Culture Smack!

As the day wore on Carlos, my guide/interpreter, and I were becoming fast friends. We laughed about a few stories. We showed each other pictures of our kids. We shared some lunch together. Then Carlos told me a Mexican Joke:


There was a Mexican man catching crabs on the border of Mexico and America. He had two large steel pots, one with a lid and a rock on it and one without a lid. An American man from across the river was watching as the Mexican man caught crabs and put them in one pot or the other. Finally, the American's curiosity was piqued. He called out to the Mexican man, "Why are you putting some crabs in one pot with a lid and some in the other pot without the lid?." The Mexican man explained that the pot with the lid was for American crabs and the pot with no lid was for Mexican crabs. He explained further that the American crabs would climb on top of one another until one crab could grab the rim of the pot and all of them could escape by forming a "crab ladder". The Mexican crabs, on the other hand, would pull down any crab silly enough to try and climb up – so no lid was necessary.

















He said this joke was a good anecdote to describe Mexican society in general….painted by many years of war and strife. The Mexican was more individualistic and would pull someone else down so as not to have them be more successful that they were.







World Neighbor's Fun Stop