June 3, 2013
While trolling the internet expat webboards around Mexico to see just what is occupying gringo’s minds, an interesting thread on Chapala.com popped up.

For those who don’t know Chapala, Axixic, etc are in a beautiful location, with great weather, and are likely the largest gringo-haven in all of Mexico. This area has the what have been the 2 most active Mexican-gringo forums, with insidelakeside.com being the slightly more rough-and-tumble version (including “The Octagon” for cage fighting) and Chapala.com being more staid and very heavily moderated. Both forums have their old-hand reliable posters, like Spencer “Intercasa”, who consistently give advice that fits both the legal aspects of working with Aduana and INM while consistently staying well grounded in the realities of how things actually work, and their share of insightful posters, plus the usual mix of the grumpy, the right-wingers, the left-wingers, back-benchers, folks frustrated that we-sold-everything-and-moved-to-Mexico-and-now-we’re-not-getting-what-we-were-promised, personal-feuders, the bored-with-the-rest-of-life-so-I-spend-a-lot-of-time-on-the-internet, trouble-makers, Cliff Clavin know-it-alls, and a few very insightful commentators who lay-in-the-weeds waiting for some tasty bit to float by.

Chapala.com’s latest hot topic is “mexico 10th happiest country in the world” at http://www.chapala.com/wwwboard/webboard.html. (Referencing the USA Today article: “USA not one of 10 happiest countries in world.)

The first 2 pages of posts contain the standard: ” Mexicans are… ”
where gringos openly muse about their own personal (aka narrow) versions of who Mexicans are and why. Their replies include the old standards: Mexicans are very family oriented, etc. plus a some revealing answers that expose what many gringos actually think:
“I’m as happy as I want to be. “

“I could be happier, so send lots of money and we will test the theory and report back on the results. 😀”

“…maybe lack of education plays a part (in making Mexicans happy), as it doesn’t take a lot to please a 5th or 6th grader. Hard to find much on Mexican TV that is intellectual and thought provoking and not geared toward sex. 😀 ”

“… maybe it’s the sex on the tv that is keeping them both in the top 14!   :blink: ”

…

“Think back, waaay back to when we were teenagers, adolescent young and full of “stuff” & vinegar, weren’t we happy? – of course we were, we had, or took, little responsibility, life was a party, let’s get wild and crazy – remember all that? Well friends and neighbors, look around you, you are living in the middle of a country whose culture is completely adolescent – in short, we’re living in a country full of adolescent teenagers, run by teenagers. They don’t think things through, they take little, if any, responsibility and they’re not trying to set the world on fire, just a little hot spot under a globas. ”

Huh….? Continue reading here…

*    *     *     *
Read the full Article at: Happiest Nations: Mexico is in the top 10 …
*      *      *      *
Feel free to copy while giving proper attribution: YucaLandia/Surviving Yucatan.
© Steven M. Fry

Read on, MacDuff.