Being Brazilian
Hi everyone. I mentioned recently that I had taken on a new contributor and today is the day of her first contribution! I won’t give her a big introduction, I’ll just say that I met her almost 3 years ago and Reader, I married her.
================
I have never seen myself as the typical Brazilian. After Mr. Eat Rio and I got married, I joked several times that his friends would be very disappointed when they met me. I’m not tall, I’m not tanned and my samba skills are questionable. But in the same way that happiness only exists with sadness and beauty with ugliness, thinking of myself as a true Brazilian only made sense when I compared myself with my loved Englishman.
So over the last years, I’ve learned I’m very Brazilian indeed. I’m loud; I touch people I don’t know very well; I engage in deep conversation with people I don’t know at all; I snap my fingers to call waiters; I think it’s normal when my family discusses family members’ lives on Sunday lunch. But I think the major aspect that sets me apart from my husband’s nation is this: I interrupt.
I gather there are few things British people like less than being interrupted. I remember once we were in a store and, while I was looking through the racks of women’s clothes, Mr. Eat Rio was supposed to be paying for some trousers. After about 10 minutes, I went to check on him. He was standing in front of the counter looking at the cashier, who was talking on the phone. He was very upset.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting to pay.”
“What are you waiting for? There’s no queue.”
“She’s on the phone.”
I turned to the girl behind the counter and said “Hey, we want to pay”. She looked up, put the phone down and took my husband’s credit card. While we left the store, let’s just say I learned a few bad words I didn’t know.
In Brazil we have a saying: “para bom entendedor, meia palavra basta” (meaning: to a good ‘understander’, half a word is enough). You should know that we don’t interrupt for lack of interest or attention. We interrupt because we think we’ve got it. If we didn’t get it, be kind enough to interrupt us and say that.
But, while being an Englishman in Rio may be very annoying at times, I have to say a fear a bit how it must be for a Brazilian in England. When I think about the possibility of going to the UK, I often have nightmares about the ways in which I may end up in prison or even dead. Here are some of them:
1) Offering to hold someone’s bag on the subway because I’m sitting down and they’re standing up and being confused with a robber.
2) Snapping my fingers to a waiter and being kicked out of a restaurant for poor manners.
3) Standing on the left side of the escalator, being pushed, falling, hitting my head and dying.
4) Describing an Asian person by pulling the sides of my eyes and being considered a racist.
5) Saying “Oi!” and being beaten up.
Scary.
I had to laugh at your fears of dying in the UK! lol….I’m pretty sure the ‘Asian Eyes’ would be a big problem in the USA, too. :-)
Hey, Jennifer. It’s funny how we have different ideas about what racism is here in Brazil. For a long time, it was fairly agreed that Brazil wasn’t a racist country at all. I guess it’s because we don’t have outright hate demonstrations or a history of laws against “minorities” (except the one that allowed slavery, of course!). But we do have the hidden kind of racism — like black people not being paid as much as white people do — and that is seen as a problem by most people. But it’s still a very controversial subject here. I suppose, combining that complex background and our informality (we pretty much don’t show formal respect to any one), makes us have a different attitude towards “minorities”.
This reads more like a right of reply than a contribution.
Ha ha ha! I am trying to resist the temptation to respond/defend myself from some of the above points, e.g. I wasn’t exactly upset by the girl on the phone who was ignoring me – more amazed/exasperated! ;)
Anyway, I know I’m a little biased, but I really enjoyed that. Looking forward to hearing more from minha esposa soon.
hahah i love the shop story. Indeed, in some ocasions there is no denying your brazilianness, Lela :)
Well done! Uhu!
Heh heh! You should have seen her when the woman next to me in the cinema started making a phone call! There was some heavy finger clicking in face action! :D
I have to admit, I laughed out loud at the image of Mr. Eat Rio standing obediently and quietly, waiting for the clerk to finish her phone call, while he became more and more impatient, but maintaining a stiff upper lip. I only wonder how long he would have stood there if you hadn’t come to his rescue. Great post, I’m looking forward to reading more!
Glad I could provide some amusement Phil! ;) Heh heh, I was wondering how long the stand-off would last myself…
I don’t know how long he would stand there, but I’ll tell this: there’s a good possibility he would have given up buying the trousers!
Great post! We admire (and envy) your feisty approach to things ….
I admire it too! I can be very useful sometimes :)
Thank you, Eleanor! I’ll try and keep it up on the next one.
Why would saying oi get you beaten up? I live in Costa Rica and looking at your list, I’d say some of these things are Latin, not just Brazilian, because I see them here.
People here will offer to hold your bag on the bus if you’re standing.
We don’t snap fingers at waiters, but we whistle or hiss, although it is considered low class.
There’s no “right” side to stand or walk on as in escalators or sidewalks.
Gossiping about family is fun.
People here interrupt a lot, but the outcome may not be to your liking.
Yeah, using your fingers to make Asian eyes is pretty common. You even see it in TV commercials.
But nobody would dare to hush someone making a phone call in a movie, at least if they’re sitting next to you. You’d be on the losing end of a fight. You might if they couldn’t reach / see you.
Hey Steve – I wouldn’t expect saying “Oi” to actually get you beaten up, but it’s a very rude way of getting someone’s attention in the UK. Nothing like the neutral/friendly meaning that it has in Brazil.
Seriously, people would tolerate someone making a phone call during a film in the cinema? Man, that really kills me!
Being confrontational is very bad form in Costa Rica, so if you confront someone you have to be willing for it to escalate to shouting, if not fisticuffs.
Man, I simply can’t be confrontational – I’m far better at passive-aggressive (if it hadn’t been for Mrs Eat Rio, the woman talking on the phone would simply have been bombarded with dirty looks and some annoyed sighs!).
Steve, I think us Latin Americans — specially Brazilians — don’t notice often enough how much we are similar.
Hi, Mrs EatRio, I’m gonna make it short and simple: I loved your post! You just made me feel so good for being a Brazilian in America :))
Hey Gil – I’m going to say thanks on Mrs Eat Rio’s behalf. Here’s hoping she’ll have lots more to say in the near future! :)
Yes, I do, Gil!
Amazing!!! So happy to see Mrs. Eat Rio as a contributor – and a good one at that. I look fwd to more posts from her in the future!
Me too! :D Nice to have a day off once in a while!
She would also make eye contact and smile to strangers. How dangerous is that ?
Ana! You know the rules – no eye contact allowed! :) As for smiling? Absolutely forbidden ;)
C’mon, the whole no smilling thing is somewhat overblown. I have smiled upon encountering strangers in both subway and street in many a “cold natured culture” and usually got a smile back. I think people can sense if you are out for a smile in return or if you wish to pursue further contact – in which case your smile will be ignored. Funny how this can be perceived given that a smile doesn’t differ that much from one person to the next. I guess the body language behind he/she who is smiling gives alot away regarding intention.
I also don’t get how interrupting a person while he/she is talking is any different from making or answering a phone call during a movie since in both cases someone is being distracted away from their objective (be it finishing their phrase or comprehending the movie they set out to watch).
Ha ha, I know I know, I’m exaggerating just a little! There is plenty of laughter and conviviality here in London. There certainly isn’t a great deal of it on display on the public transport system, but as a friend quite rightly pointed out, who wants some cheerful, chatting person in your face at 7:30am on a Monday morning when you’re on your way to work?
I think the interruption thing is more nuanced. We all interrupt each other all the time don’t we? It would be a very stilted conversation if we all had to wait around for the end of everyone’s sentences. But I object to a person X showing up and interrupting a conversation I’m already having with person Y by starting a brand new conversation and being seemingly oblivious to the fact that person Y and I were already talking [let it go Tom, let it go…] ;)
Tom and Mrs.Eat Rio,
We live in Madrid (Spain), I’m from the north east of England and my wife is from Buenos Aires.
The cultural differences you guys have a pretty similar to my wife and I plus adding in Spanish differences, but it provides for a lot of funny moments too especially with a child.
Great to see Rio through the eyes of carioca and a English man. It’s twice as interesting!
Great blog I fancy combining Rio and BA next time we head to visit the inlaws.
Cheers
Thanks Chris – good to know it’s not just us then! ;)
Hi Mrs. Eat Rio, welcome to the blog; I love your perspective :-)
About the cashier situation, I’m not sure how it is in the UK, but in the U.S., the culture is “the customer is always right / always has priority” – so it would be considered very rude and terrible customer service to ignore a customer standing right in front of you for 10 minutes.
(Of course, I’m wondering if she was talking on the store phone doing business… or on her personal cell phone? The latter would be COMPLETELY unacceptable in the States; and the former, the employee would usually at least acknowledge the waiting customer and say, “I’m sorry, I’ll be with you in just a minute”)
Reminds me of once when I went to a lanchonete and the three teenage employees were just joking around and looking at their phones, 3 feet in front of me. I just waited. Finally one of them looked at me and said, “e ai gringa, o que voce quer?” Next time I’ll just interrupt and say “HEY I’d like to make an order!”
Looking forward to reading more of your writing!
She looked like she was on the phone doing business. But I have to confess I didn’t really pay attention, I just interrupted her anyway. I always tell people to interrupt Brazilians, because that’s what we expect. People are not gonna stop what they are doing to help you in 90% of situations. Not because they are bad people! It’s like you’re playing a record and you need to listen to what someone else is saying. You have to press the stop button. And you can totally say a big “HEY!”, as long as you give them a nice smile afterwards.
Hahahah this was great.
I laughed at the ways you could die/go to jail in the UK. Sounds accurate to me!
Poste mais!!!
Abraço
Obrigada, Alex! Garanto mais posts em um futuro bem próximo.
I second Alex’s request for Mrs. Eat Rio to post more. Very interesting. Tom’s posts are always interesting as well. So just more of a good thing. :)
Here’s a question for Mrs. ER: given the fact that Brazil is a mult-racial society, how can you tell when someone is not Brazilian before they open their mouth?
That’s a very good question. I guess we are really mixed, so anyone who doesn’t look mixed at all might be a foreigner. So if someone’s really black, or really white, or really indigenous looking, they are probably not Brazilian. Apart from that, Brazilians — specially men — are not very into fashion. So if someone looks like they have really put some thought in their outfit, they might be foreigners. But that’s changing a lot.
On the beach, it’s specially easy to identify foreigners. They carry towels and big bottles of water, they might not be wearing flip flops (thinking sandals are just as good) and they just don’t know how to call the vendors.
That said, people always confuse me with a foreigner when I haven’t gone to the beach for a while. It sucks.
When I was in Rio years ago, I was constantly asked for directions and I look so unmixed northern European it’s crazy. I speak Spanish so, after that, people assumed I was Mexican. I laughed about it, but really didn’t understand what the vibe was.