“We invite the President of the Republic of China, Gabriel Boric, sorry, from Chile,” said the announcer of the official ceremony in the Mexican Senate, generating unison laughter, to welcome Thursday’s guest of honor in the Upper House, on his second day of touring the Aztec country.
Later, Boric would joke about the confusion of the countries, to point out that both Chile and China are located in the Asia Pacific basin, an area which, he repeatedly stressed, is where the future of world development lies today.
Even if the visit was supposed to last until Saturday, the surprise suspension of the Pacific Alliance summit curtailed plans. And the Chilean president had a hectic schedule.
While staying at the Presidente Intercontinental Hotel, he stayed in the Presidential Suite in a wing of the complex that was enclosed and had metal detector archways. A few blocks from there, in the Polanco district – one of the most exclusive in the city – he managed to have two free spaces, one hour each. Therefore he asked his companions to leave him alone and ran to a nearby bookstore to stock up on books, activity he commonly does when he goes on tour.
Indeed the president regretted not being able to go to the opening of the Guadalajara Book Fair on Saturday, one of the greatest events in Spanish-language literature.
Another striking point of the visit was the attention aroused by Irina Karamanos, the couple and socio-cultural director of La Moneda. Besides being erroneously presented to the National Palace and the Senate as the President’s “madam”, Karamanos was particularly “in demand” in the Upper House. So much so that it took him several minutes to get to her why Senators stopped her to take selfies and give her gifts, such as books or T-shirts.
Several times in his speech President Boric referred to the feminist policy of his government and from the front one of the parliamentarians greeted Karamanos, as if to congratulate her.
Karamanos also had parallel activities during his visit to Mexico. On Thursday afternoon, she was invited to participate in a discussion at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) called “Feminist Perspectives: Experiences as Change Agents”, organized by the Coordination for Gender Equality of the University.
The appointment with the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) also had its own. It was the president himself who gave him a tour of the national palace e He showed her the series of Diego Rivera murals featured. The Chilean president asked dozens of questions and spent several minutes contemplating the monumental works.
In private, Boric and AMLO shared experiences and His Mexican counterpart told him how he lived on September 11, 1973, when he was 19 years old. (Today he is 69 years old). He was a political science student at UNAM and that day, when they learned of the coup against Salvador Allende, they went down to the school playground and wrote messages of solidarity on a blackboard. Boric personally invited him the following year to participate in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup in Santiago.
Also The joke that Boric made to AMLO attracted media attention at the joint conference on Wednesday evening. The Mexican president spent many minutes on his answers and his Chilean counterpart joked about them.
As he spoke, Boric looked directly at him with evident warmth from the television spotlights. When a reporter asked Boric a question, he replied: “I already understand why the conferences in Mexico last so long, between the energy of the President and the questions that are asked to write a thesis of answers”, generating laughter.
The local newspaper El Financiero titled the episode thus: Boric ‘takes a cheek’ to AMLO: ‘Now I understand why your lessons last so long.’” In Chilean it would be like making fun of someone.
