So I promised you all I would learn something, and learn something I did! I learned that although all parts of Chile are near the ocean seafood is not very widely consumed. Fresh seafood is very much an upper class food. Therefore, when it comes to meat, Chileans eat mostly beef and chicken, although pretty much everywhere has some sort of ceviche.
I bet you’re wondering if I have thought about anything other than food since I arrived here?
And the answer is yes! I thought about the metro once (granted I was thinking about which route to take to arrive at food but…whatever)
So back to food...I have a story for you.
Food comes in weird packaging. Yogurt comes in a bag, milk comes in a box, mayonnaise and ketchup come in squeeze bags with plastic twist openings like on the orange juice carton. It's weird.
Weird I tell ya!
But, in any unfamiliar place that you go you will find things that you recognize, things that you don’t recognize, and things that are comforting and discomforting all at the same time.
The things that you recognize will give you comfort:
Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, gelato
The things that you don’t recognize with frighten you, maybe intrigue you, and cause you to ask questions which will inevitably induce the moment when someone shakes their head at you out of pity or rolls their eyes. This I know for certain.
But the comforting/discomforting stuff is today’s theme:
Laundry detergent is the perfect example of this. I have encountered powder detergent many times in my life. In past years, even in my own home. Theoretically, I know how to use it. But you give me a box of powdered laundry detergent with the label in Spanish and the whole train breaks down. The fact that the label is one I don’t recognize causes me to want to read the directions, even though I know how to use laundry detergent. But for some reason I get uneasy and am inspired to read. So I start reading the directions and even though it’s accompanied by little pictures I start to think to myself, “What if this has bleach in it and I don’t know that there is bleach in it? What if putting bleach in detergent is just the standard in Chile and I’m just supposed to know that the bleach is already in there? They’d have to tell me if there was bleach in it right?”
So now I’m looking for some sort of indication of bleach on the box, which except for the Spanish, looks like every other box of detergent I have ever seen. And I’m thinking to myself “Oh crap! How do you say ‘bleach’ in Spanish? Clorox? Cloro? I’ve seen that here. People use chlorine bleach in Chile. It would at least say “cloro” on the box, right?”
FULL FLEDGED PANIC.
Eventually I throw precaution to the wind and just do the damn laundry but not without a stress headache and a strong cocktail before the spin cycle is over.
THE POINT of this story is this: Whether we (maybe just I) like to admit it or not, we derive an enormous amount of comfort from familiar packaging. When a familiar item shows up in a different package, you might find yourself suddenly distrustful of it. Perhaps you’re questioning the quality of it in a way you never would have if it arrived looking the way you’re used to seeing it. I know I did that with these products:
What I would say, though, is it’s fine to approach with caution at first. You have a right to probe slowly and carefully around what is unfamiliar, in fact evolution suggests that you should, but just don’t forget that it’s more about the stuff inside the packaging.
If for some reason you read to the end of this and are feeling like I could be speaking metaphorically, you would be right. I wasn’t originally. I truly began with the honest intention of talking about laundry detergent, but I warned you I might have a profound thought, or something, every now and again so I guess this can be the first one.
Hope everyone is well.
Chao! (Chilean for ‘Bye’)
you're great.
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