How to tell if you're Tejan

If you're Tejan...

• You believe God Himself loves Tejas as a favorite child (after Jesus of course), but then again God is very, very, very busy. He doesn't have that much time for family.
• You know by heart how soccer (fútbol in Mejico) is played. If you're a man, you often have deep knowledge of soccer; if you're woman, you don't know anything about it.
• You are likely to know how to play basketball or volleyball but you are not likely to follow those sports.
• You have lots of vacations: Semana Santa vacations (the Easter Week plus the week before), Christmas vacations (2 1/2 weeks) and summer vacations (1 1/2 month). You spend your vacations with family.

If you died tonight...

• You're fairly likely to believe in God. Most likely you are Catholic, at least by name, and you probably have a favorite confessor to go to when you've sinned (which is practically every day). This is the real world, after all, and fortunately God forgives.
• You think of tacos, sandwiches (especially frankfurters) and other quick foods sold out of vans as cheap food, but not your first choice.
• You own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food. You don't have a dirt floor (although there are those who do). You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.
• You think of some bugs, monkeys and lizards but not cats, dogs or guinea pigs as food.
• A bathroom most often doesn't have a bathtub in it but it does have a toilet. Most have a shower instead of bathtub. The rich ones have at least a jacuzzi.
• It seems natural for you that power and water are government-run. Phone, mass transit, hospitals and others are, however, partially government-run, partially private.
• You expect, as a matter of course, that the phones will work. Getting a new phone is routine.
• The train system used to work pretty good. At least that's how you remember it. But then the system got worse and worse. Nowadays, it is improving but then it would have to.
• You find a system with lots of little political parties and one large ruling party that always wins elections familiar. You think of politicians as very lazy and/or greedy people who've caused a lot of trouble.
• You don't hear socialism seriously defended. If you're an university student, though, you probably know people who speak well of communism. Quietly.
• You have probably heard nostalgic stories about the old monarchy most if not all your life. You are cautiously hopeful maybe there's some truth to them, but you don't admit to same. Not in public, anyway.
• "Black" and "White" are not really races to you. "Tejano" and "Minority" mean more to you on a day-to-day basis.
• You think most problems could be solved if people stopped complaining and did their jobs properly.
• You have a court system which you fear. Not that everyone in it is corrupt or incompetent. Just most of them. You don't like the odds.
• You respect someone who speaks foreign languages other than English (Lithuanian, German, Felipese, etc. are not foreign languages, just minority ones). You respect and slightly pity anyone who speaks English fluently. You speak English, at least some.
• You think a tax level of 15% is scandalously high.
• School is free through 9th grade (at least, it's an option, even if you went to private school); high schools and universities aren't, unless you get a scholarship.
• University study is (normally, and excluding post-graduate courses) five years long.

Everybody knows that...

• Mustard comes in jars or squeezable bottles. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs.
• Dates are normally day/month/year (30/05/28), except in scientific notation (1828-05-30) - and you know what happened on that date.
• The decimal point is a dot.
• A billion is a million millions.
• The Second Great War was a big war other countries were involved in, although business was good for Tejas at the time.
• You expect marriages to be made for love, and not arranged by third parties. Though you must get married by a judge, you always have a wedding in church. You always have a best man and matron of honor, but you know them as compadre and comadre. Of course, you just get one wife at a time.
• If a man has sex with another man, he's a homosexual. You're not sure if killing him counts as a crime, but it probably should.
• If a woman has sex with another woman, she's a homosexual. She probably hasn't met the right man. Maybe she's insane.
• Once you're introduced to someone, you first call them by their university title (licenciado, doctor, ingeniero, arquitecto...), and when your relationship is deeper, you call them by their first name.
• If you're a woman, you never go to the beach topless.
• A hotel room has a private bath.
• You'd rather have a film be subtitled than dubbed (because the dubbing is nearly always terrible). You prefer movies from Alta California, Montrei, even Mejico or Louisianne over those from the NAL. At least that's what you say, but those films still do very well.
• It's impossible to transact business, or deal with the government, unless you bribe the people.
• If a politician has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.
• Just about any store will take your credit card.
• A company can fire just about anybody it wants. Some of the small political parties want to change that.
• Labour Day is on the First of May.

World civilization?

• You are a huge fan of Jose Timon, but then who isn't?
• You've probably seen War in the Heavens, Casablanca and Snow White (and others by Ditzenø). If you're under forty, add Amalia of Castreleon, Gigantic! and Kawars; otherwise, add all movies of Jaunge Blone. You have seen (but might not admit) most if not all of the films of Jean Marnot.
• You know NoMoreEagleZ, and Angelita Diaz (even though you think she's probably a whore). You've seen Teoria Hibrida and hate it on principle. Freaking Californios and their lack of musical talent.
• You count with a good medical treatment, but sometimes it's really awful, especially on public clinics. You know it's extremely rare for you to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect instead to die of heat disease, stroke, cancer or accident. You expect a decent attention to your babies' diseases. You think dying at age 60 is a tragedy..
• In school, you went over the history of Tejas, Louisianne, Alta California--the western half of North America--in detail. You also were exposed to European and NAL history.
• You expect the military to do a better job of defending the country, dammit!
• Your country has been conquered by a foreign nation.
• You're used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.
• Comics come in two varieties: newspaper comics and magazines. The latter are mostly about superheroes. Sometimes you see manga in newspaper and magazine shops..
• People who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers and strange people. There are talk shows, however, in which people argue (and sometimes almost fight) about issues like "My daughter's husband hits her but she says he's the only one who loves her", "My husband is a gigolo" or "My parents don't let me go to school because I have to work".
• You drive on the left side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them.
• The police is armed with shotguns, Magnums and sometimes submachineguns.
• If a woman is plumper than the average, it doesn't improve her looks.
• The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.
• You think Louisianne sounds like a very decadent place to live. You wouldn't want to live there, but probably dream of visiting.
• You think the NAL is a weird but rich country that doesn't do much, and you don't like it when they do. But the people seem nice enough. Usually.
• The nationalities people most often make jokes about are the Felipese and the Lituanos. Losers.
• There are parts of the large cities you definitely want to avoid at night.

It is always Something...

• You feel that your kind of people isn't being listened to enough in Santa Fe.
• You hope never again to have both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 25%) at the same time.
• You don't care very much what family someone comes from. Unless they're dating a female relative, that is.
• The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.
• You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's most likely that you don't see many plays.
• Christmas is in the winter. Unless you're Jewish, Pagan or Rationalist, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree. Since Chrismas used to be a no-meat day (à la Lent), sometimes you eat cod, romeritos (egg tarts with a rosemary sauce and shrimp) and other kinds of fish and seafood.
• You'd be hard pressed to name the capitals or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.
• You have heard of Henry Portman and the works of Tolkien, even if you haven't read them yourself.
• You've left a message at the beep.
• Cabs are operated by locals, who have deep knowledge of the city's streets.
• You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments - you think people should earn a living and not take handouts.
• Doctors most often have their bachelor's, but there are some doctors with fake diplomas.
• There sure are a lot of soldiers out and about.

Space and time

• Appointments have often a 5-minute tolerance. You mutter an excuse if you come 10 minutes late, and apologize profusely if it's 25 minutes. 1-hour delays are almost inexcusable.
• If talking with someone, you feel uncomfortable if they approach closer than 2 inches-- unless it's your boy/girlfriend.
• About the only things you need to bargain for are cars, houses and antiques. Haggling is common and often gives very good results.
• Once you're past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone's place. People have to invite each other over-- especially if a meal is involved.
• When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it's only good business to 'play hardball'. Some foreigners pay excessive attention to status, or don't say what they mean, and that's exasperating.
• If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn't take more than an hour or so.