On Monday, I was in a first grade classroom and the kids were trying to guess my age.
"Thirty-seven?" one little boy asked. "That's how old my mom is," he explained in Spanish. (I'm pretty sure he only knows one to ten and his mom's age in English.)
"Nope!" I told him. "Keep guessing."
They began to count, saying as many numbers as they could remember. Finally one kid got it, "Twenty-two?"
"Yes!"
"Ay, que joven!" (Wow, how young!) another kid exclaimed. I just began to laugh. This little child is six years old, and was calling me young, obviously a culture practice he picked up from his parents. It is custom here to say something such as, how young, how beautiful, how smart! when learning new information about someone or meeting someone for the first time. It's an interesting convention, and I often wonder what that says about Spanish society... Even the teachers comment on the physical appearance of the person, as has been my experience as well as many of my friends'. It makes me wonder if they always comment like that, or rather will tell it as it is.
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