Originally Posted by
Davet
To the OP: as a gringo who spends 5~6 months a year in Mexico, i read your post as sort of having a chip on your shoulder and applying your ethno-centric perceptions to another culture rather than trying to understand and accept it. I may be wrong as I wasn’t there. I’ve found people throughout Latin America to be very warm, hospitable and very willing to help others when they need. I have made many local friends in my years here.
I experienced somewhat the same thing many years ago in Mexico when I was involved in an suto accident where my car was totaled. The authorities asked for huge amounts of paperwork from me: passport, visa, registration, insurance docs and title to my car. I replied to the Ministero Público that in the United States we don’t carry the title with us in our cars. He replied to me in Spanish: “Señor, you’re not in the United States”. That one sentence really drove home the lesson about accepting ‘what is’ in another culture.
You're right, I definitely view this place and compare it to Canada and unapologetically so, my country is quite simply better. I had a man sneeze snot all over my arm while walking through a market a few weeks ago, not even exaggerating, it got soaked, and he didn't even apologize, that's just one of many cases of people's complete lack of regard for spreading harmful bacteria/viruses. I've had a cold here twice in the 4 months or whatever it's been and I never get sick ordinarily so yeah, I judge people here.
I can understand having to adhere to legal procedures and such but I think if one were to consider objectively how things are here vs how they are in Canada and the USA you would have to concede in many significant ways that Canada and the USA are much better. And I'm not talking about things that require money to fix either. Looking before walking into a street, for example, pretty basic stuff; people generally don't do it here and often while I'm trying to avoid one smart phone zombie I'm being pushed into another or having to choose between plowing into a person and cutting off a taxi and possibly getting run over. There's really no excuse for that. If that's cultural, and I suppose it is, I really don't have qualms about decrying it. Even a lifelong Mexican's going to be pissed off when someone forces him off the road or into a car etc. I'm happy for you if your experiences have been more positive here but even you have to admit there's a lot that needs to change and before that happens it's annoying at best.
At any rate, the point of this thread is not to argue about whether the things I find objectionable are justified it's to find out if things are the same in the countries I didn't visit because if they are, I'm DEFINITELY not going to visit them in the future.
No offense intended, just a contentious opinion.