Well like Emma and the people who have commented on her blog entry have made clear, the "Chilean yes" is not always a "yes yes". Personally, I interpret it more as "that's-a-really-cool-idea-if-it-works-out yes". Although sometimes I do believe it is more like a no, but the person says yes anyway just so as to not cagar la onda. This can be a bit difficult to deal with if you have stuff you need to get done, like teaching English classes, especially if you are on a schedule. It is convenient to be able to distinguish between these shades of yes. Oh yes! But personally I think, even the person who is saying yes, doesn't always know if their yes is a yes yes, a maybe yes, or a no yes. One thing to do in this kind of situation is to try to be in communication as much as possible with the other person.
Sometimes a person will stand you up ...like you had plans...you were going to meet at a time and an hour and the other person doesn't show. I must say this has happened to me, but rarely. And then they don't even call to say they weren't going. Now if this happened with a gringo friend of mine, this would scare me, because I would think something had happened to them. I would call to see if they were okay. One day, I was stood up by a Chilean and confused about the whole thing, like asking myself if there had been a mis-communication, did I really make plans with this person? Am I living in some fantasy world? I was sure I'd made plans. Out my confusion came a very clear thought...well, obviously if la Vero didn't show up, she couldn't come. It was so obvious, I laughed aloud. It's just that simple. The next time I will be sure to confirm with her before we get together. Now that I've said this...most of my Chilean friends won't stand me up. They will call to say they can't go, if we have set a place and time to get together, and something comes up.
Now there is a second type of "yes" during the formation of plans. It's like an incubation period. This is before a date and time are specified. With some friends the realization of plans are more assured than with others. Some plans don't survive this period and sort of die off and are not spoken of again. But it's okay because we had never set a time and place. And it was a possibility that just died off. It can always be reincarnated at a better moment in the future. This exists in gringolandia too-when you have "tentative plans", but in the end they don't work out. However, I think its much more common that plans die before they are hatched here in Chile. So I do think that from time to time we gringos confuse "tentative plans" with "actual plans". In my experience, Chilean plans do generally have a more tentative character to them.
Plus I think it’s better that plans fall through from time to time. I think gringos are a bit too “forzados” about things sometimes and this really kills the onda. Although, there is also a time for being forzado about things, especially when dealing with inertia. It’s like you need the right mix of onda and commitment/forzado-ness to get together and have a good time.
For me, the biggest frustration of the "Chilean yes" was not understanding it. As soon as I understood it, I could employ it as well. Why would I do this? Well, this type of “yes” has its strength. It keeps the possibility open, maintains the buena onda. Sometimes the “gringo no” is a total possibility killer. Nobody wants to kill possibility, possibilities like going out dancing together, or making sushi, or having an asado and watching the Chilean National Soccer Team, or crocheting with your boyfriend's grandma. But sometimes in life, we have to say no to some of these possibilities because we are already committed...like with work, or with other friends in other places, or maybe you're sick or tired, etc. You can't always say yes, can you? Maybe not a good idea. So when do I employ the "Chilean yes"? I haven't distinguished too many subtleties about when I give this yes, but I do do it. But there are two cases where I will give it and I haven't even paid attention how often I do it, because I learned it by osmosis, and was not even conscious that I do it until just lately. If I notice that someone (usually a Chilean) is going out on a limb, like arriesgandose to invite me to get together with them, and, for whatever reason, I can't, I will sometimes say yes. I think I'm safe to say that most (perhaps all) human beings don't like rejection. Now some cope with it better than others, but who likes to be turned down? Not many people. In these situations, the yes I give isn't a yes yes. It's a that-would-be-really-cool-if-it-worked-out yes. (This leaves the person inviting you more likely to invite you again in the future, because since you said yes, you obviously were interested. Unless of course you always say yes and then always cancel, because in the end this is like saying no.)
I don't know if the other person notices what kind of yes I'm giving. Perhaps they do. Perhaps they don't. But the important thing is I'm not matando la onda. Although in this stage of the “incubation period” of our plans, I don't generally commit to a time and place. And if that moment arrives (it doesn't always) to set a time and place, or if the invitation comes up again, and I'm sure I can't go, then I will say no...like I really wanted to but...this happened. But this is a lot gentler than saying no outright, off the bat. And how do you know, like really know, that you aren't going to be able to go, anyway? Perhaps the stars will align (as they do for me, from time to time) and you will be able to go after all.
After I started saying yes when I meant no or maybe, I realized that occasionally plan A would fall through and all of the sudden my no yes became yes yes. And this is really important in Chile because my experience is that plans fall through more often here than in the States. So this is the second occasion when I’ll use a no yes or maybe yes. If I have tentative plans with someone else, which I can’t confirm or dis-confirm when invited to do plans B, I sometimes say yes, when really it’s a maybe yes. And of course you can say...I'm doing such and such a thing that day and if it works out, I'll meet up with you afterward.
Not all Chileans are so ambiguous about making plans, nor do they all stand you up. Actually, as I was writing this, I was chatting on msn with a Chilean friend, and I didn't even mention what I was writing and he tells me he had been stood up by a friend the other day and it bothered him, he asked me, “how can people be so indolent?” Although I empathized with him, it struck my funny bone that he brought the subject up just at that moment.
He went on to make a really good point on punctuality: “Creo que es sentido común [llegar a la hora], somos seres sociales y funcionamos con reloj.” He’s right.
On the other hand, what I like about a certain impunctuality that I perceive in Chilean culture is that there is more tolerance for people who arrive a bit late, which is nice, because I don’t always arrive on time either.
So the "Chilean yes" has it's strength, especially when negotiating the social world. The important thing is being able to distinguish it and knowing how to work with it.
Note: I am distinguishing cultural phenomenon using Thick Description (I'll probably formulate an abstract of this theory at some point in this blog's life). Here and here are a couple of summaries.
taking out the trash in Elqui Valley
