#351 – Cultural Nuances, Language Confusions, and Daily Life in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:14] Hello there all you expat wannabes, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America. The show that tells you just what it's like to live, work, play and or retire down here in Latin America. It's a mix of the good, the bad, the ugly and the great and it's all right here so let's get started. Now I just want to remind you guys and gals out there, and probably not gals but guys will get what I'm talking about. The thing is, although Spanish speakers have picked up a lot of our simple gringo greetings and phrases, some of our common phrases they'll never use because they conflict with words in their own language. But there are a handful of our phrases you'll hear them use all the time and you'll wonder just how that happened. Especially when you're way off the gringo tourist trail, you'll think, how'd they pick that

[01:00] up? Like for example, hello and okay and how are you? You'll hear Spanish speakers occasionally use those words and phrases on and off the tourist trail. And they've picked up some of our simple slang and insults too. However, there are some very commonly used English terms that Spanish speakers will never pick up on or use because they not only conflict with words they already know in Spanish but they have a completely different meaning too. Anyway you gringo guys out there, especially the ones from big cities. If you're still using that tried and true age old insult, yo mama or anything with yo in front of it, just know that when you come down here to Latin America, yo isn't slang for your at all, nor is it slang for hey you. Like you might hear a blue collar guy in Chicago say, yo don't touch the car, you're

[01:46] born in a barn or something. And by the way, I've had Latins here and there ask me what it means when people say to each other in the movies, yo mama, I'm not kidding ya because you know, Latins do read the subtitles because they love Hollywood movies. But they also try to listen in to catch words and phrases that somehow should match the translation. Now unfortunately, like I said in a past show a long time ago, the translations are almost never perfect and sometimes they're way way off. Even the movie titles just completely baffle you sometimes. Often a literal translation would be perfect but they just don't go there and don't ask me why. Anyway, being off the tourist trail like I almost always am, local Latin folks often ask me about words they hear on TV that are wrongly translated into Spanish and

[02:35] they know it. Like for example, when someone says yo mama, the translation on the bottom of the screen will usually be something like disgraciato which means you're a disgrace or simply disgraceful. It's a kind way of telling a person he's a jerk or a creep, hardly fighting words I might add. Or they might use the word maldicion which sort of translates into damn or damnation. Also, you have to admit pretty lame and pretty tame. But that's what you get when you get bad translators on a Hollywood film and they're usually universally bad and they nearly always do the work in Mexico City. Now at the very end of a film that's translated or subtitled, you'll see who did it. Guilty parties that is that screwed up the movie for the Spanish audience.

[03:20] Though they hardly know how much they really screwed it up. Latins who do not know English have no other choice so they accept it and think that's the way it's coming out of Hollywood. Boy are they missing the boat on that one. I mean come on, imagine watching a classic movie like The Godfather and Marlon Brando's part sounds like it's been dubbed over by an opera singer. But the worst cinematic experience of all is when you have to sit through a movie like The Lion King or Shrek or any of those Pixar animated jobs. When those things are translated or subtitled, the original effect intent and flavor is truly gone. To us, gringos and expats that is. To Latins, they just love those films and don't have any idea how much better they are in English. So believe me, if you really wanna torture yourself,

[04:06] accept an invitation from someone to go to the cinema and see an animated film in Spanish. I'm talking about dubbed Spanish, no subtitles. Bring a six pack, you'll need it. And another weird thing involving movies is the use of the so called N word. Now as you know, in American movies, you hear it all the time. So you might wonder, how is it translated when it's dubbed or subtitled? Well, it's always just translated to the word Negro, pronounced Negro in Spanish. Meaning simply the color black or a black person. Why? Because in Spanish, there's no derogatory N word translation. Black is Negro and the N word is Negro. So, for example, a black hole is a Hueco Negro and a black car is a Godo Negro.

[04:53] Oh, and by the way, that word Hueco means hole, black hole. As in Hueco Negro, but you don't wanna go calling a person a Hueco, which is derogatory Spanish slang for gay. What I'm saying is you as a gringo or expat do not want to use the term Hueco for gays, although you'll hear it all the time down here. You hear it being spoken in all social classes and by women and men alike. Even teenagers and children. It is derogatory, but Latins don't care. I mean, think about that word itself. Hueco, it means hole. And just to set you straight. You never hear this stuff anywhere else except on the expat files, right? It's part of life down here and I'm getting you ready for it. So hang on. I guarantee they never talk about this kind of stuff at those international living seminars.

[05:43] But it's stuff you really have to know if you're gonna come down here to live or stay for any long period of time. So when you're down here, every time you hear that N word, whether it's some white guy using it as an insult, or a few black guys throwing it back and forth in conversation, Spanish speakers down here never get the difference. They do not see the nuances because any way it's used, it always comes out the same to them. Negro, simply meaning black, like the color black. That in itself should give you an idea of how much content and nuance you lose when you see a movie in Spanish or one that's subtitled. But that's the way it is. And why even gringos like me who have pretty good command of Spanish, still have one hell of a time listening to any movie that's originally in English that's translated.

[06:29] Most of us just wince. We want to leave, we just can't stomach it. Especially, especially, especially if you've seen that movie before in its original English form. Now, you know there are a lot of very good classic movies that you might have seen some years back and if and when they show up on TV some years later, you might have liked them so much the first time around you watch them again. You know, the late, late show and all that. Now, since down here in Latin America, they show so many hundreds and hundreds of these older English language movies now translated and subtitled. That means oftentimes when you're at someone's house or you flip the channels at night, you see for example, there's a movie that's pretty good on TV. Let's take for example, the English patient or the born identity.

[07:16] They start out pretty good the first three minutes until the dialogue starts. And then because you've seen the movie before in English, you say, oh, hell, I can't do it. This is not entertainment. Even if you understand it completely like some of us do down here. Forget about it. It'll only frustrate and disappoint the hell out of you. Unless, of course, the movie's running in the background and you're not paying attention or you have very low standards. And if you do, you wouldn't be down here. But I digress again. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I was talking about yo mama. So if you do say yo mama, you're actually saying not your mama, but something more like I mama. That's the letter I, as we refer to I or me.

[08:02] And that's the Spanish translation of the word yo, which they use all the time down here. And because they use it all the time, that creates confusion. That's why occasionally native Spanish speakers will ask me funny questions like this. Yo, Johnny. No, they won't say that. They'll say, hola, Johnny. What's it mean when that guy says yo mama to Vin Diesel and Fast and Furious 2? Now, even though I never saw that tasteless movie, I can still answer the question. In this case, a pure Spanish speaker would think you were telling him or her that you were a mama. Or in fact, the guy speaking to Vin Diesel was admitting that he was a mama. And that's not slang for hot mama either. That's just regular old mama. So if down here you said yo mama,

[08:51] Latins would think you were saying that you were a mama, which would work perfectly fine if you were a female saying that. But if you're a guy saying that, well, it just doesn't make sense. Spanish speakers will pick up on the yo, which is I, and the mama part, which is pretty much the same as mama, which is the same word only accented differently when it's in Spanish. In any event, when you put the word yo, y-o, in front of any word, it simply means I. And if you just say yo as a greeting, like many Gringos do, that doesn't quite compute with Spanish speakers either. To them, you're yelling out the word I or me. So when you're down here in Latin America and you see someone across the street that you know, and it's not a gringo, if you yell out yo, you probably won't get his or her attention. So if you're in that situation and your friend or acquaintance is across the street

[09:39] and he is a native Spanish speaker, how do you get his attention? Well, if you're really bad with names like I am, you can just wave your hand and yell out Ola, H-O-L-A, which means hi. It's the universal casual Spanish greeting, Ola, H-O-L-A. And the H is silent. But get this, a wise old Latin guy once told me years ago they never said the word Ola as a greeting, not when he was young anyway. And down here right now, Latin old timers do not use that word Ola very much at all either. And the guy was about 90 years old when he told me that, at least he looked 90. He said greetings were always more polite, like buenas días, buenas tardes, buenas noches. And that it only came into being because the word Ola,

[10:28] that's O-L-A, which is the last three letters of the word Ola, H-O-L-A. The two words Ola and H-O-L-A being pronounced exactly the same. Anyway, the word Ola, O-L-A, means wave in Spanish, like ocean waves or a wave of the hand. So you gotta love how quickly language changes and how literally the Spanish word for wave, Ola, became Ola with a silent H in front of it. So as it turns out, since gringos often wave at each other when they say hi, south of the border here, the word wave in Spanish, Ola, became an actual informal greeting. And rumor has it that that happened just because gringos wave at each other when they greet, which in fact is something that Latin society

[11:15] never did quite take hold of. The fact is you almost never see Latin people waving at each other, except when a group of small kids are together. I guess it's because they're just a little bit more formal and reserved and polite. In fact, if you do happen to wave at a Latin person, you know, they will attempt to wave back, but it'll always be half the size of your wave. And I've also noticed that they'll look from side to side rather quickly to see if anybody's looking. Adults, anyway, seem to be a little embarrassed by it. So if you transposed this situation to Cleveland and someone walked up to you and instead of using the English hello or hi, use this Spanish greeting, Ola. It would be as if he greeted you by saying wave, W-A-V-E, which is the same as Ola in Spanish.

[12:03] And he might even attempt a small, slightly self-conscious wave. How's that? Confused yet? Well, it won't be when you get down here. It's really pretty simple. In fact, it's always Spanish-speaking people who tell me how tough it is to master English. And I'd have to agree with that. In fact, I know dozens of educated Latin people who took years of English and their English is just never perfect, unless they've lived up in the States a while or went to school up there. And in that case, some of them learned to speak it with 100% fluency, but still, unless they lived up in the States for 10 years or so, they can almost never write a perfect English letter or email. But then again, most Americans under 35, living States side, can't do it either. However, I know a lot of long-term expats down here

[12:51] who've learned their Spanish so perfectly. Yes, they still have a gringo accent, but they can write a flawless business letter or email in Spanish. At least, that's what I've been told by others. I really couldn't tell myself because my own Spanish writing skills are about fourth grade, if that. So the corollary to this little discussion here is the fact that English words are creeping into the Spanish language like crazy. And we can note the fact that Spanish old timers don't like that fact one bit. They view it as a kind of deterioration of manners and politeness. But then again, a gringo might counter that argument by saying, well, hell, look at the Taco Bell menu. My grandparents' generation never knew what a super free holy jalapeno taco salad was either.

[13:37] But North Americans sure know what that stuff is now. Gracias a Taco Bell. Yep, down here they have thousands of Taco Bells, but it's not Taco Bell, it's Taco Bell. That's how it's said with a genuine Spanish accent. How they say it down here. And now, while I'm talking about Latin American food or pseudo Latin American food, I like to talk about one of the most basic foods of all down here, the tortilla. Now, it's been a staple down here for thousands of years, ever since the corn god came down from the sky and gave him that multi-purpose magical fruit or vegetable, whatever. And yes, nearly every Latin American family, rich or poor, has them on the dinner table a couple of times a day. And note that when you're in a restaurant down here,

[14:23] no matter what you order, you get a little plate of tortillas. Unless, of course, you had a first world fast food joint like Pizza Hut or Burger King, then forget the tortillas. You've gotta bring your own and some people actually do. And that, believe it or not, has caused some first world fast food franchises down here to offer tortillas on the menu as a side dish. Some of these franchises will bend and break the rules when they can sell some more product, you know? Though that might be okay for down here in Latin America. I can guarantee ya. You'll never see tortillas as a side dish menu item at the Colonel's Place up in Cleveland. So you might ask, why am I talking about a boring subject like tortillas? Well, what I'm gonna say right now about them is not gonna bore ya.

[15:09] First of all, let me say that if it wasn't for tortillas, there would be no indigenous race down here because that was and is their number one source of calcium. Not milk or dairy products like everyone might think. Nope, they didn't have cows or cow's milk down here until the conquistadors came. In fact, it was the Spanish who named them tortillas in the first place. And they saw the indigenous people were eating them and staying healthy, so they began adapting to them themselves. What most people don't know is that traditional tortillas are made out of corn, and get this, calcium oxide or calcium carbonate powder, what we call lime. In fact, they use the very same product down here from the same bag to make mortar and cement and plaster.

[15:55] There's no difference, you order a bag of cow, that's what they call it down here, the white powder of lime, cow, C-A-O. Short hand for calcium carbonate. You eat it and you build with it. Thus, tortillas are loaded with available calcium. And when you see these little indigenous ladies making them like patty cakes in those neighborhood hole in the wall, tortillas. That's tortillas. Try saying that one after a few margaritas. So anyway, there were three food staples for all the indigenous folks here way before they built the pyramids. They were rice and beans, frijoles, and corn tortillas. And we're talking about heavy, thick corn tortillas. They still don't make them like that down here. Not those thin ass wheat wonder bread tortillas

[16:43] you get up in the supermarkets in the States. Though I have to admit that times they are a changin' because the big supermarkets down here like Walmart, Costco, and the other local chains carry all the usual disgusting first world processed stuff too. Which means, yes, you can get those Americanized wheat wonder bread tortillas as well. Paper thin ones you could see right through. You know, the ones that have so many preservatives and additives in them that they have a shelf life of about three years. Yep, you folks in Jersey and Cleveland know them well because you can get them at your favorite local corner, Taco Bell. In fact, most first world people think that's what a tortilla is, but it ain't. So while you guys and gals up north get your thin wheat processed ones, down here in Latin America,

[17:29] the locals get their thick, heavy corn tortillas from any one of a number of neighborhood tortillas. Come on, try it yourself. Peter Piper picked the back of tortillas from a tortilla, and go. Time's up, you lose. Anyway, like I said, the basic staple foods for the middle class and the poor folks down here are rice, beans, and heavy, thick, grainy, coarse corn tortillas. Those tortillas are loaded with lime. That is calcium and calcium carbonate. Now, when you're down here, you'll notice at these little tortilla stands they'll have a sign that says tres tiempos el día, which means we have them three times a day. You know, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

[18:16] And when off the Gringo tourist trail, you can usually get four or five heavy, thick tortillas like that for about 10 cents. And when you're on the Gringo tourist trail, I don't know, but I've heard they're double or triple that. Which, by the way, is the same thing for coconut water. You can get it all over the place down here, but it's twice to three times as much when you're on the Gringo tourist trail. And as you well know, coconut oil's all the fashion now up in the States. And for good reason, except up there, you get it pasteurized usually, which, hmm, why? It comes out of a big sterile seed. Anyway, coconut water is known to have all the electrolytes and minerals that you need if you're dehydrated. It really is 100% better than that sugary crap Gatorade

[19:02] and Gatorade substitutes. And down here, off the Gringo tourist trail, you can get a coconut full of this stuff. And a little guy with a machete will whack the top off right there for you so it's absolutely as fresh as you could ever get it. And the cost? 40 to 60 cents for a 12 to 16 ounce volume of this stuff. But on the Gringo tourist trail, like I said, two, three, even four times that. Here's something that'll really blow your mind. I always talk about the lag time effect down here. Did you know that the wealthy 2 to 5% of Latin Americans think it's low class or crass to drink coconut water from coconut vendors on the street? I mean, where else are you gonna get it, right? The fact is, they prefer not to drink coconut water

[19:49] like the sweaty masses do. They're the ones that buy the Gatorade in Costco, et cetera. It's a classist thing again because poor folks drink it. They much prefer to drink the upscale Gringo product, Gatorade, et cetera. It's the cool upscale first world thing to do, you know. After all, all those first world professional sports teams up north are drinking it from a big jug on the sidelines. You know what I mean. Even though we all know that it's sugar water crap and high fructose sugar water at that, yuck. And the rich Latins will figure it out sometime or another, but there's that lag time effect. Same thing with coconut oil. Rich Latins don't use it. It's crass in low class. It's for poor people. Traditionally, it's always been used

[20:34] by the poor folks on the Caribbean side because they could just collect the coconuts off the ground and make up the stuff in a batch in their kitchen instead of buying oil at the grocery store. Little do the incompletely educated rich folks down here know that coconut oil is the most healthy oil of all. All they wanna buy and use is what they see on TV coming from up in the States. Western oil, for example. They're such Gringo wannabes. The fact is it's health conscious Gringos and expats in the know that are using the stuff down here. Coconut oil, that is, not the wealthy Latins. To them, it's too low class. So anyway, like I said, it's the Gringos and expats in the know as well as the sweaty masses that are drinking up all the coconut water here.

[21:20] And as a matter of fact, I just noticed in some of the big grocery stores here in the cooler section, they now have plastic bottles of coconut water for about twice the price of buying a coconut out on the street just a block away. And guess what? It's pasteurized. So who's buying that stuff? Again, I've discovered that it's upscale Latins who just won't stoop to buying raw, fresh coconuts from the coconut vendor on the street. Again, to them, it's low class and crass because that's what the poor people do. What a bunch of pretentious jerks, huh? Okay, enough said about that. Time to change gears a bit. Now, here's where being a Gringo can have its disadvantages. Meaning, some of us have a low boiling point when it comes to bad customer service,

[22:06] which is all over Latin America. And when we spot inefficiencies, which we do all the time, we just can't believe no one's ever figured it out. I know, I know. Why do you think they call it the third world? I get it. Even people working at the same job for decades maybe, they do the same time wasting inefficient things over and over again. And when Gringos like you and I are standing around watching that stuff over and over again, we're thinking, why don't they just change this a little bit or move that? Make the job and life much easier. Why don't they raise that table or lower that shelf or combine those two operations? You know what I mean. But nope, that's the way mom and grandpa and great grandpa did it, so that's the way I'm gonna do it too. Once you've been down here a while,

[22:52] you'll know what I mean. It's part of our Gringo advantage, how quickly we can spot stuff like that and think of ways to correct it, though it's also a disadvantage. Oftentimes, we have to suffer for their inefficiencies. Most often it just means you have to wait around or stand in line for five, 10, 15, 20 minutes or even a half hour longer than you normally necessarily would. Case in point. If, for example, you go to one of these little tortillas, don't worry, you'll get it down sooner or later. Soon enough, you'll notice that when you're in a busier area of town or an area that's got a lot of construction going on and a lot of workers outside, those little tortilla stands will pop up at work sites and the workers will mosey on over before work, at lunchtime and right after work

[23:38] to bring some tortillas home for the family dinner. And if you drive by one of those places, here's what you'll notice. Right around 12 o'clock when everyone gets off for lunch, there'll be a line maybe five or 10 people deep waiting to get their tortillas. And the tortilla ladies, there's usually two or three working in a stand, they're just busting their butts for that hour just to serve that lunchtime overflow and they do the same thing in the morning and around five when the guys quit work and buy their tortillas to go home. So three times a day for an hour at a stretch, those ladies are balls to the wall. Like Expedity says, it's all elbows and bumholes. But you'll also notice that the two hours before those rush periods, the tortilla ladies are just sitting around gabbing

[24:23] and listening to the radio or the luckier ones watching soap operas on TV, if they have a TV. So they sit around for hours doing nothing and then when the rush hour comes, then they bust a move. So why aren't they anticipating a rush and making a stockpile? Who knows, you tell me. And it's not like you have to buy them fresh and hot because they're always hot. If you buy tortillas on one of those off hours, the ladies always have a handful, just a handful, maybe 20 or 30 cents worth under a basket on the stove with a towel over it. By the way, a very dirty towel over it. And that, by the way, is not to keep them warm, it's to keep the flies off of them. So when you get them, they're always smoking hot. And you'll see that happens

[25:09] at every one of these places. They just haven't figured out how to manage their time yet and they never will. Now, I'm not saying this is a gringo business opportunity, though it might be. All I'm saying is that it's the gringo advantage that lets you see those thing and it also frustrates the hell out of you. Now look, there's a thousand other examples like that. And here's another. When you go to pick up your dry cleaning, you just might stand in line for 20 minutes or a half an hour to pick up two bucks worth of dry cleaning. And how about 20 cents worth of tortillas? Is waiting 20 minutes or a half hour in line worth 20 cents to you? What's your time worth anyway? Now I know what you're thinking. Gringos go down to Latin America for a lot of things, but one of them is to relax, get off the treadmill,

[25:55] calm down and lower that blood pressure, right? But come on, we're still first world gringos deep down. And the truth is, up north in Chicago or Cleveland, if you were walking down the street at a decent clip on your way to somewhere and you saw a penny on the ground, would you pick it up? You wouldn't, you'd keep on going. A nickel? Probably not, you'd keep on going. A quarter? Who knows? We all have our minimum bend over and pick up something shiny policy now, don't we? I mean, if you had a bad back, you might not chance picking up five or even 10 bucks. I remember when I was a kid, I'd pick up pennies and nickels all day long, if I could find them. And a penny back then was real copper and could buy a nickel or a dime's worth today. Those were the days when pennies were really copper and nickels were nickel. All I'm saying is that if you're up in the States

[26:42] and can't stop for 10 seconds to pick up a nickel, dime or a quarter, put yourself down here in Latin America where you might have to wait a half an hour to buy 20 cents for the tortillas. So I'm curious, what's your minimum bend over and pick up rule? Or does it depend on where you are and if anyone's looking? Have your own bend over and pick up policy rules changed over the years? Mine have, how about yours? That sounds like the spark of a sociology master's thesis brewing there. Anyhow, you know what I mean. Oops, I'm towards the end of the show right now and we'll continue with that next week. But before we go, I want to remind you of my July Latin American seminar down here in Central America this time. Just go to expatwisdom.com

[27:27] and click on the Latin American seminar link at the top of the page for full details. South of the border, down Mexico way. You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border. Email me, theexpatfiles at gmail.com. And don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on Latin America. See you next time. Nos vemos.