La cultura explained

Last night was worth years of study. What I found out straight from the mouths of two men who had no reason to tell me anything other than how it really is, explains it all. I feel a little in shock but have almost no more questions. Most of what they told me, I have read, or heard second hand from others outside the culture that seem to know, but that for me is only a tantalising thing that makes me wonder, "is all this really true?" Like in China, I have to see it for myself, or hear it directly from the people about whom it has been told.

Fortunately, I shared this experience with a similarly reserved, Spanish speaking English girl, and the free-spirited, not even remotely reserved Susanne, who interjected irreverent and hilarous remarks in English. The English girl was working on a new name, at the behest of one of our hosts, Fernando. She has the similarly odd and difficult to pronounce name of "Kathy", back in England.

Kathy, Susanne and I met at Bar Alfalfa, and Kathy and I immediately bonded over some intense issues surrounding differences between our culture and this one. At the bar full of sandwiches around the corner, a bit later, we stood around an up-ended keg-table spilling out onto the sidewalk, with two men and a dog. Fernando, a grey haired, spectacled man with a hot pink scarf, and otherwise normal clothes for a respectable man his age, started off the conversation with Semana Santa. With some intense gesturing and big, excited looking eyes, he explained that it is the primitive things that are within humans, that Semana Santa is all about; that religion has appropriated them. That civilisation is an accord, among us all, that is fragile, and that what is underneath is the strongest. He mentioned the veneration of the virgen, and how Jesus is there, but possibly a bit of a side note.
He told us a line from a famous Sevillan poet: Seville would be great without all the Sevillanos. He said, "We know it. Sevillanos are classist, people that are always looking around them at others, not very open."
Fernando explained that modern art is not possible in Sevilla. When you see Semana Santa you will understand. Art installations and whatnot all fall flat - there is no need for anything else to be said - in comparison to Semana Santa (this was the gist, anyways).
Javi (a young man in his 30s, probably) and Fernando took us to three more bars. The first one, they apologised, would be some word none of us understood and they could not find a way of explaining. Dirty, they said... but not dirty, dangerous? not really dangerous. It is where all the flamencos go. I should have told them they do not need to explain that to me. We stayed for a while, but no random guitar or cante was happening that early. A bowl of smouldering coals was pushed back and forth in the little alleyway, and after standing around it with some other young guys, listening to jokes about Australian animals smoking joints, in Spanish, we had to leave, cause the police were coming and the alley had to be vacated. The bar was too small of a little passageway to fit many inside.
Fernando told us we were going to El Muerte next. The owner, amigo mio, looks like a cadaver serving copas, he said. El Muerte was their name for the bar, because it didn't have a name - it was an unmarked, corrgated metal door pulled down below an archway in the brick, during the day. Again, it was described as a dirty place, but this time in a different way. Indeed, it was a place with ugly brown paint peeling off the walls, that looked utterly ancient, with barrels from which the wine was taken. High on the wall were extremely old bottles with a fur of dust so thick it might keep you warm if you could collect and put it on. The proprietor was indeed a rather unattractive looking and pasty guy; a fat cadaver, I suppose.
Some young, cool looking dudes with gelled up hair were looking at an article on something to do with some of the hermandades and Semana Santa in a magazine, and discussing it. We stood while Javi and Fernando proceeded to explain Spanish society. It might have started with a question of mine, when Fernando got tired of whatever we were previously talking about and asked us to choose a subject. "La FAMILIA," said Fernando, in a deep and ominous sounding voice. They are like the mafia, he said. Javi explained that in the family of a former girlfriend, he had to find or build his own place within the family. That this would be what is expected. Over the course of the next several hours I began to understand stuff I've been wondering about. We talked about the differences between Anglo Saxon culture and theirs, and on the subject of physical distance, and touching others, Fernando expounded in more depth than I had previously discussed this topic. We grow up being told to kiss our cousin, kiss our uncle, kiss so and so. We play close together and we are always touching each other when we talk. He said it is nothing for him to grab an amiga around the waist and give her a big hug. It doesn't mean anything. Fernando told us that in Anglo culture, we are very careful with physical touch, and that it borders on the sexual, whereas for them, it is just part of life. I don't know if you would all identify it that way, but I agree with him. He said the Spanish don't get it when they watch English films, in which the touching of knees is supposed to be erotic.
"Comportamiento" is one that scares me. The Spanish live outside. I can't say this too strongly. It is part of who they are. Their society has evolved from the casas de vecinos and neighbours always meeting in the streets, to the point where essentially, the rules of the house, have to a certain extent been taken out into the street. For this reason, it is very important how you behave in public, in the street, because you want to behave yourself properly when you are in someone's house. This is why they do not appreciate the behaviour of foreigners at times, and specifically stated rowdy groups of drunken English young people. It is just not acceptable for Spanish people to be drunken and rowdy in the streets. There are rules against singing in bars, due to the tendancy for people to start singing loudly and unpleasantly when drunk. So I asked him if this importance in comportment includes things I do, when I want to sit on a bench in public and feel like relaxing, with my arms and legs stretched out and slouching down, perhaps leaning my head back to look at the sky. "No, no, no...!" he said, you're a woman!
Javi explained that divorce is getting more and more common; it is quite normal. It started with his parents' generation, but only became legal in 1985. Fernando told us a different story; that no, even now, it is not something people do much. Javi is certainly correct, but relative to our culture, Fernando's take is more accurate.
We moved to a bar which Fernando explained was a "bar of homosexuales". Well, it was run by some, anyways. The way it was decorated might have had something to do with that, but less so than most Canadians would think. The entire places was Semana Santa themed (as are other bars in Sevilla). There was barely a bare inch of wall, everything being covered by framed pictures, statues, hanging lanterns, and a lot of red velvet with virgen statues and fresh white flowers everywhere. It was like walking into an iglesia. Around the neck of one of the virgens were several ornate and heavy necklaces that would have been worn by someone in a hermandad, while marching in the religious processions. (The first experience of a Semana Santa bar was a place I dragged poor Savas, a Cypriot classical guitarist here to learn flamenco. He wasn't so into the "church-like" bar, that all the rest of the locals of all ages loved. They were playing videos of Semana Santa processions, and burning incense the whole time, which by the way, is utterly heavenly and unlike any other incense I've smelled.)
In this ornate, dark, velvety, religious, antique decor, was playing some very modern, pulsating music, as if we were in a disco, though reasonably quietly, so as to add ambiance and not disturb the locals discussing who was cheating on who. Or the locals explaining to the foreigners how all of that works. Fernando told us that he met a woman he fell in love with more intensely than ever in his entire life. She was a widow. But eventually, she forced him to choose: his family or her. It seemed as if there were no choice to make - of course he chose his family - he had to. Then his voice rose, and he came close to our faces as he said, almost as if he were angry, but it was just pure passion and intense pride, "how do you think we bear a 22% unemployment rate?!... THE FAMILY. The children, get help from the uncles, the parents tell them to come home and stay." It is true, I've heard the rate is 28%, and there are extremely few people begging on the streets or sleeping in parks. Everybody is still going to the bars, living what appears to be normally.
Adultery is bad, but it is not looked upon badly, they said. The most important thing is for the children to grow up in a stable home, to have all the grandparents and relatives there for their birthdays, to protect and look after them well. They love their wives, but when they no longer are in love, they sometimes find a little of that on the side. 
Javi explained Semana Santa and how it works. That it originally was a publicity campaign for the various artisans guilds, and today, the hermandades are often connected by the work they do. And that the difference between the celebrations here in Sevilla and in the North, is that in the north they are truly religious - they take it very seriously and solemnly, and it is all about doing things properly. Here it is all about emotion. It is just a gut level thing. The actual religious aspect of it is symbolical. Many people who march in it are not religious at all. These two were obviously very liberal minded people.
It was also explained to us that the Rocio, a pilgrimage in which about a million people walk from somewhere, to somewhere in Huelva, is where the most enormous sale of condoms takes place, and where it is easiest to pick up a married woman.

That was last night, and I am continuing in a state of utter fascination with this culture. Like I said at first, I am in a slight bit of shock. When you begin to understand how utterly different a culture is and you are surrounded by it; living in it, it can be like that. Most of the time it is easy to overlook, here. I can pass for one of them, in the street. Unless you are an insider here, you would miss a lot of it. This has been a more subtle reaction, but a similar one to when I entered the small towns in Tibet and saw the cow poop smushed onto the walls of all the houses with a hand print in the middle. Shock at the mind-boggling differences.

I am getting ready to go to an evening at the pena tonight, but I just got back from doing an errand and on the way, went into both churches in Plaza San Lorenzo, along with a stream of people. The churches don't usually have much activity, but there are posters out today saying that it is the "besamano (kisshand) of the virgen" and something about our "padre jesus". In the more modern church I went in and bought a pin of Jesus bent over, carrying the cross, and was given two cards, one of the face of the virgen statue with tears, and one of the face of Jesus, with his characteristic gold rays emanating from his downcast head. I watched the stream of people going past the virgen at the front of the church, each one kissing her hand, as a lady wiped the hand between each kiss. I sat for a moment. There was a series of some quite beautiful works of art lining the domed walls, each one an important moment in the few days before Jesus' crucifixion, and up to and including his burial. I have never seen anything like these, and thought of being a child hearing bible stories. These pictures were very moving and very immediate - it would have taken me right there. I went around the raised up stairway behind the "pulpit" area, and watched the old ladies and the young high heeled, tight jeans and frizzy haired ones touching the foot of the statue of Jesus, and crossing themselves and kissing their own fingers afterwards.