(QCOSTARICA BLOG) I have lived and worked in Costa Rica for seventeen years. I can say without a doubt, that the natural beauty and the climate in Costa Rica is very easy to adjust to as being very pleasant in both regards, but as an expat American, Canadian, or European, it will not be “business as usual”, in most other respects.
Costa Ricans are generally a polite, friendly, and pacifistic group of people, however, the social, legal, and cultural differences are strikingly different indeed, from those of most expats.
Costa Rican Society and Latin American society in general, does not aspire to the same level of logical thinking and efficiency as most expats would be used to in their home countries.
Problem solving is always performed on a “reactive”, rather than a “proactive” basis. This means that the negative aspects of the problem must be felt and experienced, prior to a solution to the problem being considered.
Accordingly, in the mind of most expats, needless suffering will have to be endured.
Likewise, the general reaction to work, or production of any sort, including the implementation of solutions to problems, is slow, creating further hardship, at least in the minds of expats, for the population as a whole to endure. Logical thinking does not “leap to the rescue”, as it would in most expat home countries.
The reaction to pressuring Costa Ricans to deliver on an expat anticipated time frame is “stone-walling” and then nothing will happen.
Most expats will come from jurisdictions where English Common Law is the legal system utilized. This system of laws originates from England and is the dominant system of laws utilized by the U.S., Canada, and British Common Wealth countries. It is a system composed of Statutory and Judge-made laws, which allows for an evolution of the law based on societal changes over time, as are interpreted by Judges in Court, producing a “common thread” of legal development respected by the Courts as a whole.
In Costa Rica, as in all of Latin America, Civil Law (Roman Law) is the legal system which has been adopted.
This legal system is considerably different in its approach to delivering justice. Each subjective area of the law (eg. Criminal, Family, etc.), is codified into various legal declarations in the form of articles, which are applied by a Judge to any fact situation presented in Court, largely without reference to any established jurisprudence.
Document production in Civil Law, such as company incorporation and powers of attorney, is much more formal in its requirements than in the Common Law system, with many circumstances dictating that the form of the document produced takes precedence over the substance of its content.
Rampant corruption also permeates the legal and social system in Costa Rica, down to the traffic police taking bribes instead of issuing traffic tickets and Government employees accepting bribes in return for granting permits and permissions for various business endeavours, such as Municipal Building Permits, and the like.
As Judges in Courts are largely not bound by jurisprudence (Precedent decisions made by another Court on a similar fact pattern), corruption, likewise, has made a significant intervention in the judicial process. It is not that corruption doesn’t take place in the home country expat societies as well, however, it is practiced in a much more open and accepted manner of operating in Costa Rica.
In short, if you are an expat merely living on an offshore pension, or investment income and paying monthly living expenses, your requirement to compromise to accept these social, legal, and cultural differences required to integrate into the Costa Rica Societal make-up, will be minimal.
However, to become totally immersed in Costa Rican Society, from a living and a business point-of-view, will require a significantly greater compromise to be made, in order to sustain an enduring social integration and an ability to feel “comfortable”.
Pretty right on article!!! Thanx for speaking the truth vs a promotional piece that so many are to get people to move here!!!
Common sense is not part of their culture. Get used to it or leave.
I think your argument could be strengthened by pushing it to the next level of values.
Twice you write that Ticos don’t reason as “logically” as expats, but you appear to be confusing logic with values.
Generally logical thinking is a means/end process, with the end pretty much dictating the logical way to get to it. For instance, if you want to go to McDonalds, there’s usually a logical way (or perhaps several logical ways) to get there. But if you want to go to Burger King instead, there will be other different but equally logical ways to get to it. If one person wants to go to McDonalds while another wants to go to Burger King, they will obviously differ in their “logic,” but it’s not because one is more logical than the other, it’s because they want to go to different places.
My contention is that while expats typically want to go to McDonalds, Ticos want to go to Burger King, and instead of appreciating that the ends vary, both criticize the other for faulty logic.
You show your perhaps subconcious awareness of this in your first accusation that Ticos lack logic, since you link logic to efficiency. Ah ha! You believe that efficiency is the end, and therefore that it’s only logical for a Tico to strive for that end. But you ignore the possibility that Ticos might not value efficiency as strongly as you do.
And while I can’t prove it, my impression is that Ticos don’t value efficiency as strongly as expats. Instead, although there are surely other competing values in the mix, Ticos appear to value things like kindness and caring above efficiency. How else to explain the Tico custom of having to start almost every conversation with a “How are you?” and often extending it with blather about this and that rather than getting down to business? This is quite inefficient, but it’s not illogical IF the end sought is kindness and caring rather than efficiency.
Of course you are right about the Latin American legal system values process (and paperwork etc.) much more so than the legal system with which most expats are familiar. I can’t say whether Latinos actually prefer this emphasis or just accept it, but as part of their culture they probably grow up unwittingly valuing it more than you or I do. The difference though is one of values, not the logic involved.
With respect to bribes and so forth, perhaps you missed the poll results of young Tico workers published in La Nación the Sunday before last. The Ticos named “loyalty” as the main value they looked for in a company, and way down toward the bottom of the list was the value of “integrity.” This is pretty much the opposite rank ordering of these two values that we would find in the US, where integrity usually tops the charts and loyalty comes in toward the bottom.
Is it better to value integrity over loyalty or loyality over integrity? This is a value debate, not a debate over logic. And while I personally would value integrity over loyality, I confess to seeing merits in loyalty.
Mostly, a person who values loyalty over integrity in the workplace is not as likely as someone with the opposite value preference to report instances of corruption or even to do their jobs for their clients as conscientiously. Their orientation will be to get along with their coworkers and bosses, and if compromises of integrity are required for that, they will probably compromise their integrity.
And once again, we know that at least younger Ticos value loyalty over integrity. It’s therefore no real surprise that corruption and inefficiencies are greater to some extent than they are in North America.
I’m not here to defend Ticos’ collective value preferences, but I will defend their logic (and common sense) in realizing them. I can also suggest to expats that one of the attractions of living in a different country is to be exposed to the ways another culture rearranges a value hierarchy that without that exposure we might naively believe is universal.