Happyland

Smiles...smiles everywhere. The first thing that surprised me about this country was that everyone is smiling. Many of you might thing that I shouldn't be surprised about it, but at least in Chile it is not very usual to see so many people smiling at the same time. I just remember a few times when something like that happened, for example, when Chile qualified to the 1988 FIFA World Cup, after defeating Bolivia by a score of 5-0. The Athens 2004 Olympic games are also one of the few examples of that. Everyone suffered a lot while watching the doubles tennis final match, between Chile and Germany. The German team had 4 match points, but Chile recover impressively and finally won the match, and the gold medal (the first in our history...and the second came just one day later) .
However, the happiest day for the whole country, I think it was in 1998, the 29th of March, when the great Marcelo Ríos defeated Andre Agassi (considered by many the greatest - or at least one of the greatest- tennis player of all time) and got to the number one in the world. Those were the days when everyone in Chile smiled. What about the rest of the time? People have to eat, buy clothes, have a place to sleep, etc. and when they can't, smiling becomes impossible.

Let's go shopping

There is an enormous difference between being a salesperson in Chile or in Sweden. Let's suppose, for instance, that la señora Margarita wants to buy a pair of shoes in Santiago. She enters a shop. Christopher Guajardo, the salesman, looks at her, and remembers that he still needs to sell at least 100 more lucas (US$200) that day to earn 5 lucas (US$10) after 7,5 hours working (He gets just 2,5 % of the total of his own sales. Thus, to get 5 lucas a day he must sell 240 lucas, from which taxes are deduced, and just after that Christopher's salary appears).
Christopher has a wife and two children. If he gets 5 lucas a day, it means that his salary is around 150 lucas a month.
La señora Margarita asks about a pair of shoes in the shop window. Christopher brings a pair of Margarita's size. After trying them, Margarita says that she needs to see other shoes. She is there for half an hour, trying different shoes, and after that while she decides that she is not going to buy anything. Christopher gets upset, because he LOST a lot of time showing different kinds of shoes for nothing. He can just think things like "vieja culiá...vino a puro webear y no se llevó nada", but he doesn't say a word. And he still needs to sell 100 more lucas.
Ulrika Johansson wants to buy new shoes and she enters a store in Stockholm. Daniel Lundberg, the salesman, shows her different kinds of shoes, and after half an hour she decides that she won't buy. Daniel says: "No problem. Maybe in that store (pointing to a neighbor store) you can find what you are looking for. Have a good day!!" smiling while he talks. Smiling like everyone does in this country. The difference? it's obvious.