Ask the gringo in Brazil

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I thought this thread might be of some interest, as South America doesn’t seem to get much representation here.

I’m 28, male, European, and have been living in Brazil for three years. That doesn’t sound like much, but I’m married to a Brazilian and living and working like a “normal” lower-middle-class Brazilian as opposed to living the expat life - in fact, off the top of my head I think I only know 3 other expats here at the moment.

I’m in Rio de Janeiro, where I’ve lived for most of my time here. I also spent 6 months in Brasília, the capital, where I was connected to a diplomatic mission, and so am a bit more “clued in” to politics, the reality of government policies, and the day-to-day functioning of government here than the average José (Brasília is fairly cut off from the rest of the country, and the government likes to keep it that way). While in Brasília I had daily contact with diplomats, regular interaction with all sorts of public officials, and some minor and very brief encounters with ex-presidents and senators.

Here in Rio I work with IT and translation at a startup connected to a major European company.

I enjoy history, nature, and Brazilian music, and since I’ve settled down here, I’m interested in (indeed, invested in) Brazil’s future. There’s a famous decades-old wisecrack that “Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be” - i.e. it has enormous potential that it’s never lived up to.

Well, that’s the introduction out of the way. Fire away, and I’ll do my best to answer anything you’d like to know!

2

What is the biggest culture shock you have had since you moved to Brazil? What mundane things are very different than you were expecting? What things are oddly similar despite your expectations?

3

Does the average dude (e.g. not a tourist or an obviously rich man with a lot of jewelry) walking in the middle of the afternoon on a main street in Rio de J. have as much to worry about from pickpockets as I’ve heard?

What’s your favorite new/Brazilian food?

4

Where in Europe are you from (or were you being intentionally vague)? Did you go to Brazil initially on a diplomatic or work assignment? How difficult was it to get permission to work? Did you meet your wife there, and did you already speak Portuguese? How long do you plan to stay, or is Brazil now your permanent home?

-VT (living in the U.S., but also married to a Brazilian for 16 years)

5

Biggest culture shock: The jeitinho brasileiro, the “Brazilian way”. Here, especially when dealing with government, notaries, or banks, “no” doesn’t hardly ever mean “no”, it means “I can’t be bothered”. In Africa where I grew up, that in turn translated to “give me a bribe or wait 6 weeks”, but here it means you have to kindly, sweetly, but insistently say “really? You sure? There’s no way?” until they do their jobs just to get you out of there so they can go back to doing nothing. So really, the jeitinho means that the way forward is to behave like a slick, charming guy who’s in on the secret.

Secondary culture shock - NOTHING can be resolved by email, normally you won’t even get a response - not even from online shops. When dealing with government, phoning doesn’t work either - you won’t get an answer to your questions, or if you do, it’ll be wrong. You always have to show up in person. Yes, that means that if you need to deal with visa issues, you have to go to the Federal Police at the airport and get in line at 0400.

Another one - there’s no shame in doing anything half-assed, for some reason.

Mundane things that are different: I can’t get any hot spices! I haven’t seen chili peppers for years, and could only get curry when my parents brought it with them on a visit. There’s no place with spicy food here - the “tex-mex” restaurants don’t actually have any chili, there are NO indian restaurants, and the handful of Chinese places I’ve gone to serve fairly bland dishes, sadly.

I’m also surprised that there is so little interest in the rest of the world, except for the US (specifically Miami and New York) for shopping. Despite being such a multicultural country, the reminiscence of the “old country” (whether it be Portugal, Italy, Germany, or the African sources of slaves) is very limited or non-existent to most people.

Oddly similar - well, Brazil is outwardly extremely religious compared to northern Europe, and fairly religious on a global scale, I guess - but in daily life, it doesn’t seem to play any role at all. I mean, many “catholics” will celebrate saints’ feast days and go to church fairly regularly, but I’ve yet to meet one who gives a rat’s ass about the pope (even the ex-nuns I know), and for example the theoretical prohibition against contraception is totally ignored, thank goodness. So, perhaps paradoxically, faith doesn’t actually effect peoples’ daily behaviour - much like my day-to-day experience in Europe. (all bets are off regarding hardcore evangelical christians, though. But then to be fair, the biggest religious nut I know is an evangelical Swede.)

6

Based on how it is portrayed in the US, you get the impression that Brazil is Sexytown - not just at Carneval, but on the beaches and everywhere, sex is in the air. Your impressions? Overused stereotype or reasonably accurate?

7

Do you know Brescia? I haven’t heard from him in a long time.

8

Crime in RJ was very very bad indeed as little as two years ago, there are some places you just didn’t ever go. When meeting someone new, a carioca would typically say “Nice to meet you! How many times have you been mugged so far?” Sometimes criminal gangs would stop all traffic on a major street (after bribing the cops to not show up) and rob every car for a mile; and gangsters robbing everyone on a bus was a regular occurence. Since the favelas were pacified - with the main event being the marines being sent into the enormous favela Complexo do Alemão, with shooting in the streets all over the city for days, in November 2010 IIRC - I’m not worried about crime at all. Hell, my “neighbours” on top of the cliff behind me shot down a police helicopter 3.5 years ago, and once the police found a bona fide howitzer in there - but now the drug gangs have all fled to the distant suburbs or other states, so I’m not the least bit worried walking on the street now, while as a direct consequence my apartment has tripled in value :slight_smile:

Still, you shouldn’t walk around in the dark with a fancy camera and gold jewellery, of course - but then you shouldn’t do that in Berlin or Maine either. Under normal circumstances, to have your pocket picked you really need bad luck, like in any major city in the 1st world.

Favourite food - I admit I really enjoy the daily staple food here, feijão (bean stew, usually made as feijoada, i.e. stewed with whatever animal parts you get hold of and spices) with rice. I also LOOOOOVE churrasco - Brazilian barbecue. (just top-quality meat, sprinkled with a little rock salt) As for drinks, I surprised everyone by becoming a chimarrão fiend - that’s a type of tea made from the mate herb (Ilex Paraguaensis, I believe), but only common in the deep south among gaúchos - definitely not a Rio thing. I can’t even get the erva mate here.

I was being intentionally vague because the exact details would identify me to everyone who’s ever met me. But I’m Scandinavian - that’s 100% true without identifying me.

I actually met my wife first - through the internet, though neither of us were looking for romance or anything like it. It just happened. I came here to meet her in person, liked the place a lot, and figured I had decent opportunities here compared to chronic unemployment and boredom in Europe. So I came back, we got married, and I got my permanent residency and work permit that way. I didn’t speak a word of Portuguese when I came here, but I’m good with languages, and living in her parents’ apartment while we looked for our own (… 8 months!) meant I picked it up toot sweet. When I mentioned above I do translation at work, 95% is actually translation to Portuguese.

I consider Brazil as much if not more of a home now than anywhere else I’ve lived in my life. I’m not averse to staying here permanently, though if something should come up I’m not averse to leaving either. I’m not big on long-term plans :slight_smile:

May you and your wife continue to be very happy together!

9

It’s accurate in the sense that there is a lot of sex appeal on display. Sexiness isn’t considered shameful - being beautiful is a virtue, and it’s fine to flaunt it. I get the feeling that even today, in the western world a woman behaving or dressing sexily in public is on some level considered shameful, inappropriate, or an overstepping of boundaries - hence the use of the word “slut” as an negative slur. I don’t even know any Portuguese word for “slut” - the similar terms I can think of would all be more accurately translated to “bitch”. Appearing in Playboy is IME generally considered a positive career move and a fair way to get decent cash easily, not at all an act of desperation.

Somewhat similarly, for men, sleeping around is only considered negative in the sense of “boys will be boys” (i.e. those who look down on it only do so because they figure the men should grow up and accept stable, long-term relationships).

All that said, and as a huge difference from the West in my experience, the boundaries are very clear and almost universally respected by all sober adults. Look, but don’t touch until you get permission. (It’s very clear when you have permission.) I think that’s what throws the foreigners off - sure, there are half-naked dancers on childrens’ TV shows, but just because that hot babe in a minidress will dance with you doesn’t mean you can put your tongue down her throat.

So lets call it sexual liberation and a very healthy dose of well-communicated boundaries.

As an interesting (to me) aside - there are sex shops all over the place, which nobody complains against, but I only know of three strip clubs, and the most prominent is very clearly aimed at foreign tourists. (Never been to any of them myself)

Which Brescia? And see above about nobody answering email here :slight_smile:

10

He was in Belo Horizonte last I heard. Everyone else I know in Brazil answers my emails. But I do know what you mean about doing business in Brazil, it’s a very different world.

11

Sorry, I don’t know any people in Minas Gerais. That state generates too many bank-robbing-marxists-who-become-president and dentists-turned-revolutionaries for my taste. Though I’d like to see the historic cities like Ouro Preto, and I love their cheese.

Sometimes I think Brazil is just leading the vanguard of a generalised global movement towards incompetence in attending customers. For example, everyone raves about Apple, but recently I had to get outright snippy after weeks of emails and phone calls trying to get an answer to a simple question for a bulk order for a massive corporate account. When I got the answer, it was proven to be wrong 15 seconds later. Morons…

12

I spent some time there in the early 80’s and also noticed the tendency for people being content with “half-assed” projects. Funny to hear it hasn’t changed.

With that and the famous crime in Rio, I am predicting the upcoming Olympics there are going to be a disaster. An International Epic Clusterfuck.

13

They do that every year 46 days before Easter.

14

I’m in two minds about Rio 2016, or even more immediately, World Cup 2014. On the one hand Brazil is catastrophically unprepared - there simply isn’t any infrastructure - but on the other hand it might go like the Rio+20 environmental meeting this year, where the government basically forced regular mortals to suffer extreme inconvenience and sweep those problems under the rug, while brute-forcing very basic infrastructure through. In the case of Rio+20, a lot of the people involved whinged a fair bit - good luck getting lunch at the conference centre when none of the food servers speaks English because the “English courses for Rio+20” were actually a corruption scheme to funnel government money into private pockets, while the rest of those working there simply lied on their resumes and got away with it because the HR departments don’t have any English speakers to test them - and never mind the outrageous costs when there’s no hotel accomodation to be had even when there isn’t global conference going on - but none of it made a sufficiently clear and scandalous story to hit the foreign news. If it goes similarly in 2014 and 2016, the government will consider it a resounding success.

On the other hand, the Olympics and Football World Cup are in a totally different league from Rio+20. There is no accomodation - Rio is the primary tourist destination in all of Brazil AFAIK, yet once a 2-man theatre delegation nearly had to stay in a whorehouse just because a Brazilian dentists’ convention had filled every hotel in the city and surroundings. The work on the football stadiums mostly consists of strikes and corruption scandals. The construction of the Olympic complexes basically hasn’t started. I work near where the Olympic village will be, and it takes 1.5 hours to get there from the centre when there’s no traffic because it’s cut off from the city itself by mountains and only 3 roads go there, all of them too small. They’re building a metro line there, but even if it’s ready on time, there’s shockingly few metro trains. All the significant airports in the country are already operating above capacity, and their expansions are delayed. In the case of Rio, both the airports are on islands, so there’s nowhere to expand to.

In typical Brazilian fashion, the legislation for preparing the World Cup (and I believe the Olympics too) declared that the individual states would be responsible for public works mandated for the events. However, all the states claim they don’t have money in it for their budgets - perhaps because every single tiny municipality has to have a complete city council and mayor’s office etc. where politicians’ salaries start at about 24x minimum wage plus benefits, never mind the embezzlement of public funds - and are all playing chicken with the federal government, since they know they’ll eventually have to step in with federal funds when there’s only a year or so left…

… such that everything will be rushed to finish in a half-assed fashion. And so we come full circle to your first sentence. :slight_smile:

15

Yes indeed, depending on the party you go to :smiley:

16

I suspect that you could mostly get away with this in Maine. Maybe (most of) Berlin too. I’m glad that Rio has made great strides in getting handle on this, but it still sounds like it’s not entirely fixed.

Now this is very grown-up vs. pretty much everywhere in the U.S.

17

What neighborhood in Rio are you in? Are you located in Zona Sul, or Barra? . How far from the beach are you?

Do you have a car? Do you drive regularly in Rio?

18

Interesting thread-as an American married to a Brazilian woman, I find your observations quite good. Living in Rio is interesting-as you point out, banks, post offices, etc., can be very frustrating. Yet the Rio Metro is big, clean, and modern…and not infested with beggars and homeless people (as the Boston MBTA is).
All of the Brazilian immigrants here are incredibly hard working people-many are supporting extended families in Brazil…I have met people who work three jobs.
As for Brazil, if it can get rid of the corruption, it should be one of the best countries in the world…if it can get rid of the corruption.

19

Toffe, why do you think Brazilians have such an unconcern about customer service? What’s the background? Is it because one thinks that one cannot better one’s position via hard work and exemplary performance or am I way off base here? We’re not perfect at it here in the USA, but employers generally recognize the value of their most productive employees and give them more money and responsibility. What’s different there?

20

I live in Zona Norte (“The North Zone”), basically between the Maracanã and Engenhão stadiums. By bus I’m a little over a half-hour from the beach, a bit more for Ipanema (my favourite).

I don’t have a car, because car prices here are extortionate and offensive, plus you can’t find car parking anywhere you need to go for love nor money. I very recently bought a motorcycle, though, and just need to pass the driving test to get a license.

Thanks for the compliments. But about the metro - the stations themselves may be big and clean, but the system is woefully inadequate - far too few stations, far too few trains. I never even use it when I can (…which is virtually never, because its lines are impractical), because even on Sunday afternoons it’s packed - during weekday rush hours there’s a serious risk of trampling, crushing, and/or heat exhaustion from overcrowding.

I agree with you on the corruption, if we can throw in some marginally competent governance too. I’ve seen claims that Brazilians would be nearly 25% wealthier without the corruption factor (although all politically-motivated statistics are dubious). There’s also the bureaucracy factor - opening a business can take a year or more just because of red tape, requires up to 11 stamps from different government agencies, and costs thousands of dollars in paperwork, meaning that legal entrepreneurship is restricted to those who are already fairly wealthy while strangling competition and efficiency.

I’m not sure. Instead of painting everybody with a broad brush, I would like to find some institutional justification, like rampant nepotism and non-recognition of hard work and dedication. That’s true to an extent, but I’m afraid that it might simply be mostly cultural. People just don’t give a damn. When people are at work, well, it’s work, so people really and visibly just want to chat to their friends and go to the beach, and don’t care about the impression that it gives. Salaries for everyone below management level are fairly awful - I make about US$1000/month plus benefits, and I’ve got an MA and speak 9 languages - so nobody wants to get stressed when the potential payoff is minimal. Incompetence isn’t punished. Management doesn’t train staff to know their products or services. Finally, since everyone gives terrible service, everyone’s just used to it and doesn’t expect better - so there’s little impetus to change. As far as the inability to communicate by email with online stores goes, maybe it’s just conservatism, with the owners considering websites more of a gimmick than something to be taken very seriously. See above about lack of competition…

Another reason to believe that it’s cultural is that my experiences visiting the south - the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul - my experience with customer service was far better. Most of the settlers there were Germans or Italians looking for better opportunities, most arrived relatively recently, and all really had to work hard to develop their farms and industry.