What surprised me about daily life in Mexico

Here’s what surprised me about my first year in Mexico

Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we use stories to help you upgrade your English. Typically, the stories are about current events and trending topics. But today, I’ll make an exception and make the story about myself. Just over a year ago, I quit my job, sold my stuff, and moved to Mexico. And there are some obvious differences between life in the U.S. and life in Mexico: the weather is better here, the food is spicier, they speak Spanish. But in today’s story, I’ll tell you about what surprised me about day-to-day life here, compared to life in the U.S.

This is lesson number 613, so that means JR has uploaded the full lesson content to PlainEnglish.com/613. In the second half of the lesson, I’ll show you how to use a great English expression, “on hand.” And we have a song of the week. Let’s get going.

What surprised me about daily life in Mexico

The first thing people ask, when you move to a new country, is how you like the food. So let’s start there. I do like Mexican food, and Mexico City has a wide variety of ethnicities and styles to choose from. But I mainly cook my own meals. So let’s talk about food at home.

Some food is better and some is worse. According to my personal taste test, fresh chicken breast and fresh eggs are far better in Mexico than they are in the U.S.: they just taste better. An egg here just has more flavor than an egg in America; I don’t know what it is. On the flip side , beef is worse here. A burger is not hard to make: so why can’t I find a good one in Mexico?

In America, you can go to the grocery store and buy refrigerated orange juice. There are no other ingredients—just orange juice, nothing added. You can keep a half gallon in your refrigerator and have it on hand for whenever you want it. It’s not as good as fresh-squeezed orange juice…but in the average place in America, you can’t get fresh-squeezed juice, unless you’re at a fancy restaurant.

In Mexico, by contrast, you can’t get a half-gallon of fresh orange juice in the grocery store. But, at least in my neighborhood, I can walk downstairs and watch someone squeeze the oranges into a to-go cup. That tastes far better than anything you can get in an American store. But I have to go out and get it.

There are some things back home that seem so natural —like the air we breathe—that I had no idea it could be different anywhere else. Take the mail. I’ve gotten something in the mail every day of my life since I was a teenager. Most of it is junk. But there are, surprisingly, a lot of legitimate things that still happen via postal mail in America.

Not here. I have received exactly one thing via the post office here in Mexico, and that one thing came from a friend in America. Notifications and such all arrive digitally. Bills for electricity and gas are hand-delivered. It’s just not a part of the culture to get catalogs, magazines, and advertisements in the mail. That’s something I could never have imagined. I can’t say I miss it, either!

Americans buy a lot of stuff, and they buy it in bulk. Mexicans tend to buy in smaller quantities. In America, you buy eggs by the dozen or, sometimes, in packs of six or eighteen. In Mexico, you can buy one egg if you want to. But you can also buy a huge sheet of like 48 eggs to make for your family.

In many ways, banking is better here. Bank-to-bank transfers are a great example. Here, they are instant. I can send money to anyone through my bank app and the other person gets the transfer immediately, no matter what bank they have. Not so in the U.S.: unless your bank is part of a small network called Zelle, you have to use third-party apps or wait up to five days to send a bank transfer.

There’s also something here called an ATM withdrawal without a card. You can generate a QR code on your bank’s app, save it for yourself or send that code to a friend, and that QR code can be used to withdraw a specific amount from your account, all without a card. This is a simple and safe way to send cash to another person in Mexico—and that other person doesn’t even need a bank account of their own.

There’s also a greater focus on security with bank accounts here. My debit card doesn’t have a number on it, for example. If I want to buy something online, I can generate a specific number on the app, and that is a one-time-use number, so it can’t be stolen and re-used.

Now let’s talk about culture. The going-out culture is different in Mexico. In the U.S. and certainly Europe, it’s common for people pack into bars, mix and mingle, talk to the bartender, walk around, meet people, talk to strangers. Not so here. At most places in Mexico, you go with a group. You all sit down at a table and you don’t move until it’s time to leave. Obviously, not one hundred percent of places are like this, but the majority are—and that’s a major difference between Mexico and, say, the U.S. or Europe.

Americans tend to be punctual and we like to make plans—it’s more true for me, even, than for the average American. That is a major adjustment here, where people don’t like to make fixed plans, don’t like to think ahead as much, and—how shall I say this?—aren’t as committed to arriving on time. There are pros and cons to each approach, but that has been an adjustment for me.

Customer service is better in Mexico. At businesses large and small, it’s common to talk to a single customer service representative on WhatsApp—and to continue the conversation in WhatsApp until your issue is resolved.

This is amazing. American companies do everything they can to keep you off the phone—and if you ever contact a human, you’ll never get a number to text that person back. I far prefer Mexico when it comes to customer service.

People are friendlier here, especially with strangers. It’s common to say, “buen provecho” to the tables you pass as you leave a restaurant. You always greet people in the elevators, in building lobbies, and on the streets. That’s far friendlier than back home.

In my first few months here, I didn’t let myself miss anything. I was like, I’m here, this is new, this is exciting, I’m not looking back. But now that I’ve been here a year, I’m allowing myself to miss certain things about the U.S. Maybe in the future, we can do a story about what I miss and what I don’t miss.

Anyway, if you’re on the fence about moving to another country, another culture: I say, do it. It’s a great experience, it’s enriching, you learn about a new culture, but also your own self and your own culture by having that experience.

JR’s song of the week

JR’s song of the week is “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet. Jimmy Buffet died last month at age 76. And his song “Margaritaville” was like the anthem for the tropical lifestyle of taking it easy and relaxing with a drink.

Some of the lyrics go like this: “I don’t know the reason, (I) Stayed here all season, With nothing to show but that brand new tattoo.” The song came out in 1977 and was such a success that the name Margaritaville has been given to a whole line of commercial products, including a restaurant chain, a brand of tequila, beach furniture, key lime pie mix, even bicycles. There’s a retirement community (a place to live!) in Florida called “Latitude Margaritaville,” named for the song.

This was Jimmy Buffet’s most famous song by far . “Margaritaville” is the song of the week, thank you JR.

I’m guessing that everyone who lives at the Margaritaville housing development always has some tequila and lime juice on hand. And now, you’ll learn what “on hand” means.