One + July 2011 - (Page 58)

DREW LEAVY/CREATIVE COMMONS Over the past 100 years the event has become the combined effort of city officials, folklorists and farmer-artists who specially grow radishes of up to 6.6 pounds. remembers a radish night when he was 15 years old. Served buñuelos on a clay plate, Cardenas ﬁnished his snack and then, to his surprise, was told to throw the plate down, breaking it on the ground. “I didn’t want to do it,” he remembers, but after the satisfying smash found that it was “super fun.” Cardenas says it is old traditions like these that, for him, preserve Oaxaca’s small-town feel. In fact, it’s that precise small-town friendliness that attracts visitors from the world over. Tourism is Oaxaca’s main industry, and its beaches—made famous in the ﬁlm Y Tu Mama Tambien—frequently attract meeting groups, especially the tourist-friendly Huatulco development, though there are several large hotels in Oaxaca City that can accommodate anywhere from 10 to 1,000 people. Guillermo Cardenas recommends the ﬁve-star Camino Real Oaxaca, a restored Spanish colonial property from the 16th century. But while Oaxaca was, like the rest of Mexico, colonized by Western Europeans for several hundred years, the state has maintained its indigenous pride and is notable for its 16 different ethnic groups and ﬁve native languages. The thousands of visitors who come to Oaxaca for radish night can ﬂy from Mexico City into the state’s domestic airport, just south of the capital city’s center. Access to sites such as Monte Alban, the ancient Zapotec capital, and Mitla, another historic archaeologi- 58 one+ 07.11 http://www.mpiweb.org/education/online

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of One + July 2011

One + July 2011
Contents
Energy of Many
Impressions
Paradigm Shifts, Part II
Web Watch
Agenda
Thoughts+Leaders
Ask the Experts
Recognizing Community and Organizational Excellence
Overheard
Art of Travel
The Prism Effect
Top Spots
Connections
Irrelevant
Using New Tech for Old Purposes
So You Think You Can Dance
Don’t Use Tech You Don’t Understand
Are You In It to Win It?
Anything is Possible
Night of the Radishes
Well Played
When People Come Together, Magic Happens
Size Matters
Building a Better FAM
One Bar at a Time
MPI + CSR
Industry Insights
Your Community
Making a Difference
Until We Meet Again

One + July 2011