Outside the cities it's a bit better. Hitchhiking is common in Cuba and when we visited it was both fun and instructive to talk to the people to whom we offered a ride. Also talking to the people at CUP bars and restaurants like Dona Yulla was fun. We spoke Spanish though (or a mix of Spanish and Italian).
>to whom we offered a ride.
But this is a major difference. You approach a Cuban --> 99.9% normal person. They approach you, speaking English --> probably hustler.
It's not like that anymore. There are many Cubans who rent a room in their houses, so foreigners live with them and share with the family.
> The police arrest those who spend too much time with foreigners
It is possible, but I don't think it is very likely. I think those who can be arrested are doing some illegal activity, like selling tobacco or lobster. Generally these products are from the black market. In the city where I live there are always foreigners all year round and they coexist with Cubans normally.
As for arresting Cubans, I may have spoken too loosely. The government doesn't really have a problem with conversations between foreigners and Cubans here and there, or with people having a foreign friend. What the government is looking out for is someone who has a habit of talking to many different foreigners. Usually this is done for some illegal purpose: black market hustling, or sex work. But talking to a lot of different people is one of the things they use to check for that.
As an example, if a Cuban visits a foreign friend in one of those tourist rooms, they have to give up their internal passport to the host, who must record their visit in a log which the police review.
And like anything else, something which is tolerated can still cause problems. i.e. in much of the west, you can do drugs fairly safely, but you shouldn't wave it in a cop's face. So, if you are a Cuban and do have a foreign friend, you still have to be careful. Cuba has a system of neighbourhood government snitches that keep tabs on everyone. However, these have relaxed a bit I think.
I can say I never found Cubans hesitant to make friends with me while I worked there. But, Cubans always have to be careful about where the lines are, and not to cross them.
For more, have a look at all the replies to this question about my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23305332
This is news to me. Do you have a source for this claim?
[0] https://www.bestcubatravelguide.com/jineteros-and-jineteras/
First time, an obviously dodgy couple in Havana approached me at night shortly after I arrived. I will usually be friendly and talk with anyone without prejudice. I enjoy talking to grifters and operators, and I will happily pretend to be a victim when it amuses me to do so if I only risk a few dollars. I have travelled enough to be somewhat careful and how to look after myself; I speak conversational Spanish which helps; and I am a white New Zealander which often avoids trouble, and it honestly also helps get out of trouble. Police took the couple away shortly after I started talking with them, and I was very concerned. However I managed to track down the relevant police station. A tourist hanging in police station for hours probably caused the police some hassle (they hard out lied and tried to deceive me, but I wasn’t deterred), so eventually the couple were released at about 4AM, and I was able to find out what happened. He was pimping her (absolutely not my scene), and they had been fined about USD4 which I just gave them. I think normal salary was USD5 per week, so they would have taken ages to pay it.
After that hideous experience in Havana, I decided to go to one of the gated touristy beach areas where I presumed every local was vetted. I did speak with locals, but avoided anyone that I thought was dodgy. But apparently one guy was arrested for talking to foreigners, which had included me, although he just wanted to practice English as far as I know (I never had a reason to suspect him of a darker ulterior motive). His friends said there was nothing I could do to help and that it wasn’t a big issue (maybe just par for the course, normal life), but I felt really helpless.
Another time a woman told me to pay a cop USD5 or else the cop would rape her. It didn’t feel like a scam on her part, she was truely scared, and I certainly wasn’t willing to risk anything so I paid the extortion. I think my only fault in that case was being a tourist. I probably should have reported the officer, but I was too surprised at the time to notice any ID, and even now I am unsure if there would have been retribution on her.
I suspect that if a tourist only speaks English, they might be less likely to cause trouble, and they are less likely to be aware of any trouble they cause. Being in ones own tourist bubble is a normal thing for tourists, and is often encouraged (everyone has the incentive for tourists to enjoy themselves and spend money), and it is often difficult for tourists to interact with locals in any meaningful manner (especially given that in a poor country a tourist is often relatively a millionaire, and often in tourist areas).
I am sure Cuba has changed, but I am also sure that the same authoritarian structures are still in place.
Overall, Cuba was the worst country I have ever been to for a feeling of hopeless authoritarianism. As a tourist I felt mostly untouchable, but the grind of the people living there was horrific (warning, politics: I do blame the US blockade for a large part of that, especially because I think it helped Castro stay in power). I have other friends that loved travelling there, so YMMV.
Pretty sure they would have made that money and more with just one foreign client for whom they were the scene
That said, virtually anyone you met in Havana would be after something from you, even if just a drink. It seemed cultural, far beyond the normal percentage of hucksters a tourist might expect to find in a tourist area of a foreign country.
They were sometimes after money, but were taking risks of jail to get it (due to desperation). Hard to blame them when my disposable income might easily be more than 1000 times more than theirs. What I casually spend on a night out at home might be a year or more of savings for them.
I do try to be generous, especially in poor countries since it is easy to do so (I absolutely loath tourists bargaining over a few dollars when they are effectively millionaires in a locality, often bargaining with someone who really needs the income to feed their family). You soon learn to recognise when a person is truely desperate, versus locally very well off from tourist income.
That's the theory, in practice see the article.
One thing to know is that owners of private houses with tourist guestrooms will make you huge portions so that their family can eat some yummy CUC food, even if they are leftovers, rather than the state rations. So it's absolutely not bad manners to finish everything!
With the current diplomatic relationship between the USA and Cuba, hanging around Americans too much is likely cause for suspicion.
I imagine fraternizing with Maduro-Venezuelans is not cause for concern, nor Chinese. Not sure about North Koreans, I'd hope that North Koreans are always cause for concern for any secret service.
[1]:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/world/americas/cuba-judge...
Cubans who make their money only from official sources are desperately poor. Those with connections abroad, connections to tourism or to the black market are richer.
The money difference merely makes it tangible. And the government goes a long way to try to separate tourists from the real society, though you can still get to it if you care to.
Source: worked there for an ngo for a year
>basically everyone wants to be near tourists
This is actually just the surface veneer. Anyone who approaches you speaking english is a hustler and does it professionally.
Cubans in wider society are interested, but also wary. The police arrest those who spend too much time with foreigners.
The typical cuban keeps to themselves, but the typical tourist will meet endless, non-typical hustlers.