Published by Xenophobe’s® Guides. E-mail: info@xenophobes.com Web site: www.xenophobes.com Copyright © Xenophobe’s® Guides Ltd., 2016 and all other editions. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Xenophobe’s® is a Registered Trademark. Printed 2018 Editor – Catriona Tulloch Scott Series Editor – Anne Tauté Cover designer – Vicki Towers Map – Jim Wire Printer – CPI Antony Rowe, Wiltshire
Cover – Young woman dancing Flamenco © Andy-pix, Shutterstock.
ePub ISBN: 9781908120847 Mobi ISBN: 9781908120854 Print ISBN: 9781906042486
Contents Nationalism & Identity
1
Character
7
Attitudes & Values
12
Behaviour
17
Obsessions
20
Manners
22
Custom & Tradition
26
Culture
36
What is Sold Where
44
Eating & Drinking
45
Leisure & Pleasure
52
Health & Hygiene
63
Sense of Humour
66
Systems
68
Crime & Punishment
71
Government
75
Business
79
Conversation
81
Language
84
‘Andalusians, Aragonese, Castilians, Galicians, though feeling distinct from each other, feel a good deal more different from foreigners.’ The population of Spain is nearly 49 million compared with 55 million English, 61 million Italians, 65 million French, 81 million Germans and 325 million Americans. Spain is four times as large as England but could fit into France with enough room to spare to accommodate Ireland.
Nationalism & Identity Forewarned The Spanish do not much care what other nations think of them, nor are they particularly patriotic. They have long since discarded such old sayings as ‘The smoke of my native land shines more than the fire of others’ or ‘If God were When nationalism not God he would be the King is enjoyable, of Spain’. the Spanish are Spaniards know the colours fervently nationalistic. of their flag because they believe the red stands for the blood of the bull and the yellow the sand on which it ends its days. They quite like the bull symbolising the country because they are moved by the tradition and pageantry of the conflict between man and beast and, as an icon, it helps sell vast quantities of brandy and quite a few beach towels. When nationalism is enjoyable, the Spanish are fervently nationalistic, not having totally forgotten the fun they had in 1992 when, to their own amazement, they successfully organised an Olympic Games in Barcelona. Never having cared much about athletics, swimming or fencing before, they realised that being cheered on by the visiting world for running and jumping was gratifying, but when the games moved further afield they rather lost interest.
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Nationalism & Identity
Pride in their country’s achievements at football has been known to intensify during World Cup matches, but if Spain gets knocked out early they will happily switch allegiance to any country that has a player showing promise of zest and gusto. Usually a South American one. They will stay glued to their television sets to watch the Oscars if a Spanish film has been nominated, not so much because they want it to win but because it is a great excuse to stay up all night. In Spain days are for siestas, nights for fiestas.
How they see others The Spanish will only be aware of other nationalities if they have visited their country and had a great time. They will think little of people in whose country they were bored. As the majority of Spanish have failed to find any night life in Britain and They think little cannot bring themselves to like of people in whose the taste of flat, tepid bitter, country they were they tend to ignore the British, bored. What matters is regarding them as rather flat whether or not people and tepid themselves. are amusing. Brazilians they rate highly because they drink and dance the night away, and never go to bed. As for the rest, the Spanish do not particularly differentiate – Austrians, Chinese, Dutch,
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Nationalism & Identity
French, Germans, Italians, Japanese – all are extranjeros (foreigners). This is not a stigma despite the slang term ‘guiri’ applied to natives of more prosperous nations than Spain who are deemed to speak ‘guirigay’ or gibberish, the language most foreigners seem to speak. Overall, the Spanish react to and judge the individual, not the horde, and what matters is whether or not people are amusing.
How others see them The Spanish are viewed as noisy, unreliable, always late for appointments if they turn up at all, and seeming never to go to bed except in the afternoons. Worst of all, they appear indifferent to The Spanish are complaints, apparently capable of viewed as noisy, shrugging off any form of criticism. unreliable and The people of Andalucía (the seeming never to biggest region) are the most vivago to bed except in cious and produce the most exciting the afternoons. dances and music and the most colourful costumes. So, despite the fiction, holiday tour organisers have promoted it as the real Spain. The myth still lingers about Spanish men being the epitome of the macho male – moody, taciturn, and prone to whip out knives to defend their manly pride and honour at the drop of an imagined slur. People
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Nationalism & Identity
also believe the Spanish to be lazy, or constantly enjoying fiestas and siestas. In fact they work more hours per year than, for example, the Germans. If they are less productive than Northern Europeans, this is due less to idleness than chronic disorganisation.
How they see each other It is said that Spain is not so much a country, more an idea, the reality being a collection of powerful regional territories and identities. This is made even more complex by the issue of regional languages. The dictator Franco (who ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975) tried to suppress languages other than The best way to Castellano (the language English make Spaniards want speakers call Spanish or Castilian, to do something is to which is understood all over forbid them to do it. Spain), thus making people more determined to speak them, and inadvertently giving a boost to independence movements in Catalonia and the Basque country. He should have remembered that the best way to make Spaniards want to do something is to forbid them to do it. In the Basque region, which in Basque is called Euskadi, the traffic signs are in Basque, they have their own Basque police force, raise and collect their own Basque taxes, run their own Basque schools, have their own Basque television channel, and used to maintain
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Nationalism & Identity
their very own terrorist group ETA – Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Euskadi and Freedom). In Cataluña, with its capital Barcelona, they insist on speaking Catalan and can be rude to Spaniards who make the mistake of addressing them in Castellano. In Valencia and the Balearic Islands they chatter away in a distinct variant of Catalan and in Galicia they speak Gallego. There are 17 The Galicians are seen by all as regions in Spain, sly, withdrawn (at least by many toying with the Spanish standards) and unwilling idea of speaking a to commit themselves to anything, different language. to the extent that it is said that if you meet a Galician on a flight of stairs, it is impossible to tell whether he is going up or coming down. There are 17 regions in Spain, each with its own capital, flag and legislature, many toying with the idea of speaking a different language. But as you travel south, the sun thankfully gets hotter, the siesta gets longer, and enthusiasm for bringing out new dictionaries decreases. The natives of most of the regions, such as Andalusians, Aragonese, Castilians, and Valencians, though feeling distinct from each other, feel a good deal more different from foreigners. They may prefer to wave their regional flags rather than the national flag because they like the different colours, but that is as far as their nationalism goes.
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Nationalism & Identity
However, (apart from the Basques) there is one exception to this. Ask a Catalan if he is a nationalist or in any way patriotic and he will answer passionately in the affirmative. He will not, however, be referring to Spain as his country, but Cataluña.
Immigrants and minorities Spain went very swiftly from having very few immigrants – 500,000 in 1992 – to a lot: 5.2 million in 2008. Since the worldwide economic collapse, which hit Spain particularly hard, many have returned to their homelands, but many Moroccans, Romanians, Bolivians, Chinese, Peruvians and Bulgarians, among others, have remained in Spain. The Spanish are often disparaging about North Africans, whom they call ‘moros’ (Moors), and about native Spanish gitanos (Gypsies), although they allow themselves to be mesmerised by gypsy music. But on the whole they have adapted pretty well to their new multi-ethnic society. Very few politicians have sunk to blaming the country’s woes on the presence of immigrants. After all, who could blame anyone for wanting to live in Spain? As a school textbook of the 1960s put it: ‘Spain is a country singled out by God. That is why it is at the centre of the world, and that is why all foreigners want to live here.’
6
Character
How they see themselves The Spanish, if they think about it at all, which is doubtful, see themselves as totally acceptable people in a world where many are not. All Spaniards know that life is more enjoyable in Spain than anywhere else in the world, and this criterion is more important than any other.
Character Fun is fundamental Anyone attempting to understand the Spanish must first of all recognise the fact that they do not consider anything important except total enjoyment. If it is not enjoyable it will be ignored. All that is Capable of finding boundless predictable about energy to satisfy this pleasure seekthe Spanish is their ing, their enormous capacity for unpredictability. having fun results in any unexpected form of entertainment taking precedence over everything else. This means that they change their minds continually. Planning does not play any part in their lives. All that is predictable about the Spanish is their unpredictability. When visiting the country you cannot act upon the old dictum ‘When in Spain do as the Spanish do’, because no-one knows what they will be doing next.
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7
Character
Mañana The Spanish are not ambitious, envious, or easily impressed, and in response to any question they will probably only shrug their shoulders by way of suggesting that the answer is not known, or is unimportant, or both. For example: ‘What political party do you support?’ Shrug. ‘How many times have you been married?’ Shrug. ‘Would you like a beer or a coffee?’ Shrug. This attitude can become a bit irritating when you ask a railway official the time of the next train to Madrid. Time, of course, is fundamentally immaterial to the Spanish because it suggests a limit to freedom, and a limit to freedom suggests a curb on enjoyment. To avoid being too specific about time, the minutes are generally ignored in favour of the nearest quarter hour. There is even a special term (madrugada) which can mean any of the small hours before dawn. As for being too specific about any other time, the vital word to remember (usually accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders) is mañana. This means ‘tomorrow’, ‘some time tomorrow’, ‘the day after tomorrow’, ‘the day after that’, or ‘next week’, ‘the week after next’, ‘maybe next month’, or ‘next year’, ‘possibly next year’, ‘best think in terms of 2030’, ‘sometime’, ‘never’, ‘never ever’. A lackadaisical attitude to time explains the sobremesa – the time after lunch when everyone has 8
Character
finished eating but no-one wants to get up and leave. Sitting around the table chatting and drinking coffee or brandy or patxarán (a sloe liqueur from the Basque country) is the solution. The sobremesa can last anything from 30 minutes to four hours, and goes a long way towards explaining the national tendency to postpone doing things until mañana.
The more, the merrier A sociologist aptly described the Spanish as ‘pathologically sociable’: they love to do things in groups, the larger the better. A handy side-effect of this is that if you phone your friend Manolo and say ‘Let’s meet’, he’s unlikely to say ‘Sorry, I can’t. I’ve already arranged to meet Pepe and María’. His probable response will be ‘I’m having tapas with Pepe and The Spanish are as María and Pili and Marcos and vociferous as they are Puri and Paco and Patri. Come gregarious. They love and join us!’ chatty conviviality, and The Spanish are as vociferous they prefer talking as they are gregarious. They love to listening. chatty conviviality, and they prefer talking to listening. This is why Spanish bars are so noisy: everyone is talking at once, and trying to be heard over the voices of their friends, the din of the music, the fruit machines and the football match on the television.
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9
Character
For these reasons, a Spanish person’s idea of a walk in the country involves 20 or 30 people strolling through a forest or over a mountainside, all chatting nineteen to the dozen, oblivious to the beauties of nature, and completely safe from being bitten by vipers or gored by wild boar as these timid creatures will have heard them from miles away and taken refuge in a quiet and distant The Spanish are thicket. hospitable by nature The Spanish are hospitable by and hate to be thought nature, and hate to be thought of as tight-fisted. of as tight-fisted. They seldom argue about how to split a restaurant bill: if Paco, Fran, Kiko and Patxi meet for lunch, they will simply split the bill four ways, unless there is an enormous discrepancy between what they have consumed. For example, if Paco, Fran and Kiko had 3-course meals, but Patxi only arrived in time for a coffee and a rumand-coke during the sobremesa, then the three who had the slap-up meal will insist on splitting the bill equally (a custom called pagar a escote – ‘paying by cleavage’), and forbid Patxi to pay a cent.
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Anything goes The average Spaniard is impervious to the disapproval of others, and also relatively uncensorious: he is more interested in enjoying his own life than in condemning 10
Character
how others enjoy theirs. He is aware that there is no point in urging them to mend their ways, as they, too, will be impervious to the disapproval of others.
Lack of consideration Owing to a ‘consideration chip’ never having been inserted in their character when it was originally constructed, the Spanish generally tend to be less formal about manners than many other nationalities. The word ‘please’ is seldom put to use. Apologies for minor misdemeanours are not expected, nor is gratitude lavished on the generous. The Apologies for minor Spanish deem such things artificial misdemeanours are or false. If they are pleased, they not expected, nor is show it; similarly they make little gratitude lavished effort to hide their displeasure. on the generous. Their inconsiderate temperament results in a reluctance to sacrifice any part of their own interests to the common good. They therefore never suffer from guilt. This is why, though most Spaniards are above reproach when it comes to domestic and personal hygiene, public spaces are another matter. Many are confirmed litterbugs and will drop wrappers or empty cigarette packets without thought, even if they are only a few steps from the nearest bin. Travel across the country and your eyes will alight not just on plastic bags scattered by the winds along
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Attitudes & Values
highways and byways, but rusty refrigerators, twisted prams, bicycle frames, old cars, oxidised olive presses, perforated water tanks, blown safes, false teeth and other non-biodegradable dross. The same lack of consideration applies to parking. Heedless of the needs of other motorists, the Spanish will park in a way that gives them least trouble. The middle of the available space will do nicely.
Obsessions Football The Spanish are crazy about football, a game which is right up the alley of this gregarious, demonstrative people as it provides an opportunity to gather in large numbers, make lots of noise, and enjoy passionate exclamations of dismay, fury or elation. Moreover, the referee celebrates each frequent Apart from football, and flagrant flouting of the rules obsessions hold by waving a red or yellow card – little appeal for a red and yellow being, of course, nation of easy-going, the colours of the Spanish flag. easily-distracted Apart from football, the hedonists. Spanish do not go in for obsessions in a big way: they hold little appeal for a nation of easy-going, easily-distracted hedonists. But they do feel strongly about the following:
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Attitudes & Values
Jamón serrano This raw, chewy, reddish, dry-cured ham (not to be confused with the softer, pinker and more insipid boiled ham that for some mysterious reason is known as jamón york) can certainly be very tasty, but it’s hard to fathom quite why it drives the Spanish to such heights of ecstasy. Nevertheless, Most Spaniards now any self-respecting bar will live in cities, but are have a whole pig’s leg at one strongly attached to their end of the counter, from which pueblo of origin. the bar staff will carve slices for their customers to enjoy; in many bars the walls or ceiling are festooned with more pig’s legs, rather as crucifixes adorn the walls of a church. If you ask any Spaniard who has the misfortune to live outside Spain what he or she most misses, he or she will almost certainly reply ‘My family, my friends and jamón serrano.’
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My pueblo The word ‘pueblo’ can mean ‘nation’ or ‘people’, but most often it refers to a village or town – any settlement larger than a hamlet that isn’t actually a city. Most Spaniards now live in cities, but are strongly attached to their pueblo of origin, and visit it fairly frequently; they will probably have a holiday home there, or relatives they can stay with. 13
Attitudes & Values
People who live in Madrid or Málaga or Zaragoza will often say, ‘I’m going to spend the weekend in my pueblo’; if questioned, they will probably admit that they weren’t born in the pueblo of Peñaranda de Bracamonte (or Miranda de Ebro, or Colmenar de Oreja [‘Beehive Cluster of Ear’], as the case may be), and nor were their parents, but they consider Peñaranda to be their pueblo because that is where Grandmother Apolonia and Grandfather Bonifacio were born. Thus Spain boasts millions of people who were born and raised in major cities but claim to be ‘from’ little flyspecks on the map that few people have ever heard of. It goes without saying that every Spaniard will proudly proclaim that his or her pueblo boasts the tastiest bread, cheese and jamón serrano in the whole of Spain, if not the entire world.
Manners When sharing tapas, table manners come second to gluttony. Enthusiasm for what is placed in the centre of the table will often have people stretching across each other and using their fingers to get a mouthful, until someone puts everyone in order by sensibly serving individual platefuls. Shouting indoors as well as out in the open also has 14
Attitudes & Values
to be endured as the Spanish voice box was originally built along the lines of a quadraphonic sound system. The result is that everyone appears to have had a hearing impairment since childhood and needs to compete with others very loudly in order Shouting has to be to be heard. endured as the Spanish Greetings at home, in the voice box was originally street, in cafés, restaurants or built along the lines wherever, take a long time – of a quadraphonic longer even than in France sound system. (where an hour should be given to shake the hands of everyone in sight) – since the men will shake hands with the men and kiss the women, the women will kiss the women, the children will suffer the adults to kiss them, the aunts will kiss the uncles, cousins, grandfathers, grandmothers, the cook, his wife, and her lover.* Partings can be even more protracted. After a group of friends have dined out, drunk their coffees and liqueurs and paid (‘by cleavage’, of course), they will loiter outside the restaurant for up to an hour discussing options for when and where they will meet again (a pointless exercise since their next rendezvous will be the outcome of a spur-of-the-moment whim) before finally wending their separate ways – or, more
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*Nowadays it is not uncommon for men to exchange hugs or kisses with each other, thus prolonging the greetings even further. 15
Attitudes & Values
likely, adjourning to a nearby bar for ‘la penúltima’ – literally (at least in theory), ‘the next-to-last drink’. All this is because the Spanish love to meet people, people they know, old friends, new friends, and to this end continually make appointments for morning coffee, lunch, afternoon coffee, dinner, late night coffee, late late night coffee… after which they may even consider going home to bed.
Etiquette The fact that 98% of appointments are not kept is due to etiquette. The Spanish consider it very rude to leave the company of whomsoever Since the Spanish they are with before whomsoare never in a hurry ever they are with has finished to finish anything, telling them whatever it is they whatever they are telling are telling them. Moreover, as you may take an hour the Spanish live in and for the or two, or three. moment, the person they are with and the place where they happen to find themselves are more real, more important, and very possibly more amusing than any other place, person, commitment or obligation. Since the Spanish are never in a hurry to finish anything, whatever they are telling you may take an hour or two, or three. As it is impolite to interrupt someone even to let them know that you have another appoint-
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Behaviour
ment, you don’t, relaxed in the thought that whoever you were going to meet five hours ago will not be waiting impatiently at the appointed place because they too are listening to an endless saga from a friend they cannot interrupt so will never make it either. The inability to keep appointments results in the happy certainty that a partner cannot commit adultery because ..................................
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