Sean Chin Bing Qi
BSocSc Class of 2018
“We all fear what we do not understand.” – Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol
Travelling to Mexico is an expensive and time consuming affair; it takes 30 hours of air travel to get there from Singapore. Naturally, many Singaporeans have never been here before, let alone have the privilege of spending 5 months in a country they only occasionally read about in the news. The fact that Mexico is half a world away and perceived to be full of violence had my friends and family questioning my choice to spend a semester here.
I want to humbly share my experience of living and travelling in Mexico for 5 months at the Universidad de las Americas Puebla. I hope this will provide you with a better understanding of the Mexico I know, instead of the one you read or watch through the media. While it is true that events like drug wars and kidnappings happen, they are not as common as you think. Mexico is not the “Wild West” where you need a gun to survive your exchange, and you certainly will not get robbed everywhere you go. In fact, I would even go so far as to argue that the Mexico is a safe country to live in if you employ common sense and stay out of dangerous areas. Mexicans, young and old, are not oblivious to how the world views them; they are acutely aware of their country’s problems, and are determined to be the change they want to see.
First, a disclaimer: While I cannot speak for other SMU students who have also done an exchange in other Mexican states, my experiences were gleaned from visiting 18 cities around Mexico.
Bienvenidos a Mexico! (Welcome to Mexico)
Landing in Cholula, Puebla, the first thing I noticed was how my ability to communicate barely knowing any Spanish was reduced to using sign language. Ordering food was an adventurous affair of pointing to a dish on the menu and hoping for the best. Sometimes it came as a pleasant surprise, other times it was not quite what I was expecting. Thanks to the immense patience of the Mexican people, I could sometimes communicate my intentions by spouting nouns strung together in a pseudo-sentence. It was painfully obvious that I needed to learn Spanish… and fast.
I am glad to report that my Spanish has improved from “Completely non-verbal” to “Horrible” by the end of exchange.
Living in a student house that was initially only a third full but grew in occupation over time was one of the best decisions that I made for my exchange in Mexico. While my Spanish did not quite improve living in an environment where the lingua franca is English, I certainly did learn some French and German in the process. My place also happened to be parallel to a street of clubs and bars, which usually means loud music from Thursdays through Saturday nights (and mornings), which can be a boon or a bane depending on how you look at it. And yes, weekends here start on a Thursday night.
The La Leyenda Family
The cost of living here is lower than in Singapore, so that’s where you can stretch your dollar just that little bit more for that dinner or drinks at a bar, where liquor is really cheap compared to Singapore.
Buses here have a maximum fare of 7 pesos (roughly equivalent to 0.50SGD) and traverse back and forth between Cholula and Puebla City and arrive at an interval of about 10 to 15 minutes. These buses, however, have no designated bus stops and you can board and alight these buses from literally anywhere along the bus route. This bus system (or lack thereof) did come as a slight shock to students who come from nations with an orderly public transport system, including myself. The organized chaos might take some getting used to, as almost all intra-city buses across Mexico operate on a similar basis.
I bought a second-hand bicycle when I got here and that served me pretty well in running my daily errands and exploring the city. Of course, if you need to go farther, there is always Uber.
By and large, Cholula is a nice, peaceful and not to mention safe environment for students wanting to do an exchange here, save for the occasional petty crimes you hear about. Then again, which cities do not have such incidents?
Living in a country few Singaporeans have had the privilege to explore and live in allowed me to learn 3 important lessons and I would like to share them with you now.
Lesson 1: Learn To Relax
“If I probably am going to die tomorrow, I might as well spend today partying. That’s the Mexican way of thinking.” – Professor Myrna Elizabeth Barron
To be honest, there is no real Mexican way of life. Not everyone enjoys the stereotypical “Mexican life” of partying or lazing by the beach all day, but there is one common thread: They all know how to take it easy. It is something us Singaporeans can learn from and I have certainly understood what it means to simply live life and chill out.
Eating is one of my favorite pastimes (and I am sure it is yours too), and one thing you appreciate about Mexico when you live here is that there is food available everywhere. By food, I refer to the standard local fare of Mexican tacos, quesadillas and cemitas. The sheer amount of taco stalls, or taquerias as they are called in this part of the world will leave you spoilt for choice, and after 5 months here, I would say I have grown to love the quintessential Mexican food. The taqueria, I would argue, is an institution in Mexican gastronomy and every taco stall will claim that their special sauce or marinate distinguishes themselves from the rest. Sometimes it is true, but sometimes it is not.
Tacos Arabe and Al Pastor
Many eateries in Mexico have hygiene practices that are, to say the least, questionable. Coming from a city that prides itself on being clean, having meals in these eateries can be quite daunting initially. But I have long come to accept the fact that despite how dirty some of these stalls look, the food that they serve will not cause you to fall ill… most of the time. I have learned that in Mexico, it is best you do not use the Singaporean standard of hygiene to judge these eateries. Basically, when it comes to Mexican food, chill out. And trust that you will be fine.
The Universidad De La Puebla Americas (UDLAP)
The university that SMU partners with is UDLAP and the university is in the heart of Cholula, a city in the state of Puebla just 30 minutes away from the Puebla city.
The university is one of the premier institutions in the region and its administration and campus certainly reflects that. While the academic workload here is way more manageable when compared to SMU, it is spread throughout the 16-week semester and might resemble SMU’s hectic semester at some point. With many modules having only about 20 students to one professor, classes can be rather intimate and class discussions can be quite fun.
The UDLAP Campus
Game of American Football; UDLAP’s Aztecas are the National Champion of 2016
Everyday life studying at UDLAP is certainly more relaxed than in Singapore. You find many pockets of time that you learn to fill by relaxing or by watching movies. Ticket prices range from S$2.5-$5 and there isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t make time to catch a movie (or two) during the school week. Studying in UDLAP is nothing short of relaxing and you understand why the students here do not want to leave school.
Lesson 2: Keep An Open Mind
Maybe it is the fact that we come a long way from sunny Singapore to Mexico. Singaporeans past and present have gained a reputation in the student house I live in for being some of the most hardcore travelers. While students from other countries travel every alternate week to another state in Mexico, we travel almost every week.
Travelling in Mexico opens up your eyes to many types of people. Like the quote at the beginning of this post, I used to be cynical towards Mexicans because I did not fully understand them. After all, haven’t we all been taught to be wary of friendly strangers?
To truly understand what Mexico and its people had to offer, I had to first unlearn everything I thought I knew about this place, and keep an open mind. One of the treasures of this place is its people. Their hospitality and friendliness can sometimes take some getting used to, but you learn that it is in their DNA to be friendly to everyone.
Mexico is a huge country with so many different cities and sights that we did not even have time to fully explore the country. I personally found many of the natural wonders located in Mexico enchanting to say the least. From diving in the underground rivers that run underneath the Yucatan Peninsula, to taking a boat ride in the river that runs through, the Sumidero Canyon, one of the largest and oldest canyons in Mexico, she literally has it all.
Guanajuato
The cities, ancient and modern are a different sight to behold. Cities like Guanajuato and San Miguel are quaint and mesmerizing, while Mexico City has an urban skyline we are all too familiar with. Not to be forgotten, many Mesoamerican Archaeological ruins dot the entire country, offering a glimpse into the great structures that man built before heavy machinery existed.
Monte Alban, Oaxaca
Exploring on 4 Wheels
Being slightly foolhardy in Mexico can sometimes be a good thing. We were warned by the Internet and some locals against going on road trips here because of the element of danger involved. But we did so anyway, and it became our favorite way to travel. We took many road trips, some with the international friends we met in the university and others with same bunch of Singaporeans. The scenery along the highways and the participation in carpool karaoke never failed to make the long drives worth it. The land between cities tend to be rather undeveloped and the vast expanses of greenery and mountain ranges will truly take your breath away. Roads are surprisingly well-maintained and they offer a smooth ride to your destination. That is not to say though, that driving on the roads of Mexico, especially in the cities, are a cinch. They do require some navigational sense and a huge dose of defensive driving. In fact, I am pretty sure the stress from driving in these cities have also taken a few years off my lifespan. However, as long as you do whatever the locals do on the road, you should be just fine.
SIN X KOR
SIN X FRA X KOR
Lesson 3: People Are All The Same.
I am not going to make this more clichéd than it ought to be, but remember how some celebrities wax lyrical about how we all belong to the same human race?
The final lesson that I took away from this whole exchange experience is that people are way more similar than they are different, despite the picture painted by the mass media.
It might seem that, on the surface, people of different nationalities care about different matters and will often disagree on many issues. I beg to differ. Through my interactions with local Mexicans and exchange students from other countries, I have learnt that fundamentally, everyone really cares about the same core issues.
To say that Mexicans differ culturally from Asians would also be inaccurate in my opinion. The Introduction to Sociolinguistics module I took in UDLAP exposed the roots of many terms the Mexican people used daily. The underlying ideology behind the linguistics of the Mexicans are so similar to the Chinese that I sometimes could not respond to my professor when pressed for an analysis of the difference between Asian and Mexican culture. Both cultures share many common traits and even have similar festivals (El Dia de Muertos and Hungry Ghost Festival) despite the apparent and superficial differences. In fact, we even have the same taboos.
Everything I have experienced in Mexico culminated in this last lesson, where it dawned on me to never judge other cultures based on what little we know about it through the media. More often than not, we probably have more in common than we think.
Final Thoughts
As an SOSS student, I found this whole experience in Mexico to be thoroughly immersive and thought-provoking. I have never regretted any part of coming to Mexico for an exchange and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see for yourself how misunderstood this country truly is, because this country truly is beautiful.
Lastly, I think the company of fellow students on exchange made this whole experience so much more fun and fulfilling.
Here is a parting tribute to #sincoamigos, my friends who have become family in the land of tacos.
