Monday, February 27, 2006
Broke, Nerdy, Rejected, but Happy
This week—Mexico’s flag day, ugly school suits, and an action-packed weekend in Guadalajara and at Lake Chapala.
Día de la bandera:
The first day the primary school teachers are required to wear their new suits. Polyester maroon jacket and trouser affair with a sheer floral blouse. Pant legs almost tapered; high waist with pleats. Zipper kept falling down during the ceremony in el parque. Jacket with very large shoulder pads, sewed under the lining to prevent easy removal.
Thursday after evening classes, the night before Día de la bandera, I ran to a seamstress for alterations. The pants, hideous as they already were, were also too large. Had them hemmed and the baggy ’80s-style hips taken in.
The ceremony lasted an hour late Friday morning, with all the educational institutions represented by their flag crews. It was unbearably hot for everyone—the students in their uniforms and jackets, the primary school teachers in their awful maroon suits. Some of the students in the band nearby nearly collapsed from the sun and heat. I did learn a lot about the flags previously used in Mexico, because one school made a presentation and paraded all the flags.
Normally I don’t salute the Mexican flag during our school flag ceremony every Monday morning, because obviously I’m not Mexican, but this day it seemed inappropriate not to. So I recited along the flag creed what I could understand, and sang along to the national anthem some of the words at the end of each line that I knew, like “tierra” and “cañon.” There’s also the “ooo” near the end that I can do, too.
Perhaps it’s strange that I do these things, salute the Mexican flag, cross myself in church, but I see it as being polite and respectful.
Lago de Chapala:
Julia’s second cousins once-removed (or something like that) are in the lake town of Ajijic for vacation, staying at a friend’s beautiful house. We were invited for the weekend.
Ajijic is quite interesting—a small, cobble-stoned town populated heavily by American retirees. Getting there was rather more of an ordeal than we’d expected, what with our bus from the new bus station to the old bus station in Guadalajara breaking down, then missing our stop at Ajijic since we didn’t realize there wasn’t a bus station in the town. For dinner we were invited to the home of Julia’s cousins’ friends, Jack and Concha. At first, I felt awkward and found the couple strange—Jack was thirty years Concha’s senior, an American who bossed his younger Mexican wife around quite a bit. Later we realized Jack had a very dry sense of humor and was actually pretty hilarious. He entertained us with incredible stories about bizarre people in Ajijic. He has been living there for about thirty years, and he and his wife have known practically everyone who has ever lived in the town.
We learned about the American lesbian bikers, Donna and Lois. After their breakup, Donna went around with many wealthy women in Ajijic, often obtaining their money and property after their deaths. Some of these wealthy women were married, which proved to be a problem for Donna, when one night the husband of her then lover slit her throat.
The next day, Julia’s cousins, Corbett and Peggy, took us around the town and surrounding towns for a look. The lake is quite nice, but of course it must have been much nicer before it became polluted and then taken over by water hyacinths. Corbett and Peggy were lovely. I like that they travel a lot and socialize and spend all day drinking beers and talking to people.
We wanted to stay to attend carnival celebrations in the town of Chapala, which looked full of live bands and banda dancing and charreadas, but we had a party to attend in Guadalajara that evening.
Saturday out on the town:
Gizelle, a former ITTO classmate, had a party at her house for ITTO-related people. It was nice to see many of my former classmates again, but I think it might have been rather boring for Julia. When the karaoke started, we decided to leave. Though Julia and I have been known to enjoy karaoke very much (from our many adventures in Taipei), we are not really the type to enjoy others singing to the Beatles and Queen, so we left to go salsa dancing at a club Julia found.
Once there, we waited impatiently for this weird dance show to end so that the band could start playing and we could dance. We met two other women, who had been in line in front of us, and talked with them while we waited for the show to end. Maria Theresa is from Guadalajara but lives in San Diego and was on vacation. Her friend, also named Maria, wanted to practice English with us. Realizing that there weren’t many men in the crowd, and even fewer who knew how to dance salsa, the four of us women went out on the dance floor to dance ourselves. The band was pretty good, and it was fun, but there is only so much salsa-alone dancing we could do, so we decided to meet Julia’s Mexican homestay roommates at a bar across the street.
We didn’t make it to the bar because Ricardo and Carlos and their friends were already in their car ready to leave for a club called “Nuts.” They said they had passes, and that we should meet them there in twenty minutes. Maria had a car, so we went to find the club. It was difficult to find, with crazy construction on a main road putting us on detours. When we finally got there, Julia’s roommates still hadn’t arrived. We waited in the stupid crowd gathered by the entry to get in.
Some clubs in Guadalajara do this stupid selection process at the door, making people wait outside for a while, perhaps to make the place look more popular and crowded. One club I’d been to before in Guadalajara let cute girls in first, especially if the female-male ratio of their group was high. At that club, we had waited quite a while to get in, since our group consisted of mainly nerdy American guys, but we had gotten in eventually, with the help of the most pretty women in our group. This time, however, we stood there waiting for 40 minutes to an hour—we were the only ones the bouncers didn’t let in. It was very insulting. We ended up leaving, Maria Theresa telling them some very impolite things in Spanish, because we’d waited more than long enough and because Julia’s roommates were still lost and hadn’t arrived.
Julia and I have discussed at length the possible reasons for our not being let in, still with very little understanding of what we could possibly have done wrong or how we could have been wrong. Too old? The clientele at the place were of course all young. Too ugly? One only has to watch my favorite Mexican telenovela, “La fea más bella,” to see the consequences of being nerdy and unattractive—and though I don’t believe myself to be unattractive, I do understand that I am extremely nerdy-looking here, especially as I was the only person around (besides the stupid bouncer) wearing glasses. I do not mean to imply, of course, that Julia or the Marias were nerdy and unattractive, because they definitely were not, but as we all know, one bad apple can ruin a whole bushel….
Being too old and too nerdy (I won’t use the word ugly) may have contributed to our not being let in, but more likely they just didn’t like our attitude. Julia and I kept cracking jokes and laughing at the whole process, which I believe they took as a direct insult (and it was). All four of us refused to beg like some of the younger blond girls were doing (“Oh, let us in, por favor!”). The Marias kept talking to the bouncer and his boss and then complaining loudly about the power trip they were on. Julia and I continued to laugh and wouldn’t even deign to ask for their permission to enter.
And perhaps this attitude tied in with the fact that Julia and I were gringas made us even more unbearable—arrogant Americans who laughed derisively and simply expected to be let in without even asking.
On top of all this, I was the only Asian person around. Perhaps this had nothing to do with our not being let in, but it occurs to me that nerdy Chinese girls aren’t exactly staples in exclusive clubs here.
It sounds like we were upset by this rejection, but Julia and I were rather amused by the whole thing. The Marias were incensed, however, and I feel bad because we were the ones at fault.
We went out for tacos al pastor. They were incredibly delicious. Then Julia and I took a cab to her homestay and went to bed. It was about 4:30 by that time.
In the morning, we discovered that Julia’s roommates had arrived at Nuts right after we’d left, and that they had gotten in after five minutes, because one of their friends was Miss Vallarta and knew one of the bouncers.
Rebaño Sagrado:
Sunday, we sleep in as well as we can. Poor Julia feels stomach-sick, perhaps a culmination of something brewing all week. We go to the center of town to eat breakfast (though it’s around 2:30 by the time we get to the restaurant) at El Fenix, the outdoor place by the church Expiatorio. We stop by Vilasanta to check the monthly rates, because Julia is thinking about moving out of her lame homestay. The construction on the new second-floor rooms is almost done, and they look great. We spend a good deal of time chatting at El Fenix, until it’s time to go to a bar for the Chivas-America game.
This game is known as the clasico, I think because the America club (one of Mexico City’s teams?) is a big rival of Guadalajara’s official club (las Chivas). We went to a cool bar downtown called the Monastery or something like that, where we thoroughly enjoyed watching the Chivas beat America 1-0. Arriba las Chivas!
Maybe we are posers, as gringas cheering for las Chivas, but I don’t think we really care all that much.
Arandas:
Now I’m back home, happy to see the neon green crosses on the templo, happy to be in Arandas, happy to be in my own place again. I hear it’s rainy in Guadalajara. It’s windy and chilly here, like a storm is coming. Maybe tomorrow we will continue to have exciting and strange weather.
Día de la bandera:
The first day the primary school teachers are required to wear their new suits. Polyester maroon jacket and trouser affair with a sheer floral blouse. Pant legs almost tapered; high waist with pleats. Zipper kept falling down during the ceremony in el parque. Jacket with very large shoulder pads, sewed under the lining to prevent easy removal.
Thursday after evening classes, the night before Día de la bandera, I ran to a seamstress for alterations. The pants, hideous as they already were, were also too large. Had them hemmed and the baggy ’80s-style hips taken in.
The ceremony lasted an hour late Friday morning, with all the educational institutions represented by their flag crews. It was unbearably hot for everyone—the students in their uniforms and jackets, the primary school teachers in their awful maroon suits. Some of the students in the band nearby nearly collapsed from the sun and heat. I did learn a lot about the flags previously used in Mexico, because one school made a presentation and paraded all the flags.
Normally I don’t salute the Mexican flag during our school flag ceremony every Monday morning, because obviously I’m not Mexican, but this day it seemed inappropriate not to. So I recited along the flag creed what I could understand, and sang along to the national anthem some of the words at the end of each line that I knew, like “tierra” and “cañon.” There’s also the “ooo” near the end that I can do, too.
Perhaps it’s strange that I do these things, salute the Mexican flag, cross myself in church, but I see it as being polite and respectful.
Lago de Chapala:
Julia’s second cousins once-removed (or something like that) are in the lake town of Ajijic for vacation, staying at a friend’s beautiful house. We were invited for the weekend.
Ajijic is quite interesting—a small, cobble-stoned town populated heavily by American retirees. Getting there was rather more of an ordeal than we’d expected, what with our bus from the new bus station to the old bus station in Guadalajara breaking down, then missing our stop at Ajijic since we didn’t realize there wasn’t a bus station in the town. For dinner we were invited to the home of Julia’s cousins’ friends, Jack and Concha. At first, I felt awkward and found the couple strange—Jack was thirty years Concha’s senior, an American who bossed his younger Mexican wife around quite a bit. Later we realized Jack had a very dry sense of humor and was actually pretty hilarious. He entertained us with incredible stories about bizarre people in Ajijic. He has been living there for about thirty years, and he and his wife have known practically everyone who has ever lived in the town.
We learned about the American lesbian bikers, Donna and Lois. After their breakup, Donna went around with many wealthy women in Ajijic, often obtaining their money and property after their deaths. Some of these wealthy women were married, which proved to be a problem for Donna, when one night the husband of her then lover slit her throat.
The next day, Julia’s cousins, Corbett and Peggy, took us around the town and surrounding towns for a look. The lake is quite nice, but of course it must have been much nicer before it became polluted and then taken over by water hyacinths. Corbett and Peggy were lovely. I like that they travel a lot and socialize and spend all day drinking beers and talking to people.
We wanted to stay to attend carnival celebrations in the town of Chapala, which looked full of live bands and banda dancing and charreadas, but we had a party to attend in Guadalajara that evening.
Saturday out on the town:
Gizelle, a former ITTO classmate, had a party at her house for ITTO-related people. It was nice to see many of my former classmates again, but I think it might have been rather boring for Julia. When the karaoke started, we decided to leave. Though Julia and I have been known to enjoy karaoke very much (from our many adventures in Taipei), we are not really the type to enjoy others singing to the Beatles and Queen, so we left to go salsa dancing at a club Julia found.
Once there, we waited impatiently for this weird dance show to end so that the band could start playing and we could dance. We met two other women, who had been in line in front of us, and talked with them while we waited for the show to end. Maria Theresa is from Guadalajara but lives in San Diego and was on vacation. Her friend, also named Maria, wanted to practice English with us. Realizing that there weren’t many men in the crowd, and even fewer who knew how to dance salsa, the four of us women went out on the dance floor to dance ourselves. The band was pretty good, and it was fun, but there is only so much salsa-alone dancing we could do, so we decided to meet Julia’s Mexican homestay roommates at a bar across the street.
We didn’t make it to the bar because Ricardo and Carlos and their friends were already in their car ready to leave for a club called “Nuts.” They said they had passes, and that we should meet them there in twenty minutes. Maria had a car, so we went to find the club. It was difficult to find, with crazy construction on a main road putting us on detours. When we finally got there, Julia’s roommates still hadn’t arrived. We waited in the stupid crowd gathered by the entry to get in.
Some clubs in Guadalajara do this stupid selection process at the door, making people wait outside for a while, perhaps to make the place look more popular and crowded. One club I’d been to before in Guadalajara let cute girls in first, especially if the female-male ratio of their group was high. At that club, we had waited quite a while to get in, since our group consisted of mainly nerdy American guys, but we had gotten in eventually, with the help of the most pretty women in our group. This time, however, we stood there waiting for 40 minutes to an hour—we were the only ones the bouncers didn’t let in. It was very insulting. We ended up leaving, Maria Theresa telling them some very impolite things in Spanish, because we’d waited more than long enough and because Julia’s roommates were still lost and hadn’t arrived.
Julia and I have discussed at length the possible reasons for our not being let in, still with very little understanding of what we could possibly have done wrong or how we could have been wrong. Too old? The clientele at the place were of course all young. Too ugly? One only has to watch my favorite Mexican telenovela, “La fea más bella,” to see the consequences of being nerdy and unattractive—and though I don’t believe myself to be unattractive, I do understand that I am extremely nerdy-looking here, especially as I was the only person around (besides the stupid bouncer) wearing glasses. I do not mean to imply, of course, that Julia or the Marias were nerdy and unattractive, because they definitely were not, but as we all know, one bad apple can ruin a whole bushel….
Being too old and too nerdy (I won’t use the word ugly) may have contributed to our not being let in, but more likely they just didn’t like our attitude. Julia and I kept cracking jokes and laughing at the whole process, which I believe they took as a direct insult (and it was). All four of us refused to beg like some of the younger blond girls were doing (“Oh, let us in, por favor!”). The Marias kept talking to the bouncer and his boss and then complaining loudly about the power trip they were on. Julia and I continued to laugh and wouldn’t even deign to ask for their permission to enter.
And perhaps this attitude tied in with the fact that Julia and I were gringas made us even more unbearable—arrogant Americans who laughed derisively and simply expected to be let in without even asking.
On top of all this, I was the only Asian person around. Perhaps this had nothing to do with our not being let in, but it occurs to me that nerdy Chinese girls aren’t exactly staples in exclusive clubs here.
It sounds like we were upset by this rejection, but Julia and I were rather amused by the whole thing. The Marias were incensed, however, and I feel bad because we were the ones at fault.
We went out for tacos al pastor. They were incredibly delicious. Then Julia and I took a cab to her homestay and went to bed. It was about 4:30 by that time.
In the morning, we discovered that Julia’s roommates had arrived at Nuts right after we’d left, and that they had gotten in after five minutes, because one of their friends was Miss Vallarta and knew one of the bouncers.
Rebaño Sagrado:
Sunday, we sleep in as well as we can. Poor Julia feels stomach-sick, perhaps a culmination of something brewing all week. We go to the center of town to eat breakfast (though it’s around 2:30 by the time we get to the restaurant) at El Fenix, the outdoor place by the church Expiatorio. We stop by Vilasanta to check the monthly rates, because Julia is thinking about moving out of her lame homestay. The construction on the new second-floor rooms is almost done, and they look great. We spend a good deal of time chatting at El Fenix, until it’s time to go to a bar for the Chivas-America game.
This game is known as the clasico, I think because the America club (one of Mexico City’s teams?) is a big rival of Guadalajara’s official club (las Chivas). We went to a cool bar downtown called the Monastery or something like that, where we thoroughly enjoyed watching the Chivas beat America 1-0. Arriba las Chivas!
Maybe we are posers, as gringas cheering for las Chivas, but I don’t think we really care all that much.
Arandas:
Now I’m back home, happy to see the neon green crosses on the templo, happy to be in Arandas, happy to be in my own place again. I hear it’s rainy in Guadalajara. It’s windy and chilly here, like a storm is coming. Maybe tomorrow we will continue to have exciting and strange weather.
