Riquisimo!

I guess it makes sense that if 14 million immigrants from around the globe are crammed into a single limited geographical area, some nice fresh human culture would emerge. And Buenos Aires, has taken this to extremes. I'm taking about culture, you know, that shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behavior that we all take part in.

It seems to me, that back in olden days, everywhere had their own culture, with specific, rituals, traditions, ideas, relationships, celebrations, beliefs and foods, that existed more or less independent of others. Sure, they'd trade and battle and mate every once in a while, but for the most part, people around the world just kind of did their own thing.

Then, some guy invented a steam engine, airplanes, and pretty soon, the iphone and poof, thousands of cultures and subcultures mix and mash, twist and clash, into this crazy global world today, where there are more people than ever, but less diversity of culture or at least that's how I'd pictured it.

McDonald's has stamped it's big clown shoes down in over 120 countries (yes that's a fact, I found it on Wikipedia), more and more people have access to TV and commercials and blah blah. It seems that with a globalized media and planes taking this culture here and that culture there, we'd be living in a confusing mix, a cultural jumble where no one's sure who they are and we all want to be the same.

But that's just not how it all works. One of the cool things about culture is that it a) it reinvents itself constantly; meanings, rituals, etc. all change with time. and b) even things that seem to be soul-sucking, homogeneous making culture killers, like commercials and McDonald's are actualy interpreted differently in different places, for instance, here in BsAs you can get an empanada at McDonald's and most the beauty magazines have photo-shopped Britney Spears to have an uncanny dark contrast in here hair, turning this blond Texan into a perfectly suitable Hispanic mamasita. See McDonald's and beauty mags don't hurt anybody, wink ..... wink. So what I'm trying to get at is that here in Buenos Aires, sure they watch the same American films, carry Prada bags, and worship the Black Eyed Peas, but they really have their own thing going.

Native Argentines, a slew of diverse European immigrants, and more and more people from other parts of South America have danced, sang, mated, drank and ate their way to a whole new unique way of life: the way of the Porteno.

While there are obviously countless characteristics that one could consider to be defining parts of Porteno culture, as an outsider diving into this culture, a few key things really stand out. Portenos cherish a drink called mate, sipping gourds of the stuff in a circle at all hours of the day like freshmen pot smokers in Santa Cruz chatting around a bong.

Portenos start their weekends on early Saturday morning, prepping, primping and "pre-boliche-ing" until they leave for the cornucopia of bars, clubs and dance halls at about 1:30 or 2 am. It apparently is common to see girls walking out the 'boliches' after the sun's up, pulling high heels off blister feet next to the park by my apartment.

Another key trait of any real Porteno is near and dear soccer team. The question is not whether one is a soccer fan (everyone is), but who you are a fan of. This usually means Boca Jrs or River, the two teams that call BsAs home. Children apparently choose a team when they can barely kick a soccer ball themselves, and after this rite of passage, there's no returning. Through thick and thin, wins and losses, player trades and coach firings, the Portenos stick with their chosen equipos. I had the honor of witnessing one of the ritual Sunday night soccer games in the home of native Argentine 20-somethings. These guys lived and died with each score and shouted and cussed with each blow of the ref's whistle. They knew every players name had opinions on each play. It was like Superbowl Sunday, if your team played in the Superbowl and the Superbowl was every Sunday, if that makes sense.

A couple of notable things about the layout of the city that seem to me to be key parts of Porteno life are bookstores, graffiti, and old European buildings. If you ever need something to read, don't stress, because likely you're within 500ft from a bookstore. All are small, some are used, and many are actually temporary kiosks in the middle of the street. Across from my apartment is a "Feria de Librerias" with stall after stall of used book peddlers. From Pierre Bordieu to Yoga instruction manuals, these guys have it all. One of my favorite parts of wandering the city of BsAs so far is the graffiti that cloacks some buildings and shyly tiptoes on others. This graffiti isn't gang slur but either bright, beautiful, creative or obviously political. These best part is that the canvases for most of these murals are neo-classic style buildings, often with textured walls and intricate columns. The graffiti and neo-classicism complement eachother in a most ironic and picturesque manner.

The last things that I will mention as a first impression of this one-of-a-kind culture is that they have their own language. It happens to fall under the arbitrary category of spanish, but the words and manner in which people speak here are not like those I learned in the kitchen of Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol or the desk of my high school spanish class. I've pretty much had to start from square one (or more like square 3/20) learning to say "muchisimo gracias!" without a smirk and "che boludo!" rather than "que tal!"

This post will end rather abruptly, but I hope to expand on each of these topics with furster depth in the future.

The above photos are from the Malba, the modern art museum here.