Great moment at breakfast today. My host family loves to ask overly direct questions. Especially at meals, preferably when I’m dead tired. I think this is more amusing than rude. I’m not sure if this is a Chilean cultural thing or just something my family saves for their Stanford students. But I know they’re just curious.
Today my host father’s brother (host uncle I guess) came for lunch and decided he needed catch up on my life in Chile. I’ve only met him twice before.
“So what do you think of Chilean guys?”
“Oh, they’re really nice.”
He laughs at me.
“But it really bothers me that so many of them have mullets.”
“Mullets?”
Then I describe what a mullet is. My host sister agrees that they are ugly.
“And how are the carretes (parties)?”
At this point, my host sister interjects and lists all the places she thinks I like to go out. They seem satisfied with the list.
“And have you tried pisco sours?”
This seems like a particularly odd question. Pisco is not on my list of good topics to discuss with adults that I don’t know very well.
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“Oh I like them.”
He seems to approve.
“How about Chilean beer?”
“Oh it’s pretty good. I tried some miel beer in Valdivia.”
“And rum?” my host father reminds me. I am not sure why this is so important.
“Wait what? Why?” He laughs at me again.
“Hmm…” Apparently this new information has changed my host uncle’s impression a bit. He takes the conversation in a new direction:
“When you go to Easter Island are you going to go to a discoteca?”
“Well I don’t know, I’m not going with a particularly crazy a group. I guess we’ll see.”
“You know the Pascuenses are very attractive. Don’t fall in love and move there.”
“Haha don’t worry I probably won’t fall in love in 4 days.”
“You never know.”
I think my host family keeps me around just for entertainment’s sake. So they can ask someone about dance clubs, ¿cachai?
I’ll let you know about Easter Island.
