ESPAIN IS DIFFERENT

Meaning of the country side for urban people in Spain August 20, 2012

The morning of the day I am writing this article, I took part in a conversation about people in cities going to the country side, which included some Spaniards and expats in my office. Dani, a Brazilian colleague, was struck by the custom of his Spanish fellow colleagues of going to the country side, to their respective villages very often. When I say that everybody goes to their village I am not meaning that everyone is from a village but that everyone has his/her village. Most of the staff in my office come from cities but almost each family from every one of them has a house in the pueblo (village). This fact has been pinpointed not only for this colleague. Another time, when I was studying my degree in Valladolid, a French guy made exactly the same highlights. Apparently everyone he knew had his/her village.

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It must be culture January 22, 2011

I haven’t updated this blog in a while. Surprisingly I still have a bunch of visits everyday. It is gratifying to see that what one has written is still followed by some people. My endeavours have not been in vain. A big thank you to those who read this blog.

Now, let’s go to the matter. If you read my introduction in “About”  I don’t give much information about myself. I will tell you that I live in the United Kingdom’s capital. As many capitals in many countries, London is a stressful and rough place in many ways. So, as you can imagine, people in here are not looking after you. I know generalizing is not good, but it is true that GENERALLY speaking one does not feel the warm of the people. London is a multicultural, multi-ethnic city where most of the people have time only to care about themselves (Remember I am only generalizing). Well, till here it is all normal.

But I live in a country called UK, in England more specifically. In London, it is normal that, till you don’t reach a certain stage (uni, professional jobs, etc.) you don’t meet English people. I have reached it now. I regard myself as a keen social observer. It is inevitable to draw comparisons about what you knew -where you come from- and what you are getting to know (England and its people). I must acknowledge that what I am going to write about as an outsider is based on a shallow and very superficial knowledge of the locals.

Conclusions: stereotypical? I don’t know but this is how I feel about the matter

I want to make clear that I don’t consider English people bad people, but they are definitely different to Spanish people (this blog is about Spain, isn’t it?). A way to understand the Spanish mindset and culture is putting it against others’ culture. We must never forget that these conclusions are constraint to the knowledge of a limited reality and geographical area which has not necessarily be representative of the whole. There we go!: (more…)

Intra-reputation: Galicians July 1, 2010

In most of the countries on Earth the different peoples from the different regions and cities have reputations which constitute the collective mind and identity of each country.  And Spain was not to be different. I will begin from the North-West to N-E, to move afterwards to the Centre and finishing with the South. I will write a series about how we think of each other in Spain and which are various reputations of the regions.

The first region in this series is Galicia. Galicia has  given many important figures to the country. Probably, the most famous is Francisco Franco, the dictator who ruled the country for almost 40 years. It is not something to be proud of, but this is a fact. Galician people are famous for many reasons. A very large percentage of the Spanish emigration came from Galicia.

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