Week 5 in Oaxaca

December 4, 2022 /

On Monday morning, I went to the local vegetable market Abastos to buy vegetables. By the way, I went to the memela shop on Netflix again to buy their homemade spicy sauce salsa morita. When I arrived, there were already many customers. I asked them if they sold hot sauce, but they were so busy that they ignored me. So I sat down and ate first. The customers sitting next to me were all Mexicans on vacation from the United States, and they all came after watching the Netflix episode that introduced this restaurant. A group of 12 family members and friends traveled to Mexico for a week. It is hard to imagine how much trouble it is to organize a trip for 12 people. When I finished eating, I saw that they were not very busy, and when I asked if they were selling hot sauce, they were finally free, and sold me a small cup.

Ever since I took a cooking class with my friends, I started to have the desire to cook with only local ingredients. So I bought zucchini flowers, local bay leaves epazote, fungi growing on huitlacoche corn, Oaxaca local cheese quesillo and corn tortillas in the big market, planning to make quesadilla. When I got back to the residence, I found that cheese and tomatoes were missing, and I paid for it but forgot to take it. So I walked back to the big market like a big maze, and found those two stalls. The aunt selling tomatoes saw me and immediately handed me my bag of tomatoes and limes, saying that I forgot to take them for me. with. But when I went to the cheese shop, because their cheese was already in bags, they didn't remember whether I took it or not. I didn't expect that they had a camera surveillance video, and said to check it first. I saw that the surrounding stalls also had cameras, but I hadn't noticed it before. The uncle who sells cheese seriously rewinds the surveillance video. It seems that there must have been people who paid the money and forgot to take it, or took it but said they didn’t take the petty ones. I waited for 10 minutes and finally got to my video. They saw that I did pay and did not get the cheese, and they apologized to me for a long time and said they were sorry for making me wait so long.

When I went home, I saw that the pomegranates on the pomegranate tree of the neighbor's house had fallen to our side. I picked it up and gave it to the landlord. She said, eat it, it's fine. The yellow zucchini flowers are edible and are a common meat substitute for vegetarians here. Likewise, the huitlacoche fungus. This thing looks a little disgusting, black and gray, fungus that grows on corn, and tastes like mushrooms. It is very cheap to sell here, but it is said to be high-grade raw materials in some other countries, and the imported ones are very expensive. Oaxaca cheese quesillo is generally sold as a ball, which needs to be slowly torn into small strips before eating. I made another hot sauce with pequin peppers (similar to millet peppers) that my cooking class teacher friend gave me.

Many friends have told me that they are envious of my current free and easy life. Most of the time, I also cherish and enjoy my current life and way of life, but to be honest, I feel a little depressed occasionally. I have been living in Mexico for more than three months, and most of the time there is no lack of novelty. I always meet new friends, participate in new activities, and travel to surrounding towns. But most of the people I know are just passers-by after all. Many of them met once or twice, and most of the conversations were superficial topics, and then there would be no deeper exchanges. There are very few friends who can continue to maintain long-term contact and make friends. In fact, I am also a traveler. Even if I live in a city for two months, it is difficult to maintain long-term friendship with locals or foreigners living here. Last weekend, I came back from a four-day trip to the seaside and felt very depressed and lonely for some reason. I especially missed the friends I saw often when I was in the United States. Although I have established my own daily routine here, Mexico is still a new living environment for me after three months. I am absorbing new languages, new cultures and new information every day. If it is not enough, you will miss the familiar environment you have lived in for many years. This is the so-called comfort zone. I clearly know that this feeling of wanting to return to my comfort zone is short-lived. When I return to the United States next year, I think it won’t be long before I want to live in another country again. Life is always a siege. But if you have been living in a comfort zone without challenges, how can you grow? I remembered a sentence that I forgot where I read it. It is slightly exaggerated, but it is very realistic: "If you are not growing, you are dying." People are like plants. If plants stop growing, they will start slowly. died.

Afterwards, I talked with two or three friends about my low feelings in the past few days, because they had similar experiences, so it was easy for them to understand me. I feel better after talking to them and realize that this is just an inevitable process. A cooking class teacher friend said that during his backpacking trip to South America for a year a few years ago, he would learn the local food culture in different countries, and prepare food with local people using local ingredients and traditional methods, and also in some Volunteer at local restaurants to help cook. After he returned to Mexico, he decided to move to this new city and start over. He rented a place and set up his own cooking studio. When he has time, he will help his friends' food tour to introduce and taste local delicacies. He said that when he was traveling, he was very eager to have a big kitchen with a serious stove and oven when he came back. Now he has his own big kitchen with complete equipment, a small garden for planting plants, etc., but he has many concerns when he wants to travel again And material ties, I have to find a way to rent out the land I am renting before considering long-term travel. The Spanish saying for "siege" is similar to English: "The grass is always greener next door".

During the chat, I learned that he is also an organizer of a community canteen, cooking to provide food for the homeless or the poor. He did this purely voluntarily, without any income at all, and even had to pay for it himself. Sometimes he has provincial ingredients or food after the cooking class, and he will take them to the community canteen. He will also go to the big Abastos market and lobby the vegetable vendors, hoping that they can donate ingredients. Since I came to this city, every time I mentioned the big Abastos market, almost everyone would tell me that this area is not safe, and there will be cell phone snatchers, stealers, and drug dealers in the market. My friend was the only one who didn't say that. He said that there will be regional and racial discrimination in the same city, because this area is relatively poor, and many rich people or people pretending to be rich will look down on the poor or the poor area, so they will always belittle the poor area . I also learned an interesting new word from him: Whitexican. This word is an abbreviation of White Mexican, but it does not refer to Mexicans with lighter skin, but to those upper-class Mexicans who have "white supremacy". They generally have a superior social and economic status and are unaware of the social inequality that is prevalent in Mexico. The poorest people in Mexico are generally indigenous people, and most of them are of darker-skinned races. He said that he has very special feelings for the people in the big market in this district, because he often comes here to lobby in order to raise ingredients for the community canteen he volunteers for. He said that although many hawkers here are not rich, they always donate ingredients enthusiastically, and they don’t just donate the leftover, not-so-fresh ingredients that can’t be sold as I imagined, most of the time they donate It is good quality ingredients. He said that often those who have less give more. In addition to lobbying for ingredients, my friend also raised funds through his cooking studio website, and donated a small portion of the proceeds to this community cafeteria, which will also help some poor Aboriginal communities. Afterwards, the two of us strolled in the city center and passed a small shed, which commemorated the villagers who died in a seaside aboriginal town in the government’s suppression and massacre. The local aborigines in the shed were selling some of their clothes and food to raise funds. To help families who have lost loved ones. My friend stopped right away to buy some aid and asked if there was any other help he could offer to support them. Although I also like to help others, compared with him, I am not so selfless, and I really admire him.

I moved from the center of the city center to this residential area where there are only locals. It feels like changing the city. It is completely different from the experience of living in the city center for two weeks. I have seen more of the living conditions of the locals. Never noticed the big water tank on the top floor of the house before. After moving here, I have seen several times that large trucks full of water would drive into the alleys, and use large leather pipes to connect them to the large water tanks on the second floor of every household to store water. There is a large water tank on the top floor of the house because of water pressure. The water tank on the top floor has enough water pressure for bathing due to gravity. If the water tank is almost empty, the landlord needs to pay for a large truck to store the water. After moving here, I also found that the prices here are much lower than those in the previous area. The prices in the city center are all for foreign tourists, and the people living in this area are all locals after all. I usually don’t go to coffee shops. One day, I went to a small coffee shop opened by an old couple near me with my culinary art teacher friend. I found that the price of coffee here is much cheaper than that of a coffee shop on the other side of the street. My friend said Gentrification (urban gentrification) has almost expanded to this area. There are more and more high-end petty bourgeoisie restaurants and cafes in the city center, serving foreign tourists. There are some very upscale places that are about the same price as in the US, and my friend's political affiliation makes him extremely resistant to going to these places. He said that the owners of these places will make a lot of money by charging high prices under the guise of "Oaxaca food culture, supporting aboriginal people, and using local ingredients", but they will not use the money they earn to support small local businesses. , which does not contribute to the local economic development. Over the past three months, I have met many social activists who advocate human rights and pay attention to social issues, and he is considered a radical one.

I went to San Martín Tilcajete, a nearby town with my friends, which is famous for making alebrijes. Alebrijes are a class of brightly colored fantastical creature artifacts unique to Mexican folk art. This art form was created by a craftsman in Mexico City. It was inspired by the various beasts he dreamed of when he fell ill and lost consciousness. It is a combination of real animals and other strange creatures. After his recovery, he created many paper sculptures based on these dream imagery. The original alebrijes were paper crafts, but a sculptor in Oaxaca combined it with the local tradition of wood-carving animals to create wood-carved alebrijes. The town and alegrijes are also said to have inspired the creation of the Disney movie Coco. Artists in a small local workshop told us that their complex and larger works may take several weeks to complete the carving, and then another few weeks to complete the coloring and assembly. patience and passion for art.

After visiting the small town of Tilcajete, we took a ride to another small town, Ocotlán, where there is a big local market every Friday, which is very lively.

On Saturday, the hiking group posted a message to organize a trip to the place where they climbed the mountain before, but the difference is that the observatory organized a stargazing event open to the public at night. We met at the foot of the mountain at 3:30 in the afternoon and hiked to the observatory together. After arriving, several professional astronomical telescopes have been set up at the door, and there are knowledge explanation platforms built by some staff next to it. There was an astronomer's lecture at four o'clock. Due to my limited Spanish ability, I couldn't understand it, and I almost fell asleep listening to it. And the content is relatively profound, I guess I will fall asleep even if I listen to Chinese and English. Ha ha. After coming out, there is a stand next to it, and two science clowns are doing science experiments and telling stories to children. We continue to hike, and when it gets dark, we can watch the stars. After I came back, I looked at the moon. The surface of the moon in the astronomical telescope is so clear, very similar to the opening interface of WeChat. I also used another telescope to see Saturn and Jupiter with rings, which is amazing.

After stargazing, the hiking organizer proposed to eat Tlayudas La Chinita, another street stall introduced on Netflix, which is famous for selling tlayuda, Oaxaca's most characteristic food. I've always wanted to try it, but because the location is remote and it doesn't open until after 8:00 p.m., I've been procrastinating. This time I happened to come to eat with them together. We arrived at 7:30, there was a small sign posted on the street corner, but it was too early, and the food sellers hadn't arrived yet. But there are already 5 people lined up in front of the "team". In fact, it is not a "team". The so-called "team" means that everyone asks what your number is and remembers your own number. We are number 6. Ten minutes later, the people from the street stalls came, and a family of six or seven got out of the car. They divided the work and hung the signboard prices on the wall, placed more than a dozen small benches in the aisle, set up the stove, prepared the ingredients, Chained the fence, asked our number and gave us a small note with the number on it. There are more and more people around, there is no so-called "team", everyone gathers outside the fence to watch them prepare to make tlayuda. It looked chaotic, but the hike organizers kept telling me "Don't worry, the system is chaotic, don't worry."

When waiting for a seat, a couple in their fifties from the Netherlands sat next to them. This was their first day in Oaxaca. They saw this street stall in an online blog, so they stopped by. Because they just arrived, they didn't know what tlayuda is, so I explained it to them in detail, so that they would know how to order it later. Tlayuda is a big Mexican pizza. The tlayuda here is divided into two sizes. The small size is actually very big, and the big one is simply a giant tortilla. They do assembly line work, when they call your number they want to ask if you want a big or small, and then they put a layer of asiento on it, which is actually lard, and then they put a layer of refried beans, and put Oaxaca on top Shredded cheese quesillo, chopped lettuce, salsa, guacamole. They would fold this large tortilla in half and put it on the grill over charcoal to cook it on both sides so it was crispy on the outside. Afterwards you can choose to add tasajo (sliced marinated beef), cecino (sliced cured pork) or chorizo (Mexican sausage), all grilled over charcoal. I can still eat more. I finished the small tlayuda by myself, but the other girl who came with me didn't finish half of it. The tall Dutch uncle ordered a large one, but it was really too big, and he didn't eliminate it in the end. I have eaten tlayuda three times before coming here, and this one is really the best. The Netflix street drama is really not overly exaggerated, it is not disappointing, and it is worth waiting in line.

I went to the library to participate in a language exchange activity on Saturday, and met a little brother who just graduated from university. He studied drama writing and acting in college, as did his girlfriend, both in their early 20s. They don't have so-called "stable" jobs and regular income now. They usually write scripts, make props, and sometimes perform in small local theaters. He said his girlfriend was an active social activist who would create art to express her views on feminism and the sexual abuse of women and children. He then took the initiative to tell me that when his girlfriend was in high school, a male teacher of hers tried to sexually assault her and other female classmates, and even threatened them to fail the class. She did not obey, and openly resisted and exposed the teacher's actions. I don't know the result, but since then she has paid close attention to the sexual abuse of women and children. Then we talked about machismo in Latin America, which is more common in Mexico. This little brother said that machismo in Mexico has always been serious, and it is deeply rooted in their traditional culture. Although it is better among young people now, it will take a long time for more progress. This little brother is a bit feminine. He mentioned that when he was a child, the whole society had a serious stereotype of gender roles. If he said he liked pink, or wanted to take dance or art lessons, his dad would get a kick out of him. His dad would also tell him that men shouldn't cry, and shouldn't show emotion or vulnerability easily. In fact, this is not only in Mexico, but also a common problem in the entire human society. It's just that some countries are more open and inclusive, and some countries are more serious. He also said that due to the influence of his girlfriend, he will respect women more and pay more attention to feminist issues. He said that his father seldom does housework, and his mother has been doing all the housework since he was a child. A few years ago, he would help his mother with housework, do some physical work within his ability, and learn to cook from his mother, etc. . After chatting with him, I feel that the world really needs more young people who don't follow the rules and dare to express their opinions, so that the world will have substantial changes and become better.

I temporarily decided to go to Teotitlán, a small town nearby, by myself on Sunday morning. The last time I took a small taxi back to gain experience, don’t do it in the front, because after that, people will be crowded in the front seat on the road, which is very uncomfortable. Stopped the car and sat in the back seat. The small town of Teotitlán is famous for making woolen blanket handicrafts, and you can see many brightly colored woolen blankets and small handicrafts everywhere. Passing by the Sunday market, an old man stopped me and asked me to taste his hot chocolate or corn juice. I don’t know how his corn juice made so much foam. While his wife was making the handicrafts on the spot, he asked me to teach him a few words of Chinese, which seemed to be very curious about China.

A few days ago, I met a local boy on the sofa guest software. I didn’t expect him to be very close to me. I asked him again and found out that he was actually a hawker selling watches in the aforementioned Abastos big market. He said he lives outside the city, but comes to work at the stalls in the big market every day from Monday to Saturday. When he practiced English four years ago at the language exchange event in the same library I went to, he met a German girl and learned about the software Sofa Surf from her. Then in the past few years, it has received several European tourists. Couchsurfers in France, Germany and Belgium that he has hosted say they will host him if he goes to their countries. So now he works hard every day to sell and repair watches, in order to save money for air tickets to travel to Europe, and he even told me that by 2024 he should have saved enough money to go to Europe.

We went to San Agustín Etla, another nearby town, to visit their art center on Sunday afternoon. He said let's go by colective. I always thought that colectivo refers to a minibus or minibus that stops at any time, but two taxis came, and a bunch of people waiting for the bus swarmed up. My friend said this kind of driving Taxis for special routes are not called "taxis" but also called colectivo. No wonder I wondered why two people would be stuffed in the co-pilot seat, and they would stop to solicit passengers if there were vacant seats. After all, the price is as cheap as a big bus, and one more can be counted as one. It's a pity that when the little brother explained to me, the back seats of the two cars that came were immediately occupied by other passengers, so we had to squeeze into the front passenger seat again.

This small town is on the mountain, very quiet and beautiful. I later learned that it is because there are no exhibitions in this art center, otherwise there will be a lot of people on weekends. He said he was last here five years ago. The only current exhibition in this art center is about the communist revolution books. The windows inside were all covered with red paper, and the lights were all red. Most of the books are about Lenin, Marxism, and Che Guevara. I even saw a book about Mao Zedong.

I came back from the small town and took the colectivo. When I got on the bus, there were only two of us. I sat in the back seat immediately, and then two people came up. The person in front said that she would pay for both of them, so the drivers who stopped the car on the road all said didn't stop. It's okay, spend money to buy comfort.