Post: #1

A little more of Peruvian Culture

Some time ago, I posted things blaming about peruvian girls, but now that i am Game aware, i can see a better scenary and explain a little more about the cultural disease affect South America and some regions around the world.

What is La Cultura del Vivo? Actually, there is not a translation for the exact word, but it means to take advantage of everyone and think just in yourself. You don't care if this action will affect others, you just know the possible benefit. In Peru, We use to say Pendejo, Vivo, Papi, Guapo to all person who can break rules, codes to get what this person want.

Some people can critize that They see this phenomenon everywhere, but the key points are the frequency and How many latins societies accept and even imitate some Stupid actions. My following points are given by my local perspective and It can differ from foreigners's ideas. Aditionally, This thread will have a better understanding in people who really lives or lived the common routine of the typical peruano and not for these switch tinder everyday, stay in a luxury apartment, visit just Lima class A and Cusco for few days, Sorry Bro, but After you don't spend at least some years visiting many poor towns or even other Lima districts, you won't understand.

To give more support, here We have examples:

a) Transportation: We have Micros and Combis that are Small Buses for public transportation. The problem is when you almost all the drivers don't respect the rules. The Light is in Red, don't care Imagine that is green and go, if you don't do that, be sure other drivers will yell.

Combis want to pick up passengers and they do even in the middle of the street, not respect for parades. In The Metro, People are making lines, some who are in the last part, run when the metro come and enter before the other passengers. The red sit is for Older people, pregnant girls, handicapped, but Many youngsters sit there and close their eyes(fake sleeping) don't give the sits for people who need.


In case of Combis, many passengers lie about their destiny to pay less and It is common to see fights for 0.10 dollars. Results: 95 532 registered accidents in 2015.

B) General

*Parents go to the bank with a baby, the father can take care the baby, but the mom take the baby and go to avoid the big lines.

*Neighboors throw the garbage in the door of your house, street, and now You have to solve the Problem.

*Go to reunions and ceremonies that you are not invited, just to eat the food.

*Avoid taxes, change the name of your business everytime and get new RUC(registration) Everytime. Statistic: Only 35% of peruvian companies are formal.

*Charge twice or more to foreigners.

* Thousand more of examples in Jobs, school, universities and daily life.

Conclusions

Most of these actions can sound funny, simple, Peruvians and other people admire The Vivos who can do all this bad things and get what they want. We need to improve the education and lessons to our society.

As I repeat, this is from my perspective, i know that for latins or growing countries, this is something normal, but for other people who come from more organized countries, they can struggle.

Post: #2

One thing that drove me nuts was the car alarms, the horn blowing to, but I got the reason for that. Can you tell me why it seems like everyone with a car turns the alarm up to maximum sensitivity or something and it goes of again and again and again?

Post: #3

It is for security. EVen in your house parking, streets, someone can steal parts of your car, that´s why people put the maximun sensibility. Annoying,but i get the reason.

Post: #4

Thanks for telling us about Peru. What you've described applies to much of Latin American.

(09-26-2016 12:08 AM)Drix Wrote:  Combis want to pick up passengers and they do even in the middle of the street, not respect for parades.

You probably mean 'bus stops' (paradas). Parades = desfiles. There are times when I wish the bus or taxi I'm in would not 'respect the parade' and just plow through it.

(09-26-2016 12:08 AM)Drix Wrote:  *Avoid taxes, change the name of your business everytime and get new RUC(registration) Everytime. Statistic: Only 35% of peruvian companies are formal.

Tax evasion is done openly in Mexico as well. I've seen businesses that have a sign on the wall stating that if you want a tax-deductable receipt (factura), you have to pay the difference yourself. This is because the establishment does not report income unless the customer plans to deduct the purchase on their taxes.

In case anyone missed it, here's the OP's earlier thread 'PERU by a Peruvian': /thread-52982...91348.html

Post: #5

Thanks for correct me. I am still improving my english, but Yeah It is bus stop. I have seen that You are a foreigner living in Mexico, you must understand most of my points and It applies to most of Latin America, in some countries more than others. Greetings.

Post: #6

The "cultura del vivo" which you are describing is not specific to Peru or even to Latin America. It is humanity's general rule. The few exceptions are for the most part the English and German speaking countries where there is a centuries-long cultivated respect for the rule of law. Despite all the shortcomings of the Anglosphere, well documented on this forum, for overall quality of life in my opinion nothing tops the United States and Western Europe; and in large part I attribute our high quality of life to the willingness, on some level, to subsume one's own interests and impulses to the good of society at large.

In much of the rest of the world it's all crabs in a bucket, thinking they're being so smart and clever at "pulling one over" on someone but being too stupid to realize that they're all only dragging each other down.

The older I get the more this bothers me when I am travelling, and the less inclined I become to fully expatriate.

Actually I just remembered that Victor Davis Hanson has already spoken on this subject much better than I am able, so I will quote him here:

Culture is everything. That is a politically incorrect thought that can get you in trouble as much as we suspect it is true.

In other words, government, economics, and social policy are critical, but themselves are driven by the minute-to-minute culture of everyday people. Germans pick up trash; in Athens, Greeks toss it. Germans do not honk; Italians do not not honk. In Libya or Egypt the pedestrian is a target; in Switzerland he is considered perhaps your father or grandmother. A bathroom in Germany is where someone else uses it after you; in Greece or Mexico, it is where you pass on the distaste of using the facility to the sucker who follows you.

I watch fender benders a lot. In northern Europe, addresses and information are exchanged; south of Milan, shouts and empty threats of mayhem follow. When I check out of a German hotel, I know the bill reflects what I bought or used; when I check out of a Greek hotel, I dread all the nonexistent charges to appear, and a “50/50 split the difference" settlement to be offered. Germans like to talk in the abstract and theoretical; with Greeks it is always “egô” in the therapeutic mode. I rent a car in Athens and expect charges for “dents” to appear; in Germany, there are such charges only if there are actual dents. Add all that up -- and millions more of such discrepancies repeated millions of times over each hour -- and you have one country that creates vast wealth and another that cons to land vast wealth it did not create.

Post: #7

(09-26-2016 10:58 AM)Chevalier De Seingalt Wrote:  

Quote:Victor Davis Hanson: In other words, government, economics, and social policy are critical, but themselves are driven by the minute-to-minute culture of everyday people. Germans pick up trash; in Athens, Greeks toss it. Germans do not honk; Italians do not not honk. In Libya or Egypt the pedestrian is a target; in Switzerland he is considered perhaps your father or grandmother. A bathroom in Germany is where someone else uses it after you; in Greece or Mexico, it is where you pass on the distaste of using the facility to the sucker who follows you.

Worst of all, there is often a culturally-enforced ideology against improving things. If you see someone toss garbage out of a car, you will be encouraged to do nothing. Don't be chismoso, as we say here. Don't get into other people's business. Live and let live. This is a good philosophy in many arenas but it can be used to abuse. Oddly enough, one of Mexico's most beloved historical/political figures is known for saying 'el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz', very roughly translated as 'your rights end where mine begin'. In reality this principle is ignored whenever possible.

By the way, students of Spanish might be wondering what vivo means in the post title. With the verb SER, vivo does not mean 'alive' but rather 'opportunist', in the negative sense of the word.

Post: #8

Culture is everything. That is a politically incorrect thought that can get you in trouble as much as we suspect it is true.

In other words, government, economics, and social policy are critical, but themselves are driven by the minute-to-minute culture of everyday people. Germans pick up trash; in Athens, Greeks toss it. Germans do not honk; Italians do not not honk. In Libya or Egypt the pedestrian is a target; in Switzerland he is considered perhaps your father or grandmother. A bathroom in Germany is where someone else uses it after you; in Greece or Mexico, it is where you pass on the distaste of using the facility to the sucker who follows you.

I watch fender benders a lot. In northern Europe, addresses and information are exchanged; south of Milan, shouts and empty threats of mayhem follow. When I check out of a German hotel, I know the bill reflects what I bought or used; when I check out of a Greek hotel, I dread all the nonexistent charges to appear, and a “50/50 split the difference" settlement to be offered. Germans like to talk in the abstract and theoretical; with Greeks it is always “egô” in the therapeutic mode. I rent a car in Athens and expect charges for “dents” to appear; in Germany, there are such charges only if there are actual dents. Add all that up -- and millions more of such discrepancies repeated millions of times over each hour -- and you have one country that creates vast wealth and another that cons to land vast wealth it did not create.


There is a fine line between too much respect for law and too less. The Anglo-German obsession with the law, wherever did it come, has some negative aspect in that that it negates a personal basis for contact and a personal dimension of your case, and too often is used in order not to do something. No one will be interested that you have an ill aunt, and you are now just in hurry! It is just a theater: someone sells you some story why some unexpected surcharge appeared, and you respond with your story why you would rather not pay it. I have never paid all those 'sudden charges' travelling through the Balkans, following these rules:
1) before you will sign on, you repeat like a half idiot at least three times 'So, 40 euro for a ride to the airport/one night, right, right?'. That would be impolite in the West but in the East the seller is getting in this way invested (he repeats every time "Yes, 40 euro!"), and most of the time will not charge more finally. 2) If a seller finally und unexpectedly does demand more at the end, you can start behave very angrily, repeating "But you said 40, not 70!"... he will leave you, or other people will get interested (remember, unlike in the West, there is no culture of "minding your own business" there), and hopefully, will take your side (at least this happened to me). 3) in the meantime, it is also good to make yoursefl more likable, telling some story about yourself or your country, asking some questions ("so what about Tito times, how they were in comparision to the capuccino times now?" (asked in Pristina)), ie. to deflect the seller's attention from the money. Remember, the fact that those people are poorer than you does not mean that their life experience is somehow less worthwile to hear about.
However, it is possible that there are some special rules for Anglos, as sometimes there is a kind of imperial resentment of peripheries towards them. Travelling through Balkans and ME I got some warm welcome from Serbs, but in ME everybody tended to think that I am from "Holland", so I had to correct that all the time to "Poland"; at the end, it could be of some advanatge to come from a not-well-known country. By the way, as the Dutch were considered a kind of Anglo breed, it is interesting to notice that contrary to the internal EU propaganda - 'only together as EU, we the unimportant (ie. individual countries), can be something important in the world' - outside EU the perception is still all about individual countries and cultures (for example, UK and US are always lumped together as one entity in ME, with UK being the master (!))

Post: #9

(09-26-2016 11:40 AM)Kaligula Wrote:  1) before you will sign on, you repeat like a half idiot at least three times 'So, 40 euro for a ride to the airport/one night, right, right?'. That would be impolite in the West but in the East the seller is getting in this way invested (he repeats every time "Yes, 40 euro!"), and most of the time will not charge more finally.

Solid advice! Has worked for me every time.

There's probably a thread somewhere here about how to avoid getting ripped off when traveling. It helps to dress more or less like the locals if possible. You probably won't be mistaken for one of them, but you might look like a long-term foreigner who would know local prices and customs. When getting rung up, always ask the total before handing over your money. When hiring someone to do work, pin them down on the cost before committing, if possible.

Post: #10

(09-26-2016 11:24 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

(09-26-2016 10:58 AM)Chevalier De Seingalt Wrote:  

Quote:Victor Davis Hanson: In other words, government, economics, and social policy are critical, but themselves are driven by the minute-to-minute culture of everyday people. Germans pick up trash; in Athens, Greeks toss it. Germans do not honk; Italians do not not honk. In Libya or Egypt the pedestrian is a target; in Switzerland he is considered perhaps your father or grandmother. A bathroom in Germany is where someone else uses it after you; in Greece or Mexico, it is where you pass on the distaste of using the facility to the sucker who follows you.

Worst of all, there is often a culturally-enforced ideology against improving things. If you see someone toss garbage out of a car, you will be encouraged to do nothing. Don't be chismoso, as we say here. Don't get into other people's business. Live and let live. This is a good philosophy in many arenas but it can be used to abuse. Oddly enough, one of Mexico's most beloved historical/political figures is known for saying 'el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz', very roughly translated as 'your rights end where mine begin'. In reality this principle is ignored whenever possible.

We have had a bit of that in Poland too, and it is supposedly about being relaxed and autonomy, a version of English 'My home, my castle' (you know, every Pole is aspiring to be a noble in his manor) ! However, it has never developed to such extent as in the Post-Soviet (USSR) space, where sometimes you can see rows of rich houses alongside very muddy road, or, better said, an archipelago of small lakes....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzlDYKR5otM
This is popular Polish song 'Przewróciło się, niech leży..." (It has fallen itself, let it lie then/ The very luxury here: I do not have to move it up/ I will sometimes stumble, yes / But I do not have to clean! .... I will sometimes stumble, yes / One day, one day, I will move it up! )

Listening to the song, you will surely notice that this is quite positive song, even if you do not understand the words.

BTW, all learners of Polish language who do want to live in Poland itself, must learn this Polish concept of inertia and its everyday expression "Co cię to obchodzi...!" (loosely, Why do you care about it...!), which is commonly used to dismiss your improvement concerns (bad) as much as others' prying into your life (good).

Post: #11

One thought more here is that protestant cultures have the ingrained idea of public scrutiny of your conduct, i.e. in fact, the idea of public shaming. Let us forget about modern seances of Internet outrage for a moment and let us look for the signs of the past. In the Netherlands in smaller cities there are still lot of houses with no curtains at all, which is supposedly a sign that those people live a life so pure that they are not ashamed to live under the eye of the public.
I am not sure how it is exactly connected with protestantism, the only connection I see is the protestant anthropology of being sinnful by default....so we must be actually whipped to sanctity. It goes together with my previous remark that the obedience to law in the Anglosphere is much more a negative concept (Hobbes "Leviathan") than the positive one; it is about what you must not do rather than what you must do, so shaming tactics are the default tactics of social order. The law is full of punishments and fines, and there are no prizes at all in the law (strange concept? but ask yourself why..?), since we know that "virtue is a prize in itself".
Has it never occured to protestants that imposing yourself on the others so much is the greatest sin of all, the Luciferian sin, the sin of pride ? And many times, escaping from one sin leads us to another....

The concept of prize for fulfilling the law is to some extent present in Islam, even if virgins waiting for martyrs are a kind of naive or childlish idea. This is the central tenet of Islamic jurisprudence, known as "Commanding the right and forbidding the wrong".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enjoining_...ding_wrong
It is interesting to observe how in islamic states the inertia of culture (the old theme of "Oriental indolence") is often colliding with the prescribed drive of the religion itself, which is much stronger in case of Shi'a than Sunni muslims.... In civilizational terms Shi'a lands look a bit better than Sunni's; this is also why, for example, Iranians like to speak about Turks as "barbarians" (in the same way Romans were speaking about Goths, you see).

Post: #12

(09-26-2016 11:24 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  Worst of all, there is often a culturally-enforced ideology against improving things. If you see someone toss garbage out of a car, you will be encouraged
to do nothing. Don't be chismoso, as we say here.

The critical name of that phenomenon in Polish is tumiwisizm, untranslatable gerund (some translate it as Dudeism, but I think it misses the assertive aspect of tumiwsizm, focusing only on joyful nihilism, which may or may not be a part of it) made out of the entire phrase "Wisi mi to!", meaning "I do not care about it at all!", which is a very colloquial, idiomatic but much more assertive version of the previously discussed phrase "Co cię to obchodzi...!". The latter can go either with ? or ! as needed, but Wisi mi to always goes with !.
PS. If you like literature, then Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener 'I would prefer not to' is a devoted adept of tumiwisizm in its polite form. When you read about low participation in Polish elections, a low level of social capital etc, always remember that Poland has relatively large share of Bartlebys in its population.

Post: #13

Having been all over South America & Europe, Peruvian culture still seems very conservative to this day. Everyone dresses the same, men only wear boxy suits or dockers with a polo (anything else would be considered too feminine), people obviously party but it's not the wild partying that seems to be the norm in Colombia for example (although I've heard good things about the beach city of Asia). You get the feeling a lot of the residents have been over-disciplined or something, and the ratio of men/women isn't good. There's also a simple-mindedness, i.e. they seem to think almost everyone in America is rich. There's a lot of amazement with "gringos" that you don't see to the same extent in other countries.

In B.A, Santiago, Bogota (or even tier 2 cities in their respective countries) the society seems much freer, lots of hipsters, artists, musicians, etc. & being a gringo doesn't even get noticed for the most part in the tier 1/2 cities. Simply more variety. The culture in Peru seems to be a bit serious for a Latin country, if you don't blend in there, it's typically assumed that you're probably up to no good. It's definitely not Americanized, you rarely see sleeve tattoos in Peru for example, but in some other South American countries you see them more than you do in the US.

I will say though, the Peruvian fusion Chinese food (chifa) is easily the best cuisine in South America. Peruvian restaurants in the states needs to start including that, because it's a lot better than the regular Peruvian food.

Post: #14

Agreed with everything said in here. There will be a time where they'll be a struggle to incorporate the rule of law, self-love and equality in Peru.

Post: #15

I have butted heads with other forum members in the past over the topic of Peru (after I did a 14 week trip there). So I am happy to to share my views about Peru and Peruvian culture (mostly negative) via p.m. to anyone who wants to hear a negative opinion about the country (I don't want to get in another public shit-fight over this topic). Peru is a cheap country with good food and nice scenery but there are many aspects about the country which are rather disagreeable (to put it kindly).

Post: #16

(09-26-2016 12:08 AM)Drix Wrote:  A little more of Peruvian Culture

Only in Peru?
Maybe Drix is doing EL VIVO publishing this post that has a lot of arbitrary and lack of truth
Humanity has a lot to fix and is indistinct of the countries
Dear Drix I hope your next post has something more positive, you have passion but not direction

Post: #17

(09-26-2016 11:38 PM)preppy Wrote:  I will say though, the Peruvian fusion Chinese food (chifa) is easily the best cuisine in South America. Peruvian restaurants in the states needs to start including that, because it's a lot better than the regular Peruvian food.

The Peruvian Chifas have the best food in South America?

Post: #18

I've noticed women with babies jump to the front of the line. Waiting in line at the store, and woman with a baby moves right to the front.

Post: #19

(07-08-2018 03:29 AM)Australia Sucks Wrote:  I have butted heads with other forum members in the past over the topic of Peru (after I did a 14 week trip there). So I am happy to to share my views about Peru and Peruvian culture (mostly negative) via p.m. to anyone who wants to hear a negative opinion about the country (I don't want to get in another public shit-fight over this topic). Peru is a cheap country with good food and nice scenery but there are many aspects about the country which are rather disagreeable (to put it kindly).

We're almost 30 millions, and there are almost 3 millions of peruvian expats.

It says us something.

Post: #20

(07-08-2018 10:30 AM)OneManWolfPack Wrote:  I've noticed women with babies jump to the front of the line. Waiting in line at the store, and woman with a baby moves right to the front.

People, and usually women, are the worst on this way.

Even with big kids sitting in front of the table and eating, mothers go to the front of the line. Why? Then they say: `Cause I have my children here, are eating in the table, don't you see?

And in drugstores it's common they go in the front just because 'it's a short order that will take only seconds'.

Men are the worst on the highways.

Post: #21

After all, I think this disease has no cure. At least if a bomb would bang and explode almost all the city and after generations, it will not change.

And IMO, it was originated waaay before. And it goes since conquist, colonization and centralization's traumas. In some perspective, the same behavior that I've seen on some black people in the US, from which it is generalized to all brodas.

Post: #22

I am guessing this is probably genetic. Northern Europe was sparsely populated with a harsh climate. People had to help each other out or they'd die once winter came. And if someone acted too selfishly, they'd be ostracized from society (which would also mean death). This wasn't really the case the further south you went. Japanese and Koreans seem to have similar genetic traits to those of the Northern Europeans.