I have been to different sporting events, but lucha libre in Mexico City is more than that. The masks, the chanting and the elaborate tricks show a lot about Mexican culture, if you care to dig a little.
It also helps that it’s a lot of fun to watch live: not only for the performers, but especially for the audience.
Update: I followed my own advice and dug a little about the cultural impact of lucha libre. I found this video (unfortunately only in Spanish) of a documentary on lucha libre. I bumped into another interesting clip explaining lucha libre in an article reviewing a recent performance in London. However, you might get an idea by watching this very amusing music video:
When I was a high school student in Mexico, some of our classes had to do with the different characteristics of our North American neighbours, so I had some understanding on Canadian multiculturalism. However, I was pleasantly suprised in my visit to Vancouver when I basically didn’t feel like a foreigner there, as they’re very much used to people of varied appearance and culture, and their approach tends to be curious and inquisitive rather than hostile or uneasy.
There were three instances where their approach to multiculturalism showed through.
The first one was on TV, where you had an Islamic preacher in one channel and a Christian in the next, both speaking English.
Then they had a report in the CBC about their transmissions of the Stanley Cup, a quintessentially Canadian sports event… in Punjabi. I wondered if the Finnish Hockey World Cup games would ever be broadcast in Somali or, God spare me ;-), Russian.
Finally, there was the Terry Fox Memorial at BC Place. What struck me was not only the story behind it, but the fact that their advertising includes the face of a girl of slightly Asian features. Given that Finnishness seems to be rooted in ethnicity that was a very refreshing, and at the same time sad detail, as I thought that in the end it would be easier for people like me to be Canadian than Finnish even though I’ve never even lived there. Somebody has to be the pioneer, though ;-).
The organisation of the World Cup has been awarded to Brazil for the event in 2014. Furthermore, they have submitted a bid to organise the Olympics in Rio in 2016.
With this, Brazil would become the second Latin American country that organises the Olympics (after Mexico 68), and the second that organises the World Cup for the second time (after Mexico as well, who did so in 1970 & 1984, while the World Cup was in Brazil in 1950).
I definitely think the Brazilians will put a great show, but the country has to be sure that they will be able to cover the expenses involved. These events become bigger and more expensive every time, and as such they are a drain on public resources.
One of the best ad campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. The Spanish inferiority/superiority complex is addressed head-on here by a sports apparel company.
I went skating yesterday. Not any kind of skating, but one special modality called nordic blading, which is done with poles as if you were skiing. I am now the proud owner of an N95 and was using the Sports Tracker application, which is able to calculate the kind of route I took, how many kilometres I did and my speed and altitude. You can even export your workouts to Google Earth! Quite a nice thing, I should say.
P.S. For those interested, I skated 15.4 km at an average speed of 10 km/h and a maximum speed of 49 km/h.
