Have you met any Chilean people?

I bet that anyone who’s ever talked with Chilean people will agree that they are very friendly and helpful people. Some will bend backwards to help you out. But going to tell you the things you don’t see, their second side of who they are and what they think.

Most of the population of the Chilean people live in the urban areas of Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción and the remaining population live in the rest of the regions.

The rhythm of life in these urban areas, mainly in Santiago, is very fast paced. Which is a total contrast from the rest of Chile and it’s very noticeable once you’re there.

Like I said before and I’ll keep on insisting, most of the Chilean people are very friendly and willing to help, especially with the visitors that come to this country. What I have seen is that once you start to move around the country you’ll start to see differences in their attitude.

Up north you’ll find people who like to talk a lot and are very friendly, they live a calm life in the sun. Once you get to Santiago you’ll se here that people tend not to be so open and friendly. People here are like any fast pace city, they’re all thinking about what they have to do and they don’t care about anyone else, cause there is no time.

People in Santiago tend to be more stressed out than the people in the rest of the Chilean cities so they are more impatient and aggressive. A clear sign of this is if you take two seconds at a traffic light then you’ll have a whole bunch of cars honk their horns at you. People here tend to be more demanding then the rest of the country.

Once you start to move away from this fast pace city you start to feel that everyone starts to do things much slower and they like to take their time. People won’t honk their car horns as much; they still do in some cities but not as much. Down south is known for their hospitality and friendliness, people go out of their way to help you.

Chilean Family Life, Chilean People

In my opinion Chilean people set a high value on the traditional family, or at least they claim to. Most of the elder Chileans tend to be more conservative than the newer generation. But they still weren’t any more or less faithful to their partners then in other countries. For generations it was customary for men to have two families; one with their wife and one with their mistress.

This is starting to change now with today’s modernization and the women are starting to take a more active role in society and aren’t depending so much on the male.

As for the family roles it used to be that the male would work and bring home the bacon while the female stays at home to take care of the siblings and keep the household in order. These families usually had around 3 to 8 children. The boys would go out and help the father with the work and the girls would help the mother with the household and the taking care of the smaller siblings.

You still find families with these characteristics. But nowdays most kids stay home and are taken care by a maid who also takes care of the house work while the women go out to work along with the men.

Once the kids start to grow up some go of to university, others will stay in their home towns to go to university. But what’s more common here than other places is to see people in their late twenties and early thirties still living with their parents, these are usually the people who didn’t leave home to go to university.

Family gathering, Chilean People Most families here like to feel that they are very united and they usually eat if not all, one of their meals all together. As for the extended family they’ll gather at someone’s house for Sunday lunches and especially for holidays to spend it together.

You might say so what we do too, but it’s very different because the families are large and it’s really neat to see them how they get all together, even on the weekends. For most Chileans their sense of family togetherness is very important.

For example I know a family that has six brothers and sisters, they are all grown up and they have children and their children have children. They usually get together for Christmas holidays and all together they add up to 63. Can you imagine a family of 63 together? It’s fun. Sadly this is all starting to change, the families being planed. They are getting smaller and are being reduced in number, only 2 or three children at the most.

Retired Life, Chilean People

As for the grandparents it’s not very common to see a family put the elderly in homes. The families here prefer to take care of their parents either in their own homes or they hire a maid to take care of them.

The life conditions here in Chile for the elder aren’t very good. They don’t get very much income for their retirement, not enough to survive at least, and usually their families are the ones that take care of them.

They usually won’t take them into homes but some feel they are a burden to take care. The elderly homes are becoming more frequent to see nowdays but they still aren’t the Chileans first option.

This is because their living conditions are never better than their homes and some elderly homes have very poor living conditions. I really don’t know which option is better, in a way I guess they won’t feel they are so alone with their families but sometimes they become a burden to them.

Proud Of Their Believes, Chilean People

It seems to me that when the Chilean people make up their mind about something it’s really hard to convince them otherwise, especially in the older crowd. They fight for what they believe in. Most of them have their minds made up about something because that’s their family’s opinion on that subject.

Once you start to live here or spend more time in this country, you start to notice that Chile is a very contradicting country, especially between themselves.

By this I mean that Chileans tend to classify themselves into classes, physical appearances, in religion, in politics. They are even divided in what soccer (or footballs) leagues they like.

They are very proud of their choice and they’ll defend it even if it means they have to fight with everyone. In some cases they look down on people who think or do different from them. This happens with the Catholic Church (which has a big influence on people here), it happens if you didn’t go to university, or if you went to a private university as apposed to a public university, even if you went to a public school instead of a private one.

If you want to see Chileans argue, all you have to do is bring up politics, the Catholic Church or the football leagues among a group of them and it’s done. That’s how contradicting they are.

Social Life, Chilean People

I find that Chilean people are a really sociable culture, once they are in their social group they all get together often. They find any excuse to gather their group together to spend time and have fun.

They love to talk a lot, about everyone and everything, mostly the women, but some men do too. A lot of housewife’s will get together with their friends every single day at a coffee shop. On the week days the coffee shops are full of people who have gathered to talk.

Lots of them would rather do business in a coffee shop than in their offices or even over lunch at a restaurant. It’s common to see them get together to eat or have a drink at someone house. This is done at least once a month and even more in the younger crowd.

This younger crowd will sometimes go out at least once a week. Some gather at a friend’s house and wait until around 2 to go out to a disco or a pub. Going to pubs and discos is very fun here because it’s full of people who are willing to meet new people (more so in discos than pubs).

So if you’re lonely and like to share your time with people I assure you that you won’t be lonely here unless you really want to be, cause theirs always someone who’s willing to get together somewhere.

Disco, Chilean People

There is so much more about Chilean people to talk about and I definitely will keep on writing about this subject, and even these topics that I wrote now, have more details that I haven’t gotten into. Just be patient because I WILL GO ON.

What is your experience with people from Chile, good? Bad? Share it with everyone here!

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