Titles

I know I've mentioned this before, but it still jumps out at me as a major difference. I've mentioned that a popular part of introductions is explaining what you "are"- your profession. Where as in the US, you are what you do, here in Ecuador, you are what you studied. That would make me a Spanish-speaking Politologist/Economist/Anthropologist, so I usually pick whichever subject I studied that makes me seem the most prepared for the specific class when we do introductory presentations, which I've noticed has caused some confusion in my classmates who have multiple classes with me, but oh well.

Anyway, aside from that, there are some other differences I've noticed, mostly in the addressing of professors and other people of respect. In reflecting on my experience at Puget Sound, I'm remembering that I almost always addressed my professors by their first names, with the exception of a few very established and distinguished professors that I might address as Professor Last Name, but really I can only think of one. Here, that seems to be mostly NOT the norm. I've mostly heard professors addressed as "Profe", or "Profesor", but the other day a student addressed the professor as "Economista", which is what he IS, but certainly not what I would call him, unless I was presenting him in a televised interview. This made me realize that I've heard this before, such as when another student in a different class addressed the (different) professor as "Doctor", and I realized that he had a doctorate degree.

Amongst the Rotarians, it's a different kind of title-centric naming. When I've spoken to my host Rotarian's secretary, she exclusively refers to him as "El Ingeniero"- the engineer. That would never fly in the US, especially because he's the VP of a big bank- if anything, I'd call him "El Bancario"! Many of the Rotarians have engineering degrees, so it's almost absurd how many of them are referred to as el ingeniero.

The other common title (not among Rotarians!) is licenciado- licensed. Someone is licenciado when they complete the first four years of their University degree, and then they become titulado- titled- with their profession when they finish their thesis.

I mentioned this to Alvaro, and he said that this is very typical of tropical ("banana producing") countries, more so than in the Southern Cone. This got me thinking- why? Maybe because their less developed economies mean fewer people get university degrees, making the calling of someone by their title (received from the University) much rarer, and deserving of much more respect?