(True) Stereotypes about South America

South America is a unique place.  Yet, there is a certain singular tone here that seems to resonate all over the continent, regardless of the country.  I’ve been to six so far, and hope to add to that list soon.  So amongst my “field work” and the stories I’ve overheard from drunken sailors at the bar, I have prepared for you a list of what exactly makes South America the charismatic hellhole it is:

-There is Chinese food (chifa) FUCKING EVERYWHERE.  The US plans on ruling the world by putting a military base in every country.  The Chinese plan on ruling the world by killing you slowly with MSG

-Corruption bleeds through all of the upper echelons of bueraucracy.  And the lower ones.  That includes people at the fruit stands, who see a foreigner and are like “I’m charging this white devil 2.80 instead of 2.50.”  In Venezuela, the government can close your enterprise just because they feel like it (sin razones), and take all of your profits and buy textbooks for the children!  At least, that’s what I assume that’s what they do with the money

-General body type: fat.  Could be good, depending on the country.  In Colombia, that flab goes to straight to butts and boobs.  In Peru, it goes to the stomach and–well, nowhere desirable, let’s put it that way

-People here can’t swim.  Latin bodies have an adversion to floating on top of any layer of liquid.  It’s like throwing a toilet bowl into a pit of quicksand

-S.Am. has the shadiest taxis in the world.  If you are not paying attention, your chauffeur is going to make a turn down some dark alley where his boys are waiting with clubs/knives/grenades and they will rob you dry.  If you manage to make it home intact, you can pay for your ride and recieve your change in–what else?–counterfeit bills!  Hell, once a taxi gave me fake coins.  Who the fuck goes through the trouble to make fake coins??

-Toilet seats are an endangered species.  As well as toilet paper.  Sure, you can buy some at the tienda (shop), but don’t expect to find any at that kitschy rooftop bar.  Or anywhere in public.  Sitting on the toilet bowl itself, in the wet remnants of an unknown person’s liquid farts, and then wiping your ass with your hand makes shitting a much more intimate experience I feel

-Restaurant service is like an elephant taking a dump on your face.  People are generally friendly and eager to out their food in your belly, but getting it there is a long, arduous road. Actually getting noticed at the restaurant can sometimes take as long as the actual meal.  The worst service I’ve experienced in my life: Peru and Argentina respectively.  One night, me and three other hungry fat fucks went to an all-you-can-eat sushi bar in Peru and had a grand total of seven rolls in two hours.  Seven.  I can eat seven in five minutes.  Apparently, in carrying he plates to the table, the waitress had to cross a desert to get there.  When we found out the waitress was Argentinan, it all made sense

-Latin people are never on time.  To anything.  They would be late to their own funeral.  If you want to get a job here, you better show up to that interview late, damnit.  Oh you showed up five minutes early?  Congratulations, now you are on a federal watch list for suspicion of being a spy

-Most people here speak Spanish, so if you speak Spanish, you’d be okay here, right?  OH.  If only it were that easy.  Fiesta: the one Spanish word everyone knows… that applies nowhere here.  A party is called a “rumba” in Colombia, a “joda” in Argentina, a “juerguear” in Peru and so forth.  But not only is the vocabulary different, the speech conventions are too.  Peruvians drop the final ‘s’ from verbs.  Argentinians say SHO instead of YO.  Chile is como “estai” instead of “estas”.  And Brazilians? Lord knows whatever the fuck they are saying

-Each country has their own, dish of pride; that is utterly disgusting.  In Peru they eat cuy.  Better known as…

That’s right!  Your class pet in 3rd grade, that furry little hamster thing?  They eat it!

-More passionate females.  On one hand that’s great; in the bedroom, especially.  And the first time you hear a girl say, “Ay, papi!” or “Que rico!” you will wet your pants.  On the other hand, this also leads to more violent and more intense females.  My friend had a girl tell him she loved him after two dates out.  As for myself, I have been beaten with shoes, kicked in the nuts, and choked by a S&M fetishist.  YOU’LL HAVE TO TRY HARDER THAN THAT, LADIES!

-Football is the sport of choice.  You may have gotten that impression if you watched the World Cup last year, where Colombia made it to the final eight, and Brazil made it to the final four… and then got mercilessly butt-raped at the hands of Germany.  But still!  They were doing great before that

-Drugs are both popular, and easily obtainable.  You can buy a bag at the bar, in some cases.  Or from the shady-looking guy walking around the park.  Or the guy tripping on acid, petting a chipmunk up on the tree branch.  Cocaine is, as you might expect, the biggest export.  Acid (trips) is big too.  And if you wanna get batshit insane, and vomit and shit yourself for an hour straight before tripping harder than you ever have with some shaman along the Amazon, you’d wanna ask for the “ayahuasca”

-The middle class is smaller than most places in the world.  And there is a massive wealth gap.  Rich, gaudy neighborhoods exist right next to the worst hoods ever.  All my rich friends are–just kidding, I don’t have rich friends.  All my friends are homeless people

–Telenovelas (soap operas):  South Americans just love their cheesy soap operas.  Although the subject matter of these shows remains the same–always drugs or infidelity–the list of faces in these mass-produced, carbon-copied shows is always changing to include the youngest, freshest, and hottest faces.  And one time, they let an ugly retard onto the set to be an extra.  That young man’s name?  Darby Shaw

-Latin people are sensitive as fuck.  I assure you that I’ve made at least six people reading this cry already.  And that’s only the ones that have made it this far.  It’s kind of ironic, because the people here are some of the most culturally-insensitive people around.  Colombians endearingly refer to each other as “faggots”.  There is a salsa brand in Peru called “Negro”, complete with your Aunt Jemima mammy figure on the cover.  And the Argentinian president just made a tweet about Asians where she purposefully mispronounced the r’s as l’s to give that good ol’ generic Asian accent.

That concludes my list; a tell-all on the land down South…that isn’t Australia.  If you think I left something out, or disagree with something I said, feel free to complain like a little bitch in the comment section below.  And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter at @darbyshaw891.  Thanks for coming, and see you next Thursday!