Autoayuda

Portenos (people from the port city of Buenos Aires) have a well-documented fascination with self-help and self-exploration. As any guide book will tell you, there are more therapists per capita here than in any other city in the world (including New York!). Apparently this started in the 1940s, when Argentina under Juan Peron actively encouraged post-war immigration from Germany as a way to "improve" the racial composition of the country (and that's a story in itself). As eastern Europeans flowed into the country, they brought with them the tradition of Freudian analysis, and it spread like wildfire.

Today, you also see this desire for self-improvement showing up in other ways. For example, even the smallest bookstores have a significant "Autoayuda" (Self Help) section. Eastern philosophy (or perhaps Eastern Philosophy Lite) has also really taken off here as an alternative path to enlightenment; a surprising number of stores specialize in selling crystals, prayer beads, incense, Tibetan paraphrenalia, and books about the religions of Asia. New Age lingo has also penetrated the language here, as it has in the States. "Buenas ondas" - meaning "good waves" or "good karma" - is a common way to wish someone good luck. At first, I assumed this was an expression used only by the young and hip; however now that I've had a 70 year old taxi driver wish me "buenas ondas," I know differently.