Guadalajara is the home of…

…Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán

Probably the most despicable of the Spanish conquistadors, Guzmán arrived in Mexico after most of the initial conquering had taken place. He defamed Hernán Cortés and insinuated himself into (very corrupt) government, before marching into the west to pillage, torture, enslave and slaughter – accounts of his rampage read like a Cormac McCarthy novel. He also found time to found a few settlements, before he was arrested and spent his remaining days in a Spanish prison. The most significant settlement was given the name of his birthplace in Spain – Guadalajara.

…Mariachis

Traditionally a large band of spiffily-dressed troubadours playing all string instruments, mariachi culture has evolved to include brass instruments and groups of varying sizes and styles. They still wear big hats, and still tend to make their living serenading lovers, or playing weddings and 15^th birthdays (although they can be hired on the spot for any occasion from the plazas in which they congregate).

…The Mexican Hat Dance

Mexico’s national dance, the Jarabe Tapatío is a relatively recent invention; the musical medley was composed in the 19^th century and the standard choreography was developed in the early 20^th century. The dance is (of course) one of courtship, the man approaching and dazzling the woman with his machismo, then disgracing himself with drunkenness, before recovering to conquer his woman (is there any other narrative?).

…Tequila (almost)

The real home of tequila is Tequila, sixty kilometers from Guadalajara. Although the blue agave plant had long been used to produce modestly alcoholic beverages, it was Hernán Cortés that introduced distilling to the area (before Guzmán ruined his fun), sealing the area’s celebrity fate and putting it forever on the booze world map.

…José Clement Orozco

One of Mexico’s big three social-realist muralists, Orozco was born in Guadalajara and is now buried there. Influenced by Goya, Orozco’s murals are grand, bleak things, eschewing idealistic themes such as the triumphs of socialist man in favour of depicting human suffering and struggle; “instead of red and yellow sunsets I painted pestilential shadows… and instead of nude Indians, drunk women and men”. His doom and gloom style can be found in most of Guadalajara’s most famous buildings.

…Gael García Bernal

Politically aware, down-to-earth, multilingual chicmagnet who has played Che Guevara twice (as if he wasn’t loved enough), Bernal was born in Guadalajara, studied in London (where he mixed drinks and worked in construction to support himself) and now lives in Madrid (I think) with his girlfriend and baby son. Bernal is still very active within latin cinema, which is perhaps not surprising given there are about fifty million women in Mexico who nurse daily fantasies of doing the hat dance with him.

…one more gringo

When I stepped off the plane in Guadalajara I already had a job, an apartment, and a cat lined up; such things I’d been told were impossible for foreign teachers in Mexico, but largely thanks to couchsurfing and a friend I had met in Kansas City this was the easiest settling-in-to-a-new-place that I’ve ever done. Apart from the jetlag; I’ve never been so lagged in my life. For a week all I could do was lie awake watching lightning illuminate the nighttime windows. During the days I tried to make myself explore; I’d drag my enormous head, my heavy hands about the neighbourhood, and then spend the muggy afternoons in a daze. As the jetlag passed though the city around me began to sink in. First impression; the people are incredibly, incredibly warm and friendly. Second impression: they speak way too much English, which may scupper my plans to become magnificently and completely fluent within the year…

Does wanting a Che Guevara t-shirt make me a wanker?

While my trip to La Paz and Titicaca was officially to get a new visa, and to see a little more of this country that i am claiming to be something of an authority on, there was also another motive. My very short rotation of t-shirts was becoming tedious in the extreme, not to mention unhygienic; i needed more clothing, and not just clothing, but clothing that said something

Before i had left Sucre , i had a feeling that i knew what t-shirt i wanted. It took a while to be able to admit to myself that it was so, but of the limited options available in Bolivian markets, what i most wanted was a Che Guevara tee.

For those who have known me longer, you might recall that in 1998 i had augmented my wardrobe of heavy metal shirts with a Che tee. This posed a problem; could i really regress a decade to my fifteen year old taste in fashion?

And more crucially, now that i have given up on my rather adolescent notions of communist revolutions, and actually know something both of Guevara’s life, and of the type of people who long after puberty has finished still wear Che t-shirts, i had to ask myself; would wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt make me a wanker?

And would people who took me for a wanker in a Che tee really wait around long enough for me to explain that i wasn’t wearing it out of solidarity with the last dregs of world communism, or because i thought war or berets were cool, but because i liked the iconic image, and the story behind the image much more than the man himself. or rather what the man had become. Could i support Che the writer and traveller, or Che the doctor, without supporting Che the gun-toting murder advocate?

Would people let me explain, and would it make sense if i said that i’d rather wear a tee showing Gael Garcia Bernal as Che Guevara?

And would i be less of a wanker if i explained that it seems somehow more acceptable to wear a Che tee that has come from Bolivia, given that Bolivia’s relationship to Che is an ambivalent one. Bolivia, after all, killed Che Guevara, but Bolivia (or certain portions of Bolivia) also idolises him and still invokes him as a hero, saint and saviour today.

It is a difficult question, and one i am yet to find a satisfactory answer to. I think wearing a Che tee in Bolivia is not intrinsically wanky, but if me and my Che shirt should return to Australia, or somewhere else, who knows what we might become?