Chilean Culture

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Today's entry is all about Chilean culture. This entry is long overdue, has been brewing in my head for weeks, and might not be as thourough as I want it to be. I'll try my best.

Chileans are interesting people. Twenty years after the dicatorship ended you can still see and feel the scars the regime left on society. Poeple still don't talk about it; not openly. You have to wait until they trust you and decide what events from the past time they want to share. If you do get a chance to talk with someone, you'll hear from people that are 100% thankful of all the reforms that that government brought and others who suffered during it and still feel deep pain from those days. I believe that because of the fact that Chileans were opressed and weren't allowed to express themselves for so long, today, there is a general lack of discipline. Parents don't enforce rules that often. They don't even stop their kids when they're doing something that they shouldn't in public. Among friends, lines between respect and disrespect are crossed too often even though feelings usually don't get hurt. Chileans don't curse. They use words that other Spanish speaking countries use as curse words in every day language but they don't have the same effect that in other countries would.

Chileans make time for their families. During lunchtime, school has anywhere from an hour and two hours for kids to go back to their houses and have lunch with the family. This makes week days longer, usually Chileans work from 8am to 6pm. But at the end of the day, you do have that extra hour and a half to share with the family without having to worry about homework, next day's work schedule or anything at all. It's relaxing time. Speaking on relaxing time, Sundays turn South American cities into ghost towns. Chileans at least take the whole day for church and family. This means there's barely anyone out on the streets and most businesses are closed. There isn't much to do on Sundays.

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