Santiaguino Factoids: Volume II

My time in Santiago has officially surpassed the three-month mark. I have settled into life as an English teacher working, oh I don’t know, let’s say 20 hours a week just in case any of the Duoc Administers are reading this. In addition, this past weekend, I started waiting tables at the Irish Pub. I am pretty sure the combined wages for both jobs would land me square beneath the poverty line in the U.S., but, again, as I’m not exactly doing any REAL work, I don’t have much room to complain.

Still, living and working in Santiago for as long as I have, you would think that I have long since grown accustomed to the Santiaguino way of life. And, once again, you would be wrong...

As you may have noticed on my first volume of Santiaguino’s little we’ll call them pleasantries, there are quite a number of things that sets Chile, and Santiago apart from the rest of the world, including it’s South American neighbors.

So without further adieu, I give you Volume II of Santiaguino Factoids:

-Missing menu items: one of the most prevalent and the most peculiar quirks about Santiago’s restaurant culture is the fact that the menu can NEVER be taken for granted. This might be why in so many establishments, they decide to forego the menu entirely, instead expecting the clientele to simply order one of the “platos del fondo” written on the window in shoe polish. If you don’t quite understand what I am talking about, let me be more specific. It is an overwhelmingly common occurrence to walk into a restaurant, request your desired meal, only to hear the response, “Tengo que buscar,” which is code for, “We don’t have it.” At this point, the waiter or waitress leaves, mid-order, and is gone for a period of anywhere between 2 and 10 minutes, only to return to inform you that, as suspected, they don’t have it. And I am not just talking about the Salmon Caviar or Filet a la Oscar – signature dishes that are only ordered in limited supply to ensure freshness or to keep demand high, or both. No, no, no. We’re talking about Italian restaurants not having pizza. Or more recently, this actually happened earlier this week, a Chinese restaurant not having white rice. Skeptical though you may be, short of throwing a plate at the wall in a silence-shattering spectacle of unexpected rage, your only recompense is to take their word for it and move on. Pick you battles.

-Welcome Freshman: this is actually a throw-back to factoids volume one, when I forgot to include the picture of all the ragamuffin-looking kids in the picture above. From what I gathered from the locals, and various run-ins with college-aged beggars, when you start your first year of university in Santiago, as a ceremonial write of passage, you are stripped of your clothes, covered in paint, eggs, marker, and who knows what else, and left to beg for coins until you get enough money to buy your clothes back: “Congratulations on furthering your education, now live like a bum!”

-Wrinkly businessmen: apparently more people have spotted Nessy than a can of spray starch down here. Plus dry-cleaning costs about 5 bucks a shirt. Which means, if you see ANY guy in a clean, pressed shirt, step aside, because like Teeters, he’s kind of a – Meathead! Nerd! Geek! Loser! ... * Sigh * – big deal.

-Plastic bags: apparently Chile is really short on glass, and maybe hard plastic, too, because in addition to charging the deposit on bottles of beer, plastic bags are used to store a plethora of oils, powders, and liquids that would otherwise come in glass jars or containers. You can only begin to imagine the carnage that is the
inside of our refrigerator when ten people have to figure out how to share and organize the limited space when tomato sauce, parmesan cheese, rice, sugar, salt, coffee grinds, mayonnaise, and even soy sauce come in non-resealable plastic bags. Check that. The mayonnaise bag has a screw-on cap, but the others lay in wait, just begging for the opportunity to splat, ooze, or sprinkle all their insides over everything in their path of destruction. I have taken the liberty of attaching a picture of one such unopened bag of liquid. I would have used the bag of coffee grinds, or my bag or rice, but in their opened condition they are far too delicate to be moved except when absolutely necessary (plus the kitchen was just cleaned by the nana this morning).

-Toilet paper instead of tissue: maybe it’s because Kleenex has abandoned South American as a lost cause, or maybe the Chileans just really love the convenience of always having a roll of toilet paper close at hand, but for whatever reason, tissues here are almost non-existent. Not only is it accepted to carry a roll of toilet paper around in your backpack, but it is almost strange if you don’t. I wasn’t made aware of my poor toilet-paper etiquette until recently when I was walking around with some of my students, and in the cold weather I stopped to ask for a napkin at a McDonald’s to blow my nose. Before I could set foot in the door, one of them whipped her TP out of its holster (a.k.a. side pocket of her backpack) and in no time I had a wad of hygienic goodness to wipe the tip of my wet nose... Now I know.

-Ass sandwiches: I know I have made a big spectacle about the food down here, and even here in Santiago some of my doubting friends didn’t believe me when I told them that I had seen advertisements for Ass Sandwiches. Well here is photographic evidence... Like bigfoot, it’s a little blurry, but I figure it’s still worth posting because it is equally as elusive. The sign translated says, “Giant Italian Ass.” So I could literally ask someone if they want a piece of my giant Italian ass, and it would be perfectly acceptable... Nay, even polite... “My that is a Giant Italian Ass. And may I just say, it tastes just delicious.”

-Receipts galore: it doesn’t seem to follow that a culture unwilling to use tissue, and unable to spare any glass would have such a love affair with wasting paper on receipts, but then, Santiago is mysterious like that. Just when you think you’ve got her figured out, BAM! You get a face full of meaningless receipts to make you think again. They literally will NOT let you walk out the door unless you have a slip of paper in your hand, ready to be used to accompany the already litter-strewn walkways. What’s worse, as many institutions don’t have computers to print out said receipts, you invariably have to wait while some remedial-ed student with a big red crayon labors for five minutes to write down your 16-cent transaction into his carbon-paper-smudged ledger.

Sample transaction: Monday night, I step into a botillería to buy a few liters of beer for our poker night. The market is at most 150 square feet. I speak to the man standing behind a counter in front of the beer and make my request. He proceeds to pull the beers from the fridge and place them in the bag. I ask him if I can pay there. “Of course not,” says he. He subsequently walks five steps over to the counter opposite the beer and explains to the gentleman sitting at the counter, that I would like to purchase the beers that he has bestowed on this new stranger. “Certainly,” new guy says, and then passes the beers onto the lady at the cash-register. Lady at the cash-register casts an inquisitive glance at new guy, who then tells her the price. She rings up the price, and I pay her. As I am about to leave, new guys calls out to me, telling me to wait. “Oh right,” I think to myself. “The receipt.” Sure enough, cash register lady hands me a hand-written piece of paper to prove that I did indeed purchase the beer that I was carrying out the door. I try yet again to leave, and again am thwarted by the sound of new guy’s voice. This time, I have to wait for the receipt of the bottle deposit. So 3 people, two worthless receipts, and 10 minutes of my life later, I had finally completed my purchase... I’ll even show you the receipt if you want.

As always, I hope this offered some valuable insight into the crazy world that is Santiago. Stay tuned for the next installment of Santiaguino factoids... You just never know what kind of wacky things these Santiaguinos will come up with next.