I haven’t been in Chile for very long. Well, at least it doesn’t feel like it’s been very long. I’ve been here for about a month now and the most surprising thing for me is how similar it feels to the United States. I’m not the only one who seems to feel this way either, three other expats, all from the U.S., made similar comments. I suppose it’s the level of cleanliness and the fact that most of the buildings are fairly modern. Also, people’s dress style seems to be pretty much the same. In fact, if I took a picture of a busy city street here I think that you’d be hard pressed to distinguish it from somewhere in the States.
In Japan, I had a similar experience. I was moving there from Vietnam and initially found Japan quite boring in comparison. There were Starbucks and McDonalds, people drove cars, and most people were dressed conservatively in suits or skirts. It took me a month or so to get over this and start to understand how drastically different the culture was to my own. In the words of my friend Dave, “they may look the same as us, wearing suits and carrying around briefcases, but each one of those guys is batshit.”
I don’t think that all Japanese people are necessarily crazy, but there is definitely a large culture gap that I came to understand and enjoy during my time there beyond the obvious bowing and the like. A more experienced traveler now, I imagine it will be the same with Chile. After travelling in Peru and Bolivia, Chile feels like moving back to the United States. Right now the most pressing difference is that more people speak Spanish…not exactly an amazing insight on my part. So, the following is going to be a brief rant about little differences I’ve come to notice so far. Anyone reading this can feel free to laugh at my ignorance as I’m sure I will after a few months time here.
The kissing on the cheek thing. I almost got used to it in Argentina where it is custom for one to kiss another on the cheek in greeting, regardless of the other’s sex. I remember my Australian friend Goo kissing me on the cheek when we first met; he’d been there for a while and it just seemed natural to him. In Chile, however, men and women kiss each other on the cheek in greeting, but men just shake each other’s hand. I believe this to be indicative of a chivalrous attitude towards women (or sexist depending on whom you talk to). Further proof of this theory can be seen whenever my wife is carrying something. We can’t go a block without someone offering to take her end of the couch or whatever heavy thing she might be carrying. They all look at me as if I’m garbage for having put her in that position.
Diet. In many metropolitan areas of the states people seem to be moving towards healthier lifestyles. In general, people realize that mayonnaise and sugar are not healthy things. I don’t know if people just don’t know or just don’t care but I’ve never seen mayo or sugar ingested in such great quantities as here (with the exception of my wife who eats mayo like it’s going out of style). Like its neighbor, Argentina, I think the people here have much more reverence for food and drink. A meal is a beautiful thing. Wine is a delight. Life is to be enjoyed.
Class Hierarchy. Not everyone will agree with this one but I think that Chile is more classist than even Britain is. There doesn’t seem to be much intermingling between the tiers of society and the differences can be noted just by the way a person dresses and speaks. There’s such a great disparity in shops as well. If I want to shop in a cheap department store for a mattress it will still cost me double that of a mattress that I purchase at the market on the other side of the river.
Like I said, I’m new here and I don’t really understand these differences that well. There are many more things I’ve already started to notice but that haven’t really sunk in yet. I can’t make inferences about them yet and I’m sure that many of the conclusions I’ve made will be proven untrue in the future. Still, the differences are there to be discovered—the wonder of a new country.
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