trip distillate

[opabinia]

Boston people are as grouchy and hostile as urban Puerto Ricans, but they're generally more spoiled. They're also less likely to steal my shit. I literally couldn't street-park a second-rate rental car outside my great-aunt's house overnight.

There really is goodness in my native culture. This time out, I perceived more of the simple compassion, kindness, hospitality, trust, respect for the extended family, and care for the elderly we may rightly feel proud of. However, all these virtues are entirely overshadowed and trampled by the problems of living in that place. A long tradition of once-healthy disrespect for authority (see 1493-1898+) and desperation will do that.

My rather eccentric, but often correct, uncle told me that, in the old days, people who weren't fit for gainful employment on the island would leave, looking for a break elsewhere. Nowadays, anyone with professional skills jumps ship as soon as they can, because their qualifications and experience go to waste in a clogged and stingy job market. A higher proportion of the population lives on government handouts every year.

One guy I know, a JD/CPA, says he may stay on the island because En tierra de ciegos, el tuerto es rey. I told him I'd rather be a small fish in a less shitty pond.

Comments

[cris.livejournal.com]

I get the same guilt trip from relatives in the Philippines who say that my Western schooling would be so useful, and I have to retort that Western schooling is calibrated for less corrupt business environments.

... or in the land of the blind, only the one-eyed king sees how shitty life really is.

[apogeeperigee.livejournal.com]

Ya know..I have not been back since the family exodus in 79. It was shitty for us there even then since we were POOR. Kinda why we came here. Anyway, since I was just a wee one at that time, I have a very hazy memory of the motherland as it were, so every so often I keep wondering what it would be like for me to go back. Would it be anything else than: "oh look another place in the Caribbean that is amazingly beautiful, but profoundly messed up".

[deadwinter.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm fortunate. I never get that. I didn't leave because things were better here, or because I just couldn't wait to be disrespected and discriminated against by North Shore pieces of shit unfit to kiss my college-degreed ass. I left because there was nothing for me there. My parents understood that.

there's fuck-all for me here, but I had to find that out, didn't I?

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

I had no idea. That is seriously noble. I'm cynical enough to picture the talented among her fortunate students leaving the island as soon as possible, though.

[dosboof.livejournal.com]

"Nowadays, anyone with professional skills jumps ship as soon as they can, because their qualifications and experience go to waste in a clogged and stingy job market. A higher proportion of the population lives on government handouts every year."

Sounds a whole lot why my parents - along with all but one of my uncles and all but one of my cousins - left West Virginia and never came back. My grandparents aren't quite as understanding as your uncle, though.

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/miles-kington/miles-kington-remembered-if-spanish-proverbs-depress-you-go-to-the-other-bar-821146.html

"We had several evenings like this. Our Spanish vocabulary got a lot better as the holiday wore on. On the other hand, we got more and more depressed. "