Si

 

       We are returned from Monterrey, Mexico after the marriage of Number One Son’s sister in law.   We busied ourselves with some sightseeing before the typical lavish Mexican wedding in a gorgeous church with a rollicking all-night party.  At the last wedding Trophy Wife and I gave up on staying up with the Mexicans, and we took our leave on the early side…for them.

       The cultural gaps are hard to fathom, but I have focused on a new appreciation of the word “si”.  I have always thought that it is two words, “yes” and “if”, and literal translations will use them as such.  However, I now believe that it is actually one and the same word – as though “yes” is a conditional, and perhaps it is best translated in both senses as “maybe”.  To Americans there is a simple binary veracity – “yes”, twinned with “no”.   To Mexicans, however, it may be impolite or unhelpful to say “no”,  or there may be uncertainty or conditionality, or it may have a different linguistic framework, so they will answer “si” when we might expect “no” or “I don’t know”.

      We took a taxi to the wedding, showed the taxi driver the address of the church on the invitation – about 5 blocks from the hotel.  Does he know it?  “Si”.  He had no idea, took us 2 or 3 miles out of the way, and eventually I had to find the church for him. 

       We asked the hotel if they could send a taxi to the reception venue to pick us up later in the evening.  “Si”.  As a back-up we asked the maitre d’ if he could get us a taxi back to the hotel.  “Si”.  1:30 A.M., no taxis available from either source and a not-so pleasant and not much recommended walk through downtown Monterrey to the hotel. 

       I do not think anyone was lying, as they did not know there would be no taxis,  nor do I think it was Bullshit http://contrariat.blogspot.com/search?q=Bullshit, as they were not indifferent to the truth, but genuinely hoped there might be a taxi.  It is just that “si” doesn’t mean what I think it means.  In Mexico it is some kind of affirmative conditional meaning a combination of what we think of as “yes” and “if”.

     We should not have walked to the hotel.  We should not have been so concerned about time or “si”, and we should have been more Mexican and waited for someone to leave the wedding who would have been happy to drive us back.