Like new
October 30th, 2009
To put the cut back in your strut and the glide back in your stride, there is nothing like a shoe shine. However, in most cities in the so-called developed world, it is pretty hard to find a shine at all. When you do, you are usually agreeing to pay a fee that implies a down payment on the college education of the shoe shine man’s children.
Shoe shine stands, like the one pictured above, are all over the streets of Mexico City. It is still considered an honest form of work for someone like Julio Cesar, who spreads the grease on the corner of Coahuila and Insurgentes, outside the branch of Banamex. At the current exchange rate, the price — 15 pesos — is little more than a dollar.
I know that there are questions of dignity and political correctness and inequality here — Julio Cesar, and most Mexicans, have few opportunities in life, and there is something wrong about a society where so many citizens can aspire to little more than shining shoes. Still, I cannot lie: After he finished work on these very old gunboats and had made them look like new, I was a happy man.
14 Responses to “Like new”
By Joy on Oct 30, 2009
I frequently go to the Banamex right behind his shoe stand, and I’m always impressed with his hairstyles (I love what Chilangos can do with hair gel — it’s a blog post in itself). The photo above is his hair on a tame day.
By Felipe Zapata on Oct 30, 2009
Mexicans have very few opportunities in life? Baloney. On a recent Sunday, I counted 17 pages of job opportunities in El Universal. And those jobs ranged from high-end, high-tech work down to tons of ads for drivers, laborers, etc. Yeah, I know those latter ones do not pay much, but you can live in Mexico on very little.
Mexico also has oodles of educational opportunities from, again, high-end universities to low-cost tech schools where you can be trained in countless blue-collar trades. There are schools all over the place! Far more than in the United States. Many are low-cost, and many go under-utilized.
The economic problems in Mexico are cultural, amigo.
By Happy Camper on Oct 30, 2009
“The economic problems in Mexico are cultural”
It is a repugnant, ignorant statement to say the least. Google the following Mexican: Luis Lopez-Calva (and in particular his new book co-writen with Lusting.) He will tell you why you are wrong.
With so many educational opportunities in Mexico, you should get an education.
HC
By Felipe Zapata on Oct 31, 2009
Señor Happy: I searched for the book on Amazon with no luck. Alas.
But aside from that, I have long since ceased to be surprised when folks with contrary opinions, instead engaging of polite discourse, fall back on personal insults. In your message, I spot:
I am repugnant! I am ignorant! I need an education!
Tsk, tsk!
Your having failed to win me over to your point of view, I must stay put. Mexico´s economic woes are caused by our rampant culture of suspicion and mistrust. Plus, we have no instinct for the “Common Good.” And many other things, all cultural.
And, yes, “we” is correct. I am a Mexican citizen.
By Happy Camper on Oct 31, 2009
Lopez-Calva, Luis Felipe and Nora Lusting. “Declining Inequality in Latin America: A Decade of Progress? Brookings Institution Press.
The argument that positions “culture” as the main culprit for poverty and unemployment in Latin America was fully discredited in the 1950’s. It is, plain and simple, a racist argument. There is absolutely no evidence to support it. Of course, lack of empirical evidence never stops anybody for saying all sorts of crap. Right before dying Huntington still bitched that the main danger against the stability USA was the Mexican “culture”. May he rest in hell.
HC
By Andrew Paxman on Oct 31, 2009
Agreed on the shoeshine, David. Those men are masters of their craft.
As for the “debate” between Felipe Zapata and Happy Camper (whose real name, I suspect, is Angry Camper), here we have a case of two sides making sensible points, yet unwilling to listen to the other. Speaking as a historian, any argument claiming that Mexico’s problems are either *all* cultural or *all* structural is ignoring a wealth of theory and evidence.
By Jose on Oct 31, 2009
Once a chilango always a chilango! Felipe is the perfect prototype and example of why they are hated through out Mexico by their own people; Pompous, arrogant and pedantic.
By Paul Roberts on Nov 1, 2009
It seems to me that the economic is always mediated by the cultural and vice versa.
I agree that there is a culture of suspicion and mistrust in Mexico. One way to look at this is as a lack of social capital. It interests me to know and understand how this has arisen. I suspect the conquest and subsequent centuries of colonialisation have more than a little to do with it.
By alexa on Nov 5, 2009
Ese Felipillo… no seas tan delicado guapeton!
Besos a todos!
By Alejandro García Magos on Nov 5, 2009
Bravo for Mr. Andrew Paxman!
By Drew on Nov 7, 2009
If Mexico’s problems were all ‘cultural’, why would it’s business-legal structure be ranked 60th in the world in terms of economic competiveness. Culture definitely plays a factor, but until Mexican laws are changed to allow more competition and less bureaucracy, things for the majority won’t improve. Furthermore, Mexico ranks last among the 28 advanced countries of the OECD. Until politicians make the necessary reforms in this area (and until the people as a whole stand up to force the politicos to do this), it’s hard to blame a typical Mexican for the situation they face.
http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/mexico/219460-1.html
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/GCR09/GCR20092010fullrankings.pdf
By Junichiro Watanabe on Nov 7, 2009
Felipe Zapata, I assume you are aware that social mobility is much lower in Mexico than in the US -which, together with the UK, has the least degree of social mobility of all developed countries. So I don’t agree with your comment that Mexico offers opportunities for all. So long as you’re born to a middle or upper class household, yes -but those are, at most, 35 or 40% of the country.
About “culture”, the problem is that it’s an all-encompassing, vague concept. What isn’t “cultural” strictly speaking? Geography alone. Moreover, it’s always tricky to pin down specific “cultural traits” to establish a relationship of causality (i.e. “cultural aspect X holds back growth in country Y”). Maybe what causes X is Y(reverse causality), or maybe there’s an omitted variable that affects both X and Y. In the social sciences that’s called “endogeneity bias”.
What I do think is that there are two things affecting human behaviour, everywhere: incentives and “custom”. The former means that people respond to carrots-and-sticks; the latter means that some types of collective behaviour are inertial -people act in certain ways because that’s the custom, that’s the only way of doing things, or of thinking, that people know.
By Judy on Nov 10, 2009
Ain’t nothing like a Mexican shoeshine.
These people do it so well, they leave whatever is undignified about it in the dust.
By Josue The Captain on Nov 22, 2009
WOW! Shoeshine in Mexico. Last time I had a shoeshine was in Atlanta and before then I thought shoeshines only existed in Mexico. I remember getting shoeshines in Guadalajara. Flashback moment.