Basketball in Mexico: Days of culture shock and joy

By Ed Piper

I recently came upon a chart of how a visitor to another people or language can experience culture shock. The visual graphic, on a teacher's desk at an area high school, showed "honeymoon", the crash after the honeymoon period, then either failure--which I've seen someone experience--or adjustment to learn the language and culture.

In my 14 months in Mexico City as a 21-year-old, I went through these dramatic stages myself: Some days, when I felt so humiliated and defeated when I tried to speak Spanish with someone (I didn't study it in high school) and made a fool out of myself, I retreated to my rented room to lick my wounds (and probably sulk).

I moved to Mexico after landing a high school/junior high English literature teaching job at a private school for 22 students. All instruction was in English; I was the only staff member or student who wasn't bilingual when I first moved to Mexico City in September 1975.

I did not go there to play basketball; but it was very natural that a guy on the Metro (Pedro, my future teammate) saw me, standing 6'5", and asked, "Do you play basketball?" I said yes, and that led to me playing for two teams, Altamirano and Los Brujos (the Wizards).

A vivid memory on the "Metro", the subway that crisscrosses the colonias (neighborhoods) of Mexico City, was a mother and her child looking at me from across a car on the subway--mind you, it's Sunday morning, I had just gotten up, and I wasn't feeling high-energy--and the daughter saying, "Mira, Mami, el gigante" ("Look, Mom, at the giant").

I'm tall, and I'm a clown, I like attention as the third sibling in my family. But not this! First thing on a Sunday morning, when I want to, just, hide.

A Korean who is staying with an extended family member is going through these very dealings and adjustments to the place, the language, the different money, the bus schedule--the food! He is a South Korean Marine veteran, showed me a photo on his phone of him with his unit during a joint exercise with U.S. Marines, and has traveled the world, going to Europe and elsewhere.

It all just hits you, even though you chose to move to that country and learn the culture.

I mean, I want to eat some "comfort food", like quesadillas or cereal with milk, and you just can't find it, or access it simply.

My first weeks in Mexico City (this was decades ago), I remember a visit to a small food store. As a foreigner not speaking Spanish, though I very much wanted to (and later earned a teaching credential to teach Spanish), and not being a cultural native, I couldn't tell what building or buildings contained markets. (I later found Sumesa, the supermarket chain, that was my best, affordable option.)

The owner and employees (probably family or close friends among themselves, which is fine) were more than happy to attend to my list of grocery items and retrieve them from different parts of their small store.

Eggs, cheese, etc. (I remember they wrapped the eggs in a thick wrap of paper. I was a vegetarian at the time--very difficult in Mexico City--I had great difficulty finding ojonjoli, sesame bread or chips, and finally did so miles from where I stayed, up Insurgentes Norte, a major street traversing the city.)

Having secured my grocery list of items, I happily returned to my room and had a feast.

Only later did I learn that they had charged me three times the rate I would have paid at Sumesa, the supermarket chain. They weren't being dishonest, they were just providing me the personalized service that I was requesting by my mere appearance at their small store/deli--which would have been understood by anyone fluent in the culture. I wasn't fluent!

By the way, the South Korean young adult who was the impetus for this blog entry has the goal of training to be a pilot. He plans on going to North Dakota for pilot's school; that lasts four years. He plans to live in the U.S. for a total of 10 years.