Discounting Life

In the US there is numerous general stores, supermarkets, shopping centers, boutiques, some of them are specialized, others have a wide spread of products... All these shops build the image of abundance and variety, always reachable, and although many of them are not affordable for the general public, there is a significant amount of products that are surprisingly cheap. I would like to use this entry to study the reasons that enable the low prices and constant discounts, and their consequences for the people in the US and in  the countries the products are made, as well as for the environment.

In order to have a case study, I will name the Walmart supermarkets (although this is not the only case, this is the most representative example for cheap stuff). If there is one stereotype for American "convenience store", it is Walmart, the world's largest retailer. You can find an incredible amount of products, from groceries to clothes, everyday products, furniture, pharmacy etc. Walmart (and many others) sell some products at such prices that it seems impossible to think that they are earning money selling them. In fact, the only way they are doing so, is by paying very little to the producers. I would like to explain some of the reasons and consequences of the cheap prices, because I believe it is important to know these things in order to make the right decisions on where to buy.

Reasons for low prices

• Well, on the first place, big stores are so powerful that they can make a huge pressure to producers to lower their prices. These suppliers have no chance but to accept the demands from the big companies, because the other option would be not sell at all, and they can't afford that.
• Another reason is the low wages for the employees. Workers work 10h a day, often more, for very little money. Many of them are immigrants, which mean cheap labor. They also get very poor benefits for health insurance and retirement money, if they get anything at all.
• Also, these places have no consideration for energy efficiency or minimization of environmental impact. The important factor is the costs, no matter how much contamination it generates. 
• Additionally we can add a low quality food sold in these places: they buy animal products from suppliers that abuse of animals, or vegetables from industries that use GMO products for fater and bigger growth of vegetables, and many suppliers substitute high quality ingredients in their products for cheaper, but unhealthy and untested substitutes
• As important as the rest of the reasons above is the fact that the majority of the procuts sold in these stores are produced oversees: There's a study on a fan sold by Walmart, the price was 20$, 10 years later, it was under 10$. The reason was that the production of the fans was moved to China, where the workers would get 25 cents an hour, working 13+ hours.

Consequences for low prices

• Effects on the small business stores: A big consequence is that small business can't keep up with the low prices, and have no other option but to close. Although this is happening everywhere (also in Spain the big supermarkets are winning ground against the small stores), here it is much more obvious than the rest. Many towns lose numerous jobs in spite of the ones generated by the opening of a big retailer, because for every big store open, more than 2 smaller business need to close.
• Effects on the employees: Also, the workers' poor working conditions leads to important effects on their health and life quality. They are physically and psychologically distressed, because since there is no unions allowed, the workers can be easily laid-off in case of protest or bad behavior.
• Effects on the suppliers:  Suppliers are heavily impacted by Walmart demands, they need to come up with ideas to meet Walmart's requests: move production oversees, which causes loss of jobs in the country.
• Effects to the environment:
  

•  Their production method focused on income instead of efficiency generates pollution and serious damage to environment, it also leads to scarcity of resources. 
• Also, because of low prices, people buy more, and because of the low quality, many things get thrown out, both of these fact mean more harm to the natural resources. 
• In addition, there is the harm caused by the transport from the countries where the items are produced and the one where they are finally sold

The goal of this critical reflection is for us to think a bit more why some things are so cheap and where the things are coming from, and what might be the effects of us buying them. I am sure Walmart will not lose its audience very soon, if at all, but when I found out about this, it made me reconsider, and hopefully this will have some effect on others. 

Thanks for reading, 

Lita & Andres

Back to Tango!

It was back in 2010, in our trip to Argentina, when we fell in love with tango. Not late after that, , back in Germany, we started attending tango classes, which, as a matter of fact, is a very worshiped dance in that country. Dancing tango was one of those weekly activities that refilled us with energy after work, making us forget everything else for 2 hours. 

Since we moved, however, we haven't found any place near us that offer tango lessons, of course it is easier to choose other more popular dances, like salsa, but I think that once you get into something, it is difficult to settle down with another option different than what you really know you like. But a couple of weeks ago we found that there is an Argentine tango club at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor Honestly, it is not really close by (it takes about 40 minutes with no traffic), but in American distance, it is OK to do this several times per week. That is how we went back to tango, reviving the same feelings we left behind, and relearning the same skills we forgot ;) I would like to summarize the history of tango, how it started and how it comes to us nowadays.

The tango dance has evolved extremely from is beginning to the current style. While it is widely accepted that the tango dance has its starting point in Argentina, there are several theories for the origin of the word tango itself. The most accepted theory is that the word has African root: after the colonization of Argentina by the Spaniards in the 16th century, millions of African slaves were imported, most of them from Eastern and Equatorial regions called Bantu. These slaves used the word tango for the drum they used in their dance, as well as for the place where they danced. Later, in Spanish speaking Latin America, the word tango slowly came to be applied to black dances in general - and eventually to the modern tango. Tango music also has a lot of influences from the European countries entering the Argentinian region, and the dance is a derivation of the Cuban Habanera. A unique mixture of cultures and sounds united in one place, there is nothing like it.

The first records of tango songs were recorded around 1900. In 1910 the bandoneon was introduced in Argentina from Germany, and since then it is linked with tango music almost exclusively. In that decade, tango musicans and dancers traveled around Europe and the US, however it was considered shocking by a big part of the population, due to the body contact. As the dance was slowly getting the acceptance of the upper and middle class around the worls, in Argentina the high society adopted the previously low-class dance as their own symbol. It was in the eraly 20's when musicians like Carlos Gardel became a phenomenon known around the world, leaving numerous pieces of art that still today are played in the milongas, the place where the tango is practiced.

In 1930, the importance of tango started to decline, due to the global crisis, and also many political movements in Argentina. It lost recognition and even remained banned for a long period of time, until 1983, when the Junta in Argentina fell, promoting a rebirth of the tango as a national symbol, with great  national and international success.

From the beginning until now, tango has evolved dramatically, deriving in different styles of music, dance, and public. The most famous style is the Tango de Salon. This style is characterized by a highly improvised technique, where the couples dance around the room (salon) in one direction only. The beat of the Tango the Salon (often called just tango) is 4/4. One of the best orchestras is the one from Francisco Canaro, you can find many beautiful tangos under this link.

Another style is the milonga, which is much faster than the tango beat, it is therefore mainly dance 2/4. Although the steps are mainly the same as in the tango, due to the milonga fast pace, the vast repertoire available to modern tango cannot be reproduced in full in the milonga. For the most famous milongas, please follow the link.

The third important style is the vals. It is the same music pace as the one used in a vals, and although it can be danced with 4/4 beat, it is usually danced 3/4, with accent on the first beat. In the link you can find some of the best vals music to dance. 

I hoped this introduction was helpful for you to understand the origin and styles of the Argentine tango, I know it was useful for me to do the research as well. If you want to get more information, there are a lot of websites in the internet, i will just give the link for the one I mostly used for this entry, it has much more material that what I could write, if you want to take a look click here.

Next weekend is the Memorial weekend, we are flying to Boston for 3 days, and we will post you after we come back with hopefully very nice experiences over there.

Thanks for reading, 

Lita & Andres

Our Visit to Boston

Last Monday was Memorial Day, as every time we have a holiday, we decided to visit another corner of the country. This time we flew to Boston. It is one of the oldest cities in the US, and walking around the street you can sense part of the US history. Also, Boston is home to many universities, making the city more innovative and culturally diverse.

We arrived on Friday evening. 40% of Boston's area is water. This lowers down the temperature, which made us, for once, miss the weather back in Michigan (yes, spring finally arrived, the temperature is the best in the year, almost every day around 20-25 degC).

On Saturday we started very early, excited to check out the city. Out hotel was in Cambridge, at the other side of the river, so we had to cross the bridge to get to the main city. On our way there, we realized Bostonians are obsessed with running. Continuously you can find somebody running on the street you are passing, especially near the river. It is way above normal, and it makes you want to run too!

The west side of Boston is very lively, it seemed to be residential, with very nice restaurants, terraces etc. We arrived to the Public Library, which is very famous for bring one of the oldest in the US. It is a beautiful building both from the outside and the inside.

Further on we started the Freedom Trail, a path through the city that leads to to 16 historic sites. This one on the picture is the Old South Meeting House, known as the place where the Boston Tea Party was initiated.

Before moving on with the trail we went south to the Financial District. It was Saturday, which implies low to no activity in that part of the city. In fact, if you see this picture, you could say it was early in the morning (but it was around noon), or you could also think that it is another city (maybe a city like Detroit?). But not, it was Boston, 5 minutes away from crowded places like the Quincy Market.

After our short immersion in the Financial and China Town (small and without as much character as San Francisco's China Town), we came back to the trail and encountered the Old State House, the site where the Boston Massacre took place back in 1770. The house looks small and cute among the surrounding buildings.

Next to this is the place where apparently everybody has lunch in Boston, the Quincy market. It is a noisy, effervescent indoor market with numerous stalls that sell typical Bostonian food: italian style and seafood. Also outside there are many vendors, live music, outdoors restaurants... that made the whole scene very enjoyable.

Moving forth, on the river side we could see very nice sailboats, some of them are used as a Musuem for the American Revolution and the Tea Party. In them, you can even pretend to dump the British Tea to the river, like it happened more than 200 years ago.

Later than day, we spent some time aorund the very charming streets of Beacon Hill

The next day we spent in Cambridge. We started with a great Brunch in Cafe Luna, there are no pictures, but it is the place to have breakfast over there, everything was delicious. After that, we wanted to visit the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) museum. On our way, we saw that the MIT itself is a city with numerous research and development institutes, efficient measures to lower the energy consumption (we saw a few cogeneration plants on our way), and incredible architecture, like the buildings below.

After a couple of hours in the museum, we walked around the Harvard University. Unfortunately, the students had just graduated and the courses were finished, so it was empty, with not much to see.

We spent a pleasant afternoon around Cambridge, entering the crowded libraries with so much to offer, having coffee in a Spanish Cafe called Pamplona, and enjoying our last night away in general. I leave you with our last view of the city at night.

Thanks for reading,

Lita & Andres