Prologue

I was born and raised in Mexico City. I was never rich, yet never poor... let's just say I had access to certain things. My family could never afford a trip to Russia, but they took me to see the Kirov and the Bolshoi. They didn't have the chance to send me to New York for the summer, but they took me to the Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey, and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I didn't have the chance to go to France for a year to learn French so I went to the Alliance Française instead. You get the idea.

All of the above-mentioned events took place in my natal Mexico City... city that I love and that I don't intend to inhabit ever again (but you never know, right?). My life in el DF (as us, the natives of the City, prefer to call it) not only exposed me to the obscenity of living in a megalopolis -along with extreme pollution and insecurity- but also gave me a glance of the world.

It was in Mexico City that I tasted Moët & Chandon champagne for the first time and where I had the [un]pleasant introduction to Siberian caviar and YSL cigarettes. It was in that city that I started my childish addiction to Le Petit Ecolier cookies and Bueno bars and Nutella.

My parents didn't exactly intend to create in me a fascination for foreign cultures and tastes. It was rather organic, yet always supported (and paid for) by them. I think they find me quite interesting; as if I'm this bad -yet terribly charming- son of theirs, who left them in good ol' Mexico to take over the world!

Naturally I don't have intentions to take over the world. They simply paid for enough schooling to make me fully trilingual at the age of 18.

What would you have done -or would do- if you were 18 years old in Mexico City and spoke English and French fluently? Wouldn't you just get out of the city to breathe real Parisian air, instead of the one in the Chanel and Louis Vuitton boutiques on Masaryk Ave? Wouldn't you go to Belgium to eat chocolates and waffles chez Wittamer, and not chez Garabatos (on Masaryk, still)? Wouldn't you rather have a walk in Central Park in the fall instead of just watching it in some cheap romantic American film…?

Well, that's just what I did. And you know you would have done it too. [!]

 

El NeoChilango [!]

Natives of Mexico City are often referred to as "chilangos" by the rest of the country. Legend has it, it's because chilangos have the body of a chili pepper -"chile"- and the face of a monkey -"chango"-, hence, "chilango"*. Usually we are very disliked by the people outside of Mexico City.

Having being raised in the city, I could never understand why my cousins from other states criticized my hometown so much. I just arrived to the conclusion that "everyone hates the best"... until someone from Culiacán, Sinaloa, told me that it was because us, chilangos, when visiting other cities of Mexico, when we go to, say, the park, we do remarks similar to "uh, this is the park? it's so small!", or "this is the mall? there are just like 20 stores in here!", or worst of all: "Ay Dios mío! (Spanish for Oh my God!), Este es el antro?! (this is the cluuub?!) Está chiquitito y lleno de nacos! (It's so tiny and it's full of nacos! (please refer to the "naco" post) ni siquiera sirven martiniiis! (they don't even serve martiniiis!). When I was told this explanation, I completely agreed. We can be obnoxious with our remarks about other cities in Mexico. We are right nonetheless. They are ever so small and blah. (Judge meee) [!].

*About the reasons behind the stereotypical "chilango": 

If there were approximately 30 million inhabitants in your city, just face it, many of them would be ugly. That is the case of Mexico City, where thousands and thousands of other Mexicans come with the hope of making a better life. These Mexicans are usually poor, and usually with a high concentration of native-Mexican blood running through their veins, which is beautifully represented in their traits... traits that are tragically abhorred by Mexicans with fair skin. These immigrants tend to have children, who tend to overpopulate the Mexican capital... alas, more chilangos are born every day. 

Luckily, I don't give a damn when people call me chilango. I'm indeed proud of it. I may be considered ugly by many, but still, I don't give a damn about that either. I am very tasteful and that's what matters. And I'm not ugly anyways... So that's the "Chilango" part of the name of this blog. The "Neo" is just a prefix signaling renewal... to break up with the cliché. Because I don't want to be part of a cliché. Not ever. I'm just a chilango who does not intend to inhabit Chilangolandia -Spanish for Chilangoland- ever again (that's what I say now, but who knows what I'll say tomorrow) [!].