which they have a love-hate relationship) and 40% by Europe, mainly Spain. Although they like Spanish tacky siguers such as Miquel Bosé - even more than in Spain, and they love Spanish gossip, Mexico its pretty innovative in arts and cinema. They have lots to offer, the cuisine, needs sophistication and a couple of worldwide known chefs, but that's it. I can imagine ravioli made form the a parasite that grows in the Maize crops, or excellent mezcal (alcholic beverage) served in an empty cucumber.

Besides its need to progress economically, and their struggle to find the right economic and social model to fight poverty and political instability, the country has its strong indentity (despite the 30 m Mexican flags everywhere). Very few poeple know that Mexico has a set of multinational companies (BIMBO) and knows how to do make money out of tourists without emptying their pockets. They host the richest man in the world, a libanesse mexican who really got it right with business.

Socially and politically, the country lacks a middle class willing to substitute current political elites. This makes the political system a sort of unsuccessful mechansism to portray social demands. Unfortunately, policy is somewhat similar irrespectively of who runs the country, there is clear-cut evidence of "path dependency" and "inertia". PAN seems no different that PRI in most of the relevant fronts.

The country needs to strenghten the public eduction system (not only that for the elites), pay better to middle managers so as to develop a middle class that will set up a socialdemocrat party different form the PRD (whose ideiology seems outdated), and keep being innovative, do not copy the US, and stop drinking coke, it will make the country fat, and will bring serious health problems later on (chronic illnesses).

For Catalans, Mexico is the foreign country in Latinamerica with the stronguest emotional ties, and for us personally, it it clearly is like that. We have had a phantastic time with our friends Dario&Maria, Issa &Kengi as well as Edu . We got to know more things about the country, and really tried all the food we wished including insects, different types of tecquila, beers and nopales along with a set of of traditional dishes. Visited museums, etc. It has been great fun indeed. We will come back for sure!!

Some anecdotes worth mentioning were the following. Below you can see a photograph of a police car breaking the law by overtaking other cars despite the clear countinuous line in pavement. We found lots of wierd trafic signals announcing to "respect trafic signals" (but one wonders, people that do not respect them,would not repect this one either!?), and finally we saw funny adverts in old shops that went like that: "quality and hygine since 1995", so that one wonders : ¿how was the shop before 1995 ?.

Mexico, Mexico lindo (I)