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07/24/2004 Entry: "Thirty-three candles in Mexico"

Tomorrow I'm going to turn 33. I fell in love with Mexico when I was 27, charmed by its vibrant life, novel sensual sounds, spicy food, exotic girls and ambient mess. Six years later, I'm hard-pressed to find any redeeming (...)

I'm convinced that Mexico's population in its multitude is condemned to remain anchored in the thirld world, emigrating to the USA to serve as unskilled slave labour under the leadership of Chinese or Indian businessmen. The dominant attitude towards technology is one of doubt, fear, or childish enthusiasm. I'm a high-tech entrepreneur by heart and soul, so out of place in Mexico that I feel like a polar bear in the Sahara - longing for my pristine horizons made of ice and blue sky.

Mexicans are keen to invest their wealth in real-state, multi-million dollar residences that represent all the tangibility, safety and simplicity required by an elite that embodies Mexico's deficiencies. Too many fortunes were lost during the Internet heydays when dumb-money was poured into ridiculous hair-brained ventures. Now the backlash is as violent and stupid as the upsurge once was.

Unless you have inherited the patience of Nelson Mandela while enjoying the luck of a lottery winner, don't even dream of creating a successful technology startup in Mexico: you would be wasting your time and energy, like I did. Only distributors of IBM, HP and Nortel can prosper in Mexico. If your activity is more advanced than shifting boxes, you better quickly look North and sell to the USA, like a handful of high-tech startups did, thereby ensuring their prosperity.

"Trente-trois printemps" - and my future is riddled with question marks. Definitely, Mexico is not for me and I'm not for Mexico: the lifestyle, the sounds, the food, the girls and the mess get on my nerves. As much as Britain grew on me like a flowering seed, Mexico developed as a cancer that will kill me slowly unless I take drastic measures.

I pray that in 12 months I'll be writing new entries of this blog from the comfort of a first-world living-room, travelling as little as possible to Mexico. Maybe my company will have succeeded in establishing a beach-head in the USA, perhaps I will be leading projects in the Thames Valley, in any event the nauseating smell of tacos would be a thing of the past.

Mexicans who read these lines, please don't get offended - there is nothing personal in these statements. I made a monstruous mistake moving to Mexico in order to build a telecoms company, I'm sole to be blamed. Most of my foreign friends love your country - all for their own particular reasons. My experience is not typical, I belong to the category of fools who see Patagonia as the promised land for charter beach tourism. The next time I'll pick Ibiza, I promise!

Thirty-three candles, but no decent chocolate cake to plant them. I want to take this opportunity to tell all the people who love or support me that this year I'll be acting with the little intelligence that God has granted me and make right a situation that has lasted for only too long. The curtain will draw on the Mexican episode...

Posted by Juliana HUMBLE @ 08/17/2004 11:29 PM MEX

Ok my men, u r a selfish person.

U, and ur friend are persons who felt that mexico is a country that has a doubt with u, and that (u think) gives u the right to say whatever u think about my country, and the worst... think that u r telling is right!!.

Why r u felling likes god in my country? u r not god... if u can NOT make a good bussiness here.. if was for u, and NOT for my country, for my culture or our hearth... U live in a "first world" but not en uno con HUMILDAD. Humildad is a word that u have to search and make it urs, learn about it. I'm Glad that u are leaving my hearth, 'cuz ppl like u, ppl that doesn't had HUMILDAD, are ppl selfish, and u are a selfish ppl, a person who tought that just for be a person of a "first world" mexico has to surrender to his feets, so please, go to ur country, and learn a little of HUMILDAD.

my name is armando franco, and i live on monterrey, mexico, near to the border to USA. Just to tell u that i'm not anounimous

Posted by catarf @ 08/14/2004 10:16 PM MEX

There was a very interesting exhibition at the MoMA QNS in New York that was called "tall buildings", to my surprise I saw the building famously called "Pantalon" in Mexico DF displayed there with a "maqueta" and the maps, sketches and designs. I got really happy because from the group of buildings that is the only one I have seen (and from my little few knowledge and huge ignorance I believe it was one of the very few buildings alrady constructed). A very good example that mexican engineering and design at work can mark difference and be exhibited even as a work of art. That was a nice moment.

Posted by Juliana Blue @ 07/31/2004 07:35 PM MEX

Ahhh... I still remember my happiest day in Mexico : the day I took the plane with a one way ticket out on my right hand. I cried a river - I know - it wasn't an easy exit for my heart, while on the other hand it was a bunch of non-sense to remain there. Two years later from that day I had the luck to come back - with a bunch of dollars in my wallet... This was my new "loving Mexico" experience... I bought all the handcrafts I could fit in my bag, I get to travel.. I loved it!! My humble opinion, as a person who has lived closely and so vividly the effort of someone very close to me (not to mention dearest as he can be) starting up "anything" in Mexico without the mexican typical rules... It's VERY hard. It is not surprising to find this blog so beautifully elaborated and charged with so many personal statements. I am not mexican though I was born in the third world, I know the third world way of living and as a very incompatible person with it, I was forced to migrate to search for "more organized" (should I say "less messy") way of living. I have seen new opportunities that were giving to me without asking for them, while in my country the waiting list for the interview is already 2 years.

It is wise to recognize when a situation is not fulfilling us, and it is wise to acknowledge that life can be lived as chapters that can be finished with proper planning. Though I am nobody to say what is wise and what is not, right?

All I can say as a tiny little summarize is that... who ever read your lines -in their own subjectivity- will have to acknowledge that a personal statement has been made and that given this fact no personal offense can be indexed... I can see I can't make any summarize!! hahaha!

Well, I can 'kind of say' " Been there Seen That. I know - with a broken heart - how life in Mexico is when you are the only one going in the wrong way ( the first world way :D ) -mmm.. I guess I heard this somewhere else.. perhaps in my own blog?

And people... if you hated Serge's posting, you can hate mine too (and viceversa, of course!)

Posted by Juliana Blue @ 07/28/2004 10:06 PM MEX

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