One thing that strikes tourists and expats alike is just how friendly the Mexican people are. That friendliness stretches from the mundane to the extreme. People greet each other throughout the day, with a “buen dia/tarde/noche” as appropriate. This may be becoming a rarity in the largest cities, where urban dwellers adopt the instinctive distrust of strangers the world over, but in small and mid-size towns, you talk to strangers. This is superficial, it’s true, but it evinces a culture’s approach to others.
Many visitors of all types have stories of a car breaking down somewhere in Mexico and the resulting group effort to fix the flat or find the part, which involves lives disrupted, friends marshaled, cousins called in, food shared, and eventual success with the absolute refusal to accept any payment for services rendered, time spent, or disruption caused.
Just a few weeks ago, we were looking for a specific grocery store in a giant plaza in Guadalajara, following the well-placed signs in the parking lot, which led us to the bottom of a parking garage and . . . no grocery store. But we did see the ubiquitous “car -washers,” Mexican men with rags and buckets that cheerfully offer to wash your vehicle while you’re shopping. We flagged them down and asked for directions, which they rattled off far faster than we could comprehend. We thanked them, then started to drive off, when we realized the man giving us directions had begun to sprint up the garage ramp, where he stopped and waved us on. We followed as he deftly dodged between lanes and pointed us around corners until we were in sight of the grocery, then he doubled back before we could even give him a final “gracias!”
Friendliness does have its downside. Despite that last paragraph, one generally does not ask locals for directions. Why? Because they are too friendly to say they don’t know where something is, so they give you directions to something like what you want, or to somewhere where other people are. In a similar vein, most Mexicans hate to say “no” as it feels impolite, so they often mean “no” but say “yes.” So you may ask if they can make something, they tell you yes, but then never get around to completing the deal, because they don’t really make such a thing. On the flip side, if you’re in a restaurant here, and happen to order something they’re out of, or that’s not on the menu, your waiter might still say yes. If you watch carefully, you will see someone from the cook staff sneaking out to the store down the street to buy the ingredients!
Most often, the friendliness of the Mexican people is abundant. Expat friends of ours tell us that they visit our local club, which sometimes hosts huge weddings for Tapatios (from Guadalajara). Many times our friends get invited to join in the fiesta. Not wedding crashing, mind you, just hanging out nearby, and of course, you must fiesta!
Mexico’s legendary friendliness is not just based on anecdotal evidence, although there is plenty of that. Internations, a global expat community, conducts an annual survey among expats, and Mexico perennially ranks first for the ease of making friends with locals and friendliness in general. And by friendliness, I don’t mean that false–almost obsequious–friendliness one encounters at an all-inclusive resort. There, employees are coached to bend over backwards for any request, and to do so with a smile. Out in real Mexico, the friendliness is more akin to treating others as you would like to be treated, and welcoming a visitor like family. It is not as if there isn’t the occasional rude waiter or smiling con artist, but that such people stand out most for not being common.