A Day of Culture

Friday, April 11 – Day 116

I went to “La Chascona” today with a couple of girls that I met in Bariloche. It’s the house of Pablo Neruda, winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for literature. Though I didn’t know it, he is apparently regarded as one of the most influential poets of the 20th century. Most of his work is romantic – again, who knew? As a communist sympathizer, he was a rather controversial figure. This became a problem when President Gonzales Videla outlawed communism and issued a warrant for his arrest. He died of “cancer” in 1973, 12 days after Pinochet’s coup d’état. Pinochet denied a public funeral, but thousands disobeyed the curfew and filled the streets, marking the first public protest against the new military dictatorship.

Later in the evening, I went to see the national symphony. The concert hall is at Plaza Italia, and it’s only a block from where I’m staying. They are playing short piece from Tchaikovsky, a concerto for piano and orchestra by Camille Saint-Saens, and then Beethoven’s 4th symphony. The pianist for the middle piece was a Korean lady, and guess what, she studied at Indiana University! How small is this world? Anyway, the concert was great, and not a single person clapped at the wrong time.

Saturday, April 12 – Day 117

There’s a big soccer game today, Colo Colo vs. Universidad de Chile, which are the two largest teams in Chile. Like the general population, Chilean futbol teams are stratified along class lines, with U de Chile having a wealthy fan base and Colo Colo being the symbol of the Mapuche and the working class. This makes for an intense rivalry and symbolizes the massive problem of inequality in this country.

Regardless of who wins, the knuckle-headed fans of both teams have a tradition of gathering in Plaza Italia after the match to “show support for their team”. Plaza Italia is a block from where I’m staying, and the manager of the hostel said that I shouldn’t go out into that mess because as an obvious foreigner, there is a good chance that I’d get mugged just for sport.

Well, who could resist a chance like that? About a half hour after the match, I could hear the crowd start to gather. Since it still seemed early enough, I thought I’d go ahead and have a look. I needed to find some dinner anyway, so I didn’t plan to stick around long.

There were bunches of riot police in full regalia. Helmets, shields, batons, and lots of body armor. They looked like a pure military force. The motorcycle cops use dirt bikes so they can hop curbs and chase people up stairs and over rough terrain. I also noticed that a lot of the businesses along the square had closed early and shut their steel garage doors to cover their storefronts. Hmmm…..

One guy got a little confrontational with a policeman and was quickly surrounded. These cops don’t look like the kind of guys that are going to take a lot of shit from a drunken futbol hooligan, and he quickly changed his manner. I would have loved to taken some pictures, but I didn’t take my camera because I thought that would only invite the mugging that the hostel manager had suggested. Anyway, that was all that I needed to see, so I left the area in search of more friendly company.