Musings Archives - Page 24 of 45

Rio vs São Paulo

14/11/2012/14 Comments/in Musings

I first became aware of the rivalry between Rio and São Paulo when I saw the film City of God. There’s a scene in which two kids from Rio hitch a lift with a man from São Paulo with the idea of robbing him, but he turns out to be such a nice guy that they can’t bring themselves to do it. After they get out of the car (without robbing him) one says to the other “Normally people from São Paulo are so weird, but he was pretty cool”.

As you’d expect with two major cities in close proximity, each has developed an unflattering stereotypical view of the other. Cariocas (people from Rio) are seen as lazy, perpetually late, superficial people who’d rather spend the day on the beach than do a proper day’s work. Paulistanas (people from São Paulo) are said to be cold, boring and hugely jealous of Rio’s natural beauty. Of course, none of these stereotypes are remotely true (right Brazilians?).

An aerial view of São Paulo at sunset. It may not have the mountains and beaches of Rio, but it is impressive nonetheless. This awesome photo was taken by Lorena Cardoso Simões (@lorenacsimoes) – thanks Lorena!

Leaving stereotypes aside for a moment, I thought I’d tell you about my impressions of Brazil’s largest city and how it compares to Rio, my home for the past 2.5 years.

Carnival Kids

10/11/2012/4 Comments/in Musings

I’ve been going to a suspiciously large number of birthday parties recently. And now that I think of it, there are a suspiciously large number birthday parties coming up in the next couple of weeks. Hmmm… all very suspicious.

Perhaps a detective would go to the calendar and look for notable events that occurred 9 months ago. I, however, prefer to look forward and remind you all that in 3 months it will be carnival!

Woohoo! A pre-carnival bloco held earlier this year in honour of Paulinho da Viola‘s 70th Birthday.

What’s wrong with favelas?

06/11/2012/21 Comments/in Musings

I first became aware of the word “favela” when I was 12 or 13 – we watched a video in geography class about São Paulo. I don’t remember much about the video itself, but the word stuck in my head and 20 (ish) years later I find myself living right next to one.

Favelas are one of the most prickly subjects in Brazil. Get into a conversation about favelas with a middle class Brazilian and there is a good chance that you will find yourself in trouble before long. I once mentioned to a friend of a friend that Vidigal looked beautiful at night. He responded “Favelas are ugly. You think it is romantic to live without proper sanitation?”.

Vidigal (a favela next to wealthy Leblon) lights up as darkness falls.

Why is Rio so expensive?

23/10/2012/20 Comments/in Musings

One or two of you may have seen that I got a little mention in the mighty O Globo yesterday morning! If your Portuguese isn’t up to it (or you’re just straight-up lazy) then I’ll see if I can summarise what the article said.

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Rio is one of the most expensive cities in the world for expatriates. Tom Le Mesurier, who has a blog called Eat Rio, wonders how a bottle of wine from Chile can be cheaper in the UK than in Brazil. Tom jokes that the solution is to drink cachaça instead and says that although some foods like fruit and vegetables are cheaper than London, the fancier restaurants are more expensive.

An Italian guy who has lived all over the world says Rio has been the most difficult. He’s planning to open a business but high prices worry him. An economist says that high prices remain one of the biggest challenges that Brazil faces in terms of being competitive. Weirdly, the Lonely Planet has just voted Rio the best value city in the world [this is so weird – I just can’t understand this, it makes no sense].

Expat rats have money to burn! Are they (we) driving the high prices in Rio?

Things are even harder for Latin Americans. A Colombian woman says that public transport is also very expensive and that property rental prices are higher than in Paris. The economist then says that property prices have been rising above inflation in many Brazilian cities as demand is greater than supply.

A Frenchman says that prices are the same as Paris but the services are not of the same quality. Finally Nathan Walters, an American [and a friend of mine!] says that he feels lucky to have found a 2 bedroom apartment in Copacabana for around 1,600 USD/month. He also says that the restaurants in Rio are expensive.

The piece finishes up by saying that despite the high prices, none of the foreigners said they want to leave Rio.

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So that was a quick summary of the article. I haven’t had the courage to read the ‘Reader comments’ section yet – on past experience with O Globo, I expect more than one go something like “If the stinking rich Gringo is so bothered about the high price of imported wine, why doesn’t he go and live in France!”.

But on a serious note, having had my name against one small comment in a larger article, I wanted to expand a little on prices in Rio. I’ll quote all prices in Reais – divide by 2 to get USD, divide by 3 to get GBP.

Differences and Similarities

20/10/2012/2 Comments/in Language, Musings

After publishing yesterday’s post, it occurred to me that there was some irony to the fact that I spend so much time highlighting the things that make Brazilians distinctive, yet when (some) Brazilians finally agree (“only in Brazil”), I go and say that they’re actually the same as the rest of us!

It got me thinking about how we view our differences and similarities and how language affects our perception of what someone is saying. People generally feel positive when you highlight differences with words like interesting, distinctive and unique but feel negative about words like odd, strange and weird. The flip-side of this linguistic coin comes when you highlight similarities: normal, consistent, dependable are positive, but generic, homogeneous, conventional might not sound so good (-“What do you think of my new shirt?” -“Wow! It’s really, er, generic…”).

Thinking along these lines, I remembered something I saw a little while back:

This is an excerpt of a speech given in 1965 by a Dutch physicist, Hendrik Casimir, in which he describes the way that English speakers (particularly the English!) find differences where others look for the similarities. Also, sorry to be a nerd, but don’t you just love that old typeface?

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