Russell Maddicks - Mexico--Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

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ISBN 978 1 85733 850 8

This book is also available as an e-book: eISBN 978 1 85733 851 5

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

First published in Great Britain

by Kuperard, an imprint of Bravo Ltd

59 Hutton Grove, London N12 8DS

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8446 2440 Fax: +44 (0) 20 8446 2441

www.culturesmart.co.uk

Inquiries:

Series Editor Geoffrey Chesler

Design Bobby Birchall

Printed in Malaysia

Cover image: Street art. Graffiti on a wall in Mexico City. Adobe Stock/Papa Bravo

Images on the following pages reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license: 23 Photograph by Mike Peel; 61, 101 (bottom) A01333649; 97, 99 AlejandroLinaresGarcia; 104 (top) ProtoplasmaKid; 108, 131 (top) StellarD; 111 Gigocuevas.

Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license: 14 Conversion script at the English language Wikipedia; 15 Luis Avalos; 17 Tomas Castelazo; 21 Juan Carlos Jaime; 22 Simon Burchell; 24, 164 Wolfgang Sauber; 35 (Jose Villa) at VillaPhotography; 54, 66 AlejandroLinaresGarcia; 57 omqjessx; 58, 70, 85, 95, 100 Thelmadatter; 59, 94, 118 Marrovi; 63 Rodsj29; 64 El Comandante; 65 (bottom) Adam Jones, Ph.D.; 68 No machine-readable author provided. Janothird~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims); 77 Daniel Case; 78 Adavyd; 87 Creative Commons Monterrey; 89 Mathisfield; 93, 98, 130 ProtoplasmaKid; 102 (top) Meutia Chaerani / Indradi Soemardjan; 105 Kjetil2006; 113 Image courtesy of Guillaume Corpart Muller - www.gcmfoto.com; 114 (top) Adrin Cern; 114 (bottom); Ziko; 119 Lucha Libre Boliviana LLB; 127 Amateria1121; 131 (bottom) Dronepier; 132 GeorgeLouis; 139 clusette.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license: 12 Tomas Castelazo.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license: 13 Comisin Mexicana de Filmaciones from Mxico D. F., mXICO; 60 Poncho Equihua; 62 Oaxaca Profundo; 72, 90, 91 Eneas De Troya from Mexico City, Mxico; 79 Alejandro Islas Photograph AC; 83 puercozon; 86 campuspartymexico; 96 Larry Miller; 101 (top) Arturo Snchez; 102 (bottom) Javier Lastras; 103 Kimberly Vardeman from Lubbock, TX, USA; 104 (bottom) The CulinaryGeek; 159 sebaso from Berlin; Germany.

RUSSELL MADDICKS is an award-winning, BBC-trained journalist, translator, and travel writer. A graduate in Economic and Social History from the University of Hull, England, he has spent the last twenty years traveling, living, and working in Latin America, most recently as a Regional Specialist for BBC Monitoring. He has visited Mexico on many extended trips, always finding some new and unusual facet to explore. He is also the author of Culture Smart! Venezuela, Culture Smart! Ecuador (which won the Gold Prize at the Pearl of the Pacific International Travel Journalism Awards at FITE in 2015), Culture Smart! Cuba (co-author), and the Bradt Guide to Venezuela.

The Culture Smart! series is continuing to expand.
For further information and latest titles visit
www.culturesmart.co.uk

The publishers would like to thank CultureSmart!Consulting for its help in researching and developing the concept for this series.

CultureSmart!Consulting creates tailor-made seminars and consultancy programs to meet a wide range of corporate, public-sector, and individual needs. Whether delivering courses on multicultural team building in the USA, preparing Chinese engineers for a posting in Europe, training call-center staff in India, or raising the awareness of police forces to the needs of diverse ethnic communities, it provides essential, practical, and powerful skills worldwide to an increasingly international workforce.

For details, visit www.culturesmartconsulting.com

CultureSmart!Consulting and CultureSmart! guides have both contributed to and featured regularly in the weekly travel program Fast Track on BBC World TV.

The third-largest country in Latin America, and home to 119 million people, Mexico is hugely diverse. It encompasses strong regional variations, major socioeconomic divisions, rural backwaters where time seems to have stopped, and chaotic urban centers like Mexico City, one of the most densely populated, maddening, and stimulating cities in the world.

Famed for its well-preserved archaeological sites, charming cobblestoned colonial towns, and beautiful beaches on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, Mexico is a major magnet for tourists. Whether they come to ride the Copper Canyon train in Chihuahua, watch whales in Baja California, or trek to jungle-covered Mayan temples in the deep south, visitors are increasing in number, despite negative news reports about drug dealers and spats with the US about migration. These problems, though real enough, should be seen in the wider context of a society going through great social and economic changes.

This complex and fascinating country, with its tumultuous history and rich cultural and culinary legacy, is the place where the European and pre-Columbian civilizations first clashed. The repercussions of the meeting in 1519 between the Spanish conquistador Hernn Corts and the Aztec Emperor Montezuma II, and the subsequent devastation wrought by the Spanish Conquest, are still felt today, reflected in the Mexicans attitudes toward race and national identity.

Culture Smart! Mexico takes you beyond the usual stereotypes of spicy food, Spaghetti-Western sombreros, and mariachi music into the heart of Mexican society. It describes the dynamics of daily life, the central importance of family, the annual cycle of Catholic feasts and fiestas, and how Mexicans socialize and meet members of the opposite sex. There is advice on how to negotiate a Mexican menu, on which delicious dishes you should try, on the differences between the local spirits tequila and mescal, and on tipping at the end of your meal. There is information on traveling safely and the best transport options for exploring the country. For business travelers there are sections on Mexicos economy, the general business culture, and tips on how to succeed in the local business environment.

We go behind the scenes to meet Mexicos masked luchadores (wrestlers), the authors, like Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, and Laura Esquivel, who have laid bare the Mexican soul, and the movie directors, like Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu, Alfonso Cuarn, and Guillermo del Toro, who have helped to usher in a new golden age of Mexican cinema.

Mexican culture has remained so distinctive because of the pride that ordinary people feel in their pre-Hispanic past, their independence heroes, their unique musical traditions, and their tongue-tingling food, which is appreciated all over the world. Culture Smart! Mexico sets out to introduce you to the proud, spiritual, fiesta-loving, defiant, dynamic, fatalistic, fun-loving, food-obsessed, and hugely creative Mexican people and the extraordinary country they call home.