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Quoting Maravilla, “with the spanish i spoke, i built a house, opened bank accounts, etc. but i was missing the nuances of the culture — the little jokes, the slang, the jabs against this or that person/culture/thing.”
You may not need to learn Spanish to understand the culture as the Tican is here and multiplying like the lionfish off the east coast. My Costa Rica consultant (CR mentor so to speak) Phil Baker, has coined the phrase “Tican” to describe the new generation of hybrid Costa Ricans (half Tico / half American). I quote his infrequent yet highly insightful “client update” below:
“Many Ticos are adopting American values. Case in point, I met a nice couple the other day who live in an upscale house and have one child. During our conversation the wife says, “I could not imagine my life without my four brothers and sisters.” I asked why they didn’t have more children and they said it was because they both work. In that moment I felt they totally understood the consequences of their decision to choose material abundance over family abundance. The discomfort they felt about their choice was palatable…”
What happened to Mothers Day values and the family first attitude that used to be the standard here is that Ticans would rather have a new car then another child.”
Greed gets addicting. Oh, we have a nice house and a new car so I can stay home now and take care of the kids. But wait, we could have a nicer car and a nicer house if I keep working… Anyway, the modern woman is no longer a stay at home mom. That’s passé. If you live in the greater San Jose area for the most part when you encounter a Tico driving a newer car you have just encountered a 1.5 children per household traditional-culture-destroying Tican.
Gringos with soul came here to escape those values. We came to be with people that have down to earth values. Then the real estate speculators came to make money. Forget about community, family and culture. They want to turn a profit and duplicate their standard of living here, except at a lower cost and say to hell with community and Tico social mores. So now, many young locals behave like the no-soul Gringos. And the no-souls no longer have to feel guilty about not integrating (speaking Spanish, being laid back and accepting and then ignoring the government). They have wittingly or unwittingly created the Ticans who are now like them, selfish isolationist workaholics following the rules without regard to customary behavior who have no qualms destroying traditional culture and community at their neighbor’s expense.
“Ticos, not Ticans, was what Costa Rica was all about. Will the country have the same allure in ten years when the Tican tide covers the rich coast? Smiles, acceptance, dignity and compassion are what I have learned from Costa Ricans. Losing these qualities would be a national tragedy.” Baker goes on about the need to plant seeds in other countries for estate planning purposes, etc.
My prediction is that after the tide has changed you will see the soulful Gringos living the traditional Tico lifestyle while the no souls and Ticans pave paradise to put up social and financial parking lots (sorry about that Joni Mitchel).
So all you wavers and pointers who thumb your nose at Spanish, Tico culture and customary behavior will no longer need to feel embarrassed because soon your neighbors will be workaholic isolationist just like you! Confidentiality agreements will flourish and the Costa Rica coastal skylines will be wall-to-wall cement, monuments to vanity and greed, the monkeys will in the zoo and everything will be just like back home. The Ticans and no-soul Gringos will feel fine drinking their coffee while texting in a silent café. The gap between the haves and the have-nots widen and crime escalates, the walls grow higher and barb wire sales increase and the country becomes known as “Costa Tican.”
One can hope that a world wide economic melt down will rid us once and for all of the current monetary system which has engendered the values both you and I disparage.
[quote=”2bncr”] “Ticos, not Ticans, was what Costa Rica was all about. Will the country have the same allure in ten years when the Tican tide covers the rich coast? Smiles, acceptance, dignity and compassion are what I have learned from Costa Ricans. Losing these qualities would be a national tragedy.”
My prediction is that after the tide has changed you will see the soulful Gringos living the traditional Tico lifestyle while the no souls and Ticans pave paradise to put up social and financial parking lots (sorry about that Joni Mitchel).
So all you wavers and pointers who thumb your nose at Spanish, Tico culture and customary behavior will no longer need to feel embarrassed because soon your neighbors will be workaholic isolationist just like you! Confidentiality agreements will flourish and the Costa Rica coastal skylines will be wall-to-wall cement, monuments to vanity and greed, the monkeys will in the zoo and everything will be just like back home. The Ticans and no-soul Gringos will feel fine drinking their coffee while texting in a silent café. The gap between the haves and the have-nots widen and crime escalates, the walls grow higher and barb wire sales increase and the country becomes known as “Costa Tican.”[/quote]
My wife and I were very ignorant of the changes that were occurring in Costa Rica when we first arrived here but we deliberately purchased a home in a semi-rural area among the Tico’s in order to experience the laid back Tico lifestyle rather than the closed in city life that I had been forced to live with all my adult life in the States.
As were drive through the calles and avenidas of Escazu and Santa Ana we are aware of the “ex-pat ghettoes” with their high walls topped with razor wire and the antisocial attitudes of those who live within. They stay conveniently on the periphery of our consciousness and are, in the main, ignored. We have been aware, subconsciously, that all of this is slowly moving our way. As Ticos are offered sums that they cannot refuse for the land in our area we know that it will eventually become just another area much the same as Escazu and Santa Ana.
I have had pleasant and helpful dealings with Phil Baker in the past although we have never met face to face. Without him we might not have the home we have.
It would be easy to hate Phil for putting these facts so blatantly in our faces except that we know that his words are true. My hope is that I will have passed away before it comes true.:)
For us Tican is a Tica Gringa and for me a Gringo Tico..
My wife a Tica native became a Gringa a year ago and I a Gringo Native became a PR this year.whaqt values do you support as in which are more important, family abundance or financial abundance.
we certainly don’t need any more people in the world, so i think it’s a good thing that women aren’t popping out a litter of children as they used to do, esp in latin america. most of the ticos i know come from families where there are 8, 10, 12, or MORE children. how do you support that many people? i know what it cost to raise one child with private schooling, french lessons, riding lessons, ice skating, tennis, trips to europe, etc. — yes, she was indulged and privileged, but i could afford it but not if i had had two or more with the same expectations. there’s no doubt that children are expensive — the stats a few years ago were that it cost $100,000+ to raise a child to age 18, then there’s college. an average family just doesn’t have those kinds of funds anymore and where is it written that parents have to be the all-sacrificing unit for the benefit of their children, or just for the privilege of having more than one or two.
Agree. It is selfish and stupid to create more people in an already overpopulated world. Large families, like religion, is a product of ignorance.
Interesting opinions.
I shall continue to opine:
Costa Rica will choose either of two roads. One will be that it will continue to be a highly dysfunctional place with grownups resembling beautiful children. I admire my beautiful children but I don’t ask them to do grownup tasks. Or the beauty of the genuine and careful Tico will be compromised by higher education, ambition and the desire for more material existence. This will lead to smaller families.
I was the baby of eight kids and I miss having a large family. The majority of women I meet do not want to be stay at home mothers. They do not want many kids. My never-to-be-humble opinion, and hardly fact, is women choose everything because of men’s desire for women.
Maravilla, with all due respect, I see your post for the most part substantiating my point that Americans want material abundance rather than family abundance. There is no right or wrong really it’s a matter of values. Does one want to produce one highly educated and materially spoiled child, or would one rather go without luxury and produce three children. Ultimately, it’s the woman’s choice as she is giving birth (choosing to have sex).
So now, the Tica that used to choose family abundance has chosen financial abundance. It’s a choice; there need not be any shame either way. The point is that Tica values are lining up with American values and viola the Tican has landed.
I am torn. On one hand I love all the beautiful Tico children running wild up and down the street but when I need a service I wish they would be grow up to be like Americans, striving for excellence and defining themselves by their work.
Is there really to be a balance between the two?
I doubt it. If I had to bet, Ticos well go the way of the Gringo. Agricultural ties that create genuine simple people and bring a deep integrity to Ticos well be further cut and material values will replace what I call Mother’s day values. Birth rates will decline and genders will blur.
To side track (see the power of the yin has me sidetracking now), what I love about older Tica professionals is that they can be equally powerful but remain feminine, they really know how to remain alluring yet formidable, I don’t see that with younger Tica professionals and certainly not in the US. It’s incredibly, incredibly sexy. Most US women have abandoned the art of femininity. What a shame as the yin is the most powerful energy on earth. And the yin will determine Costa Rica’s cultural values.
One last point (finally you say). When you have kids how much money you spend on them never equals the time a parent spends with the child. Therefore, to me I would rather grow up in a family with mom at home when I came home from school. Cooking and making the home full of love and caring, giving her time freely rather than more stuff in my room and vacations.
When I was a young child, I had it the first way, after the divorce mom went to work and it sucked. So I guess that explains my bias towards motherhood and child bearing as the most noble and least recognized responsibility. Parenting several children is a choice of fulfilling responsibility which brings satisfaction, over the moment to moment happiness from material abundance. One is selfless the other is selfish. There is a great book by Ayn rand called the Virtue of Selfishness. Selfishness gets a bad rap as the negative connotations are many times undeserved. Like anything else if you abuse it negative consequence result.
Does higher education and material abundance produce happier and higher qualities in an individual? I think many of us are confused on that issue because if you truly believe it does, then I don’t understand what you are doing living here. I live here because I like the traditional values and simple genuine beautiful humble people. They seem better adjusted than myself and most of my gringo friends here and back home. Ah but the quality of their work is to be nice I will say “inferior.”
Now let’s see how higher education, less agricultural ties and material abundance plays out with the Tican kids… time will tell.
my goodness, you were starting to sound like Diego there for a minute. Women aren’t brood mares. We’ve finally figured out we don’t have to reproduce to be worth something. I chose not to have more kids — i had neither the time nor the energy to raise more than one fully functioning, highly educated, erudite and wordly human being. and in our new reality many people just don’t earn enough to support a huge family anymore, and the choice to have smaller families is a sign of social responsibility, whether you like it or not. we have shifted away from an agrarian society where children were hatched because they provided a workforce. of course we all rhapsodize about a time in our lives when things were simpler, mom baked apple pie, and dad came home to dinner on the table. oh, well. i guarantee you if men were the ones having babies, we wouldn’t be having this discussion! I have relatives who have large families — my aunt was one of ten, she had 5 kids, and they each all have at least 4 or more children. my family tree took up the entire length of a ballroom! but for most of them it was a constant financial struggle to make sure everybody had what they needed and wanted. many of my second cousins couldn’t afford a college education, and many have never traveled beyond the neighboring State. i don’t personally think it makes a woman any less feminine because she doesn’t want a passle of kids. we have a lot more to contribute to the world besides overpopulating it. as for younger women abandoning femininity — well, you can blame that on shifting social mores and sexual discrimination lawsuits. basically society has neutered us. in the workplace, especially at the upper echelon, being “feminine” doesn’t work, and there is probably some spillover of that into other cultures. you can’t blame women for wanting more out of life than to be barefoot and pregnant all the time. and it’s a good thing — go to some pueblo in mexico/costa rica/nicaragua/US where some poor woman is struggling to feed 8 mouths. not a pretty picture. who benefits from that???
I respect your choice, and there is really no need to defend it, I am not talkig about having 10 kids. I am talking about the choices that are changing values here and those value changes have occured rapidly. Is it not ok to choose to have 5 kids? Do they have to be highly educated to be satisfied individuals?
I look back at my education and life and after being here i realize that it was as much or more indoctrination as it was education. Teaching me that the US system and values, the status quo, the materialism and the constant striving for more was THE way. I came here years ago and saw another WAY. Now the way I saw is vanishing. Its is becoming the US and not just in laws and regulation but in culture.
Doesn’t it feel like cultural corruption is occuring?
I guess it occurs everywhere but the speed of the change is alarming.
Are all agricultural based societies doomed?
Can the earth really sustain a planet full of highly educated super consumers. Or does it really need more people to consume less?
If less consumption is the goal than the Us model (western) does not really work does it.
I wonder who consumes more. One higly educated semi wealthy US citizen or 10 Nicaraguen Campesionos?
who would CHOOSE the life of a poor campesino, especially one with a bunch of kids to feed and take care of? that’s a LIFE? i can just hear them all now — “I love living in a one-room, dirt-floor shack, sleeping on a piece of cardboard and never having enough to eat! Yeah, that’s the ticket, but we are a happy family!” the old culture suited the world, but the world has changed, and it’s not all about consumerism. the less fortunate in every society will fall by the wayside, they will have stressful lives for the short life they will have. with BIG Agro taking over,yes, that way of life is diminishing faster than the speed of sound. look at India. Look at Africa, South America, MExico, even the US. The planet simply cannot sustain the population growth it will incur by 2050. i absolutely applaud those people who have sense enough to not produce like rabbits just because they can. maybe you don’t have to be highly educated to be satisfied, but it helps. it may (or may not as the recent recession has shown us) keep you off the welfare rolls, as well.
You are spining to the extrems here. I did not ask if one would choose to be dirt poor. I did ask who consumed less to make a point about consumption. The lifestyle of consumption has quite a bit to do with culture and depleting resources. Will all the people in China and India grow to be US style consumers? The indoctrination that passes off as education in the US is geared to keep people consuming. Is mass consumption sustainable?
If not then what happens. Everybody will be back to growing thier own food on what little land that can produce it. The campesino will come back, but as literate and educated. I have known mid westerners that were farmers, with good size families and not highly educated but educated and were not super consumers.
I don’t belive you have to be rich or a consumer to lead satisfying life. Ghandi comes to mind. There needs to be a new model. The whole world turning to mass consumption lifestyles, the more the better, throw things away rtather than repair, 3 cars for a family of three, etc etc is not sustainable. How many peole does India and China have. And they will all be US style consumers?
oh, yes, those in china see what we all have and they want it too. problem is there just isn’t enough of everything for everybody to live the kind of lifestyle we have been brainwashed into thinking we need to have. but the stats are sobering:
925 million people are hungry.
Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That’s one child every five seconds.
There were 1.4 billion people in extreme poverty in 2005. The World Bank estimates that the spike in global food prices in 2008, followed by the global economic recession in 2009 and 2010 has pushed between 100-150 million people into poverty.
* In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called “absolute poverty;”
* Every year 15 million children die of hunger;
* The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed, and one-third is starving.Now what exactly is romantic about having a big family these days? we simply don’t need any more people to feed and clothe. When the Chinese start their consumption rampage we will all choke to death on the exhaust. ugh and now you are wearing your Ghandi loincloth, yes?
Yeah and its kinda breezy…
But how does this realte to distribution of wealth and what people choose to spend thier wealth on, children and feeding them or appliances, vacations and cars?
there’s only so much to go around, and i don’t really have a problem with people spending their money on things that they feel will enhance their lives rather than populating a planet that is already overwhelmed with people struggling to survive. we just simply don’t need anymore people. life is a struggle no matter who you are.
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