Cultural Differences

When I first arrived in Buenos Aires, I was told to wait in the main terminal for a driver to bring me to my hotel. While waiting I saw a police officer dressed in full body armor. He had a large gun and multiple sticks, which I was sure he could use to beat me down in a moments notice. He walked past me in a slow stagger towards another officer of a similar height and complexion. This second officer had a tattoo on his neck and wore glasses straight out of the Matrix. As the two men neared each other, they looked at each other in a masculine way, and then all of a sudden, gave each other a kiss on the cheek.

Shocked at first by this interaction, I was soon to learn that kissing was just a way of life here. I got to my hotel, and my administrators gave me a kiss on the cheek. I got to my home a few days later and my host mom practically picked me up and launched a kiss at my cheek. A month later, I showed up for my second basketball practice, and was shocked to find a teammate sending me a kiss after I entered. This is just the way it is here. And after I got over the initial shock, it was actually a nice gesture.

This is just one of the many cultural differences that I have encountered while being here. What I’ve found to be the solution is to think with an open mind, and embrace whatever comes my way. Fighting it, and trying to stick to U.S. traditions will just make things harder.

Another cultural difference I noted the first day of school was clothing. In general, Argentines dress better than people from the U.S. On the first day, I show up with one of my friends from the program, and as we run down the steps, a security guard flags us down with a yell in our direction. As we turn around, we see a man pointing at my friend yelling, “No podés entrar sin pantelones y zapatos.” My friend who was wearing shorts and sandals was breaking a dress code we had no idea about.

Beyond these defined rules though, there was also a norm of dressing well. To this day, I’ve still never seen an Argentine wearing sweatpants. They hardly ever wear sneakers and they rarely even wear T-shirts that aren’t expensive and trendy. The average man wears designer jeans, tight button up shirts, and enough gel in their hair to appear as if there is no gel. The average woman wears tight jeans of every color, but the traditional ones, and high-top boots. After a few days dressed in the GW attire of Jeans and a T-shirt, I made the change to button ups and blazers at school. It’ll be nice to return to GW, and show up to class in shorts, sandals and a hoody.

Another cultural difference, that I’ve wrote about a little bit in past entries, is the culture of coffee and dining.  On one of our first nights in Buenos Aires, my program and I went to a restaurant with our administrator, Marcelo. We ate plate after plate of delicious meat for more than an hour and a half, and when we were all prepared to then pay the bill and go, as we would in the U.S., we were shocked to see Marcelo just sitting at the table calmly, demonstrating no signs of expecting to leave. We drank some more wine, and sat for another half hour for so, and then he asked if we wanted coffee and desert. Obviously not turning this down, I ordered a Café con Leche and a desert. In total, we sat there, for way more than three hours. I would learn that this is the norm in Argentine dining. They enjoy dining for the experience, and making a night of it. Granted, Argentina is a developed nation with McDonalds Burger Kings and TV dinners, but on average, the norm is to enjoy a long dining experience.

The coffee places follow the same logic. When you order a coffee here, it comes in a tiny cup, which you are meant to drink with friends in the café. Expecting the same type of service I get in U.S. venues, I was at first upset that I couldn’t just grab a coffee on the go. Although, Buenos Aires still has many Starbucks cafés, which can provide this service, the majority of the other places, find the practice of “café para llevar” or coffee to go, to be an odd concept.

As with the kissing and the clothing, this cultural difference was best dealt with when I embraced it as well. Once I opened my mind to the change, I started to appreciate the new way of dining. When I sit down and have a coffee with a friend, even for just five minutes, it is a much more satisfying experience, than simply grabbing a coffee on the way to work like we do in the U.S.

These are just three of the many cultural differences I’ve encountered here in Buenos Aires. Many of them, I’m definitely going to be bringing back with me to the U.S.