Etiquette and Manners in sol y sombre
The Spanish are out going and fun. They make eye contact with total strangers and start up conversations. Kisses on the cheeks and heart felt hugs abound and are good for the soul.
Spain is different as they say. You quickly figure that out once you start driving. The dual carriage way is the last frontier of irrational macho behaviours. Everyone knows the experience; you are in the left hand lane driving at the required speed limit when all of a sudden a vehicle at 150 k per hour pulls up one meter behind you and starts flashing their lights and honking their horn. It is enough to give you a heart attack. A word of advice: the left hand lane is not for cruising. It is for overtaking other cars. By driving well above the speed limit the drivers’ bravado demonstrates that their monthly car payments are worth it.
Queues in Spain are also different. You pretty much have to fight for your right to be next in line. Blinking, reading or chatting may be taken as indifference about your spot in the queue. The polite way to handle this is when you arrive regardless of how orderly or spread out the queue, you ask who is last:
¿Quién es el último? Universal recognition of your place is registered then you can space out all you want. Next if you see some random chaos happening and it is your turn, politely announce …me toca a mí (I’m next.)
The Spanish accept the notion of civilised disorderly conduct. Drinking to excess and smoking are on the decline, but are still prevalent. Public drunkenness is frowned upon. In the summer when temperatures sore, the cafes are filled till the wee hours, but they are sipping their drinks, not gulping them down. The etiquette in bars is quid pro quo. They buy a round, you reciprocate. The one international rule of thumb that should never be set aside is that one should never drive under the influence.
The super posh in Spain have marvellous table manners. They even eat their bananas with fork and knife. Eating an olive becomes a social accomplishment. You daintily pick up the olive, pop it in your mouth and then bring your slightly clenched fist towards your mouth where you deposit the pit in the hollow centre. You hover craft your hand over to your bread plate where, ever so daintily, you bombs away deposit the pit.
How to guarantee a Faux Pas!
If you really want to have a wildfire of a conversation that will raise everyone’s blood pressure there are a few subjects that pretty much guarantee at least a medium level of controversy.
Animal rights
Everyone living in Andalusia has seen the undernourished dogs chained to oil drums out in the campo. There are abandoned greyhound race dogs in various stages of neglect/abuse and the national pastime, bullfighting, is not for the queasy. Leave it at this; many Spaniards are lovely with their animals, Andalusia is a rural area with an agrarian background, and being pet sensitive is not high on the priority list.
The Spanish Civil War
As a friend of mine in Ojén once said to me, “How can I really know you, if I have not met your grandfather?” in the case of the Civil War, it is just that. It is a flip of a coin as to how people feel about Franco. Did Franco, el Caudillo, win the war and liberate the country or was he a tyrant of a dictator that overthrew the Spanish Republic in what was a golden era and killed of the intelligentsia… Unless you are well read on the subject, it’s best to let them do the talking and acknowledge the loss that every Spanish family suffered.
Guiris, moros, gabachos, catetos, sudacas
No Spaniard ever wants to be accused of being narrow-minded or racist. If the truth be told they are fairly open-minded, but 40 years of closed border fascism did not lend itself to becoming the melting pot that it now is. Epithets and racial slurs
don’t do much for me. I avoid them and when I hear them I often find myself getting grumpy.
Guiri means a foreigner from Northern Europe/North America with buying power. It implies that this person is a tourist in Spain on holiday and generally clueless about Spanish culture. It’s a word that grew out of the tourism surge, back when Spain was a cheap place to holiday. A lot of people use it, not me.
Catateto means a villager with only local knowledge, a hillbilly. It is equivalent to guiri. It is not an insult, but people can really take offence. If you refer to yourself as a cateto it is one thing, however if you go up to a village and start calling them hicks, well, watch out!
Gabacho means a funny looking foreigner and usually French. This is another term that came into vogue during Franco’s time. Back then women wore very subdued colours in Spain. Those stylish French stood out and earned this silly nickname. Thankfully styles have perked up and the term is on the decline.
Sudaca is an awful word and means anyone from South America. Simply don’t use it as it is very insulting.
Moro is a term which historically and inaccurately came to be used to refer to all Muslims and currently has a nasty bite to it. Nowadays it is used to refer to the populations of Magreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia.) Skip the term and use their proper nationality.
Live in the best of all possible worlds. If a Spaniard asks you about Spain, tell them you love it. Launching off into a detailed comparison between different cultures is bound to create ill will. Ask them where they like to go, what their most memorable trip on the peninsula has been, where they have eaten the best seafood. Why contrast and compare when you could rather pick up some handy local know-how.
Manners and etiquette are fine learned habits, but what really counts is getting along with others through communication and mutual respect.
