Monday, June 12, 2006

Argentina is the new El Dorado for stressed out New Yorkers

Today is a cold and cloudy actually my favourite weather for being inside and enjoying a book and catching up on my Argentine vocabulary.

I have been living here 8 months now since October 2005 and has it been a challenge.
Moving to another country is much harder than anyone says especially one where the native language is not your own.

I have wanted to live in Argentina for as long as I can remember from the first trip here in 1983 to many trips over the years there was a very strange pull to this place that made me want more and more.

Nowadays it seems that Buenos Aires is the hot spot for New Yorkers and stressed out Americans wanting to escape George Bush high real estate prices and the fear of terrorism.

I have to say I have good feelings about this movement overall as I believe that in time that the influx of different energies and ways of doing business here will create a very different Buenos Aires one that is more modern and progressive.

I hear a lot of complaints on other sites about expatriates moving here and not adapting to the culture and treating it like a cheap place to have fun in my experience I have met plenty of expatriates here who after just three years are very integrated into Argentine society.

I live in a area full of Arabs and Armenian and they are Argentine first I must tell you . In a city of 300 thousand people of Arabian descent they have assimilated into Argentine culture amazingly .

I am of Greek descent born in Australian to Greek Cypriot parents. The Greeks of Australia still very much live a Greek lifestyle even after 2 to 3 generations but here in Argentina I have met numerous Greeks who had a Greek parent or grandparent and their culture was completely modified by Argentina to the extent that most do not speak the language after 2 generations.

Argentina is a great melting pot that has accepted and created a very homogeneous society.

The problems I foresee here is the integration of the newest immigrants from Peru Bolivia China . The racist comments I have heard regarding Peruvians here have surprised me .

Argentina seems a fine place for European races but be black Indian or Peruvian the road seems a lot harder.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

hOLA PERICLES

3:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

progressive society,

stay for a few years, and you will see how progressive it is

3:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i agree with your comments. as you pointed out, BA hay some work to do to incorporate the 'new inmigrants' from China, Peru, Bolivia. But up to now it's worked good.
I see more problems and intolerance in the USA and in Europe than in Argentina...

Great post!

6:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

really? hard to live in general or make friends if you are not 'white'? not that i doubt; provincialism is universal if you pardon the dichotomy, but i would appreciate if you can point out other blogs that attest to that, or if you recall examples that, again, i have no doubt there are many.

4:09 AM  
Blogger ANGELO said...

Im Greek Australian from Adelaide and I speak spanish fluently I've travelled to Argentina 3 years in a row and im in love with the place.Plan my next trip to Argentina this Christmas & New Year's Eve.I believe Argentinians are more tolerant than Australians and Argentina is more multicultural than Australia.SUPER AMABLE ARGENTINA!!!

12:11 PM  
Anonymous Donato said...

It is interesting to see people who in their homelands may not love each other too much live together in peace in Argentina and feel Argentinian first. but Arabs and Arenians get along quite well also in the middle east too.

8:35 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home