February 25, 2020 - 165 - "Cultural Mysteries"

Culture Shock  

                                                                                       Spending time in a foreign country is a daily adventure.  We're constantly learning new words, sayings, customs, foods...the list goes on and on.                                                                                                                                              It can be exhausting.  It can bring on the kind of overwhelm that sends a tourist heading for the local McDonald's out of sheer exhaustion.                                                                                                                                         Even there you're not safe:  If, for example, you're in Germany you might find that they eat their McDonald's french fries with (gasp!): mayonnaise.  And, as if that's not bad enough:  they eat them , not with their fingers, as God intended, but with little tiny wooden forks/spear things.

The Lure of a Mall (The Cat Made Us Do It)

     We needed an automatic feeder.  We used one to get her weight down at home and now she gets freaked out that the feeding schedule isn't identical to the one at home.  

     We just went to a little mall outside of town.  It's about the most non-Mexican place there is around town.   You could be almost anywhere in the world.  Everything is modern and sleek.  There's a department store, a furniture store, hair and nail salons...and the only McDonald's around.

     We were drawn by the lure of a Petco.  

     We needed a collar with a bell on it.  Ella has been hiding around the house like she did when we first got her ten years ago...and this makes it slightly easier to locate her.  (Yes, as you probably imagine:  she hates it.)

     We also needed some treats (see above about luring her out of her gazillion hiding places.)

     So, there we are in the middle of the parking lot of this very familiar-seeming shopping center and we come across a very strange sign painted on the pavement.

Mystery Traffic Signs

  Before shopping for these items I went to the ATM at the bank just outside the mall.  

Walking back across the parking lot we see this sign.                                                                                                                                               Me:  What could this sign possibly mean?                                                                               Michael:  Don't know, but I'm envisioning four cars in a head-on collision.

Google Answers All

   So I found this thread online.  It's nothing to do with traffic and everything to do with earthquakes:  (Which San Miguel isn't supposed to be susceptible to...but that's another story.)

Wander around Mexico City and you’ll stumble across them in seconds, painted haphazardly across pavements and other pedestrianized areas. Green circles (sometimes squares, sometimes rectangles) of varying sizes with white arrows pointing at a central dot can be seen across Mexico City and the surrounding areas, but why? For Mexico City natives or long-term residents, these inconspicuous and abundant so-called ‘sidewalk markers’ merely blend into the city’s scenery, but visitors are sometimes baffled as to their purpose. Here’s a quick guide to these unusual painted pieces and how they could save your life the next time you’re in Mexico City.



Mexico City is situated on one of the world’s most unstable foundations — the sinking Aztec stronghold of Tenochtitlán — so it’s no surprise that it’s a hotspot for earthquakes. Its reputation as an earthquake zone (Mexico has had over 1000 earthquakes in the past year alone) led to the introduction of a set of safety regulations that included these painted street-side markers in 2002, according to Fabricio Castrejón. Also known as puntos de reunión, puntos they serve to protect and promote safety during times of natural disaster and fires by serving as a predesignated spot where residents of neighboring buildings can gather. However, the positioning and inclusion of these mandated meeting points is down to building owners, not the government.

     So there you have it.  It's not intended to be a big car-crash-free-for-all-zone.  Good to know.

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"It was very liberating, living in a foreign country, a place where everything was new and strange - the food, the customs, the climate, everything."

-Deborah Moggach

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 I keep going back through trying to tweak this post...but fall dead asleep instead.  I'm just going to hit 'Publish' and hit the hay.  I'll sleep better having solved the most recent cultural mystery.