Shops, Old-Fashioned-ness, Respect and Food

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So, where were we?

Having lived here for over a year now, and hopefully for a little while longer yet, one of my favourite things about Spain (or at least this part of Spain) is how, for the want of a better word, old-fashioned lots of things are. I hadn’t appreciated it before I came here and I mean it, almost entirely, as a compliment but moreso than anywhere else I’ve lived there are customs, values, ways of life that are reminiscent of Britain 30+ years ago, which in some ways is quite nice.

By way of an example, today is a Sunday and there is, so far as I know, one supermarket open in the city (which, annoyingly for those of us too disorganised to buy food more than a day before we plan to eat it, is the most expensive one). Maybe half of the bars and cafes are open and in terms of shops and other businesses, they close about 2oclock on Saturday afternoon and don’t open again till Monday morning. Whilst this is annoying to some, lazy to others and annoying and lazy to just about everybody else, I do think there is something really nice about it. The same idea as about 20 years ago in Britain when some of the TV channels would closedown at about 11oclock at night, essentially saying “we’ve got better things to do now, you should have too. See you tomorrow.” Of course that nice, warm, reminiscing feeling doesn’t make me feel too much better on a Sunday afternoon when I’m paying 4 and a half Euros for a loaf of bread and a pint of milk, but I did say ALMOST entirely a compliment.

In the same way, public holidays here are proper holidays. Almost everyone seems to have the day off (basically it’s the same deal as a Sunday) rather than the way Bank Holidays at home seem to go now, when places, even (I think) some banks, are open as usual.

They also have this great type of holiday here called a ‘Puente’. This is where a national/regional holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday and the public schools get the relevant Monday or Friday off to give them a 4-day weekend. For those of us who don’t work in public schools it’s largely irrelevant, but I still think it’s a nice idea albeit that another part of me thinks it’s a bit ridiculous.

This idea does rather fit in with another of the key, interesting things about Spain, the apparent importance of family and of food. It may sound odd to link these two things together but it’s because so much of the socialising and forming of relationships here is done over food. This seems to be the way things go in countries with a strong food culture, China being another one, whereas back home, where lunchbreaks are far more likely to be a 15 minute break eating a Greggs pasty at your desk than a 2 hour, 3 course meal with your family, socialising is far more likely to be done in a pub, with or sometimes because of, alcohol.

There does seem to be some kind of an appreciation for both the idea of spending time socialising and relaxing with friends and family, and also that breaks – whether lunchbreaks or the odd ‘Puente’ – are important for lots of reasons and aren’t necessarily a sign of abject laziness.

Cleverer people than me have suggested that Spain, and Italy for that matter, are coping better than places like Britain or Ireland would be given similar unemployment figures and austerity measures (by which I mean that if other countries had 50% youth unemployment for example, they would be rioting in the streets and utterly falling apart, whereas in Spain, while people are suffering and striking, it hasn’t exploded. Yet.) The idea behind this is the importance of the family and the fact that a good number of families still live with three generations under the same roof. Many children don’t leave home until they get married, certainly far more than in other countries, so with the children, parents and grandparents in the same house it means that if one or two of the family lose their jobs, there is far more of a support system there than there would be in other countries.

This slips over into other parts of life as well, of course, because in general, older people seem far more at ease with teenagers and people in their 20s than you might expect, presumably because the living situations give them many more opportunities to spend time with people of this age through their families so, in a sense, there is less unspoken segregation (not that they're all hanging out together outside shopping centres or anything but you know what I mean). Similarly, younger people have more respect for older people than is typical in other places too, I guess for the same reason.

Obviously, this is a brilliant thing for so many reasons and means that there is hope of a different kind to be had for Spain with the economic crisis and everything else. It does also, however, lead to the common situation of a particularly chatty old lady in the supermarket, having paid for her food, standing chatting to the cashier and holding up the line for 5 minutes, because everyone (including the bolshy teens you’d usually rely on to be a bit intimidating) has too much respect to have a word.



As I say, it’s almost entirely a compliment.



Pura Vida



Dave

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