Esta mañana me dí de topes otra vez con la infraestructura telefónica mexicana. Dado que soy uno de los 20 millones de mexicanos que viven en el extranjero, quise hablarle a mi familia a las 00:00 del 25 de diciembre para desearles feliz navidad. Dado que en Finlandia eran las 08:00 a.m. del mismo 25, que mi llamada saliera no fue mayor problema… el problema fue que entrara. Intenté dos números de celular y uno fijo, y durante quince minutos no hubo ni cómo. Recibí mensajes de “Intente más tarde” en finés, inglés, sueco, español y uno hasta en chino. Cuando por fin mi llamada pudo entrar a alguno de los celulares, me mandó inmediatamente al buzón de voz ambas veces.
Con razón el país ha perdido negocios de call centers para América Latina, si la red no puede ni siquiera manejar las llamadas de navidad.
I’ve been asked so many times about certain things I do that I decided to explain.
Extending and contracting your index finger while all others are contracted means yes.
Extending your index finger and then moving it from side to side while all others are contracted means no.
Extending all fingers, then taking the tips of them to your forehead with your palm facing you and doing a movement outward of about twenty centimetres means thank you.
If you know any Spanish and anything about Mexico City, you’ll enjoy this miniseries of 5 “El Santo” cartoons. El Santo is a freestyle wrestler, a sort of third-world superhero. He can’t be that bad if these shorts are produced by the Cartoon Network, right?
It is said in Mexico that when Chivas does well, the National Team does well. We hope this is the case now that we won the Mexican Championship. To make matters even better, Pachuca won the Copa Sudamericana, becoming the first Mexican team to win a CONMEBOL tournament, where we play as guests.
Now if only Club América had actually done something at the World Club Cup, instead of getting trashed by FC Barcelona and then humilliated by Al Ahly. They don’t even deserve our hate, only our pity (their slogan after they qualified to the WCC was “Hate me in Japanese”… I guess it backfired).
You may have heard about the Day of the Dead, when Mexicans remember their dearly departed. What you may not know is that this view of death as part of life permeates their (our) lives. You may know that we eat sugar skulls with our names on the forehead around those days, but I’ll tell you a story that will leave you speechless.
A young Mexican football fan saw the Mexico 1986 World Cup when he was a kid, and idolised Maradona. He cheered for his local team, UANL Tigres, and his dream was to see his team play in his idol’s country, Argentina. Fast forward to 2005. UANL Tigres goes through to the group stages of the Copa Libertadores, and is placed in the same group as Banfield from Argentina. This fan (who is now in his twenties) is very happy and buys his ticket to go with the supporters group all the way there. However, he dies in a car accident the week before. No matter, his friends say. They do all the paperwork and bring the urn with his ashes all the way to Buenos Aires. The team goes to the field with a big sign in his honour, and they duly win 3-0. His friends sing and jump with his urn in their hands. Why? Because “that’s what he wanted”.
No wonder they sell caskets with the seal of your favourite team in Mexico…
Which reminded me of bulletpoint #16 in this post. Of maybe it is not that there are more differences, but less awareness of their existence, and therefore less flexibility. All in all, it’s always fun.
Finally, after a long wait the Mexican Championship is ours in the year of our 100th birthday. I’m overflowing with joy right now.
The match was quite a ride, as Toluca scored first and they’re known for their sturdy defence. All the details at mediotiempo.com.
¡Chivas, Chivas, Chivas!
They almost kicked me out of the internet café where I was watching the game when Bofo Bautista scored the second goal, as a little shout came out of my mouth without me noticing where I was… 😉
Now, we’ll have the publishing break. See you next week.
Update: The goals below. 100,000 people celebrated in Guadalajara, and a couple of thousand in Mexico City. Not bad for a club with 50 million followers.
What we didn’t want to happened happened, and Toluca got a tie out of the first leg of the Mexican league finals (and to think I woke up at 5 a.m. CET friday to listen to the second half). The game was tactical as expected (Chivas plays very attacking football, whereas Toluca is pure catenaccio these days). The refereeing was horrible (they didn’t signal a penalty), and Toluca got what they went to the Jalisco Stadium for, they got the tie.
Now Chivas has to beat Toluca at their stadium on Sunday either in regular time, extra time or penalties, something the team hasn’t pulled off for 9 years. Now would be the time.
El Tri (originally known as “Three Souls in my mind”) is a hard rock/blues old school group from Mexico City, that has been active since the 1960’s. They have an active following accross Latin America and many of their songs are considered real classics. Below some videos.
Chivas again demonstrated that it’s just a much better team than América this year by holding them to a goalless draw at the Azteca Stadium. América and Chivas met 4 times during 2006, with Chivas taking the scalp in the Superclásico 3 times, and this goalless draw that gets them through to the finals against Toluca. Information from mediotiempo.
