Thursday, August 19, 2010
Something I Noticed, Here In Mexico...
Reading Amusing Ourselves to Death, got me to see how fond we are to television. In America, who doesn´t own a television. Right now I´m in Mexico and its a lot different here. In the big cities, everyone owns a television. Mostly everone has a show they watch daily such as "novelas" or shows brought over from the US like the Disney Channel shows. On the other hand, in the poor dirt road cities, not everone owns a television. Of coarse its obvious you would get that result but poeple are much poor here and the minimum wage here is 50 pesos a day which is a bit less than five dollars. But that doesn´t mean everyone here earns so little. Although, my cousin told me that in the Mc Donald´s here you get around 8 pesos an hour which is less than a dollar an hour. People in smaller cities don´t have enough money to make television a priority. That doesn´t stop the children from having fun though, they play outside for practically the whole day and sometimes make small weaponds to throw beans at each other. It´s really interesting watching them play. You don´t see that a lot here -in the US- but that´s because people in America earn more money and in Mexico there are alot of uncivilized cities that are bearly starting to grow. Isn´t it funny how in different countries you see different things that catch your attention?
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I concur. When I was growing up (Not in Mexico, but in El Salvador, look it up, young grasshoppers)I didn't really watch Television, despite the fact that we had many in my house. I would play outside with my friends, instead. The only thing I remember watching avidly was Dragon Ball Z.
ReplyDeletePlaying outside was a fascinating thing. Especially since we lived in a heavily wooded area. Imagine a game of hide-and-seek there! Hiding behind the trees, shielded from the punishing sun by the canopy of the Forrest.
One time, I even found a bullet casing left by the guerrillas that had occupied that area during the civil war twenty-five years earlier!
I can honestly say I liked playing outside(and suffering a few scrapes here and there) more than watching Television.
Which isn't to say I didn't liked Television. I just didn't really watch anythings besides DBZ. And since each Dragon Ball Z episode was only about a half-hour, I was sort of conditioned to not be able to watch anything longer than a half-hour. But once I came here, all that changed.
*cue the flashback music*
It all started one day, I had just arrived in America and was stunned at the amount of channels available. I was scrolling through the channels and...
...Suddenly, I came across an image that left me speechless, stunned. Literally. All I could do was stare at the screen in amazement. The others around me seemed to not be as impressed as I was. In fact, they seemed not to care. "Are they blind?" I thought. "Are they not seeing what I'm seeing?"
Then ignoring them, I merely sat there, mystified by the image before me, unable to move my line of sight. It was as if a spell had been cast upon me. Or a curse. I didn't know which. I debated in my head if what I was seeing was real. It couldn't be. But then again, "This is America, the land of opportunity, where anything is possible," I thought.
Although I didn't know it then, I had seen for the first time in my life Jennifer Aniston. I was immediately enchanted by her beauty. So I started watching "Friends" and from then on I was hooked. It was like the "gateway drug." One thing led to another.
Hmm.... it seem I rambled a tad too much there.