Tag Archives: united states

in english

Do the evolution

This rather disturbing (but at the same time, pretty good) song and video are by one of my favourite bands from the 90’s: Pearl Jam, from Seattle, WA.  The message conveyed is, unfortunately, still rather current. One only has to watch the news to understand that.  If only we learned to leave the reptile parts of our brains behind…

Lyrics below as well.

Pearl Jam – Do The Evolution – Evoluciona


Woo..
I’m ahead, I’m a man
I’m the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
I’m at peace with my lust
I can kill ’cause in God I trust, yeah
It’s evolution, baby

I’m at peace, I’m the man
Buying stocks on the day of the crash
On the loose, I’m a truck
All the rolling hills, I’ll flatten ’em out, yeah
It’s herd behavior, uh huh
It’s evolution, baby

Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, he’s my clone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This land is mine, this land is free
I’ll do what I want but irresponsibly
It’s evolution, baby

I’m a thief, I’m a liar
There’s my church, I sing in the choir:
(hallelujah, hallelujah)

Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, admire my clones
‘Cause we know, appetite for a nightly feast
Those ignorant Indians got nothin’ on me
Nothin’, why?
Because… it’s evolution, baby!

I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I’m higher
2010, watch it go to fire
It’s evolution, baby
It’s evolution, baby
Let’s do the evolution
Come on, come on, come on


in english

Tourism in the US

I came accross this article at Gwyn's blog.  As a foreigner, I am not surprised that many overseas visitors are very afraid of U.S. Border Officials.

Even though I have a U.S. tourist visa, I haven't been there since 2001.  Why?  Because I haven't needed to.  Most of the time since I moved to Europe my trips to the other side of the Atlantic have been to Mexico, and I haven't needed to make a stopover in the US on my way there in a very long time.

I may have wanted to go there on holiday again (I'm still missing Washington, D.C. and the Southwest), but given that there is only a limited amount of holidays you have, I'd rather spend it with my family.  Maybe if they go somewhere there in the summer, we might decide to meet there instead.  I wonder how has the place changed?

em português, in english

3 films by Mexican directors nominated for the Oscars

Babel received 7 nominations (including best director and best picture), El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labrynth) 6 (including best foreign language film) and Children of Men 3.

I found the best quote about the three movies in a Brazilian website:

“Del Toro, Alejando González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón are examples of movie makers that never stopped giving their own touch to their productions, regardless of being tied to big studios. Coincidentially, or not, all three are nationals of a country that still today is treated with disdain by the Americans. The prejudices won’t end any time soon, but their talent and their success is the best answer.”

In other news, the Spanish are also happy. Penélope Cruz is also nominated for best actress, some Spanish documentaries are in the fray, and the possible success of Laberinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labrynth) is also theirs, as a big part of the staff and all of the actors are Spanish.

Gustavo Santaolalla from Argentina created the score for Babel, and he’s also in the running.

I hope they all win, but of course the competion is tough.

en español, in english

Current Mexican rock scene

Another article in the Rock en Español series.

In the last 6 years there has been an explosion of so-called indie rock bands in Mexico, giving it a very active scene. As has been the case before, some bands from other countries have also been performing in festivals such as the Vive Latino or Rock en Exa.

The rock scene in Mexico had been strongly supported in Mexico City with magazines such as Rock and Roll and radio stations such as the defunct Rock 101, Radioactivo and now Reactor. The latter released during the past two years a series of until now 4 EPs with the independent bands they have given airplay to called “¿Cuál es tu Rock? Mi primera caja de música” and they have been warmly received by a young public avid of new music. I have them all and heartily recommend them.

The bands included are (all are links to their Myspace profiles, where you can listen to their music):

Funnily enough, not all of them are Mexican, and neither do they all sing in Spanish, but that’s the kind of music that has been making the rounds there in the past couple of years.

More background on the current indie scene from El Universal.

in english

Tex-Mex is not Mexican food!

1 Comment

Tex-Mex is not Mexican food!, originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado.

I bump into this issue from time to time (this photo is from Helsingin Sanomat), so I guess I have to tell my audience about it. The long rant that follows simply boils down to this: Tex-Mex is not Mexican food! The first time I saw hard-shell so-called tacos was in Europe. The only truly Mexican brand of chillies on sale here is “La Costeña”, all others are European or American copycats.

Most of the food on sale in “Mexican” restaurants outside of North America (there are honourable exceptions, but they’re few) is unknown to a Mexican, including such things as burritos (which are only found in Northern Mexico, if at all) or nachos with cheese. Those things to us are like a salmon burger would be to a Finn, or mussels with cheddar to a Belgian.

I don’t deny Tex-Mex can be good food, just please don’t call it Mexican. You have no idea how much you’re missing. The funniest thing is that now in the States you can get proper Mexican food, but in Europe we’re still stuck with the Americanised adaptation (just like the differences between rodeo and charrería).

in english

The fence

I posted this Paco Calderón cartoon last week, and this morning I was thinking about this situation. I believe in following the laws of the country you reside in regardless of whether you agree with them or not, but I think the current situation is rather tragicomic. If the current US government were really serious about curbing illegal immigration to their country, they would simply enforce the laws they have regarding the prohibition of employment of people without papers (as it is done, for example, in Finland). The idea of building a fence simply smells of populism to me, trying to appease the anti-immigration constituency before the Congress elections this month.

This doesn’t mean that the governments of the countries of origin of those illegal immigrants (namely Mexico) should forget their responsibility to get jobs for their own population by ensuring the conditions for job creation by private enterprises is there. It would be unsustainable to pay for those jobs with taxes, especially since currently the tax income in Mexico is so low compared to GDP.

in english

Globalisation ≠ Americanisation

I have seen that a lot of the debate regarding globalisation as such is that we’re all becoming “Americanised”. Whilst it is true that many of the global brands are American, and that a sizeable part of the media we consume is also from the U.S, there is a lot of interaction that doesn’t involve them, and that would even go against their interests. English, however, is one of the platforms that we use for international communication, like the Latin of old. The problem is that native English speakers have no incentive for learning a foreign language, so their horizons are a little bit more limited in the beginning.

in english

Movies not to see when you’re flying

I have recently seen two movies not recommended for those with frequent flyer platinum status: World Trade Center & United 93. Both were actually not very good from the cinematic point of view, but brought back the memories from September 11th, 2001. Do you remember what you were doing then?

I definitely do. We had a meeting with some suppliers that day. After leaving the meeting, we took a cab and there we heard from the driver that something had happened in NY. When we got to my boss’s hotel, everybody was in the lobby watching CNN. I remember thinking that this was something out of Hollywood, and immediately called my mom to check if my dad was not in the States. He wasn’t, but a friend of the family was (we heard later from him that he was fine). When I took the commuter train back home everybody (mostly Finns who are usually very reserved) was talking about the day’s events. When I got home I couldn’t stop watching TV until I fell finally asleep. A co-worker was flying to Britain. He got home 7 hours late.

March 11th was similar. I read the news on the BBC website and immediately called our Spanish office. They were all OK and I then called a friend of mine who lives in Madrid. He was rather freaked out because he usually takes one of those trains to go to school, but he didn’t that day. That night there was an anti-terror rally in Helsinki, and I attended with my Spanish friends. One good friend of mine just couldn’t stop crying (even though I believe nothing happened to any close people to her), and I remember that it broke my heart. And to think that it was my birthday…

in english

“Those dirty foreigners!”

Posted when I lived in Finland.

I’ve always tried to consider myself an open person, and have tried to receive and analyse new ideas as they come. I was reading Tecosgirl’s blog and it reminded me of some things that have happened to me throughout the years.

The first one was when I was 17, we were invited to debate to the Harvard Model United Nations, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. As a high school senior, I was very excited to go to debate in that “temple of education”, and to match my skills with the people there. You can imagine our surprise when we reached the place. Imagine the following conversation in a circle upon entering a conference room before the actual sessions start:

Boy 1: “So, where are you guys from?”
Boy 2: “Well, I’m from Rhode Island.”
Girl 1: “We’re from California.”
Boy 3: “We came from Florida.”

And so on and so forth until it was our turn to say: “We’re from Mexico City.”, point at which the rest of the group would turn around and leave. Not because we spoke with a funny accent or anything, but because we were Mexican and we were at the same level as those kids. It got even “better”, as the topic that we discussed was the Taleban government in Afghanistan (you have to picture that this is 3 years or so before Sept. 11), and the Afghanistan delegate was agreeing with the United States, and everybody else cheered them on while we said that it was just a completely unrealistic position (a.k.a. bollocks). Most of my delegation who did the trip with me left the sessions as a lost cause and spent the rest of the trip going around Boston, but I still tried to instill some sense, with no success. That experience made me change my goal from studying in the US to studying in Europe.

Some years later, I moved to study Engineering in Finland. While I have to say that I really love this country (otherwise I wouldn’t have stayed here), have generally found acceptance after proving myself, and have a family and friends that truly own a place in my heart, I have found a couple of examples of people that react to (my appearance, my being?) with marked discontent, especially among the older generation and the less educated. Why? Because they don’t know where I’m from by looks only (I’ve been told that I’m half Thai, half Finnish, that I’m Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Arab…) and, let’s face it, there’s not that many of my countrymen here (around 180 last time I heard). I don’t have it that bad at all either, some of my black friends have told me worse stories .

Then there is Mexicans as well. We tend to receive foreigners with gusto, but are also quite reticent to fully accept them. The latest controversy has been about Naturalised Mexicans in the football (soccer) national team (I’ve posted about it already). Then there are reactions like those that Koreans get in Mexico City, where they’re charged with being the crime bosses of the Tepito area. Or the sterotype of Americans in Mexico as being pale, blonde, untrustworthy and stupid. As they say in Spanish, en todos lados se cuecen habas, loosely translated as shit happens everywhere.

Our biggest problem as a society (or societies) is that even though we’re becoming more and more part of a globalised world and there are more and more interconnections between the different parts, places, countries and people, we understand very little, if anything, of each other, the little that we know is usually clouded by stereotypes, and saddest of all, there seems to be no will in our societies, in us, to change.