- Thread starter DominicanScotty
- Start date
How do you see a gringo?
Gringo's disgusts
We have seen them, we have heard them.
Ex-pats, tourists.....cussing, jestering with their hands, yelling at everyone. Everything is sh*t, everyone is a mafioso or a pig. I ask myself, "Is this crazy b*st*rd on vacation? Does he live here? Such an unhappy fellow, what the fudge is he doing here?"
People watching is interesting. Just sit at a roadside bar or cafe and watch. Little shoeshine boys following gringos, tagging along as the gringo is waving his hands yelling at them noooooooo, nooooooooooooooo, noooooooooooooooooooo! The little boys get a kick out of this.... So funny to watch.
We have seen them, we have heard them.
Ex-pats, tourists.....cussing, jestering with their hands, yelling at everyone. Everything is sh*t, everyone is a mafioso or a pig. I ask myself, "Is this crazy b*st*rd on vacation? Does he live here? Such an unhappy fellow, what the fudge is he doing here?"
People watching is interesting. Just sit at a roadside bar or cafe and watch. Little shoeshine boys following gringos, tagging along as the gringo is waving his hands yelling at them noooooooo, nooooooooooooooo, noooooooooooooooooooo! The little boys get a kick out of this.... So funny to watch.
Absolutely agree with your post Nals; just taking the section above, Dominicans might treat gringos as uneducated little kids, but they're a lot better at hiding that attitude than the gringos are. Gringos seem less likely to be prepared to learn from the indigenous population than the other way around............I know, I know for many Dominicans, appearing to be in awe of the gringo 'superior level of knowledge' :ermm: is all part of the game, but for many gringos treating Dominicans as punkah-wallahs is for real and NOT part of any game. Many don't even know they're doing it; and they certainly don't understand why they do it i.e. a reaction to being outside their comfort zone.
I got a phone call from a fairly new gringo the other day who was in a shop in PP and couldn't make himself understood so phoned for translation help.
Me: 'Where are you?'
Him: 'I'm in this grubby store'
Immediately, my back went up! The store didn't have what he wanted but were happy to walk outside and direct him to another store which had the item. I explained this to him.
Him: 'Well I'll probably call you from the next store'
Me: 'I'll probably be out'
More to the subject matter.
Even though this thread is more about "gringos opinions of gringos", I must say that it's amusing seeing a bunch of foreigners moving to the DR to "get away from the ways of their old country". That is what many say is the reason for moving to the DR.
Funny how once they are in the DR, all many of them do is complain at the fact that everything in the DR is done the Dominican way and not like in their old country which they left because they did not like many of the things of their old country to begin with.
Ay ya yay!
-NALs:ermm:[/QUOTE]
You know what I find amusing?
How ex-pats forget that they live on an island with absolutely no indigenous peoples left and justify whatever behavior because it's a different culture.
The Dominican culture is made up of other cultures, it's a condensed version of Spaniards, Africans and Western Europeans.
To simply dismiss any obvious and blatant violations of basic human rights as 'oh, it's their culture' is not only ignorant but criminal.
I do agree with NALS that those complaining are just that complainers. They're people that'll never be happy unless they can make other people miserable.
The DR is many things to many different people. Some are here to hide, others are here to escape winter and many are here because they love the people. I fall in to the later category and stand by my comments when I feel that these lovely people are being abused.
Jack
Even though this thread is more about "gringos opinions of gringos", I must say that it's amusing seeing a bunch of foreigners moving to the DR to "get away from the ways of their old country". That is what many say is the reason for moving to the DR.
Funny how once they are in the DR, all many of them do is complain at the fact that everything in the DR is done the Dominican way and not like in their old country which they left because they did not like many of the things of their old country to begin with.
Ay ya yay!
-NALs:ermm:[/QUOTE]
You know what I find amusing?
How ex-pats forget that they live on an island with absolutely no indigenous peoples left and justify whatever behavior because it's a different culture.
The Dominican culture is made up of other cultures, it's a condensed version of Spaniards, Africans and Western Europeans.
To simply dismiss any obvious and blatant violations of basic human rights as 'oh, it's their culture' is not only ignorant but criminal.
I do agree with NALS that those complaining are just that complainers. They're people that'll never be happy unless they can make other people miserable.
The DR is many things to many different people. Some are here to hide, others are here to escape winter and many are here because they love the people. I fall in to the later category and stand by my comments when I feel that these lovely people are being abused.
Jack
celt202, would you like me better to write in polish?
ok, it is "conspicuous" not "conspicious", will run my posts through spell-check next time... :ermm:
i
I didn't even notice the word was misspelled; wasn't my point at all. The image of a tarantula on a birthday cake made me laugh out loud; had I been drinking coffee it would have gone out my nose.
My point is you and La Barbie and Momita make good points about the DR and run with an aquired language. I like that. Move over Joseph Conrad.
If you wrote in Polish I wouldn't understand a word. Ok I might recognize "da".
:laugh:
me happy now
ah, what an ignorant! "da" is RUSSIAN. in polish would be "tak" (which accidentaly means "thank you" in scandinavian languages).:cheeky:
thank for your compliments
conrad (or korzeniowski, in polish) has never leart to write english properly, his secretary was always correcting texts before they reached a publisher. cheeky monkey, he was!
:bunny: :bunny: :bunny:
ah, what an ignorant! "da" is RUSSIAN. in polish would be "tak" (which accidentaly means "thank you" in scandinavian languages).:cheeky:
thank for your compliments
conrad (or korzeniowski, in polish) has never leart to write english properly, his secretary was always correcting texts before they reached a publisher. cheeky monkey, he was!
:bunny: :bunny: :bunny:
ah, what an ignorant! "da" is RUSSIAN. in polish would be "tak" (which accidentaly means "thank you" in scandinavian languages).:cheeky:
thank for your compliments
conrad (or korzeniowski, in polish) has never leart to write english properly, his secretary was always correcting texts before they reached a publisher. cheeky monkey, he was!
:bunny: :bunny: :bunny:
Doh.....
aranoid: memo to self: learn some Polish
Moving back on topic, I respect foreigners who live here who make an effort to learn Spanish. Some of them have very little talent for language and speak Spanish poorly but they keep on determined to be able to communicate better.
Those who make no effort show contempt for the DR.
spanish thing
si, celt202, it is good to make an effort to learn spanish but heck!, how diddifult! i have tried in vain to find a course of espanol por gringos but nothing seems to be happening. one would have thought it is a good business idea, to open a school for gringos but apparently they don't give a toss, no spanish needed to show your maid some polvo on the shelf with a look of dissatisfaction on the face, no spanish to needed to point dawnwards while unzipping your trousers making inviting sucking sounds...
i have enough of my poorly pronounced HUEVOS being a cause for hyisterical laughter of a shopkeeper and i feel that dominicans should go easy on me sometimes...
so i go by heading to my neighbour's house for a coffee with dictionary in my hand, stutter my sentences in pidgin spanish and blush from joy when i am understood. i look at women's magazines, the c**p they write in there is sort of universal, i highly reccomend those publications for all who try to learn. same goes for telenovelas, how hard can it be to understand that maria's mother was disinherited and died in poverty but not without sending maria to the house of pedro, who is a second cousin of maria's mother ex-husband's uncle recently married to maria's secret half-sister?
English to French, Italian & Spanish Dictionary - WordReference.com is also great (this is NOT an advertisment!) because it indicates the grammatical position of a word, for instance "hace" would be definided as "3rd persona singular, presente indicativo" with a basic "hacer"+definition.
btw anyone knowing about a school teaching spanish to gringos, please, let me know. maybe we can start a little thing like this ourselves?
si, celt202, it is good to make an effort to learn spanish but heck!, how diddifult! i have tried in vain to find a course of espanol por gringos but nothing seems to be happening. one would have thought it is a good business idea, to open a school for gringos but apparently they don't give a toss, no spanish needed to show your maid some polvo on the shelf with a look of dissatisfaction on the face, no spanish to needed to point dawnwards while unzipping your trousers making inviting sucking sounds...
i have enough of my poorly pronounced HUEVOS being a cause for hyisterical laughter of a shopkeeper and i feel that dominicans should go easy on me sometimes...
so i go by heading to my neighbour's house for a coffee with dictionary in my hand, stutter my sentences in pidgin spanish and blush from joy when i am understood. i look at women's magazines, the c**p they write in there is sort of universal, i highly reccomend those publications for all who try to learn. same goes for telenovelas, how hard can it be to understand that maria's mother was disinherited and died in poverty but not without sending maria to the house of pedro, who is a second cousin of maria's mother ex-husband's uncle recently married to maria's secret half-sister?
English to French, Italian & Spanish Dictionary - WordReference.com is also great (this is NOT an advertisment!) because it indicates the grammatical position of a word, for instance "hace" would be definided as "3rd persona singular, presente indicativo" with a basic "hacer"+definition.
btw anyone knowing about a school teaching spanish to gringos, please, let me know. maybe we can start a little thing like this ourselves?
dominicanas don't prefer older men,, you know that. They prefer men who are better-off than they are or their local novios/friends are. That's what they prefer.
in many cases this is sooooooooo true, especially los tigueres de barrio, very very sad situation, the woman is stuck with allthe responsibilities while they continue searching for more victims.
Seems like we're running seriously off track here. Topic is "How do you see a gringo?" Let's stick to that, otherwise I'll have to 'stick' Anna in Mars and Venus with this thread
1- i once saw a gringo,, sorry... saw an extranjero americano go to colmado to buy something "fiado" (buy something on credit); most local dominicans who don't earn much to buy stuff do go to colmados to buy stuff on credit.. but seeing a blankito extranjero do this was odd/funny to me. Coming from USA and don't have enought money to buy a cigarette pack? come on mann.
2- it's funny to ride in a carro concho and hear all the funny stories dominicans say while riding in this cartaxi. And in a small old corolla where
7 people fit is funny (incl. driver).... 4 in the back,, the driver, and the 2 in front seat.
3- funny how some local dominicans brag about having this house, this car, this good paying job,, blablabla and then you find out it's not true... and if it's true they owe everything. They rather borrow money and owe hundreds of thousands of pesos and buy cars, house,, instead of living just humble and modest. jabladores/pretensiosos.
4- buying cup of coffee in dr.. what is it? 5 pesos for such a small little cup of coffee... i'm used to seeing small cup in ny but in dr,,, that's not even extra small. that's extra extra extra extra small cup of coffee they sell.
2- it's funny to ride in a carro concho and hear all the funny stories dominicans say while riding in this cartaxi. And in a small old corolla where
7 people fit is funny (incl. driver).... 4 in the back,, the driver, and the 2 in front seat.
3- funny how some local dominicans brag about having this house, this car, this good paying job,, blablabla and then you find out it's not true... and if it's true they owe everything. They rather borrow money and owe hundreds of thousands of pesos and buy cars, house,, instead of living just humble and modest. jabladores/pretensiosos.
4- buying cup of coffee in dr.. what is it? 5 pesos for such a small little cup of coffee... i'm used to seeing small cup in ny but in dr,,, that's not even extra small. that's extra extra extra extra small cup of coffee they sell.
yes i totally agree, i have absolutely decided to have zero to do with expats. i live privately and quietly. why would i too, live in a paradice then choose to emerse myself in the expat 'scene'
There are gringos and there are gringos. Just like with Dominicans. I enjoy the company of both, provided we have stuff in common. Whether a person is Dominican or foreign should not have a bearing. My only concern is that I have a balance of friends from both camps, because of the transitory nature of some foreigners.
Interesting how some people see things and make assumptions.
If this "gringo" you saw in the colmado buying smething on credit did just that, then he obviously has been here a while, is familiar with how things work, and has a good relationship with the colmado.
I have things delivered from the colmado all the time. I think that twice since I have been here (over a year), I have called the colmado and asked them to send me something on credit because I had no cash on me and didnt want to walk out to the ATM. The difference between me in those 2 instances and the Dominicans who are forever buying things on credit is that the next day, I went to the colmado personally to thank the owner and pay my outstanding bill.
So, you scoff at this "blankito extranjero" who you saw buy cigarettes on credit. Well, I bet you he paid the bill soon afterwards.
To all the Dominicans who lose their money in the bancas or buy the jeppetta on credit and everything else and then have to go to the colmado and buy things on credit and then not pay for AGES I have one thing to say..... "come on mann" (your words).
lol and all that jazz
Larry
If the above statement is true then why are you reading and posting on a site primarily targeted to expat's?
I see it akin to the imigrant comunities in other countries. These people come from thier home country, enjoy and live in the community, but get together to learn from each others experiences.
It seems that many of the expats here seem to see themselves as 'something special'. None of us are special we're all humans doing what humans do no matter what country we're living in.
There are plenty of ex-pats here who I am happy to call my friends. I know there are plenty of others who I do not want to associate with but they are weeded out over time. Thats a good thing about this message board. We all know who is who.
The ex-pat scene can be an enjoyable one here if you surround yourself with the right people. Come by Rockys on thanksgiving. It will be full of good people.
Larry
well, the american would pay yes.. when he would get his pension check every month. and yes, the colmado knew him and knew he would pay every month. and yes, contrary to what many locals do, he would not exaggerate on his acct. and yes, i believe he had been living in the town for a while.