Culture Shock! Bolivia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides) (Paperback)

~ Mark Cramer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

CultureShock! Bolivia provides readers with a thorough understanding of this South American country, a nation steeped in history, culture and tradition. Containing pages of useful information, advice, tips and resources, this book will guide you through the social and psychic adjustment necessary when moving to Bolivia. Learn, first and foremost, how to deal with soroche (altitude sickness), then understand the importance to the Bolivians of Pachamama (Mother Earth) and how she influences festivals and joyous occasions. Discover how to interact with the many diverse cultures, from Kallawayas to Cholas and Cholos to Aymara and Quechua, to name a few. Adapt to the Bolivian concept of time, understand the Bolivian love affair with football and adopt the light-hearted response needed with water balloons at fiestas. This guide will lead nature lovers through the paved trails used by Incas over 2,000 years ago and prompt the question: can an untrained climber reach the peak of Mount Illimani? Whatever your needs or interests, CultureShock! Bolivia has the answer and you ll soon learn not to take a single breath for granted in this diverse and spectacular country. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

As a Bolivia-based journalist, Mark Cramer covered a variety of subjects, from politics to sports, from indigenous customs to international business. Reviewed in dozens of publications, Cramer's Funkytowns USA: The Best Alternative, Eclectic, Irreverent & Visionary Places scored a strange exacta when it was written up in both scholarly journals on the one hand and Playboy and a supermarket tabloid on the other. Funkytowns was featured in a 10-minute spot on CNN and several rebellious profs have used it for their university students. His Marshall Cavendish books on Cuba and Mexico have also been used in settings of higher education. His horse racing novel, Scared Money, will be republished in paperback in 2006. Cramer's lifelong avocation is living the daily life of different countries. His heroes include writers Eduardo Galeano (Uruguay) and Charles Bukowski (USA), jazz pianist Thelonius Monk and the great Bolivian artist and defender of justice Walter Solón Romero. Horrified by the receding glaciers in his favourite Bolivian hiking territory and strip-mall banality of suburban America, Cramer resolved to oppose the car-oil economy, not only politically but through the symbolic act of doing all his commuting by bicycle, rain or shine, winter or summer. He currently lives in Paris, France with his wife and son (who has done an internship in Bolivia). The Cramers continue to maintain a second residence in La Paz. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Corporation (December 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761456589
• ISBN-13: 978-0761456582
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,786,301 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why would they skimp so much on the binding?, May 30, 2008

By	Gina Polly (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Culture Shock! Bolivia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides) (Paperback)

I disagree with the previous reviewer. I gained a lot of insight into Bolivia from this book. It was exactly what I was looking for: a light read on Bolivia. It's certainly not the definitive guide on the "complex ethos of Bolivia", but judging by the size (it's not a long book, folks), anyone who expects a definitive guide is kidding themselves.

The book does offer a brief overview of certain topics of interest. I don't think the author was out of line to make a joke about international awareness and cocaine. After all, that topic has received international attention, and there is, indeed, way more to Bolivia than the coca industry.

The section on etiquette explained to me why my Bolivian husband must say goodbye to each and every person individually when we leave a social gathering when I feel its sufficient to just wave and and say, "Later!"

I enjoyed the author's humor, tone, and American perspective.

BUT, why on earth would the publisher skimp so much on the binding? It literally did fall apart in my hands on the first reading. Pages came right out from the simple act of turning them.

It was a good read, but I did return the book because it fell apart, so perhaps 4 stars is overly generous. However, poor binding is not the author's fault.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Grossly Disappointing, September 16, 2007

By	Allan M. Gathercoal "fdoamerica" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Culture Shock! Bolivia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides) (Paperback)

This work is abysmal. CultureShock! normally provides readers with a solid introduction to the culture and traditions of a country (Volker Poelzl's `CultureShock: Brazil is excellent), but this guide gives you nothing but trite & sophomoric babel.

Mark Cramer's writing totally fails to do justice to the complex ethos of Bolivia. Nothing of significance is said about religion, how Catholicism blended with the religion of the Incas at the time of the Conquistadores to create a rich syncretism of religious forms that now is expressed in most all Bolivian festivals and the in daily expressions of belief. He fails to expose the rich complexity of Bolivian folklore. You will find nothing significant about the culture, the bruised psyche of this divided nation, the pride and self-sufficiency of the country's poor, nor the exploitations of the wealthy. Cramer's writing throughout the books is superficial.

To example only a few, in the section titled `Aymara & Quechua Art', Cramer states, "Thanks to Aymara and Quechua art and music, international awareness of Bolivia is not limited to stereotypes about cocaine." Cocaine? The Aymara & Quechua have rich histories, brilliant music and unique languages, but no they are best know for blow! Give me a break. He opens the section on food sections by saying "Bolivia offers attractive diet options, from indigenous health foods to Hispanic cholesterol." Hispanic cholesterol!

Add to this insulting writing, the injury that the book's binding comes apart with one reading. Pages fall out almost as soon as you open the book.

If you are looking for a general introduction to Bolivia you would be better served by Lonely Planet: Bolivia 2007. The best cultural expose is found in William Powers' excellent and powerful account of living in Bolivia, "Whispering in the Giant's Ear". As an ethonography on the Bolivian culture Mark Cramer's CultureShock! completely fails.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Critical reader beware, January 25, 2009

By	E. Mendonça "supimpa" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Culture Shock! Bolivia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides) (Paperback)

I agree with both reviewers before me: while the book does give you some interesting information about Bolivian culture, it is an immensely disappointing read.

The author's love of Bolivia is contagious and should make most readers want to see that country for themselves. However, love is completely blind in this book, and it ends up sounding like a 1970's tourist brochure from a country behind the Iron Curtain.

For example: "In Bolivia, pharmacists still assume that adults are discerning enough to handle basic medical information and will dispense medicines over the counter that require prescriptions in countries with more 'developed' professions."

Really? Could it not be that pharmacists are just looking to make another sale, regardless of how much or how little their client knows about the antibiotics or antidepressants they are buying without seeing a doctor? I assume that he spoke at length with Bolivian pharmacists before reaching such a conclusion.

I say this because I grew up in Brazil, where pharmacists were just as happy to sell anyone prescritpion drugs. Whenever my tonsils acted up, my mother would get me some penicillin (a drug called Penveoral). In my teens, when I had a sore throat I would just walk down to the drugstore and pick up the pills myself. It was like getting rid of ants with a taser gun. It's no wonder that the so-called "super bacteria", ie. drug-resistant strains, are much harder to kill in Brazil than in Japan (yes, I read a study).

If the author is going to offer up questionable interpretations for what seems like pure ignorance or neglect on the pharmacists' side, he should at least corroborate his claim by showing, for example, how small the problem of self-medication is in Bolivia.

Unfortunately, the book is full of such examples of faulty reasoning, distortions of facts and facile comparisons with other countries.

By all means read this book if you want to know that even though both 110 and 220V co-exist in Bolivia, the government is "trying" to phase out 110V. It will teach you that the word "maestro" is a title used to address bus drivers, electricians, plumbers. This is indeed interesting and useful information for travellers to Bolivia, so the book is not completely useless.

Do NOT, however, expect the book to shed any meaningful light on the cultural differences between Bolivia and the United States, where the author is from, or any Western country for that matter. As part of a series called "Culture Shock!", such shortcomings turn it into a failure.