#420 – The Expat Files: Holiday Traditions, Cultural Nuances, and Expat Life in Latin America

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

[00:00] South of the border, down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wander 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 Okay, before I finish the third part of that last expat Eddie story. I was talking about last week I like to mention a few things about Latin America and the holiday seasons since they're right on top of us now and Latin Celebrate hard and heavy like you've never seen before for up to two months before the big event and what makes the holiday season

[00:51] Even more special for Latin Americans is that about 60% of them the ones that work on the books now? That is folks who are registered with the tax system, etc Get an automatic extra month's pay every December. It's called Bono Cathar say catharsi meaning 14th Bono means bonus and why it's named Bono Catharsi bonus 14 is because you see there's 12 Salaries in a year because most people in Latin America get paid monthly So Bono Catharsi is the 14th salary of the year Well, then you might say those Latins are sure bad at math. Wouldn't that be Bono? Tracy for the 13th month. Well, that sounds logical But you'd be wrong because they actually do get paid for that 14th month because you see they also get an extra month's pay on

[01:41] July 15th and that's called their alginaldo another month's bonus pay. That would be month 13th So twice a year they get a free salary meaning your average working-class Latin family about 60% of them anyway because as you will know if you listen to this program about 40% of the Latin population works completely off the books. That's for cash on the street pay no taxes, etc You gotta love it right and of course a lot of gringos and expats follow that same wonderful tradition and For all you lucky guys and gals coming down to my expat wisdom seminar starting January 10th I'll be explaining a lot about that when you get down here, too Now note, I'm not saying that I advocate working off the books, but I'm not saying that I don't Just giving out the information and don't you want to know how so many gringos and expats and locals get away with it

[02:31] Well, you'll find out and by the way We're about two weeks from launch now with my latest expat wisdom seminar So if you can juggle your schedule around and get a week off, you won't want to miss this Just go to www expat wisdom comm click on the seminar link and sign up Anyway back to this business about those extra salaries now You see it's always been a big bone of contention down here with employers because they got to pay that That's the law here in Latin America and you might wonder how did that even come about? How in the hell was government everyone shoved through a free extra months pay in July and a free extra months pay Right before Christmas. Well, don't you know that's how crooked fat ass politicians get elected. They promised crap like that I mean, come on promise that to the masses and you get an instant 60% of the vote now, don't you?

[03:21] Okay, so aside from that free month salary in July they get that big bono Katarsi the 14th month salary on about December 15th a huge reason for the common working man down here to celebrate Don't you think I mean, how would you feel if you were slogging away at Cleveland toxic waste incorporated and some politicians said hey Vote for me and I'll give you an entire extra month salary in December You'd have a hell of a Merry Christmas now, too Wouldn't you but do remember the wage scales down here in Latin America don't compare at all to what they are up in the states Since the average guy down here gets between three to maybe four hundred bucks a month Those extra two bonus months mean much more to the people here than they ever could mean to you up in the states Now even though employers are always griping about those little extras and those free holidays they get paid for to there's a lot of those

[04:11] About twice as many paid holidays in Latin America as there are up in the first world Even so the average cost to keep a common laborer for a full year here in Latin America is generally well under 5,000 bucks. So then what about those extra paid holidays? Like I mentioned twice as many as you have up in the first world How was government able to shove that down the throats of employers? Well easy again It's all about getting elected and all about promising things with someone else's money, of course So the best way to get reelected and keep getting reelected is to promise though working classes all those freebies and taxpayer Giveaways, but you know that already the same thing happens up in the states, right? So just know that down here the holiday season is very very merry

[04:57] I mean whether you celebrate just the holidays in general Christmas New Year's D-Day Hanukkah Boxing Day Whatever for usually around two months Latins are filled with the spirit of parting and filled with the spirit period Now note for all you guys and gals up north you expat gunna bees and wannabes You'll find out that if you come down here to Latin America during this season You'll hear all the usual American Christmas and holiday classic songs and that Generally does come as a pleasant surprise. Although all the lyrics are in Spanish, of course So you'll hear all the religious Christmas songs and the neutral ones like white Christmas, etc And normally us gringles and expats are appreciate that it gets us in the spirit, too However, if you do speak Spanish once you're down here long enough

[05:43] You realize the words to those songs are completely screwed up Believe me if you understand them in Spanish, you'll be very disappointed, too And though this might sound harsh They're usually embarrassingly infantile and often have nothing to do with their original first world English intent The and why not you might ask what's so hard about translating them directly Who knows that said when you finally figure out what they're saying in Spanish It'll kind of screw things up in your head for a while and you'll say man. This is wrong I mean, it's almost as annoying as listening to someone sing out loud when they've got headphones on you know How embarrassingly awful that can be so who screwed up all those classic American song? Translations who knows it's too late now anyway, because this has been going on for decades

[06:33] But you know as expat Eddie says there are probably only two Advantages to not knowing Spanish for us gringles expats and wannabes and gonna bees That is number one if you get pulled over by a cop and you don't know any Spanish You could play the stupid gringo for the next 20 minutes and sometimes get out of it In fact most of the time they'll just give up on you because after all if they're trying to extort a bribe out of you And you've got no idea what they're saying. They're just gonna say I'll get the hell out of here I've seen it happen many times and I actually recommend it for you guys and gals off the gringo tourist trail because I know just How successful that technique can be I used to use it quite a bit myself However, like I mentioned in a past show It won't work at all if you're on the gringo tourist trail in Mexico Costa Rica Panama

[07:18] Etc because the cops know enough English to say just the right words to scare you into paying that bribe So having crappy Spanish is only an advantage to you when you're off the gringo tourist trail and Confronted by cops looking for a bribe and note if you come down here around the holiday season And you don't know any Spanish that could very well be an advantage to you, too I can tell you that Christmas spirit in Latin America will overwhelm you believe me They've got the holiday spirit on steroids you got to love it However, if you do know your Spanish as soon as you start hearing those ever recognizable first world traditional Christmas and holiday songs sung in Spanish, of course chances are you'll be very disappointed Now I'm gonna give you just a little example of that here. Let's take one of the biggest Christmas classics of all jingle bells

[08:06] When did you learn the words to that in first grade? I mean, come on You could probably recite it if you had a lobotomy, right? I think even Bush jr. Knows that one, but I could be wrong Anyway when it starts up with the jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way the music's exactly the same But get this and in this case is why ignorance of Spanish is bliss Now the Spanish version goes like this navi dad navi dad Oh, yes, navi dad and I won't go on because you know the rest is all in Spanish But it's the piss poorest translation you've ever heard now try singing this yourself to the tune of jingle bells Christmas Christmas today is Christmas. You have to celebrate with bells Christmas Christmas just because last night the child of God was born

[08:54] Huh say what said the clueless gringo. That's what you sing during our jingle bells Are you nuts talk about sacrilege? Yep You give lens a shot at any Christmas English song and I'll turn it into a religious manifesto So I'd say in the case of the Spanish version of jingle bells I'll give them a C for effort and an F for creativity, which I guess is only par for the course in Latin America So then you might ask what happened to the frickin one-horse open sleigh Well, there's none of that in their version of it And I suppose it's because there's no snow down here except maybe way up in the Andes and some select ski resorts way down in South America in Argentina and Chile But since about 99% of Latin's have never seen or will they ever see snow or touch it not the real thing anyway

[09:44] There will be no jingle bells and there will be no sleigh and there will be no dashing through the snow So in the end as many long-term gringles and expats will tell you when it comes to the holiday spirit and Christmas songs Etc. All is not lost you can still manage to have a feel-good experience when one of those Christmas songs comes on in Spanish Because you see often our own brains will somehow fill in the correct English words when we hear those songs being played down here I guess it depends on how much rum punch you've had some of us can do that But the ones of us who can't we experience something akin to the first time we heard nirvana's smells like teen Spirit on the music channel at the dentist's office made that writ canal all the more painful than it So know that if your Spanish sucks

[10:31] And you come down here during the holidays you really will enjoy the hell out of it because it's Christmas on steroids down here And before I move on here I just have to mention another huge Christmas favorite of course is Jose Feliciano's Feliz Navidad Of course you remember that one that's on the classic playlist up north to Feliz Navidad Well, you know if you analyze that song the lyrics to our beyond infantile you'd think he'd know better I mean, he's a gringoized Latin really born in Puerto Rico with US citizenship So wait a minute Maybe I'm completely wrong and he was very smart about it and intentionally dumbed it down because Latin America Just never had an original Christmas anthem of its own in Spanish They always like I said copied and badly translated first world holiday songs

[11:21] So then how dumb down and infantile is it? Well think of these words now Feliz Navidad Which means happy Christmas, then he says prospero año felicidades, which means happy prosperous new year Wow, that's groundbreaking, isn't it? And then he repeats over and over again Feliz Navidad Which means Merry Christmas or happy Christmas from the bottom of my heart. That's it There are exactly five friggin Spanish words in the whole song and a whole get this 13 words of English Where is that creativity? Where is it? And you know if you think I'm being a killjoy here I know what you're thinking you and I should be so lucky to make a career out of one kindergarten song like that, right?

[12:07] I know I know he had two hit songs The other one was light my fire, but that was a doors cover to me a lucky break now if you think I'm too picky or too harsh or just being an ass about this take a look at the words to one of The famous first world Christmas songs like white Christmas or let's say silver bells or Rudolph Or it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas or frosty the snowman. I mean, these are real stories clever clever little stories with a lot of terrific little twists in them and how about this classic have yourself a merry little Christmas, you know the one that Judy Garland sang and made famous Tell me the words and the music to that one aren't quite ingenious and there's dozens of examples like that So when it comes to music and creativity in Latin America, all I can think of is oil and water

[12:55] Okay. Okay, all you guys and girls up there thinking that I'm a scrooge or a killjoy Well after mercilessly dissing the Latin American Christmas music scene like that I am prepared to give him one huge compliment Latin Americans are so much happier than first world people and so much more appreciative and overjoyed with gratitude When they receive this smallest little thing for Christmas something that's worth even 50 cents You just have to look at the whole society with a lot of admiration. You really do Yep Like I said on the expat files we bring you the good the bad the ugly and the great and the ugly part today Well, that was me Okay, and now just to show you that I do have a little bit of the holiday spirit myself I'm gonna tell you a Latin American Christmas story a true story that happened to yours truly

[13:42] Let me start out by saying I've been in the Latin American radio business for a long time and for the first half of my radio career in Latin America, I did all my shows in English because my Spanish sucked and Believe it or not off the gringo tourist trail in the big Latin American cities. There are always a tiny few radio programs Specifically in English though almost all the time at least back then the radio disc jockeys were latinists who spoke English and not very well Always with a thick accent so guys like me with some real first world radio experience were pretty rare So those big radio stations here in Latin America that could actually get a real-life gringo like me to do a morning drive-by show Let's say became really quite popular even though 98% of the people especially off the gringo tourist trail

[14:29] Don't speak English at all. So then what kind of listeners that I have Well, I had all the gringo wannabes listening, you know The ones with money whose kids were attending helicopter schools and learning English, etc And then I'd have a lot of listeners that weren't wealthy by any means But just like American style music even if they couldn't understand the words and I had a lot of listeners I know that were Deported illegals from up in the States and they were up there long enough to really miss everything first world like you're somewhat wild and crazy morning and drive-time DJs and I gave them back a little of that and Since my shows were live there was always an opportunity to call in so I had some crazy dialogues going on People often calling in just to practice their bad English on me And of course, I had all the gringo nonprofits and the American embassies and gringo workers stationed in Latin America

[15:20] Listening to my show too because it was a piece of home Now that was a long time ago before the internet and before American cable TV came down here So I pretty much had a very loyal mostly upscale self-selecting audience basically gringos and gringo wannabes Anyway, because my English radio programs were syndicated throughout Latin America and always appealed to a higher-end Latin crowd You know people who were gringo wannabes, of course In fact, it's always been cool for Latins to say that they listened to gringo radio or watched movies in English or listen to English music Even if their English sucked there was non-existent. It was just the cool thing to do and say I mean really Why do you think Latins of all classes have drawers full of t-shirts and sweaters with English slogans letters and sayings on them? Not because they understand what they actually say but because it's cool to wear them man

[16:09] Anyway, because of that I had some high-end first world style sponsors pile on because they figured my listening audience Wasn't the highest economic demographic and it was over the years Some of my longtime sponsors were Harley Davidson Heineken beer Red Bull hooters Honda Toyota Range Rover and some first world hotels, too Anyway, I did mention this is a Latin American Christmas story So here's the Christmas connection and I hope it warms the cockles of your cochlea now I wonder how many of you out there know what the word cockle means for that matter Cocklea a cockle is actually a mollusk or a snail and a cocklea Well, you've actually got to those yourself So look it up which begs the question why would that age-old British expression? Warming the cockles of your heart have anything at all to do with your heart because your cochlea are nowhere near it

[17:00] Yep, the plural of cochlea is cochlea. And of course, I digress as usual Anyway a month or two before Christmas time when the holiday spirit starts gearing up all the sponsors of Latin American radio Stations start giving away things like free dinners health club memberships beauty salon treatments hotel packages, etc Not to mention gift certificates free booze turkeys car rentals You name it the radio sponsors give it away at Christmas or more precisely guys like me on the radio Give it away to listeners at Christmas. The fact is around Christmas time I'd get so much junk to give away and a lot of it wasn't junk believe me I'd get a pretty good supply of freebies myself Not to mention since Heineken was one of my sponsors for a long long time

[17:46] Seems like every single place I'd go suddenly the bottles of Heineken beer would just keep coming One after another even though I didn't drink but I never let on you know It's like going to a party where they're passing joints If you don't partake you just kind of do a Clinton and fake it Anyway being the gringo morning radio guy and sometimes afternoon radio guy in the months leading up to Christmas I had all kinds of freebies to give away to my listeners Usually I'd give them some kind of a quiz or whatever and they'd tell me the answer and win or not Because my intent was to stump them I'd have all first world questions lined up of course and many many times I'd have prizes left over from previous days that no one win And I'd have a half dozen to give away the next day and you know that worked just fine

[18:34] I stumped them all the time until the internet came along then they could just look it up, right? So I had to get more and more creative about it myself Anyway one day about two months before Christmas. I think it was 2002 or 2003 There was a big meeting at the radio station Concerning a new sponsor that wanted to jump on my program right before Christmas He was a well-known plastic surgeon who wanted to give away a very unusual Christmas gift a free boob job to one lucky listener Now you might think I'm pulling your leg on this one, but it's absolutely true There was a high-end meeting all the big wigs were there and this plastic surgeon who wanted to get more business He just built a brand new clinic Turns out at the time back then he knew he was the only one in Latin America to ever propose such a thing

[19:22] Anyway, we had a number of meetings to work out the details and we had it all set to go So I started giving little hints on the radio show every morning saying how this was going to be the most Unusual Christmas giveaway in perhaps all of Latin American radio history So then how are we gonna choose the winner? Well ladies were to send in a little original Christmas poem and of course people at the radio station would be judging that Now as we got down to the wire and we were gonna fully announce this thing in a big way on the radio station There were other meetings with the publicity people etc. And believe it or not I was pulled aside privately and told by management that the best poem wouldn't win They had to make sure the so-called right woman won And in other words, it couldn't be anyone from the lower end of society

[20:12] I mean really suppose for example a recently deported lower middle-class lady won the prize a lady now living with her driveway chickens in a cold water tin roof shack Which is how 25% or more of Latin Americans live by the way now that was not the plan Definitely not the listening demographic the radio station and the marketing department wanted to portray to the world They wanted a higher class of woman to win that I was told would be much better for everyone all around So of course right then and there that proved to me once again for the thousandth time that things were rigged in Latin America Pretty much all contests are rigged. You name the contest or the giveaway and someone's pulling the strings behind the scenes

[20:57] Whether it's TV washing machine or car raffles. They're rigged even believe it or not beauty contests In fact, I've seen it firsthand myself. Just recently a beautiful Latin American girl I know was selected to enter such a contest and the beautiful young daughter of an expat gringo friend of mine married to a Latin Girl was selected for another such contest and I saw how crooked that was too It turns out both of these young ladies were approached by the organizers of their respective events And these young ladies were told that if they came up with a certain amount of cash money I think it was the order of like 500 to a thousand bucks. They'd automatically move up to the top of the heap They were guaranteed to get in the first cut of the runners-up. So that's how things work down here in Latin America

[21:46] And I suppose they work like that in almost every beauty pageant throughout the world But anyway, I'm sure you're wondering what happened with that boob job contest on my radio program Well preliminarily it was announced but it never really saw the light of day every time we had a meeting with the plastic surgeon Or the station owners or the marketing people more questions came up and there were little battles going on behind the scenes And in the end the reason they gave for dropping the spot and believe me that doesn't come easy because they want every Advertiser they can get in a radio station. Well, anyway, the reason why they dropped the spot they said Officially was because once a girl won and had the operation. What if after that there were complications? What if something went wrong? Then of course the radio station would take up really bad publicity hit for that

[22:35] Now of course the doctor countered that by saying that no matter who wins that person would have to sign the release forms Etc and that the winner would get first-class first-world style treatment all the way in fact this particular plastic surgeon Did his plastic surgery residency at a major New York Hospital and he had some fame in Latin America as a Written-up and many articles and magazines, so he was no slouch So in the end after all the great expectations and all the useless stupid meetings the idea just fizzled and went away however About two years later I ran into the kid of this plastic surgeon and he told me that as far as his father was concerned It was a huge success Not going through with it because it caused so much talk in the media business and then leaked onto the street so much

[23:27] Cocktail party back door buzz all that amounted to a tremendous amount of free word-of-mouth advertising So how do you like that who to thunk huh and the epilogue to that story is even more interesting After the idea had been canned one of the station producers came up to me and said there was a lot of Disappointment in his little circle of friends a few of them who had their hearts set on winning that contest And we're gonna send in some clever poems, too The punchline is that this guy and his friends are gay now if that contest were legit That would have made some headlines okay enough said about that let's get back to what we were saying about expat Eddie's little story in last week's show if You remember Eddie is rather worried because he's losing his low profile fast

[24:14] Not because anything he necessarily has done or said But due to the fact that his girlfriend rather likes to be seen as a high roller driving around town in her brand new SUV with her own personal driver now That's totally the opposite of the way Eddie likes to live But he's a guy who just can't say no to a pretty face Which is kind of an endemic problem with many guys up north and down here So now Eddie's stuck and he knows it the truth is both of us know quite a few Gringos who found themselves in the same spot in fact one of my gringo friends married to a Latin girl Has one daughter a senior in a private high school down here at one of those so-called helicopter schools now Unfortunately like my friend says most kids there are

[25:00] Entitled spoiled little protected rats and their parents well, they're nothing but stuck up diehard gringo wannabes now My gringo friend says he doesn't like to go to get togethers where he meets the parents even though you're forced into it sometimes if you got a kid going to that school because all those parents talk about is what they have and their trips up to the United States as if going to LA or Miami for a Shopping spree is supposed to impress him the topper He says is when parents brag about taking their kid on a Disney cruise. How pathetic is that? However, here's what my gringo friend is very afraid of He says the parents of the kids his daughter goes to school with would like nothing better than to have one of their own Young sons hook up with his daughter

[25:46] That's one of the reasons rich Latin families send their young sons off to college in the States But my gringo friend does not want that kind of future for his daughter because he knows exactly how Latin guys are and worse he says he just doesn't know what to do because she's in class with those kids all Day long and is very popular with the boys But that's not the half of it my gringo buddy's wife Who is Latin from the middle classes would actually like to see a union like that? But my buddy's got other plans when his daughter graduates He wants to send her up to college in states because one he can't bear the thought of her ever hooking up permanently or getting pregnant by one of these useless rich kids and secondly

[26:31] He wants to send her up to the states because his wife much like expedite his girlfriend has helped ruin their low profile Now early on when he first arrived he kind of thought it was cool hanging around that high profile helicopter crowd with their bodyguards Etc. He knows now that was a big mistake In fact he admitted to me many times that with his wife he created a monster She too goes to Miami a couple times a year to get the latest fashions even though you can get them all down here It's all about bragging rights So he's created a monster in his wife and now his daughter is a monster too And why wouldn't she be being thrown in with all those other entitled kids and going to those helicopter schools all her life She's become just like them and her dad my rich gringo buddy

[27:17] Doesn't know what to do because she doesn't want to go to school in the states because up there Students can't have bodyguards bulletproof SUVs and personal maids. Oh, no, you might have to do your own housework and laundry south of the border 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 the expat files at gmail.com and don't forget to check out expat wisdom calm to sign up for your free Reports on Latin America. See you next time. No spamos