Mexican Life, Culture, and Food

I found that a lot of Mexican cultures to be very similar to Indonesian cultures. Just to name a few:

- Being fashionably late. In Indo, we call it ´jam karet´and here it´s called ´PM´, which stands for Puntualidad Mexicana (Mexican punctuality).

- Our love for chilli. But the difference is, Mexicans have more types of chilli than any country I´ve ever visited.

- Our love for siesta. In Mexico, they have different expressions for siesta: ´tomar/echar una siesta´(that´s the common one), then you also have ´echar un coyotito´, and ´planchar las pestañas´(literally means: ironing the eyelashes)

- How the pedestrian crossing work. Just like in Indo, when you see zebra crossing it doesn´t mean you can cross the street anytime you want! You need to wait until the road is clear before you could cross the street because none of the car will stop for the pedestrian.

- We don´t need to wear sitbelts in cars and you can take as many people as could possibly fit in your car without the fear of being caught by the police.

I don´t think I experience much of a culture shock, because we just have too many similarities!:) Having said that, I find a few customs to be a little bit peculiar, like: the way the camion (bus) works around here, the way guys and girls are relating to each other, the Mexicans love for lemon and salt.

The Mexicans eat anything and everything with ´lemon and salt´. ¿Why? I don´t know!:) Lemon and salt are considered the basic ingredients for any food. They even have a song that goes like this: ´Te quiero con limon y sal´,which literally means ´I love you like lemon and salt´(It means something like: I love you just the way you are, and the way you are is enough for me, awww....)

Another interesting thing I found here is that Mexicans love to eat ´bangkuang´!!!!!!How strange! I thought the fruit only exist in Indonesia! Here, it´s called ´jicama´. And guess how it is eaten? Off course with lemon, salt, and chile!:) (which reminds me of the salty chile that we eat with rujak in Indo!

They also have a fruit salad thing that is similar to our ´rujak buah´ (fruit salad). It´s called ´los gaspachos´here. It´s a mixed of fruits cut in small pieces, mixed with salt, lemon, chile, chamoy (the sour fruit salt), and poured with orange juice! I loveeeeee it! I´m gonna try to make them when I´m back......

In general, I love most of the food here! My favourite is ´gorditas´. It´s a fried tortilla bread, filled with either cheese or migajas (minced meat) and the stuff: either nopales (cactus), or chicarron (pig´s skin), or papas (potatos), and SALSA!:) Will definitely miss it when I leave:P