I just read an excellent blog post that made me think about how true the author’s statements are. The Blog post written by “Mother Jungle” at Global Post, describes how Costa Rica is a country of two degrees of separation and not six degrees like we say in The United States. This two degrees of separation can be something thought of as positive for some and negative for others.
The Ticos have a word for people that sit on a park bench and observe others, then gossip about who they had seen or what they had seen while in the park that day or just out and about doing daily activities. The words Ticos typically use to describe this person that gossips among the community is, “Chismoso” or “Chismosa” in the feminine form of the word. In the community, a Chismoso or Chismosa is generally a disliked person but one that is also wanted because of they amount of information that person knows about people in the community.
Since moving to Costa Rica, I often wondered for the longest time “who” was talking about me. I recalled numerous times, going to a party, when someone came up to me and said “I heard that you….” Pinpointing a specific Chismosa or Chismoso was often difficult because after a few days, everyone seems to know my business. After a few years of living in Costa Rica, I finally figure out how the country works on a social level which was very different compared to The United States.
Costa Rica is a small country with roughly 4 Million people and the size of Rhode Island. With such a small land mass and a large amount of people, the country has to know how to propagate information. To elaborate on Costa Rica’s information propagation, we can use Los Angeles as an example and say that we have “Amber Alert” notices on freeways, The Internet, News Casts, etc etc. In Costa Rica, much of the countryside is still plush and pristine, often a family only has one Television shared among a family, whereas in Los Angeles a typical family may have two or more TVs for the household. Costa Rica’s traditional mode of information propagation has been word of mouth, either via passer-bys or community social events. As Costa Rica progressed through to the 21st Century, much of this information travel has been replaced with some internet outlets; however, mostly newspapers, radio, and social events. In effect, the social event form of information propagation within Costa Rica has been the most effective and hasn’t been lost from The Tico Culture. Gossip and word of mouth essentially what runs Costa Rica, in elections, in business and in social enrichment events.
My epiphany if you will, with the understanding of this character difference between Tico Culture and American Culture was discovered when I went to a party at a local 20-30 something club on a Monday night called, “El Cuartel de la Boca Monte“. I had ran into a few friends, one of them in The Poker Industry and was having a drink while discussing industry gossip and things going on in our lives. In a matter of 15 minutes I ran into my ex-girlfriend’s brother, another ex-girlfriend, a girl I liked at the time was with a mutual acquaintance I knew and my co-worker was at the bar when I got a drink. In Costa Rica, the bar scene is quite interesting as every night has a particular venue that everyone within The Capital of San José seem to frequent. This near daily gathering of Costa Rica’s peer social groups creates a closing of a large network for all to propagate information, gossip, and cultural discussions. These information exchanges are part of Costa Rica’s Culture and what makes the country operate. It is these same gossip collaboration that enables people to know about others, prior to even knowing the person. There have been many times I have attempted to converse with a Tica, but her friend had warned her of my more than promiscuous behavior and therefore at times ruined a potential girlfriend.
These gossip circle aren’t necessarily bad either, when often they can be used to make hiring decisions, screen potential girlfriends or boyfriends, garner a good second opinion, or get a task done quicker. A case in point was getting maintenance done on my car. I had purchased a really old lemon of a car from a car dealer near Desamparados, Costa Rica. Ironically, I purchased this car with the help of a friend (Julio) whom was a taxi driver and I asked him to help me negotiate a deal, he even took me to the bank and transported me with the $2000 needed to purchase the car. After buying that car, I wanted air-conditioning as San José gets pretty humid in the July - September months. To get air-conditioning installed in my car, I was referred at a bar that I freqented to go to a great mechanic in the hills who went by the name of “Diego”. Julio “The Taxi Driver” knew where Diego lived, because of the proximity of everything, and Julio drove me up to Diego’s “shop” which was actually a house with an overhang to the side of it where mechanical work on his client’s cars was done. Needless to say, “Diego’s Shop” looked very cluttered and dirty for what one would presume to be a place for auto work, but hat is the beauty of Costa Rica; the micro-economics success and its operation. In The United States we would use Yellow Pages, Google, an Internet Referring or some other medium to learn of businesses and finding a provided service. In Costa Rica, the country operates much more on word of mouth rather than marketing and advertising internet searches or newspapers.
Unfortunately in my short time of living in Costa Rica I have already seen a change from the word of mouth form of social interaction and information propagation. The change in itself is not entirely bad, but what has happened in larger businesses have been squeezing out the small mom and pop solutions, which has a trickle down effect to the communities in ways unforeseen by the people such as increased traffic congestion, lower qulity of life, longer hours, less personable interactions and a general change in the traditional Costa Rican Culture of “Pura Vida”.
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