Above all, here I see a great value for families. It's not like in the US where the majority of people leave home for college, come back the first couple of summers, get an apartment, only come back for shorter visits, graduate, and move away to wherever they might find a job. Here, you still go away to college, come back every summer, but the majority of people I've encountered have stayed close within the realms of their hometown. Many here graduate, find a job, and continue to live with their family until they find a future spouse and can afford the married life. Even then, it's common that they still remain in the same city or close proximities.
I was talking to my friend Pablo about family a few weeks back. I told him that my grandparents and cousins live in New York, another aunt lives in Florida, and the rest are all scattered around the United States while my family stays in Illinois where my parents met. He was entirely shocked by this, and told me that all of his extended family still lives in Sanlúcar de Barrameda where he grew up. Every holiday, every birthday, every possible family event, they still get together and celebrate life together. I must say, I am entirely jealous. I love the way Spaniards value their families. Family here is number one, over everything. That's showed even through businesses here. Yesterday I was on my way to class when I passed a breakfast bar that I often go to for a quick coffee, but for some reason it was closed. On the door said, "Closed for a new birth." The owner had closed down shop to celebrate the arrival of his new son, or grandson.
Celebrating life as a family.
Not only that but everyday here, as I've said before, everything closes down between 2-5pm so that everyone can go home to their families, make lunch, take a nap, and enjoy the day.
Not in a million years would that ever happen in the States.
Also, a lot of times people in the States fall out of their families in a sense. They decide it's not worth the pain of keeping in touch with their parents or their grandparents, or even their brothers and sisters as time goes on. It's not all that uncommon to be in a family where there is some branch of relatives that is just not talked to or about. In Spain that is unheard of. The only reason a family stops talking is because someone has done something irreconcilably bad that is impossible to recover from. Pablo said it doesn't happen very often. I think it happens a lot in the States.
Nursing homes here are pretty unheard of as well. Grandparents live with their children when they've gotten too old to fend for themselves, or their children will come over everyday to take care of them. The devotion here is incredible to me. Family is everything to a person. Sure, they fight and get angry and have disputes just like everyone else, but no matter what family always sticks together here. I love that. That's definitely something I'm going to take back with me to the States. Without a doubt, I know that when my brothers and sister grow up, we'll still be close. We'll have the best family reunions, and there is no way I'd ever stop talking to any member of my family. I want to have that devotion to my family that the spaniards here have shown me.
Besides family, the cultural values I've noticed here are honesty, enjoying life, money, friendship, respect for tradition, open mindedness, and group acceptance. It is interesting to me that group acceptance is valued so high here. Spaniards are very interested in their appearance and how they come across to other people, and they don't like not being accepted by a group. Because of this, spaniards sometimes seem judgmental or unwelcoming, but that disappears the second a connection is made. This need to be accepted is a very interesting insecurity that seems abundant here in Spain, and it is the complete opposite of what I am used to back home. I have a very unrestricted personality, and my lack of a filter sometimes gets me in trouble even in the United States where it is valued to be an individual. Here, I have noticed my personality, if I don't shy back a little, tends to scare some Spaniards away at first. I'm really outgoing, kind of loud, extremely sarcastic, and not afraid to say exactly what I'm thinking. To Spaniards, that's almost a foreign concept. They are very interested in creating a persona that they want to display to the public as opposed to blatant, unpolished, raw character. One of my friends told me that Americans are more like peaches, and Europeans, including Spaniards, are more like coconuts. Americans are soft on the outside, but usually harder on the inside-- meaning we seem really nice and friendly, but it takes a lot to really get to know someone. Here, Spaniards seem like they are hard to get to know on the outside, but on the inside they are very open, honest people.
I like coconuts and peaches.
In order to adjust here, I've tried to rein back my personality around Spaniards a little bit, so as not to immediately scare them off. When I first meet people here, instead of being normal Chloe and acting like myself and treating them like I treat everyone else, I hold back a little bit, and I listen more. It was difficult to remember at first, but I'm getting better at listening and letting people get to know me more as a coconut.
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