2021.12.02 一个口袋妖怪角色如何改写智利的未来

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EYEWITNESS: CHILE
How a Pokémon character is rewriting Chile’s future
Giovanna Grandón had no interest in politics. Then she put on a Pikachu costume



Dec 2nd 2021
BY ANA LANKES


When Giovanna Grandón, a 46-year-old school-bus driver, shimmied down the streets of Santiago in a Pikachu costume two years ago, she had no idea how drastically her life was about to change. A few weeks earlier, her seven-year-old son Diego had accidentally set in motion a chain of events that would propel his mother to fame and give her the job of rewriting Chile’s constitution.

Diego had been playing on his father’s phone one evening while his parents had dinner with friends, and had ordered more than $700-worth of gadgets and Pokémon merchandise, most of them featuring Pikachu, the yellow mouse-like character from the Japanese animé franchise. His parents sold most of the items to their neighbours but decided to keep one purchase, an adult-sized inflatable Pikachu costume, thinking they might wear it for Halloween.

His mother couldn’t wait that long. Six days before Halloween, she decided that Pikachu would make the perfect outfit to wear to a protest: on October 25th 2019, more than a million people marched through the streets of Santiago, railing against Chile’s government. The catalyst for the demonstration – the biggest in the country’s history – was a hike in metro fares, but discontent had been building for years.


Chile became a democracy in 1990 after Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year dictatorship. But in recent years, trust in institutions has nosedived, especially among the young. Corruption scandals discredited politicians; many people felt the government was not doing enough to address severe inequalities. Although Chile’s economy has grown, heavily privatised education, health care and pension systems have exacerbated discrepancies: life expectancy for a woman born in the poorest part of Santiago is nearly 18 years lower than for a woman born in the richest one, according to a study in the Lancet in 2019.

Videos of her dressed as Pikachu, dancing to the beat of pots and pans, went viral

Grandón aimed to “bring some joy” to the protest, and she succeeded: videos of her dressed as Pikachu, dancing to the beat of pots and pans, went viral, especially one where she tripped over a kerb and picked herself up. Hundreds of thousands of people watched the clip on YouTube and she got 10,000 Instagram followers in less than a week. On a subsequent protest, one banner read: “If Pikachu fell over and kept on dancing, how can we not go on marching?”

The demonstrations continued for weeks, some turning violent. Many of Santiago’s metro stations were set alight; shops and even churches were looted or vandalised. Sebastián Piñera, Chile’s president, declared a state of emergency and sent the army onto the streets for only the second time since the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship. Protestors were shot at and sprayed with tear gas – hundreds were injured. The Chilean police were condemned around the world for using excessive force.

Yet “Tia Pikachu” (Auntie Pikachu), as Grandón became known, kept dancing. Despite repeated drenching by water cannons and being shot in the foot with a rubber bullet (it left a hole in her shoe), she continued to take part in protests. Once, she was walking down the street with a friend wearing an inflatable dinosaur costume, when six armed police officers tackled her to the ground and spritzed her in the face with pepper spray. She has had to buy four more Pikachu costumes since the first one because each has been “destroyed by pacos [a derogatory term for police]”.




In an attempt to quell the protests, the Chilean government made a promise: it would throw out the country’s much-reviled constitution, drafted by technocrats in 1980, for a new one written by publicly elected delegates. For 30 years the constitution had been a focal point for social discontent: it made it hard for left-wing governments to pass new laws, gave the army seats in parliament until 2005 and made Pinochet a senator for life (a post he held until his arrest for crimes against humanity in 1998). “This was a constitution conceived in sin,” says Rossana Castiglioni, an academic from Santiago, summing up the problem many Chileans have with the constitution.


Excited by the prospect of reform, Grandón used her new-found fame to drum up support for a people’s constitution. She painted her school bus yellow and stuck a Pikachu snout on the front, travelling across the country to soup kitchens, schools and public plazas, where Grandón’s fans would come to meet her, often in fancy dress.

In a referendum in October 2020, more than three-quarters of the population voted to redraft the constitution. The referendum showed how divided the country was: almost all those who rejected the proposal lived in the three richest neighbourhoods in Santiago. When they heard the result, many Chileans danced and partied on the street.

When a friend of Grandón’s first suggested she should run for the constitutional delegation which would rewrite Chile’s future, she refused. “I told him no, I am not educated, I grew up in a squat, people like me don’t go into politics,” she said. “But he [said] that’s what this is about, you bring knowledge from the street.” She decided to give it a shot, and joined List of the People, a coalition of independent candidates.

“I told him no, I am not educated, I grew up in a squat, people like me don’t go into politics”

She describes her campaign as “a call to change the system: that the most humble people should not vote for the richest and the most educated, but rather that the humble should vote for the humble, someone like me who knows about real life in Chile.” “People didn’t want the same politicians as [before],” she said. Many voters pledged their support after finding out she was an independent.

Grandón beat a celebrity therapist and the head of Chile’s federation of trade unions. Even her adversaries were impressed: a police officer who stopped her last year to check her identity card called her “the walking revolution”.

The modest two-storey house where Grandón and her family live is in Peñalolén, a poor area of Santiago half an hour’s drive from where the convention of delegates is debating the new constitution. We sit on her patio as she takes a rare break while two of her four children play “SpongeBob SquarePants” games on a console inside (at one point, someone shouts “Mom! We just discovered a secret universe behind the rock!”). Around our feet yaps Grandón’s miniature schnauzer, Princess Peach, whose temperament is far from regal.




The family has lived in the house for ten years. Grandón and her husband, Jorge, were at school together; they got married while they were still at school, without telling their parents. They needed to earn money fast, so Grandón worked as a street-vendor, selling shoes, watches and cds. Jorge got a job as a security guard, later packing that in to work on his wife’s market stall. They would steal kisses on street corners in their spare time. They only revealed their marriage to their parents after a year.

The couple worked seven days a week, from 5am till 10pm (they finished at 6pm at weekends). “These are the sacrifices the poor must make,” says Grandón. For two years they lived in a shed with a dirt floor in her in-laws’ garden. Later they decided to invest all their savings in two school buses, which each of them would drive. Grandón’s mother was the bus conductor, making sure the children behaved themselves.

The business brought in around 1m pesos a month ($1,230), more than the minimum wage but tight for a family of six. Still, they were able to build a second floor on their house and a fence around the property; Grandón made the kitchen units herself. The couple bought furniture and ornaments in the flea-market where they used to pitch their stall: Turkish hanging lamps, cream sofas, little glass tables and small wooden baskets.

“I hope people realise now that you can really change things at the ballot box”

Like many Chileans, the couple is in debt. They recently took out a $7,000 loan to pay for therapists and extra tuition for two of their sons who have learning difficulties, and to fund university fees for their 26-year-old daughter. Private education is popular, even among less well-off families in Chile, because state provision is so poor. The government spends less on each school child than in most of the oecd, a club of mostly rich nations.

A large middle class has emerged in recent decades, but it is precarious: illness or losing a job can soon throw a family back into poverty. When schools closed during the pandemic, the Grandóns’ business was battered. The authorities came to repossess the couple’s belongings because they didn’t pay their electricity bills on time. They had to withdraw money from their pension to get the cash. Even now, their income hasn’t recovered as some parents, scared of covid, are keeping their kids off school – and the couple’s buses.

Two years ago the family was so fed up they considered leaving the country for Uruguay, which is like Latin America’s Switzerland – one of its richest, most equal and best-functioning societies. “There are no opportunities in Chile,” Grandón says. “You have to break your back to get by here. We never saw anyone sleeping on the street in Uruguay.”




It took Grandón a long time to make the link between her personal struggles and politics. Before 2019 she had voted only once in her life, for an outsider presidential candidate. “I wasn’t very interested in politics. I had to focus on my work, on my day-to-day.” She wasn’t alone in feeling apathetic. According to one United Nations study, between 1990 and 2016 Chile saw the largest drop in electoral participation of any country apart from Madagascar. The protests – and the politicians’ response to them – made Grandón realise “there was hope that things could finally change.”

Grandón is not the only convention delegate without a background in politics. More than half of the 155 seats went to independent candidates; established parties mustered only 62 seats, and another 17 were reserved for representatives of indigenous people, who make up around 12% of the population. Grandón’s colleagues include a professional chess player, a deep-sea diver, a mechanic, a shaman and a costume designer. Chile’s parliament had stipulated that there should be an equal number of male and female delegates – in the end so many women were elected that administrators had to positively discriminate in favour of men.


The convention got off to a rocky start when it first met on July 4th. “Nobody on the left reached out to anyone on the right,” says Patricio Fernández, a centre-left delegate. “They didn’t even share glances. It was as if the right were poisoned.” But as delegates got to know each other, the mood gradually softened. Fernández has spotted left-wing independents having lunch with right-wing delegates.

Rewriting the rules that govern a country is complicated. Delegates are split into commissions, each of which looks at a different aspect of government. Grandón sits on the commission for fundamental rights, charged with deciding whether Chileans should have a constitutional right to services like education, housing and health care. Other delegates are discussing granting greater autonomy to indigenous groups, and the advantages of shifting from a presidential to parliamentary system.

The convention has eight months left to complete a draft constitution, which will be put before voters in another referendum later next year. Grandón is nervous that the public mood has changed. “People’s memory is short – we experienced euphoria around the constitutional referendum, but few people go out to protest anymore.”

These days Grandón has mostly abandoned her Pikachu costume for ordinary clothes, and with it some of her previous popularity. When I met Grandón at work, our conversation was interrupted by an old man shouting: “Bureaucrats, liars, corruptos, donkeys! We don’t need you technocrats, cynics, hypocrites, Pinochetistas!” In October, when Grandón did a meet-and-greet in Santiago, people in the crowd hurled stones and spat at her, accusing her of being a sell-out for being willing to work with right-wingers. “They are jealous,” says Grandón. It’s worse, she says, for her husband and daughter, who run her social-media accounts and see cruel comments: “I’ve been called everything – I get lots of ‘fuck yous’ and people calling me a vieja culiada [old bitch].”

She suspects right-wing propaganda has harmed the convention’s reputation. The List of the People, the ticket on which Grandón originally ran, has also been beset by scandal: one of its leaders lied about having cancer, and its presidential candidate was disqualified after committing electoral fraud. Grandón is now fully independent.

Chile’s future is on a knife-edge. On November 21st, José Antonio Kast, a far-right candidate who opposed rewriting the constitution, won the first round of Chile’s presidential election. Grandón, who compares Kast to Donald Trump, is confident that he will lose the presidential run-off on December 19th. “I hope people realise now that you can really change things at the ballot box.”

Grandón sees her role as making sure that Chile’s politicians honour the work of the convention. “If they don’t implement what we wrote, we will carry on this fight using the law.” Despite some vocal criticism of the delegates’ project, she still believes that the vast majority of people want change – and want Chile finally to abandon the legacy of its long dictatorship: “They don’t live a privileged lifestyle, like those on the right. There are more of us who want to construct a new country.”■

Ana Lankes is The Economist’s Argentina and Chile correspondent

PHOTOGRAPHS: TAMARA MERINO




目击者：智利
一个口袋妖怪角色如何改写智利的未来
Giovanna Grandón对政治没有兴趣。然后她穿上了皮卡丘的服装



2021年12月2日
作者：ANA LANKES


两年前，当46岁的校车司机乔凡娜-格兰东(Giovanna Grandón)穿着皮卡丘的服装在圣地亚哥的街道上晃动时，她不知道她的生活将发生多么巨大的变化。几周前，她七岁的儿子迭戈意外地引发了一连串事件，使他的母亲一举成名，并让她担任重写智利宪法的工作。

一天晚上，当他的父母与朋友共进晚餐时，迭戈一直在玩他父亲的手机，并订购了价值700多美元的小玩意和神奇宝贝商品，其中大部分是日本动画片中的黄色老鼠形象--皮卡丘。他的父母将大部分商品卖给了邻居，但决定保留一件商品，即一件成人尺寸的充气皮卡丘服装，认为他们可能会在万圣节穿上它。

他的母亲等不了那么久。在万圣节前六天，她决定皮卡丘将成为参加抗议活动的完美装备：2019年10月25日，超过一百万人在圣地亚哥的街道上游行，抨击智利政府。这次示威的催化剂--该国历史上最大规模的示威--是地铁票价的上涨，但不满情绪已经持续了多年。


在奥古斯托-皮诺切特17年的独裁统治之后，智利于1990年成为一个民主国家。但近年来，人们对机构的信任度直线下降，尤其是在年轻人中。腐败丑闻使政治家们名誉扫地；许多人认为政府在解决严重的不平等现象方面做得不够。虽然智利的经济有所增长，但严重私有化的教育、医疗保健和养老金制度加剧了差异：根据2019年《柳叶刀》杂志的一项研究，出生在圣地亚哥最贫穷地区的妇女的预期寿命比出生在最富有地区的妇女的预期寿命低近18年。

她打扮成皮卡丘，随着锅碗瓢盆的节拍跳舞的视频在网上流传。

Grandón旨在为抗议活动 "带来一些欢乐"，她成功了：她打扮成皮卡丘，随着锅碗瓢盆的节拍跳舞的视频走红网络，尤其是她被路边石绊倒并扶起自己的一段视频。数十万人在YouTube上观看了这段视频，在不到一周的时间里，她在Instagram上有一万名粉丝。在随后的抗议活动中，一个横幅写道。"如果皮卡丘摔倒了还在继续跳舞，我们怎么能不继续游行呢？"

示威活动持续了数周，有些变成了暴力事件。圣地亚哥的许多地铁站被点燃；商店甚至教堂被洗劫或破坏。智利总统塞巴斯蒂安-皮涅拉(Sebastián Piñera)宣布进入紧急状态，并派遣军队上街，这只是皮诺切特独裁统治结束以来的第二次。抗议者遭到枪击和催泪瓦斯喷洒--数百人受伤。智利警察因过度使用武力而受到全世界的谴责。

然而，格兰东被称为 "Tia Pikachu"（皮卡丘阿姨）的人继续跳舞。尽管多次被水炮淋湿，并被橡皮子弹击中脚部（在她的鞋子上留下一个洞），她仍继续参加抗议活动。有一次，她和一个朋友穿着充气恐龙的服装走在街上，六个武装警察把她扑倒在地，用胡椒喷雾喷在她的脸上。自第一件服装以来，她不得不再买四件皮卡丘服装，因为每件都被 "pacos[警察的贬义词]破坏了"。






为了平息抗议活动，智利政府做出了一个承诺：它将扔掉1980年由技术官僚起草的备受诟病的国家宪法，换上由公选代表撰写的新宪法。30年来，这部宪法一直是社会不满的焦点：它使左翼政府难以通过新的法律，使军队在议会中的席位一直到2005年，并使皮诺切特成为终身参议员（在他1998年因反人类罪被捕之前一直担任这一职务）。圣地亚哥的一位学者罗萨纳-卡斯蒂里奥尼（Rossana Castiglioni）说："这是一部在罪恶中孕育的宪法，"他总结了许多智利人对宪法的看法。


由于对改革的前景感到兴奋，格兰东利用她新发现的名声为人民宪法争取支持。她把自己的校车涂成黄色，并在车头贴上皮卡丘的鼻子，在全国各地的施粥场、学校和公共广场巡回宣传，格兰东的粉丝们经常穿着奇装异服来迎接她。

在2020年10月的公投中，超过四分之三的人投票支持重新起草宪法。这次公投显示了国家的分裂程度：几乎所有拒绝提案的人都住在圣地亚哥最富有的三个街区。当他们听到这个结果时，许多智利人在街上跳舞和狂欢。

当格兰东的一个朋友第一次建议她应该参加改写智利未来的宪法代表团的竞选时，她拒绝了。"她说："我告诉他不行，我没有受过教育，我是在棚户区长大的，像我这样的人不会去从政。"但他[说]这就是事情的真相，你带来了来自街头的知识。" 她决定试一试，并加入了 "人民名单"，一个独立候选人联盟。

"我告诉他，不，我没有受过教育，我是在棚户区长大的，像我这样的人不会去从政"

她将自己的竞选活动描述为 "呼吁改变制度：最卑微的人不应该投票给最富有的人和受过最多教育的人，而应该把票投给卑微的人，像我这样了解智利真实生活的人"。"人们不想要和[以前]一样的政治家，"她说。许多选民在发现她是一名独立人士后承诺给予支持。

格兰东击败了一位知名的治疗师和智利工会联合会的负责人。即使是她的对手也对她印象深刻：去年，一名警察拦住她检查她的身份证，称她是 "行走的革命"。

格兰东和她的家人住在佩尼亚洛伦的一栋两层小楼里，这是圣地亚哥的一个贫困地区，离代表大会辩论新宪法的地方有半小时的车程。我们坐在她的天井里，她难得地休息一下，而她四个孩子中的两个在里面的游戏机上玩 "海绵宝宝 "游戏（有一次，有人喊道："妈妈！我们刚刚在岩石后面发现了一个秘密宇宙！"）。在我们的脚边，格兰东的迷你雪纳瑞犬 "桃子公主 "大叫着，它的性情远非高贵。







这家人在这所房子里已经住了十年了。格兰东和她的丈夫豪尔赫是同学；他们还在学校时就结婚了，没有告诉他们的父母。他们需要快速挣钱，因此格兰东在街头摆摊，卖鞋、手表和CD。豪尔赫找到了一份保安的工作，后来他把这份工作打包，在他妻子的市场摊位上工作。闲暇时，他们会在街头巷尾偷吻。他们在一年后才向父母透露他们的婚姻。

这对夫妇每周工作七天，从早上5点到晚上10点（周末6点结束）。"Grandón说："这些是穷人必须做出的牺牲。有两年时间，他们住在她公婆家花园里的一个带土炕的棚子里。后来，他们决定将所有的积蓄投资在两辆校车上，由他们各自驾驶。格兰东的母亲担任校车售票员，确保孩子们的行为规范。

这项业务每月带来约100万比索（1230美元）的收入，超过了最低工资标准，但对于一个六口之家来说，还是很紧张。尽管如此，他们还是能够在自己的房子上建一个二楼，并在房子周围建一个围栏；Grandón自己做了厨房单元。这对夫妇在他们曾经摆摊的跳蚤市场上购买家具和装饰品。土耳其吊灯、奶油沙发、小玻璃桌和小木篮。

"我希望人们现在意识到，你真的可以通过投票箱来改变现状"

像许多智利人一样，这对夫妇也负债累累。他们最近贷款7000美元，为两个有学习困难的儿子支付治疗师和额外的学费，并为他们26岁的女儿支付大学学费。私立教育很受欢迎，甚至在智利不太富裕的家庭中也是如此，因为国家提供的教育太差。政府在每个学生身上的花费比大多数经合组织国家要少，而经合组织是一个主要由富国组成的俱乐部。

近几十年来，一个庞大的中产阶级已经出现，但它是不稳定的：疾病或失去工作可能很快使一个家庭重新陷入贫困。当学校在大流行期间关闭时，Grandóns家的生意受到了打击。由于他们没有按时支付电费，当局来收回这对夫妇的财产。他们不得不从自己的养老金中提取现金。即使是现在，他们的收入也没有恢复，因为一些家长害怕贪污，不让孩子上学--也不让这对夫妇的巴士上学。

两年前，这个家庭已经受够了，他们考虑离开这个国家去乌拉圭，那里就像拉丁美洲的瑞士--最富有、最平等和功能最好的社会之一。"在智利没有任何机会，"格兰东说。"你必须打破你的背部才能在这里过活。我们在乌拉圭从未见过有人睡在大街上"。







Grandón花了很长时间才将她的个人斗争与政治联系起来。在2019年之前，她一生中只投过一次票，投给一个外来的总统候选人。"我对政治不是很感兴趣。我不得不专注于我的工作，专注于我的日常事务。" 她不是唯一感到冷漠的人。根据联合国的一项研究，在1990年至2016年期间，除马达加斯加外，智利的选举参与率是所有国家中下降最多的。抗议活动--以及政治家们对它们的反应--使格兰东意识到 "有希望，事情最终可以改变"。

格兰东不是唯一没有政治背景的大会代表。155个席位中的一半以上给了独立候选人；成熟的政党只获得了62个席位，另外17个席位是为占人口12%左右的原住民代表保留的。格兰东的同事包括一名职业棋手、一名深海潜水员、一名机械师、一名巫师和一名服装设计师。智利议会规定，男性和女性代表的人数应该相等--最终有如此多的女性当选，以至于行政人员不得不对男性进行积极的歧视。


大会在7月4日首次开会时，有了一个坎坷的开始。"中左翼代表帕特里西奥-费尔南德斯（Patricio Fernández）说："左翼没有人与右翼的人联系。"他们甚至连眼神都不交流。仿佛右派中了毒。" 但是，随着代表们的相互了解，气氛逐渐缓和。费尔南德斯发现，左翼独立人士与右翼代表共进午餐。

改写管理一个国家的规则是复杂的。代表们被分成几个委员会，每个委员会负责政府的一个不同方面。格兰东是基本权利委员会的成员，负责决定智利人是否应该拥有获得教育、住房和医疗保健等服务的宪法权利。其他代表正在讨论给予土著群体更大的自治权，以及从总统制转向议会制的好处。

大会还有8个月的时间来完成宪法草案，该草案将在明年晚些时候的另一次公投中提交给选民。格兰东对公众情绪的变化感到紧张。"人们的记忆是短暂的--我们在宪法公投时经历了兴奋，但现在很少有人出去抗议了。"

这些天来，Grandón大多放弃了她的皮卡丘服装，改穿普通衣服，随之而来的是她以前的一些人气。当我在工作中遇到格兰东时，我们的谈话被一个老人的喊声打断了。"官僚、骗子、腐败分子、驴子！我们不需要你们这些技术官僚。我们不需要你们这些技术专家、愤青、伪君子、皮诺切特主义者！" 10月，当Grandón在圣地亚哥举行见面会时，人群中有人向她投掷石块并吐口水，指责她愿意与右翼分子合作，是个出卖者。"格兰东说："他们是嫉妒。她说，对她的丈夫和女儿来说，情况更糟，他们管理她的社交媒体账户，看到了残酷的评论。"我什么都被骂--我收到很多'去你妈的'，还有人说我是老婊子。

她怀疑右翼的宣传已经损害了大会的声誉。格兰东最初参加竞选的 "人民名单 "也被丑闻所困扰：其领导人之一谎称自己患有癌症，其总统候选人因选举舞弊被取消资格。格兰东现在是完全独立的。

智利的未来正处于刀刃上。11月21日，反对改写宪法的极右翼候选人何塞-安东尼奥-卡斯特赢得了智利总统选举的第一轮。将卡斯特比作唐纳德-特朗普的格兰东相信，他将在12月19日的第二轮总统选举中失败。"我希望人们现在意识到，你真的可以通过投票箱来改变事情。"

格兰东认为她的角色是确保智利的政治家们尊重大会的工作。"如果他们不执行我们写的东西，我们将利用法律继续这场斗争"。尽管代表们的项目受到了一些强烈的批评，但她仍然相信，绝大多数人都希望改变--希望智利最终放弃其长期独裁统治的遗产。"他们并不像那些右派那样过着特权的生活。我们当中有更多的人想要建设一个新的国家。" ■。

Ana Lankes是《经济学人》杂志的阿根廷和智利记者。

照片：塔马拉-梅里诺