The friendly vibes were flowing Tuesday night as trivia teams huddled around tables at Rosarito bar on Avenida Chapultepec in Guadalajara. The impromptu and very international teams of mostly youngish people seemed happy to engage in something strictly for fun, as organizer Nate Perlow worked to entertain and challenge them with questions about that night’s topics.
On general trivia nights, “one category is always Mexico,” said Perlow, a young Nebraskan who has been organizing trivia nights here for over two years. On Tuesday, he called out questions in English and excellent Spanish, while team captains scribbled answers, after conferring with team members in hushed voices. Some nights are devoted to themes such as Harry Potter.
The bar music was turned down at Rosarito, a cheery establishment with a cheery young American owner, Jon Davidson, who was hosting trivia night there for the first time. The pace of Perlow’s questions was relaxed, allowing time to order food and drink, and to exchange friendly questions, normally on the order of “Where were you born?” and “What brought you to Guadalajara?”
The answers were indeed diverse: France, Mexico and the United States led the list of birthplaces. The champion answer to the second question was “My father came to Mexico from Bulgaria with his puppet theater group and married my mom here.”
One 60-ish, third-generation Mexican-American who speaks no Spanish was present with his daughter, who had taken pains to learn Spanish in her California high school. But most participants were comfortably bilingual or trilingual.
Please login or subscribe to view the complete article.