I get a lot of email asking me, “What’s it really like in Mexico,
Fred?” A book would be needed to give a good answer. Since people seem
interested, I’ll take a few random shots at the topic. Don’t expect
literature or organization.
The quick answer is that it isn’t nearly as bad as many Americans think.
Not even close. Sure, it’s a screwed up country. (Name one that isn’t.
Switzerland, maybe?) It has all manner of problems and defects: jobs going to
China, corruption, poverty in places, crumbling sidewalks, loud music, poor
services, pollution, etc. No paradise here.
But…but….
Mexico is a democracy, as much as the United States. The government is not
repressive. Mexico is not a police state. It is not particularly criminal: Guadalajara
is certainly less dangerous than Washington. It is not disease-ridden. I eat
in all sorts of restaurants here with no problem. It is not over-regulated and
controlled. It is not primitive. It is not a backwater. Mexican big-box stores
are indistinguishable from Wal-Mart. The telephones work, cell phones work,
broadband is widely available (in my town of 18,000, for example). Guadalajara
abounds in book stores and music stores. (Books in Spanish, yes, but everything
you’ve ever heard of, and what do you expect in Mexico? Linear B?)
I think that the Mexico of today is confused with the Mexico of fifty years
ago. For example, a clear gradient exists in health between the old and the
young. Men of fifty or more often look as if they had spent their lives carrying
anvils across the desert with nothing to eat. They are arthritic. They walk
painfully. They are just plain wore out, as we say in Alabama. They make for
picturesque postcards, but bear little resemblance to today’s Mexicans.
The young appear as lithe and healthy as those of their age anywhere, and show
no signs of wearing out beyond the normal effects of age. I don’t know
the average quality or quantity of dental care, but they seem to have their
teeth, which appear healthy. (I say “seem to” and “appear”
because I don’t carry dental picks and a mirror, but when all visible
teeth are white and where they ought to be, things can’t be but so bad.)
In my experience Mexicans are both hard-working and competent. Recently I wanted
a railing put around the (flat, cement) roof of my house. We went to an ordinary
shop dealing in such things, in my almost-entirely Mexican town. The resultant
railing, made from scratch, was firmly anchored, nicely welded and, to my eye,
perfect. When we needed a new water pump, the fellow showed up with it, plumbed
it, wired it, installed the level-sensors in the rooftop tanks, perfectly and
in a few hours. And he was agreeable. This is par.
Now, you ask with good reason, if this is so, why is Mexico a comparatively
poor country? The usual answers are corruption, lack of ambition, and poor schooling.
The corruption is there, and may indeed be the cause. The difference in degree
of corruption between Mexico and the US may be somewhat less than is usually
thought: American corruption is to an extent institutionalized in such forms
as campaign contributions, positions on boards of directors, and affirmative
action, all of which are payoffs. But it is a way of life here.
Lack of ambition…perhaps. Mexicans (yes, I’m generalizing) seem
to want enough, and to stop there. The focus is on family, friends, and a quiet
life. Thus an intelligent and competent mechanic, say, will make a comfortable
living from his garage, but will not try to start a chain of garages. Americans
are much more driven, and much more materialistic. These qualities pay off economically.
I’m not sure about lack of schooling. Certainly there are schools everywhere
I’ve been, and swarms of kids charging out of them with backpacks full
of books, and the books are not bad. I have never knowingly encountered an illiterate
Mexican (though there certainly are some, especially among the old). Yet it
is not a nation pathologically addicted to study. They don’t seem much
to care about books. And, as Violeta tells me, even people who graduate from
universities often cannot find jobs.
However, I cannot see that they are baffled by technology. When we call TelMex
about some technical problem with broadband (configuration of this or that,
DNS stuff, POP3, the usual) the techs on the help desk are invariably good and
quickly get the job done. The people we have dealt with in computer stores have
always known what they were doing. Yet in small towns it can take over a year
to get a new telephone line put it. It isn’t technical ignorance: TelMex
knows perfectly well how to install a line. Somehow it just doesn’t get
done.
Medical care is interesting. My dentist, Hector Haro, (he’s on the web)
went through dental school at the University of Guadalajara and did graduate
work at U. Maryland. His partner is a young woman, Patty, who also went to U.
Guad. Their equipment is every bit as modern as any I’ve seen in the US.
I’ve never heard a complaint about their work.
They are high end. If you can pay for good care, you can get it. There are
urology clinics in Guad that do things like prostate exams. They have good ultrasound
gear, for example, and know it as well as do Americans. (Being an obligate techno-weeny,
I always grill them).
But most Mexicans can’t afford $400 for a crown. They tend not to see
doctors until they have to, and then to use the (free) public health hospitals.
These are not as bad as you might think. When my stepdaughter fell through a
glass door at a friend’s house and severed the tendons in her wrist, a
passing taxi took her to a public ER, which sewed her together, and now everything
works. But these places do not have the best equipment, nor expensive medicines,
nor pricey specialists, and they are badly overworked. How things are in the
remote countryside, I don’t know, but I can guess. Not great.
Other topic: Mexicans tend to be self-reliant in the sense that Americans were
fifty years ago, assuredly including the women. An American friend told me of
watching his wife go out to drive somewhere. The car didn’t start. She
opened the hood and investigated. Then she pulled the stereo out of the dashboard,
removed a length of wire, dived back under the hood, put it where she thought
it belonged, started the car, and drove away. This is not unusual. Violeta regularly
does similar things. Them as can’t pay plumbers becomes plumbers. And
electricians. And….
Again, I don’t mean to idealize the place. It ain’t idealizable.
Too many things wrong with it. But it isn’t as bad as gringos think, and
it has many compensating advantages that other places don’t. Them’s
my thoughts.
Fred On Everything
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See?
You are not alone.
Which
may or may not be a good thing. At any rate, there are other twisted,
brain-fried wackos out there who have too much time on their hands
and read this stuff, probably while cleaning their guns. But don't
worry. This site wraps its IP packets in plain brown envelopes marked
"Kinky Books" so your neighbors won't know. Anyway, to the
extent that counters mean any thing, which isn't much of an extent,
this sucker gives the number of columns read, not counting subscribers,
since Monday, October 8, 2002. Whoopee-do. More or less.
Nekkid
in Austin
Buy Fred's new reprehensible
book, Nekkid In Austin! Barnes and Noble has the beast. Another collection
of outrages, irresponsible ravings, and curmudgeonry from Fred On Everything
and some innocent magazines that foolishly published him. Put Fred Reed
in the search at thingy at B&N and the book will pop up like mushrooms
on a decaying stump. Tell everyone you came to the site by mistake while
searching for articles on cannibalism. Your childhood made you do it.
We're all victims nowadays.
The Great
Possum-Squashing
and Beer Storm of 1962
Stock up. Christmas will
eventually come again, if it isn't outlawed.Possum-Squashingis a better present than an ugly tie. At least as good anyway.
