ProMexico: Negocios Magazine: Mexicans by Choice

Xii - 2011/ i - 2012

MEXICANs by

CHOICE

Negocios selected 15 foreigners who have chosen Mexico as their second home. Artists, entrepreneurs, students, teachers, retirees, all of them have found in

Mexico a place where they feel free to express themselves and an opportunity to put their talents to good use.

Cover feature MexicanSBychoice

Almost one out of every 100 people living in Mexico is a foreigner. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geogra-phy (INEGI) , in 2010 there were 961,121 for-eigners living in Mexico, equivalent to 0.9% of the total population. The majority come from the US, making Mexico the country with the largest population of American citizens outside their own country.

Spaniards and citizens of other Latin American countries –Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador– appear next on the list, with Ca-

nadians coming in 10th. Further down on the list are Europeans, followed by Asians, main-ly residents of Japanese and Chinese origin.

Mexico has a tradition of taking in im-migrants. During the Spanish Civil War and the Chinese Revolution, refugees came here in their droves but the last two de-cades have seen an influx of immigrants. Some 151,793 foreigners made Mexico their home between 1990 and 2000, rising to 468,504 –more than double– between 2000 and 2010. And every day there is another knock at Mexico’s door.

32 Negocios32 Negocios Photos Álvaro argüelles

CÉSAR OLGUÍNProving it takes two to tango

byoMarMaGaña

Olguín relieves his nostalgia by promot-ing the music of his country. More recently, he has embarked on a musical expedition of sorts, compiling, adapting and playing tangos composed by Mexican musicians.

The list is long and includes bolero and ranchero composers who flirted with the tan-go at some point or another in their careers: Agustín Lara, Tata Nacho, Luis Alcaráz and María Grever; and singers such as: Pedro Vargas, Jorge Negrete, Cuco Sánchez and Los Panchos. Olguín and his Mexican Tango Orchestra have already recorded a small se-lection of these songs and the album should be available by Christmas 2011.

“I’ve tried to give expression to the songs within my reach. The record includes a cou-ple of contemporary Argentinean composers, who wrote their music in Mexico for Mexican audiences,” he says.

Only a talented musician and self-con-fessed lover of Mexico like Olguín could put together such an album. Influenced by the films produced during the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema in his childhood and teenage years, he first came to Mexico in the late 1970s, not to escape the military dictatorship govern-ing Argentina at the time, but as any young traveler: to pursue his thirst for adventure.

“Back then, Mexico was known for grant-ing asylum to South Americans. There was a large community of some 75,000 Argentin-eans here, according to the figures circulating at the time.”

Initially, it wasn’t easy for him to get by but in the end he was able to make a living off the bandoneón, an accordion-like instrument he had learned to play at a young age.

Indubitably, Olguín is the musician who has done the most to popularize the music of tango composer Astor Piazzola in Mexico; although he can also turn his bandoneón to jazz. For decades, he has played with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Mexico, the Fine Arts Chamber Orchestra, the UNAM Phil-harmonic, the Latin American Tango Quartet ensemble and the Mexican Tango Orchestra, which he co-founded with young musicians interested in learning about the sensual sub-tleties of tango.

César Olguín brings a piece of Argentina to Mexico to keep him company when he can’t make the trip back to his homeland.

A busy schedule of concerts and studio sessions has prevented César Olguín from setting foot in his native city of Río Cuarto, Argentina, for more than four years. “I’d give anything for a good Argentinean roast,” he sighs.


Mr. Shimizu used to travel regularly to Mazatlán to visit an uncle who was a “very prominent” doctor. He would help him out in

the pharmacy and at his practice and, at 19, his father told him to “go to Mexico.” To save him the embarrassment of disembarking in Man-zanillo in a kimono, they bought him his first western style suit in Yokohama before shipping him off. The young Mr. Shimizu apparently enjoyed a “very happy” youth in Sinaloa.

He arrived in 1930, when Japan was embarking on an imperialist expansion project that was to end in defeat, the atomic bomb and recession. Meanwhile, Mexico was enjoying a period of peace and prosperity. Mr. Shimizu returned to Japan briefly in 1940 to get married. One year later, the bombing of Pearl Harbor made going back unthinkable. And so he embraced life in Mexico and the smell of chili chicken that invaded the streets of Sinaloa, a smell Mr. Shimizu would forevermore associate with his arrival.

Mrs. Shimizu was averse to the weather on Mexico’s Pacific coast, so the couple decided to move to Mexico City, where they settled in the Doctores neighborhood. According to their son Roberto, as Japanese they led a “somewhat stigmatized” life due to the war “for instance, eating soy sauce or sushi in front of people was unheard of and chopsticks were only used behind closed doors.” Even so, the family gained a certain degree of prestige that made up for it. They opened a candy store, which became a stationery store and did well. “I’d invite everyone at the Colegio México to taste our sandwiches. I was the first one at school to have a transistor radio, the first to have a robot and the first to have a car.”

Those childhood years were an idyllic period in Roberto’s life. It was the 1950s and Mexico was at once an island and a whole world waiting to be discovered. “We’d play in the street from six in the evening until midnight and again the next day and the next and the next. A tin can was enough to entertain 50 of us guys and 50 girls would play with one rope.” Innocence, spontaneity, even poverty –at least in the memory of Roberto Shimizu– rallied to cast an aura of magic over that chapter of his life.

Unwilling to let that irresistible world slip away, Roberto Shimizu has collected every object that reminds him of those golden years. In his efforts to gather tangible proof that such

a world once existed, he has amassed the largest collection of Mexican toys in the world. To him, they are relics of a paradise lost. “It never occurred to me to start a museum. I just held on to the things that made me happy. You could say this museum is a reminder of that happy Mexico.”

Roberto Shimizu’s collection is shown at the Mexico Museum of Antique Toy, a family-run museum in the Doctores neighborhood, where Shimizu grew up. The museum exhibits thousands of old Mexican toys, as well as one

of the most important collections of El Santo and Cantinflas personal objects.

“When I started studying at the UNAM, the first car my father bought me was a brand new Mercedes Benz and then he bought me a Porsche, then a Ferrari. Imagine, a Ferrari in the Doctores (neighborhood)!” The funny thing is, a skate scooter makes Roberto just as happy, if not more.

Mr. Shimizu Sr. returned to Japan in the 1980s but Roberto and the rest of his children chose to remain in Mexico.

ROBERTO SHIMIZU the ColleCtor

bydieGofloreSMaGón

Photo Álvaro argüelles34 Negocios


A huge pink package that stops traffic on the streets of Lima; 3,000 public school students in Mexico City cre-ating mosaics of Malevich’s

Red Square and Mexican icons like El Santo; and a play of visuals and sounds that take their cue from the lush natural scenery of Las Po-zas, xilitla in Jalisco.

These three video works, along with a series of paintings and an installation, form Red Square, Impossible Pink, a piece by Melanie Smith that was chosen to participate in the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice.

This is the first time a non-native artist has represented Mexico at the Venice Biennale but Smith is Mexican by choice.

The economic recession that hit Great Britain in the late Eighties made life com-plicated for artists, so Smith and a group of students fresh out of art school decided to test their luck in Mexico. The idea was to spend six months far from Europe and live an adventure. But Smith was taken by Mexico’s art scene and came to the conclu-sion it would be better for her to settle on this side of the Atlantic.

The Randolph Street Gallery, Project Room in Chicago, the Peter Kilchmann Gallery in Zu-rich, L’ Escaut in Brussels and Galería OMR in Mexico have all staged solo exhibitions by Melanie Smith, who has also participated in numerous collective exhibitions.

It was an uphill slog for Melanie when she first arrived in Mexico but upon discovering interest in her work, people like her with a

MELANIE SMITHin the Pink and rePresenting mexiCo

by eUGeniacaBrera

passion for art and endless materials to work with, it was almost inevitable she would stay.

Born in 1965 in the English city of Poole, Smith left Great Britain before the Young British Artists movement that catapulted several contemporary artists to fame in the early Nineties took off. She may have missed one boat but another was waiting for her. These were exciting times in Mexico, too, when a new generation of artists was just beginning to emerge.

“It’s not that it’s easier or harder. No mat-ter where you are, it’s never easy as an art-ist. You have to work to make things happen where you are,” says Melanie when asked about the difficulties of building a career in a foreign land.

That was 23 years ago. Today Melanie has a husband, two children, Mexican nationality and no plans to leave.

It’s been tough for her parents to come to terms with the fact that their daughter would choose to make a career and a life for herself so far from home but they’ve finally come to understand her calling.

Straddling the New World and the Old Continent, Melanie is in a unique position to criticize Eurocentrism, which she does from an artistic perspective.

Oaxaca is one of her favorite places in Mexico, while her most popular hangouts in Mexico City are the Escandón district and the Historic Center. She actually lived near the Historic Center a few years back, where she found a wealth of objects, materials, textures and colors that served as her inspiration.

36 Negocios

SHUNSUKE KUBOTAsoCCer as a language learning tool

by oMarMaGaña

Soccer was the bridge that con-nected Shunsuke Kubota with Mexican culture, so different from that of his native Japan.

For the last year, Shun-suke Kubota has been studying Spanish and struggling with the concept of hugging and kissing –the accepted form of greeting in Mexican society– alien to his Japanese upbringing.

Yet Kubota is not exactly a foreigner to Mexican culture. After work, he used to play for Chivas in an amateur soccer league formed by Mexican workers in Ohio, in the US.

At the time, he had just graduated from the University of Central Arkansas with a Master’s in Economics and was working for a Japanese company that imported car assembly machinery.

But Spanish was the first language in the parallel universe he went into once his working day was over. “I had lots of friends who spoke only Spanish,” he recalls.

A professional soccer player in Japan’s second division, Kubota’s knowledge of the sport and his inklings of the language from his student years at Hokkaido’s Doh-to University, where he took International Business Administration, enabled him to build bridges with his Mexican team-mates.

After six years in Arkansas and Ohio, returning to Japan was not on the books, so he decided to learn Spanish in Guadalajara, birthplace of the original Chivas first divi-sion soccer team.

As soon as he concludes his course at the Study Center for Foreigners (CEPE) at the University of Guadalajara (UdeG), Kubota plans to look for work at one of the Japanese companies that have set up shop in Mexico. “I don’t know in which city, maybe Aguascalientes because there are lots of companies there,” he says.

His long term plan is to work for three years in Mexico so he can become fluent in Spanish and then return to the US and open an office to help young athletes apply for scholarships at American and Japanese universities. He expects a large percentage of them to be Spanish-speaking students.

“I’m studying Spanish because the US has a large Hispanic community that is still growing, so it’ll be useful to be able to speak both English and Spanish,” he says.

Until that time comes, 28-year-old Kubota is enjoying his stay in the Ladrón de Guevara district of Guadalajara, a quiet residential area within easy reach of the high street banks and stores.

And while he claims he is not a support-er of any Mexican team in the professional soccer league, not even Chivas of Guadala-jara, he keeps track of mini league matches and has acquired an uncanny taste for tacos and tortas ahogadas.

Photos Álvaro argüelles


JUSTUS HAUSERthe german who tasteda new mexiCo

byoMarMaGaña

Justus Hauser has experienced first hand changes for improvement in Mexico’s markets and legal system. A few years ago, when he attempted to start a real estate business, tworivals shut the door in his face. Hauser took his case to the Federal

of all the potential it has, which is why its laws and regulations have adapted. Plus, young Mexicans are much more engaged than before.”

Hauser was 27 when he quit his job as a financial consultant in Hamburg. He spent the next two and a half years traveling the US and Canada. Then he read about Mexico and enrolled in Spanish classes in Guadalajara. Pretty women and good weather are two of the reasons he cites for staying but he was also interested in the business opportuni-ties a developing country like Mexico had to offer a young man with a background in economics.

Not yet fluent in Spanish, Justus earned his keep by working as a dog trainer. Then one day a friend invited him to work in real estate in the Ribera de Chapala area of Jalisco, where Canadian and American retirees have contributed to a boom in the local property market.

In 2005, he decided market conditions were ripe to start his own company. That was when he came up against age-old practices while witnessing the changes taking place within Mexico’s legal system in the flesh. “As a result, the onus was on me to be successful. ‘I have to find my own friends,’ I thought and that’s when I began franchising,” he says.

Today, Hauser’s company, All–in–1, has agents working throughout the Ribera area, in Zapopan and Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, and in Michoacán. “The market has changed,” he says. Now, 70% of his customers are Mexi-can. All-in-1 also acts as a go between with Mexicans that reside in the US who plan on returning some day and who want to buy or sell property in Mexico.

Hauser believes Mexico has a promis-ing property market and he clearly knows what he’s talking about. From his home in the indigenous community of Tlachichilco del Carmen, facing the island of Mezcala, Hauser is privy to great views and warm weather all year round.“Other countries have per-fect economies, but they can’t change their weather,” he concludes.

Competition Commission (CFC), filed a law-suit and won.

“I’ve been living in Mexico for almost 17 years and I’ve seen how the country has changed. I’ve seen interesting economic and business opportunities arise,” he says, add-ing “Mexico is in the global spotlight because

38 Negocios

During the 1980s, Thomas Legler was living in Holland. There he met a girl from Ni-caragua whose stories about the Contras fascinated him.

That was his introduction to Latin America, one that was to define the course of his life.

Today, Thomas Legler is a research pro-fessor at the International Studies Depart-ment of the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) in Mexico City.

He came to Mexico in 1990 on a scholar-ship to study at the Colegio de México (COL-MEx). NAFTA negotiations were in full swing at the time, so he opted to focus his academic efforts on the subject of economic cooperation. He had no special interest in Mexican culture but immediately fell in love with the country.

Originally from Brampton, Ontario, upon his arrival Thomas was taken in by a family who showed him the meaning of Mexican hospitality. He stayed with a single mother, who adopted him as her “Canadian son.” She and her daughter are like family to Thomas, to this day.

After completing his studies at the COL-MEx, Thomas enrolled in the North Ameri-can Research Center at the UNAM and after a two-year stint in Guadalajara he went back to Canada to finish his doctorate.

Having earned his PhD, he took up a teaching position at a small university in Can-ada. Not long afterwards, in 2006, he learned of a vacancy at the UIA and applied. He got the job and returned to Mexico.

“Professionally, it’s been a really valu-able move. Teaching here in Mexico as an expert in international relations has given me a much higher profile than teaching in a town of 5,000 inhabitants on Canada’s At-lantic coast,” says Legler on the advantages of pursuing his career in Mexico.

The thing he appreciates most is the Mexi-can character. “I admire the enormous pa-tience Mexicans have, their capacity to put up with adversity. It is a quality I don’t see

THOMAS LEGLERa Canadian adoPtee

by eUGeniacaBrera

in Canadians. People here face adversity on a daily basis and manage to survive it with a healthy dose of humor. I admire that a lot.”

Thomas has settled down in Mexico, by all accounts. Two years ago, he married a girl from Puebla. “I married a Mexican woman from Puebla. I am extremely happy with her.”

So adapted is Legler to life in Mexico City that he’s only too happy to play the tourist guide to friends who visit him from abroad. When asked what word best describes Mex-ico City, he replies “alive.”

“It’s a cosmopolitan city. I always tell people there’s no such thing as boredom in Mexico City. Obviously there are things we complain about but, on the upside, it’s a city where there’s always plenty to do.”

Legler teaches “Latin America and the Caribbean,” an introductory course to the

region’s politics, history, economy and soci-ety. In his expert opinion, however, placing emphasis on its problems only serves to re-inforce the general notion that this is a region of failures, injustices and violence, which is why he asks his students to write essays on its achievements.

Thomas watches the news and is worried about what is going on in the province but he too has acquired that most Mexican “ability to smile and carry on.”

He has no short-term plans to leave. “Something that annoys me a lot is when people ask –and they constantly do– ‘When are you going back to Canada, Thomas?’ as if living in Mexico was somehow inferior to living and teaching in Canada. Quite hon-estly, I don’t feel much of an urge to return,” he says.

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Philippe Ollé-Laprune has opened the floodgates of litera-ture, inundating Mexico and France with a mutual apprecia-tion for poetry and prose.

Antonin Artaud, André Breton and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio are just a few of the French authors whose sojourns in Mexico

PHILIPPE OLLÉ-LAPRUNEmexiCo and franCe, a literary liaison

byoMarMaGaña

have had a profound influence on their works. But the inspiration cuts both ways.

Since his arrival in Mexico in 1994, cultural promoter Ollé-Laprune has devoted himself to strengthening ties between France and Mex-ico, either by translating new French writing into Spanish or promoting Mexican literature in France.

“These are two countries with a very strong mutual attraction. In 2009, I had the honor of representing the Mexican delega-tion at the Paris Book Fair, where we had a warm reception, just as the French are well received at similar events in Mexico,” says Ollé-Laprune, who has been director of the Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl cultural center since 1999.

According to an article published in the Mexican daily El Universal, Mexico’s pres-ence at the Paris Book Fair –the most im-portant literary event of the year in France– sparked off renewed interest in Mexican novelists. The works of 42 Mexican authors have since been translated and published in French.

A writer and essayist in his native Paris, Ollé-Laprune came to Mexico as director of the French embassy’s Book Office and decided to stay on once his tenure was up.

“I got the impression there was still rela-tive freedom and support for projects and ideas, especially cultural ones, and that’s what I liked about the country,” he says.

Judging from his prolific output since his arrival, Ollé-Laprune’s intuition was spot on. His writings have appeared in literary publications like Letras Libres, Fractales and Líneas de Fuga, the magazine he edits for Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl, located in the Condesa district in Mexico City.

Aside from promoting literature, the mission of Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl is to provide a safe haven for writers persecuted in their homelands. Authors from countries like Syria, Russia, Iraq, Algeria and Sub-Saharan Africa have found a home here.

The center has also hosted conferences by literary giants like Antonio Tabucchi, Ricardo Piglia and Gonzalo Rojas, and is open to visiting foreign authors interested in adding some Mexican flavor to their works.

“They like being in a place where they can settle down and get on with their work,” says Ollé-Laprune.

Some are just passing through while others extend their stay indefinitely and make Mexico their second home. Like Ollé-Laprune, who is so well versed in the litera-ture and culture of Mexico City that he was invited to co-edit a second edition of Mexico City Government’s New Guide to the Historic Center, which will be in bookstores soon.

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40 Negocios

FEDERICO MASTROGIOVANNI a Certain tyPe of italian Journalist

bydieGofloreSMaGón

Federico Mastrogiovanni took up permanent residence in Mexico in late 2009. The first time he visited the country was with a classmate in 1999. Back

then his knowledge of Mexico was about the same as the average Italian student –practi-cally non-existent. He’d heard of the Mexi-can Revolution, maybe even seen a photo of Pancho Villa, but what attracted “a certain type of tourist” at the time was the Zapatista

movement and, in 1999, Federico was exactly that type of tourist. Aside from the usual cul-tural sights like the pyramids –a must for an Italian tourist who didn’t plan on returning any time soon– Federico was interested in: “the people and in what made this complex country tick.”

For the last 10 years, Federico has been working as a journalist, a profession that is hard to make a living from in Italy. “Top class journalists receive huge salaries but they’re a tiny elite. In Italy, it’s a very corporate pro-fession in which the troops barely earn 800 Euros a month, which in Italy isn’t enough to pay your rent,” he says. Another factor that contributed to his general disillusionment with his home country was “the curtailing of democratic spaces” and mounting social frustration he sensed. “Lots of my friends left Italy: anywhere was better,” he adds.

The decisive factor, which triggered his decision to move, was losing his job in 2008. “I spent my savings just to survive. I lost ev-erything, including the house where I lived.” After the initial blow, “I came to see it as an opportunity because that’s what it was. There was nothing holding me back anymore. I lost faith in my country and thought that a radical change was my only alternative, which is how I got the idea of moving to another country.” He considered other options outside Europe, like Brazil, but he wanted a country where he could use his Spanish language skills.

“Today in Mexico I work mainly for other foreign media. Here I have been able to po-sition myself as a foreign correspondent, I address issues that aren’t widely covered and are of interest to international dailies.” From his base in Mexico, Federico freelances for a paper in Sao Paulo, a monthly magazine in Switzerland, Radio France Internacionale, Italian media in Rome and a Mexican publi-cation, something that would be unthinkable in his native Italy. “In Mexico there’s always something going on, which opens up the pos-sibility to let the rest of the world know about it,” he says.

Federico’s first son, Emiliano, was born on March 2011, and has Mexican nationality. In the immediate future, Federico plans on staying in Mexico because he wants his son to spend “at least the first years of his life here, where he was born.”



DEBORAH SILBERERa german whose heart belongs to mexiCo City

by eUGeniacaBrera

Curiosity brought Deborah Silberer to Mexico from her native Germany 11 years ago. A pianist and composer who specializes in silent film

scores, she found herself in a country where there was a complex relationship between filmmaking and music.

It took patience and a lot of hard work. “In Mexico there is a lot of talent. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I felt a connec-tion,” she says.

Things got off to a painfully slow start. Work was scarce on the ground and Debo-rah devoted her time and energies to found-ing and managing Cinematógrafo Folía Lu-mière, Mexico’s first silent film center.

Silberer is an expert in film and docu-mentary scores whose 20 years of experi-ence in silent movies earned her the position of lead pianist of Brussels’ Cinemathèque Royale. She is currently lead pianist of the UNAM Filmoteca, the Cineteca Nacional de México and the Morelia International Film Festival.

Improvisation is key to Silberer’s work, which is as eclectic as it is original. Along with Gaishi Ishizaka and his Japanese per-cussion, she set the music to Sergei Eisen-stein’s silent classic The Battleship Potemkin to mark the 45th anniversary of the UNAM’s Filmoteca. Other silent films she has writ-ten music for include Napoleon at St. Helena (Lupu Pick, 1926) and A Man There Was (Vic-tor Sjöström, 1917), screened at the First Las Cases Memorial Award ceremony. In 2009, she performed at Madrid’s Cine Doré with her score to The Fall of the House of Usher and has worked on silent film treasures like One A.M. starring Charlie Chaplin.

She has also composed music for plays like Vicente Quirarte’s Hay mucho de Pené-lope en Ulises, directed by Mario Espinosa, and is currently working on La dama de las Camelias.

Silent films weren’t very popular in Mexi-co. “But bit by bit, a cultural channel opened

Although she would probably have found it easier to forge a career for herself in Eu-rope, Deborah felt she needed to break away from her orthodox conservatory education and it was in Mexico that she managed to do just that, thanks to “everything I’ve dis-covered and learned from my comrades and the difference in cultures,” she says, adding that Mexico City is a place full of passion and contrasts. “One minute you can be walking past a row of ugly buildings and the next you’ll find yourself on a beautiful street.”

up and they began to catch on,” says Silberer. At first, she was lucky if she got a film to work on every three months, but now the Cineteca Nacional keeps her busy and when she isn’t performing at festivals in Mexico, she can often be heard at events in Spain.

Over the years, Deborah has noticed a growing interaction between film and mu-sic, with more soundtracks and projects open to artists. “It’s a very musical country. You can tell there’s so much talent. My heart belongs to Mexico City.”

42 Negocios Photo Álvaro argüelles


On his first visit to Mexico, Daiwon Moon devoured 52 tacos. Accustomed to the spicy food of his native Ko-rea, he’d walk around with

a bottle of Tabasco sauce in his pocket when he lived in the US. When he ordered food, he’d ask if they had Tabasco. If not, he’d pro-duce his own. The year was 1968 and Daiwon Moon was 29 years old. He had already won the US Taekwondo Championships three times in a row and “had very ambitious plans.” He was lying in wait, biding his time like a true strategist. And when he learned that the local taekwondo school in Houston had closed, he opened a center of his own.

Although taekwondo was a relatively unknown discipline in Mexico at the time, Daiwon Moon’s name was familiar in ka-rate circles and in 1968 a group of karateists invited him to teach a course on Korean ka-rate, as it was known then. The course was a resounding success and his students begged him to open a school in Mexico, but he turned down the offer and went back to Houston. Then he had second thoughts.

“I thought… Mexico is virgin territory. They don’t have taekwondo. Maybe it would be easier to fulfill my dream there than here in Houston.” His Mexican students finally managed to persuade him to burn his boats in Texas and conquer uncharted lands on the other side of the border.

From a business perspective, it was a calculated risk but there was also the hu-man and cultural factor. “In the US –how can I put it?– people were more educated (laughs), more polite, if you will, but colder. I always felt I was different: there was a cer-tain distance between me and them.” But in Mexico, it was “like in Korea.” For example,

DAIWON MOONthe father of mexiCan taekwondo

by dieGofloreSMaGón

a student invited him to his parents’ house out of town and he thought it was strange that this elderly couple lived alone but they owned a table that could seat 50 people. Un-til his student explained that on weekends some 50 relatives would come over.

“I really loved that aspect.” And for the man who hankered after Korean food, solace was to be found in charcoal grilled tacos.

In Mexico, Daiwon Moon devoted him-self heart and soul to teaching. He was in his element. And in 1973, when Korea held its first Taekwondo World Championships, he returned to Seoul after a 10-year absence as coach of the Mexican team. He remembers it was May when he got off the plane and took a deep breath of air that smelled “like the countryside,” a smell he’d almost forgotten. No one in Korea had heard of him because he’d left the country to study architecture in the US. No one even knew where Mexico was. But when Mexico came in third, after Korea and the US, it became clear it was a taekwondo force to be reckoned with.

Daiwon Moon’s chain of Moo Duk Kwan schools has expanded over the years. Now, he has 350 taekwondo centers, across the length and breadth of the country. But the maestro is far from satisfied. He wants to open an international center for the mar-tial arts in Querétaro, the geographic center of Mexico, which is, in turn, the center of Latin America and, according to Daiwon Moon, the center of the world because this is where East meets West. And, as anyone who knows Daiwon Moon will tell you, that is no pipedream. He already has plans and a scale model in the shape of a pyramid that replicates the proportions of Chichén-Itzá and that has symbols of Asia and America on each side.

44 Negocios

BORIS GOLDENBLANKdoCumentary of a translated life

by vaneSaroBleS

Institute between 1946. In 1952, Goldenblank founded the Bachelor’s degree in Audiovisual Arts at the University of Guadalajara (UdeG) in 1997 and then the Master’s in Film Studies and the Department of Image and Sound at the Art, Architecture and Design University Center (CUAAD).

That is not to say Goldenblank neglected his craft. On the contrary, in 1993 he released Abril, el mes más cruel (April the Cruelest Month), which was followed by several short films, and in 2010, Voces del subterráneo (Underground Voices) won the International Human Rights Film Festival –just one more in a string of accolades for the director who has made 100 films in his time and earned the respect of audiences at festivals in England, Hungary, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Uruguay and Argentina.

So if the world is your oyster, why choose Mexico? “In other countries you always feel like a foreigner but in Mexico I stopped feel-ing like that very quickly: there’s a wonderful spiritual openness. At first I’d make the trip back to Moscow every year but when the de-gree course began it was like a child had been born. We now have a school that enjoys great prestige in Latin America and students who are recognized in other countries. I have every-thing I need here to do what I love doing, which is making films and teaching.” And that’s not to mention the other perks that Mexico offers to a Russian: unbeatable weather, delicious food and fresh fruit and vegetables all year round.

Now and then, Boris Goldenblank gets nostalgic for Moscow’s chilly air and when that happens, he goes back to visit his former students. “But my home is here and in Decem-ber friends come to escape the cold and I take them to the beach.”

Boris Goldenblank isn’t going anywhere. He may be 83 but he has several projects in the pipeline and he loves Mexico much like a grandfather dotes on his grandchildren. “I feel very grateful towards Mexico. In the latter years of my life, it’s given me the opportunity to feel needed and do what I love doing.”

There is a lot of filmmaking talent in Mexico and we need more schools, universities and education centers to channel that talent, says Boris Golden-

blank, who sounds more like a humanist giv-ing a speech than an acclaimed documentary filmmaker.

Goldenblank’s accent immediately reveals his Russian ancestry, yet it’s a far cry from

the one he had back in 1991 when he came to Guadalajara to teach a diploma in film studies. Back then, he didn’t speak a word of Spanish and all his classes had to be translated.

Yet that first film course in Russian met with an understanding that went beyond words. Goldenblank stayed in Jalisco, initially for months at a time and then on a permanent basis. That is how the man who studied under Serguéi Eisenstein at the Moscow State Film



No matter how many countries she lives in, Mexico will al-ways have a place in Sylvie Milverton’s heart.

Sylvie Milverton admits she loves the beaches, food and people of Mexico, but her connection to this country where she has lived for the last six years with her husband, Damian Milverton, runs deeper. The Canadian-born financial operations di-

SYLVIE MILVERTONfor a higher Cause

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rector of Laureate Education for Mexico and Central America gave birth to her first son, Jack Felix, here.

“My son is going to have Mexican national-ity, so we have to make sure he speaks Spanish and is familiar with his birthplace. Even if we take him somewhere else, he will always have this connection and we will always remem-ber having him in Mexico, the doctor and the hospital,” recounts Milverton.

Sylvie is 38 and has a background in Hu-manities, French Literature and Business Ad-ministration. And with 15 years’ experience in finances, the world is her oyster.

In Mexico, her professional accomplish-ments are on a par with her personal ones. Milverton has managed to reduce the cost of higher education at the three private uni-versities that belong to the Laureate Inter-national Universities network: Universidad Tecnológica de México (UNITEC), Univer-sidad del Desarrollo Profesional (UNIDEP) and Universidad del Valle de México (UVM).

“When we acquired UNITEC, the first thing we did was lower the fees to make it accessible to more students. As a result, the population at that university has grown con-siderably over the last three years,” she says.

Founded in the US in 1998, Laureate Inter-national Universities is a network of quality higher education institutions that has more than 55 credited universities spanning over 27 countries.

It was the board that suggested Milverton to uproot from the US and make the move to Mexico.

“In Mexico, we saw an opportunity to help people improve their patrimony and that of their children,” she says, adding that in Mexico, where growing investor confidence is spawning new enterprises, it is essential to sponsor economic growth by educating the new workforce.

Milverton and her family take to the road whenever they get the chance, visiting places as far flung as the Sea of Cortés in Sonora and Playa del Carmen at the other end of the coun-try. She also enjoys visiting the colonial towns of San Miguel de Allende, Puebla and Gua-najuato in the surroundings of Mexico City.

And although she plans to spend some time in Europe or Asia, Milverton has no doubt whatsoever she will return to Mexico.

“When I think about retiring, I’d much rather return to Mexico than the US. I love the people and the respect they have for their culture, museums, pyramids and history.”

46 Negocios

Gregory Pereira is an ac-claimed archaeologist whose passion is poking around in the dirt in an effort to come to grips with Mexican culture.

For the last 20 years, he has literally been dividing his time between Mexican soil and that of his native France.

The dead are Pereira’s specialty. Day in, day out, he toils the earth, excavating Pre-Columbian burial sites in an attempt to gain better knowledge of the funeral rites of indig-enous Mesoamericans prior to the Conquest.

Funded by the Paris-based National Sci-entific Research Center (CNRS), in coopera-tion with Mexico’s National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) and other aca-demic institutions, Gregory’s current dig in the municipality of Zacapu, Michoacán, is just the latest chapter in what has been a lengthy encounter with Mexico’s cultural diversity.

Gregory Pereira first came to Mexico in 1988 as a young European tourist with a backpack slung over his shoulder. Not long afterwards he returned, this time with a de-gree in archaeology under his belt. He had come to write his thesis, for which he needed access to the libraries and archaeological sites of Oaxaca. “It was important for me to be here, to be able to consult the records at first hand, talk to researchers and visit the sites,” he says.

Ever since then, Mexico has been closely tied in with Gregory’s professional and aca-demic career. He chose to write his doctorate thesis on funeral rites in the state of Micho-acán, in Central Western Mexico, and ended up staying here for three whole years doing research.

During that time, he collaborated with academic and scientific institutions on a series of projects, some in Michoacán and Guanajuato and others in the Maya region of Southeast Mexico.

GREGORY PEREIRAa frenCh arChaeologist big on bones

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Gregory Pereira has seen Mexico on every level, from the surface to what lies beneath, so he speaks from experience when he says it is a country with “enormous wealth and po-tential and people you easily get attached to.”

Best of all, he says, that wealth is very much alive. In the course of his research, Gregory has found utensils, garments and foodstuffs at grave sites that are still used today, just as they were hundreds of years

ago by the inhabitants of these same regions. “It’s not just about finding dried out bones but interpreting them and going beyond the hard data.”

So what’s Gregory Pereira’s fantasy as an archaeologist? “I have lots. One is to discover the burial site of a Tarascan ruler,” he replies with a laugh.

What about gold? “I’d rather not find gold. Mexico’s wealth lies elsewhere,” he concludes.

Photo courtesy of gregory Pereira


There are plenty of people who would pay good money to know what Hardy Milsch has learned the hard way. The son of a German man whose

business ventures in Mexico were a flop, he knows how important human relations are to corporate success. Having spent part of his adolescence in Mexico, he is familiar with the idiosyncrasies of this complex culture, which means he is more than qualified for his job as president of the Guadalajara chap-ter of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM).

HARDY MILSCH the industrial entrePreneur by vaneSaroBleS

Born in Chicago to a German father and a Mexican mother, Hardy Milsch was raised in the US but could easily pass for a Mexican, due to his command of the Spanish language and his insight into Latin American culture.

Yet Hardy will tell you his knowledge hasn’t come cheap. His father was a strict German who opened two restaurants in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes. While his father’s businesses floundered, 12-year-old Hardy learned the language and how to build bridges between three cultures: the German traditions his father taught him, the American lifestyle he’d grown up in and the

Mexican social rituals his father had never understood.

His father took the family back to the US when his restaurant businesses failed. But 20 years ago, destiny came knocking on Hardy’s door and he returned to Mexico to take on a job as a hotel manager. Eight years later, he was appointed regional director of Prologis, a company engaged in the development and sale of industrial warehouses in Guadalajara and El Bajío region.

The business has enormous potential and is highly profitable, says the former president of the Jalisco State Association of Industrial Parks. “It’s the first link in the production chain; it simplifies things. As such, its growth is guaranteed in a country that is attracting more and more projects.”

Just what are those projects? Logistics firms looking to sell merchandise; the auto-motive industry, which is expected to begin supplying the US and Canada in a few years’ time; the aerospace industry and computer manufacturers. “You can order a computer with the characteristics you want. There are people here who can design and assemble it.”

When asked what advice he would offer foreign entrepreneurs who aren’t familiar with the Mexican way of doing business, Hardy says: “It’s not that it’s better or worse. It’s just different and you have to have the ability to follow protocol,” which in this case means putting human relations first. “At a business lunch, 90% is about the food and 10% is about business.” It’s also important to form close ties with coworkers, “who will always respond with a level of commitment hard to find in other countries,” adds Hardy.

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48 Negocios Photo Paloma lóPez

MICHAEL HOGAN a novelist in the Classroom

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Michael Hogan seems to have been born a teacher. Perhaps a teacher and traveler. Or what is even more: a teacher who travels and writes.

Born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1943, Hogan is the author of 16 books, including a collection of short stories, six books of po-etry, collected essays on teaching in Latin America, a novel and a book on the his-tory of the Irish battalion in Mexico, which formed the basis for an MGM movie star-ring Tom Berenger.

Years ago, after having lived and trav-elled through many countries, Hogan moved to Guadalajara, Mexico.

“I wanted to research the Irish partici-pation in the War of Intervention (1846-48) more fully. My book, The Irish Soldiers of Mexico is a result of that ambition after six years of research. It also provided the ba-sis for a documentary film. I was offered a two-year contract by the American School of Guadalajara to come set up an Advanced Placement program [university level cours-es for high achieving students] and start a literary magazine at the school”, he says.

Regardless of his work as a published author, Hogan has remained and educa-tor, with a career spanning 25 years. “There used to be a saying: ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.’ I would amend that to say: Those who can, do. Those who can do more, teach,” Hogan says. For him, teaching is no ordinary job, but one of the most demanding and challenging ones.

“I’m not talking about covering the sub-ject matter, using the text and the lesson plan, listing benchmarks and goals, and collecting the check at the end of the month. I’m talking about the ongoing challenge to expand our knowledge of our subject matter and the world in general, to reaffirm the im-portance of the precision of language and, most importantly, to teach from the heart with genuine care for our children,” he says.

His work as an educator at the American School of Guadalajara has already proven successful. Sin Fronteras, the literary maga-zine he founded has since wontwelve in-ternational awards, including the Highest Award for student international magazines from the US National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Hogan thinks his Irish background has helped him get along with Mexican people and live in Mexico. “I think that both the Irish and the Mexicans share a humorous side as well as a melancholic side,” he says.

Hogan lives in Guadalajara with his wife, quiltmaker Lucinda Mayo, who shares his passion for books. Their house is awash in colorful fabrics and books. He is now work-ing on a crime novel, a poetry book and a second novel based in Nicaragua. n

ProMexico: Negocios Magazine: Mexicans by Choice

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