Went to a bullfight last Sunday, with one of my teachers and a Japanese student. When I mentioned the idea of seeing a fight at school all the europeans pulled the politically correct faces, and murmered stuff about cruelty and so forth. The Japanese guy almost wet himself and was keen as wasabi to go and see it. You know what cruel fuckers the Japanese are, like spearing dolphins and the like, so he was pretty much in his element. So armed with his really expensive Japanese camera we met in the middle of town and had a few beers. My teacher is called Svetlana, and enjoys a beer or three, so no surprise when we got to the bull ring she picked seats overlooking the place where there were selling beer, so one had only to shout “oy” and wave a $50 peso not to be handed beer in a trice. We also sat above the place the bulls come out of, which was great. It was a nice warm day, but not to hot. The place filled up early as you pay your ticket, then it’s first come first served for the good seats. There was a mariachi band playing, lots of people walking round in cowboy hats, and men wandering round selling dubious sausages and beer. I was surprised to see that they let kids in, but hey this is Mexico.
For anyone who never went to a bullfight, and is curious, here is how it goes. There were three teams of toreadors, a team being the head man ( the matador ) three assistants who run around with capes and wilden the bull up, and a couple of fat-so blokes on horse back who are the picadors and it seems they get a very easy job, but more later.
OK, they get the bull into a little pen, which we were sitting over and could see into. The bull is waiting to come out. So they put a rosette on it, like the owner’s brand, then two blokes poke it with sharp sticks to make it mad. Having upset the bull, they then open the gate and it comes out like a scalded pig and runs around at the guys with the capes who torment it for about 5 minutes. Then the matador steps in and torments the bull some by making it run at his cape and dodging out of the way. After about 10 minutes of that he turns his back on the bull and gives one of them nods of the head and holds out his arms like the big “I am” and the crowd go wild.
Next the matador gets some sticks with feathers on, look like feather dusters and runs at the bull and sticks em in his back. About six of these. The bull gets mad, and the assistants torment it for 5 minutes.
Next the fat guys on horseback come in, and one of em sticks a big long pole into the bull’s back. My teacher said it was to release the blood pressure, otherwise the bull could drop dead of being tormented. Maybe….
So anyway, next job is the matador picks up the sword and everybody gets excited. Seems tho this is a rubber sword or something, it’s just for show. So,a bit more cape play, then he goes back and gets the real sword, and everybody goes mad again. He plays with the bull a bit, then at last he sort of stares it in the eye, pauses for effect, and then bingo! One stab in the back or the neck, and he walks off all smug and everyone goes wild. Then he turns and watches it for a few seconds, then it drops dead. And everybody goes looney again.
Then there’s a bit of post match discussion, and the judges give him either:-
Nothing;
One ear;
Two ears;
Two ears AND the tail;
Well, the best fight we saw the guy got one ear, but Svetlana said he wuz robbed, and it was a two ear job at least. The crowd didn’t like it, they started chanting “dos orejas” ( which you can guess means “two ears” ). The other matches went pretty much the same til the last bull. This one was mad as hell, and it ran round like fury and jumped out of the ring and started chasing all the officials. The crowd went crazy. The Japanese guy almost had a fit and started taking snaps like his life depended on it.
Anyway, they got it back in, and after a minute or two it jumped the fence again. They got it back in and next thing it did was to tup two fellows. carried em across the ring and threw em in the air. Svetlana said that this was all faked, and they were professional bull baiters and this was part of the show. Since the Japanese guy speaks no English and even less Spanish, we couldn’t tell him it was faked, and anyway, he seemed very happy with it all.
The two hours passed very quickly and a good time was had by all humans.
On the way out we passed a stall where they were cutting the animals up and selling the meat, so it was quite ecological really.
Happy days!