China is having its way with Costa Rica. A few months ago, at China’s insistence, Costa Rica dumped Taiwan in order to form a new relationship with The Big Guy. Taiwan had been good to Costa Rica, built them a Friendship Bridge, never did anything harmful or even rude. Tough luck. China is a more prestigious trade partner and has tons more money to give to a beggar state. Bye bye Taiwan (in the middle of the night with no warning, muy humillando), Hello China.
The first thing China did was promise to pay for a new soccer stadium for Costa Rica. Say no more: Costa Rica "R" soccer. Everyone is all excited about the new stadium. So excited, in fact, they went to work on it straight away. Not seven months later, the old one is already torn down! Seven months. That’s gotta be a record.
Nothing happens straightaway in Costa Rica. Nothing. They’ve been trying to get a road finished from Puriscal to Jacó for something like 30 years. There’s a list of projects that have been years, decades, in the making. But Costa Rica keeps running out of money for its own projects. China, in the spirit of Friendship, enters bearing an envelope of cash: $60,000,000 in small unmarked bills. That’s only for the stadium, though. Nothing for those unfinished roads or roofs or bridges. Just fútbol!
Ok. Nobody asked me for my opinion. Sanctimony "R" me. Whatever. And they don’t care how we do it up north. We got a good chuckle at this headline:
New National Stadium To Have Only 400 Parking Spaces For 35,000 Fans
The Estadio Ricardo Saprissa stadium, followed by the Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto, home of La Liga, are a perfect example of poor planning of a stadium, especially when it comes to parking, where there only parking is provided by adjoining land owners who offer their porches and lawns for high prices.
The new Estadio Nacional … that will soon rise over the land that housed the old Estadio Nacional for decades, will be no different, as only a few hundred visitors who arrive real early will be able to park their cars in the stadium lot.
The new stadium is expected to hold 35,175 people, but will have room for only 400 vehicles in the parking lot. Continue reading here…
Actually, 400 spaces for 35,000 seats is not so ridiculous in Costa Rica, like it might be in New York. At least two to a car so 17,500 cars max. There probably aren’t 17,500 cars driven by die-hard soccer fans in the country. And, since most people go everywhere with their entire families, you have to figure at least 5 people to a car so we are already down to 7,000 cars, even if every family who went to a game drove.
But at least two thirds of those game-goers aren’t going to drive because at least two thirds of Costa Rica’s population doesn’t drive. So, we are down to 2,300 cars. Just 1,900 parking spaces short. Hardly seems worth mentioning.
What is worth mentioning is the other recent China debacle. The Dalai Lama was supposed to visit Costa Rica. Had his ticket and everything. He was here in 2004. Looks like he liked it!
But China asked Costa Rica to refuse him entry and, to its shame, Costa Rica complied. Adding insult to injury, Arias tried to hide why he did it. China fessed up, though. They don’t care what anyone thinks.
So Costa Rica dumped Taiwan and the Dalai Lama for money and a soccer stadium. A definite fall from grace.
No good deed will go unpunished!
That seems to be the case with Taiwan and the Dali Lama.
One of my husband’s favorite expressions. Sad.
A year ago, I blogged about boycotting China. Little did I know, CR would bed up with them. Now, it’s impossible to avoid products made in China, they’re everywhere. Even then CocaCola cans have Chinese written on them. Sad day indeed.
So glad you did a post about it and how silly CR can be to sell out when it comes to their beloved soccer. You didn’t mention the declared ‘China area’ in San Jose I read about recently. I’d love to hear more about this from your ‘we don’t care how they do it up north’ point of view. Love your blog. Refer to it often and tell many about it. Keep it up. Teri
Yeah, getting our very own chinatown:
http://www.costaricapages.com/blog/costa-rica-news/plans-for-chinatown/902
There’s no stopping this. Arias is in on the game, just like the U.S. He’s also discovered the Fun & Profitable Drug War: breaking into houses, confiscating everything in sight. Power corrupts.
Oh that so sucks. And won’t be good. ick.
Yes, we noticed this change with the for sale sign on the Taiwan Residency. Wouldn’t have been how I would have done it, but I am not in charge (thank God). Separating the Chinese PEOPLE from the Chinese government is an important thing. In the year we have been here, I have seen more Chinese people here. And there are many stores run by the Chinos that are even open on….gasp…Sunday. When so many Chinese come here, looking for oppurtunities and businesses, I think they will eat the Costa Ricans and their laid back, inefficient ways alive. Just change, but it not only will be occuring in the choices made by the government, but in the day to day ways. Now with Chinese competition to the small CR business and Hipermas on the other side, how long do you think the little corner stores will survive? Business is Business.
I think the pulperias are a little safer here because so many people don’t have cars so they have to walk to their grocery. That will keep them alive a little longer. My dad’s family owned a wholesale grocery in KY. When Kroger appeared, the little mom and pops went out of business and so did my dad. He eventually started another business, but it was a hard reality to face.
I get behind the idea of Karma when I read about the total lack of conscious and intelligent decision making in which most governments are involved. IF I ran my household like politicians run their city,states,provinces,countries, pueblos, municipalidads, my dog wouldn’t eat and he’d be p.o.’d. I couldn’t afford the important commodities like my RACSA connection of 12.6kbps. Squandering rather than stewardship will ultimately involve the powerful source of balancing that the Dalai knows about, he knows. The big bank karma.
Hopefully, I’m makin’ my deposits…