A few months back, the wildly popular Brazilian version of the international reality television franchise Big Brother began its 13th season on the Rede Globo network. Even when not watching the show, it’s hard to escape the news coverage of who did what (similar to the inescapability of novela reporting). Not unlike the Winston character in the book 1984, from which the originally Dutch series takes its name, I felt like there was only one channel for people to watch in Brazil…O Globo. Sure, there are tons of channels, in reality, but there’s a strange pull to linger on a Globo TV program when flipping through channels. Big Brother Brasil (BBB) is perfectly positioned to take advantage of this and, whether through its popularity or its timeslot, people tune in.

If you happen to have no idea what the show is about, here’s the general premise. Around 15 contestants (mostly model/actor types) get put into a house, fully equipped with many cameras, from which they cannot leave unless voted out. Each week, the house guests vote on who they would like to see gone. In the middle of it all, and as a way to spice things up, there are strategic alliances, and even romances, that transpire. The last person standing wins a large cash prize and hopefully fame.

The Brazilian version of the show is filmed in Rio de Janeiro at Globo’s main studio known as  “Projac”. The studio is the largest of its kind in Latin America and one of the largest in the world, as well. The set of the BBB house is said to be the most sophisticated, equipment-wise, of all the Big Brother houses worldwide. If you can name a popular show on Rede Globo, it’s almost surely recorded at Projac (including Xuxa, Domingão, Caldeirão do Huck, Malhação, Zorra Total, and many, if not all, of their novelas).

While no one has really shot to fame after winning the contest, many of the contestants have gone on to have successful careers in TV and modeling. Sabrina Sato, who you may have seen interviewing Justin Bieber, became a television host on the comedy show Pânico. Grazi Massafera went on to become an actress in several novelas, and Íris Stefanelli is currently the host of TV Fama. Like with most celebrities in Brazil, fame means covering all the bases, be it via television, film, adverts and, at some point, taking part in a Carnival parade or school.

Despite, or rather, in spite of the show’s success, it is often referred to when Brazilians discuss the banality of the media in their country. While I don’t beg to differ, media the world over suffers from the same malady in its catering to mass audiences. Every television viewer figures into the ratings of the individual shows so, in one way or another, we’re playing a part in the success or failure of a show. When personally choosing what to watch, I’m reminded of the media’s influence on a younger self, with Captain Planet’s call to action.

“The power is yours!”

On December 28th, 2012 I left Brazil for the last time. At least, the last time during what will be a long time away. Out of all the things that could have seeped into my consciousness during my lifetime, an insatiable curiosity and a love of Brazil were the two that anchored themselves deeply. So why, then, did I leave?

The two things that have always stayed with me, though, are rather intertwined, as it was the curiousness which permitted the love of Brazil (as well as my love of many other cultures). Unfortunately, staying too focused on one culture, when I love many, is doing a disservice to the way I think and feel. Not only that but I tend to favor places where I’m in contact with all different types of people, people from different countries who, for one reason or another, have decided to go abroad to live (not just to be a tourist). One can either go live in a place like this or hope the foreigners come to them. Brazil, as it is, is mainly a place for its citizens (who have a love/hate relationship with the country) and for tourists (who overwhelmingly love it). While I met foreigners living in Brazil in each city I lived in, they were scattered here and there. In the US, as much as I dislike the inwardness and monoculture expressed within ‘Murica, I get the feeling that any time I run an errand here, one-third of the people I see are foreigners (then again, I live near a major city). Do I go talk to these people, inquire about them, befriend them? No, not really, at least not always…but the point is I can, whenever I want. On any given day, I can go out and find a way to have contact with another culture or language, and not just with people who will be here one day or one week, but people who are living here. Brazilians, of all people, should understand this. After all, there’s hardly a country you can go to without finding a Brazilian expat community there. ; )

Going back to how I think and feel, according to the Myers-Briggs test, I’m an INTP (and intuitive, thinker-perceiver) and that basically means I like to deal in concepts, ideas, and systems. It means my mind craves the conceptualizing but often loses interest in the doing. What got me started on Brazil was the dreaming about it and the studying of it, which is surely how everyone starts out. Well, one thing led to another and I began to wonder if the doing (ie, living in the country) would be as satisfying to me as my studies. It very well can be. Even looking back, I have no doubt about that. The real issue is that the kind of person I naturally am (an idea person) started to be put on the back burner, all in favor of living the Brazil that I had learned about. Living in Brazil was a totally viable plan for me, but it wasn’t sustainable for me personally.

I regret nothing and I learned a ton through challenging my personal nature but, being who I am, I found myself floating back to my status quo ante. My lesson reminds me of something I once read about human nature. It was something to the effect of, “People don’t change. They simply become better or worse.” Well, it’s hard to sum up human nature in a single sentence but I can say that Brazil made me better, although the way I utilized my time there made me worse (a story for another day).

To make a strange comparison, I wonder if life experience is like publicity (“any publicity is good publicity”) because, as I said, I believe I have become better. And it all started by “throwing off the bow lines” and venturing off into Brazil’s small countryside towns, fishing villages, jungles, bustling cities and favelas. I hope anyone reading this may find the time to do the same.

In my last few weeks in Brazil, I heard the term à francesa used twice, in two different ways. In one instance, I ordered a pizza from a joint near my house and they asked me if I wanted it the French way. Hoping that didn’t mean they were going to put snails on it, but open to something new, I said, “sure, go ahead”.

When it came and I opened the pizza box, there was nothing special about the pizza. Apparently they forgot the French part but, no worries, I looked it up anyways and saw that it means to cut it in squares, not slices. I then became tempted to think of what other food items I could have asked for ‘à francesa’ just to see if I could have gotten away with it. If, for some reason, you forget the new term, you can always just say em quadrinhos (in little squares) or even pizza aperitivo (the formal name, I believe).

The second instance of the term was when someone at a get-together told me later on that I had left the party the French way. I thought to myself, but there was no kissing on the cheeks (and certainly no tongue involved), since all I did was to just sneak out. Surprisingly or not, the French happen to say filer à l’anglaise, or flee English-style. In any event, as you may know, one potential downside (depending on how you look at it) to parties with Brazilians is that leaving takes a long time. Sometimes I’m so lazy to do so that I just stay until the party dissipates, but many times I use the sair à francesa trick.

And as a bonus, if you ever wondered about the phrase “Pardon my French”, it is said to come from a time when the English used many French words in their speech and thus would apologize if they were in fact using a word that was not understood by the other party. Despite the rise of anglicisms in Brazil, I’m definitely not waiting for the day when Brazilians say “pardon my Portuguese”…

Tourists are kind of akin to actors. They have a role to play, scenes to shoot, you could even say they have a script to read from. Even if they aren’t the typical, camera-wielding, map-checking type of tourist, it’s hard to escape the feeling that you’re being treated differently. I don’t necessarily mean this in a negative sense as half the time it is merely rooted in curiosity on the part of the resident, much like when seeing a famous actor. Luckily, there’s an escape route (though not so much if you’re white, blond-haired and blue-eyed).

Having lived in a lot of neighborhoods in Brazil that were absent tourists, every time I found myself in such a place, I was able to get a better idea of what it is to be a normal person down there, or at least what it meant to feel like one. I suppose the type of tourism I’ve long practiced could be considered a new way of traveling. I call it “anthropological tourism” and that basically means that I’m interested in how people live their normal lives.

I want to know the “boring” stuff like how their morning commute is (by taking it with them) and where they go to get a better deal on certain things (and then go there to save on the same items). Perhaps more importantly, I want to understand both their complaints and conquests in their day-to-day lives. Of course, this can’t be done simply, nor can it be done in a week but luckily most tourist visas allow for at least a 90-day stay and if you can get away with it in your professional life, I totally recommend it.

This new type of tourism is quite a niche market because it’s basically asking the potential tourist to work most of the year, only to leave their normal life in order to live the normal life of someone else in another culture. It really isn’t for everyone but I find it blows the typical kind out of the park. You know, the kind of tourism where one leaves their normal life so that they can have the comforts of home (hotel, English-speaking staff, etc) while adding a pinch of local culture (ie, a restaurant that has a samba show) to the mix. Then again, the kind of “get in n’ get out”, authentically staged type of tourism is that way because of how we live, having to work on a specific floor of a specific building, in a specific city.

So you might be thinking to yourself, “Is that it?”. Well, no. Living like a local means you get to know about the hidden waterfalls that guides don’t talk about or that one place you passed by a few times downtown, the one that has no sign outside but, just up the staircase, puts on the best forró nights in town. Alas, the best times I had in Brazil were when I was led by locals to places I would have never stepped foot in otherwise.

I’ll leave you with travel writer Pico Iyer’s excellent essay on “Why We Travel“.

The Santa Maria tragedy is the second largest in Brazilian history, after the Niterói circus fire of 1961 (in which 500 people died). When looking at the facts of this most recent and immensely sad “accident”, it’s easy to see how it all could have been prevented with a simple safety measure or two.

At its current count, 231 young people died on Saturday night in the Santa Maria nightclub in Rio Grande do Sul, while 90 are being treated in hospitals. The circumstances under which it occurred mirror quite closely that of the late 2004 Cromagnon nightclub fire in Buenos Aires when 194 young people died. I’d like to briefly look at a few of the things that went wrong which perhaps separately, and most definitely when combined, contributed to such a high loss of life in this latest tragedy.

First, there’s the fact that pyrotechnics in enclosed spaces is illegal in Brazil and thus the nightclub was operating without license to do so. The manager of the club would have had to know the specifics of the show and the band would have needed to mention they were going to use pyrotechnic devices. It seems everyone failed in these respects.

Second, there’s the inconvenience of paying when you leave a club. My expat friends and I were actually discussing this recently before I left Rio and our conclusion was that it only adds to frustration on the part of the club-goer to have to wait in a long line at the end of a long night. To get this done, people are being hired for extra roles and duties when the bartenders should just be entrusted with processing cash and credit cards on an as-they-come basis. On Saturday night, when the fire began, the club’s security detail made sure no one could leave without paying their bills. This could be said to have contributed to the stampede that happened in the main area next to the exit.

Third, the cause of death of the majority of victims was not being burned, it was smoke inhalation. I’m no expert on ventilation requirements for leisure establishments but I do wonder if possibly poor ventilation contributed to more people dying rather than less. Surely, their inability to leave, both via the front doors and the already-locked emergency doors, is a more crucial point in their loss of life. But, if house fans can have a reverse rotation option for sucking air up, ventilation systems must have some equivalent.

In addition, there are several other points to be made. The club was said to have been over capacity and most that died were between 16 and 20 yrs old, meaning many were underage and not supposed to be there. Plus, fireworks in a small show, not a good idea. In other words, tons of things going wrong at the same time and the question of who to blame is now up to the authorities (though it might be the authorities themselves who failed to enforce safety measures). Nonetheless, all kinds of establishment owners all over Brazil (and the world) should now be asking themselves a long list of questions about what may prevent such a sad event from happening again.

Here’s a well-written piece on the same matter, by the New York Times.

In Brazil it’s never too late or too early to prepare for festivities, especially when they’ve got many layers to them. The June parties of Brazil cover a variety of celebrations that occur during the month after which they are named. Of course, it also depends on which state you find yourself in because some celebrations pertain to certain states. One of those “festas”, found in Maranhão, is called the Festa do Espírito Santo, but it’s not the party, per se, that I wish to talk about. It’s what happens when it ends.

When the festa in question has ended, those who still want to party on (and, c’mon, who doesn’t?) start to dance something called the Cacuriá. It’s a fun partner dance done in a circle that is accompanied by various instruments as well as, in many cases, improvised verses. A word to the wise, before you start, you should be comfortable “rebolando” (gyrating) since the dance has a fair amount of it.

Below you can see Dona Teté, credited for basically creating the style, talking about the Cacuriá (in Portuguese). The video also shows a group of young people rehearsing it. The second clip shows the song and dance in ‘full swing’.

The Tietê River cuts through most of the state of São Paulo. It’s name in Tupi means “true waters”, but before it first appeared on a map in the mid-18th century, it was known by Amerindians as Anhembi (after a South American partridge). The river itself is said to be ten to fifteen million years old and has been used in the past by Amerindians, Bandeirantes (slave-hunters, and later miners, of the 16th-18th centuries), and clergymen. Historically, the Tietê has been used and abused more than it has been merely traversed.

During the 18th century, it was used for mining exploration and sugar production, with the color of the water being altered and the margins of the river being deforested. By the early 20th century, a large number of enterprises were regularly tossing their waste into the part of the river around São Paulo’s capital until it reached its current state. Today, it’s known for its bad smell, sewage, and flies but if the São Paulo’s current governor has his way, by 2015 the Tietê will be nice-smelling enough to offer boat tours to tourists. The near-century of waste-dumping caused the river to lose all its oxygen, though oxidation would be a later step in the process.

Cleaning up the Tietê isn’t a novel idea, as the government, together with many civil organizations, have been working on the Project Tietê since the early 1990s. The governor who initially got the ball rolling, Luiz Antônio Fleury Filho, said by the end of his mandate in 1995, you’d be able to drink a cup of water straight from the Tietê. His estimate was a few decades off, unfortunately. The project, currently in its third phase, spans over 500 public works (only half of the total for this phase). The cost from the start of the third phase in 2009 until now? A cool US$1.8 billion.

(The past is the future?)

I’ve argued before on my blog that the more touristic “calling cards” that São Paulo gets, the better off it will be. Most foreigners passing through the city only find out about the basics, such as the city’s size and perhaps the fact that it offers a lot in terms of nightlife and gastronomy. There’s definitely more to the city but the current attractions are smaller in size and tend to be relegated to the realm of the insider, or rather, the Paulistano.

As for if the current governor will have his way, I can say this: his party has been in control of São Paulo politics for the past 17 years (not to mention all the past presidents have hailed from São Paulo for the past 20 years straight). Here’s to hoping the World Cup and Olympics are a true cause for change.

This was written in November, 2012

I’ve never been much of a sports guy so it’s no wonder that a big part of Brazilian culture boggles me. For the last 6 weeks I’ve been living in a república, a shared apartment for students (except this particular place is mostly rented by people who graduated several years ago). They are all, without exception, big soccer fans. The television is almost always on and almost always tuned to a soccer game or a program geared towards soccer fans, of which there are many. And when the TV isn’t on, the guys are talking about what? Soccer. When a game is on, their soccer buddies come over and, when their team scores, it’s as if they just won a new Mercedes!

When the news of the ‘new car’ reaches their brain, they run to the window and yell with all of their might the name of their team. I usually joke that one doesn’t even need to watch soccer since all it takes is having ears in order to know who scored. Things can get ‘heated’ when someone from the losing team, who lives in the same or neighboring apartment complex, hears their team being insulted by a fan of the winning team. These insults often end up being about the mother of one of the fans but it never lasts too long since the game is all important and ends up winning back the attention of the fans.

My personal view is that it’s all “bread and circuses” for the people to be diverted (hence the word diversão) from being political. It’s not that sports are necessarily a bad influence but I find the focus here to be extreme and unbalanced. Right now as I’m finishing up this article, the regular news is gorging itself with the coverage of Fluminense football club having won the Brasileirão championship.

One thing I’ll give the fans, though…they understand passion.