This blog is dedicated to things that Panamanians like. If you or someone you know, is aware of something Panamaians like, email us at thingspanamanianslike[at]gmail.com. We get so many inquiries each day that you shouldn’t get down on yourself if your suggestion doesn’t make the cut. Also, check out The Panama Pages. Thanks!
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Sites Panamanians Like
1. MacGyver (pronouced in Panamanian as MacGeever)
2. Popeye’s (pronounced pop-ey-ey-es)
3. Panamanian chicks LOVE very bight, over accentuated pastel eyeshadow
4. Panamanians love being late for absolutely everything except leaving work at the end of the day
5. Cell phones and speaking on them very, very loudly
6. Calling everyone who has a higher education than 8th grade “licenciado/a”
7. Wearing sky-high stilettos even though they can’t walk in them and with them they are still only 5’2″. The extra-long jeans that cover the stilettos are an added bonus.
8. Really bad ’80′s music. Ballads, not cool stuff
9. Honking their horns constantly. The best though, is when they honk their horns at the garbage trucks because they are picking up garbage from the sidewalk, yet if they didn’t pick up the garbage, Panamanians would be complaining about that as well. Ummm, how about a recycling program?????
10. Wearing their best clothes and a full face of makeup to take out said garbage.
I could go on and on, but must stop for fear of realizing how f-ed up this place really is.
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TPL-
Ladies love fuchsia, purple, and yellow, and doggystyle.
Men love super-tight jeans and gay haircuts
Everyone under 40 loves Auto-Tune(reference T-Pain)
The absolute best thing you can do if you are Panamanian is delay the person behind you, at the super mercado, at the bank, when driving…or waiting to get gas, getting on or off a plane, I’ve come to embrace this custom
Dropping trash in the street.
Panamanians like their streets, especially:
-Stealing the manhole covers to sell it for the price of the steel, and…
-Not bothering to replace the manhole covers for several months.
-Driving at night in pitch-black and knowing precisely the location of all the missing manhole covers, bumps and pot-holes.
-Pushing pedestrians out of the crosswalk with the front bumper when the light turns green.
-Buying and driving a 200+ mph car just to watch a kid on a moped pass you and everyone else stuck in traffic.
-Honking the car horn incessantly, mostly to insult to the asshole who’s stuck in traffic in front of you. When the light turns green and the thirty idiots in front of you haven’t moved in two picoseconds, you must start honking.
-Getting to work on time because you own a helicopter.
-Getting a dingy or two on the door panels within the first week of driving your new Mercedes.
-Learning that parallel parking is done nose-in first, so you can steal it from the idiot who’s trying to back into it.
-Driving in circles 5 and 6 times around the block to wait for a parking space.
-Stopping for a red light at an intersection should be done only when the cars crossing in front of you won’t let you pass through them.
Is this about “what panamanians like” or “what i hate about panamanians”?
If you don’t like us go back to your country and leave us alone.
Agree.
Hey Medin…
WaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhH!
Love,
JoJo
As a Panamanian, I find a significant number of your posts to be stereotypical and border disrespectful. Some of the stories might be very particular to your own experience. They don’t come either as funny or even interesting to help “foreigners assimilate in Panama”.
You could be critical, yet more constructive while pointing out the cultural and social differences, putting a positive spin to the “cultural shock” for foreigners away from home.
Panamanians are open to people from all over the world. Hope your experience and that of your readers in the country unfolds to be a better one.
Raul, what’s your problem man? Panamanians have no problem making fun of anything and everything: that’s what makes them so great: their light-heartedness, their laid-back mentality, and the way they never get offended.
This site’s just like a social satire. The very same silly shows you laugh at on nightly Panama TV and the same guys you hear joking on the radio making fun of Panamanians. (In fact, this is probably a lot less offensive.) You just don’t like THIS IN PARTICULAR because it’s coming from a non-Panamanian. It’s like black people freaking out when anyone whose not black says the n*word (which by the way, Panamanians use recklessly). It’s just a theoretical oxymoron.
You and all the other negative Panamanian commenters need to take a chill pill and notice this is a sarcastic site. Like, its not meant for anthropologists or to seriously prepare visitors to Panama or anything dude. It’s a funny commentary about culture. And while I’m not Panamanian or anything, I have been here for 10 years and know enough to chuckle at these things. Even when you say the n*word (and I am black). As Panamanians say to just about everything, tranquilo guys!
@Rick: You are absolutely right. Panamanians don’t bother being politically correct. They call a cat a cat and a dog a dog.
For instance, Panamanians call a white male a “Gringo” – no matter where he comes from originally. If he is a white looking Panamanian oligarch they call him a Rabiblanco (literally a white tail, because chances are he is slightly off white and not a pure white man). Mixed blood males are called “Cholos”. Pure black males are called “Chombos”. All Asians are called “Chinos” no matter where they come from, or wether they are Chinese or Japanese. Males from Indiana or Pakistan are called “hindustanes” and Jewish merchants are called “Turcos”…
haha. I don’t think the blog would help foreigners assimilate Panama. I just don’t take this blog too serious, more like a Joke. There are things to criticize about every single country and citizen in the world, so why get upset about it?
Just laugh, come to our country and experience it for yourself. Either way it will be a surprise!
I dig this site. I am panamanian-american so I don’t know if my opinion counts in this case. I am of course assuming that the person writing loves Panama deep down, just like Panamanians do, even though we bitch about the place incessantly. In response to some of the comments: Of course these things are stereotypical! That is kind of the point, right? I think we need to lighten up. It is funny. Not all of it rings true to me personally, but then I am not a full on expat here, so my perceptions are obviously different.
Also, I like what you are getting at Rick, but I need an explanation on what a exactly a theoretical oxymoron is, as it was my understanding that an oxymoron is by definition theoretical
LUCES HALÓGENAS (BLANCO AZULADO), de alguna manera es “cool” iluminar la calle cual estadio de fútbol (soccer) y entre más deslumbres y cegues al conductor que viene en dirección contraria, mejor.
1. Anime dubbed in Spanish. Especially old anime like mazingerZ and Capitan Centella.
2. Niko’s cafe at 4 in the morning after an all night binge.
3. Calling people out by using the word “bate”. for example: ese man es un batoso or ese fue tremendo bate. When they know a friend or someone has told the biggest lie.
4. Using English words as if they were Spanish words for example: Friend turns into fren.
5. Any conversation where Mariano Riviera is talked about as the greatest closer baseball has ever seen.(he probably is but according to most if not all panamanians the Yankees only win because of him.)
6. Speaking backwards: this came after a singer back in the 80′s called El Maleante (the thug) came out with a song where everything he sang he sang backwards so afterwards most panamanians started speaking backwards. Example “what’s up” is “que paso” which panamanians say “que sopa” or “calle” which is “street” turns into “llesca” or “playa” which is “beach” turns into “yaspla”.
7. Panamanians also love shortening words. They think or I think because I’m Panamanian that it helps in making our own spanish language unique. For example the phrase “what is happening” when greeting someone you say “wapin”. Most panamanians speak really fast so they love to be able to make up words that allow us to speak faster.
“Boxing Matches for free”, although is a concept that applied only in the US, so far, local tv managed to keep boxing matches in public tv for free (at least as long as I remember) and always become a good excuse, specially if there is a panamanian in that ring. How he performed, that’s another story for monday’s newspapers.
How about all the fucking electricity Panamanian women use to get their hair straight via 3 hours under a Hair Dryer/Blower. No matter how intertwined, nappy or curly the hair, if you blow dry it long enough it will get straight. ask any Panamanian hair dresser or any Panamanian female, for that matter….
I agree with Carlitos Panagringo’s post….I don’t think I read anything about eating sancocho at Niko’s at 4am!
Also, we like hand gestures when people are telling a story. If you don’t do hand gestures when you talk, you’re a total gringo. And we also pout and move our head up and down real quick when are pointing at something.
Car stickers also follow fashion trends…
We love playing domino. At the beach. With ceviche and beer…
And women are always in search of the perfect hair treatment that will make their hair look like Jennifer Aniston’s, no matter how much it costs!
Where were you born? as in, which hospital? is also a topic of conversation amongst teenagers.
A video clip about most common Panamanian sounds would also be helpful to foreigners. That would be embracing Panamanian customs at its fullest…haha I can’t even type the sounds, except for “joooo!”
Eating Pio Pio when you are on your way to the beach is totally cool, but eating Pio Pio in the city is uncool…
Raspaos will always be a favorite, even when you hear stories (always a friend of a friend of a relative…) of people getting hepatitis!
Also….”Pescao frito con patacones en el Chorrillo” is a concept to be familiarized with.
Always tie the bag of bread with a knot, don’t use the flimsy metal strips that come with the bag.
Funny blog, but I would categorize it as what yeyesitos like, what cholos like, what racatacas like, the American things we like and the things we all like regardless of status!
Some Things Just Cholos Like: Pub Herrano, Seco + milk, baseball season, “blower”, calling each other cholo (as long as no one else does), colorful or shiny belts, hair gel, putting baby powder on their chest, La Feria de La Chorrera, and karaoke.
You are missing something very important panamanians like, those stick men stickers they put on the rear window of their cars depicting all of their family and pets and the hobbies or things they are into. Oh and the apple logo bumper sticker that is meant to make any trashy car into a cool technologically ‘in’ gadget car with a hip owner inside it.
Panamanians LOVE to cheat on their women.
Sandra:
I guess they “cheat on their women” with you since most white American women believe every man is much better sexually than a white American male. If it is not a black man, a latino, an Arab,Indian, etc.
Just in case you just woke up from your sleep under a rock, Men from most cultures, Cheat.
You are forgetting the main thing here:
Carnival, or simply, people getting wet with a hose in a country where clean water is a luxury in some places.
Reggaeton: Panamanian-invented music that sounds like reggae-mixed-with-rap-and-hip-hop and always sounds the same, with enough homophobic lyrics to scare a skinhead heavy metal band.
Panamanians like:
1. Going to kids’ parties and eating dry, overly frosted cake, Jell-o, and Estrella Azul ice cream on the same plate BEFORE dinner, which almost always consists of yellow rice with chicken in it and fuchsia-colored potato salad (courtesy of the mixed in beets).
2. Sitting around said kids’ parties stone-faced and dressed to the nines while waiting for the hostess to circle the room serving individual crackers with a dollop of tuna fish.
3. Polyester.
4. Sporting evening wear in the day time.
5. Twirling their wrists and (sometimes simultaneously) wrinkling their noses instead of just saying, “What are you doing,” “Where are you going,” “What’s going on,” or “What are you talking about?”
6. Stating the obvious.
7. Getting answers to rhetorical questions.
8. Being in other people’s personal space. (If I can feel your breath on the back of my neck while standing in line at Super 99 then you’re too close.)
Haha, I don’t know how I found this, but as a Panamanian (born and raised) I think this stuff is for sure true! I really don’t think it’s offensive.
For example, I’m so fucking tired of people honking so much!!
I like a lot of this, but we need to start having some social responsibility in this country. The population is not two million people anymore. If we dont start to organize ourself, we will be doing the same thing when we are 5 million, 6 million, etc… and then this place will be intolerable.
Other things Panamanians like:
- We like songs that use obcenity for shock value over and over!
- Most people like using big words. The more formal the setting, the bigger the words and the less meaning their is (just watch the Asamblea debates).
Panamanians like not to show up for work when they are expected to do so … In Panama, a “good” worker is a worker that shows up. A “regular worker” is one that shows up from time to time and a “bad worker” is one that almost never shows up. Why doesn’t a Panamanian worker use his/her cellphone to let one know that he/she couln’t make it (?) Initially I thought that perhaps it was because cellphone calls were too expensive; but this is not the reason, because even when I ask them to send me “una perdida” (a lost call) I never get one, so I cannot find out whether or why he/she cannot make it for work.
I am a panamanian living in Canada and I am telling you, I am LMAO reading the blogs!!! I also let my friends read it so that they can learn what’s it like to be panamanian…keep up the good work, cholos!