Rio Gringa

Expat Chat Project: Dating Abroad

Today, the expat chat project is back and I'm talking about dating.

In the past, I mostly dated foreigners, even while living in the States, so I was no stranger to cultural differences in dating when I met Eliseu. Nevertheless, I was still surprised by some of the issues I encountered, including the language barrier, co-habitating, and subtle cultural differences.

Many of my friends have also dated foreigners, and even when they're from countries that speak the same language, there's a language issue, even if small, the most notable case being my best friend's English boyfriend, who I absolutely couldn't understand for the first six months I knew him. She learned faster and even started using bits and pieces of English slang.

It's hard to live with anyone, even if it's a friend, so I think moving into together always will be tricky, regardless of nationality. But when you move in with someone who's never lived without his mom, it's a whole different story.

Finally, when you date someone from another culture, even one that is similar to yours, you'll always be surprised by things that are considered OK and not OK. Who knew burping was grounds for excommunication?

I want to hear from you: what issues have you experienced when dating abroad?

ouch.

It turns out that the Goldman case isn't one of a kind, and several other cases have popped up which you can read about on the Bring Sean Home blog. One of the cases was featured in this Financial Post story, about a Canadian man who had pretty much the same thing happen to him as David. The story also mentions David's case and its lack of going anywhere, and discusses international child abduction. If you're new to the Goldman case, definitely give it a read.

I gotta say though, the final line in the article is brutal, and isn't going to help the case gain support with Brazilians:

Mr. Larivee is haunted by his ordeal, yet he only shrugs when asked if there was anything he would do differently. "I've done everything I could do, everything right," he says. "Maybe, don't marry a Brazilian."

Ouch.

Brazilian Poll Year Round Up

I only started doing polls recently, but I wanted to take a look at the results. They're by no means scientific or necessarily statistically valid, but the results are interesting nonetheless. To see the poll archives, click here.

Brazilian-only Polls

Showering: nearly 59% of Brazilians polled shower two or more times per day, with nearly 8% showering three or more times per day.

Television: Just over 50% of Brazilians polled have three or more televisions in their home, while 20% have just one and 23% have four or more.

Novelas: Only 29% of Brazilian polled claim they regularly watch telenovelas.

Stereotypes: 43% of Brazilians polled say that the most common stereotype they encounter is that Brazilians are nymphomaniacs and/or sexually promiscuous. About 21% say the most common stereotype is that all Brazilians live in the rainforest.

Gringos & Brazilians Living in Brazil

Maids: Of the Brazil-dwellers polled, 58% have a maid, while nearly 16% have a live-in maid.

Brazil Travelers/Dwellers

Rio Safety: 37% of those polled say they feel "somewhat safe" in Rio, while 34% say they feel "not very safe." 23% say they feel like they're "in constant danger."

Favorite City: Nearly 30% of those polled say Rio is their favorite city in Brazil, followed by 22% for Sao Paulo and 14% for Florianopolis.

Open Polls

US in the World: 53% of those polled say the US has done more bad things in the past 30 years, while 32% say the US has done more good things.

Labels: 89% of those polled say Brazilians cannot be considered Hispanic, while 11% say they can be.

My Blog: Nearly 42% of readers polled say they have a more positive view of Brazil after reading my blog, while about 50% say they have the same view of Brazil.

Rio Gringa Poll: Nationality

Today, I want to find out the nationalities of my readers, since I have readers from all over the world, but many are expats, like Brazilians living in Canada and Americans living in Brazil. So the purpose of today's poll is to find out your country of origin, where you originally come from. If you put "other," please leave a comment saying where you're from!

Brazilian Christmas Food

We ate a lot of different things during Christmas, but these were my favorites:

Pavé: Made with sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla finger cookies, you can make pave with tons of different delicious things, like passion fruit, pineapple, coconut--even bonbons! On Christmas, we had not one but two types of pavé: chocolate and vanilla. Mmm.

Rabanada: The Brazilian version of French toast, rabanada is a traditional Christmas food. But unlike French toast, you don't eat it with syrup, and instead complete coat it in sugar. I'm all about eating it year-round!

Leg of pork: I admit that I'm not even that familiar with American Christmas food, but I'd honestly never seen anything like this before. When Eli's cousin's husband first brought it home, it looked like this. He then proceeded to finely chop a bunch of onions and a whole lot of cloves of garlic, and then dumped them into the blender with salt. He set the leg of pork in a refrigerator drawer, which was the only thing big enough he could find to contain the piece of meat, and then drizzled the mixture on top of the pork. He then dumped an entire bottle of red wine on top, and then repeated the onion-garlic-salt process a few times, adding water until the entire leg was submerged in a purple goo. After soaking the pork overnight, he grilled it, and it looked more like this. I was a little relieved when Eli's cousin exclaimed, "I feel a little bit like a caveman eating this thing!"

Rio Gringa's Stereotype Scale

Once in awhile, I take a look at international mainstream media stories about Brazil to show how stereotypes, misconceptions, and cliches are constantly perpetuated by the press, like this Australian story I discussed, and the infamous "like a guava tree" story.

So I decided to come up with a scale to judge mainstream media stories about Brazil, ten being the most stereotyped and one being the least:

10 - Thong Worshiper

9 - Samba Skank

8 - Amazon Injun

7 - Nympho Nut

6 - Beach Bum

5 - Kai pee reenya Kate

4 -  Cachacahead

3 - Fox Newscaster

2 - Hungover Harry

1 - Professional Journalist

Let's take a look at this week's offerings:

Putting the brakes on car theft, BBC: It's no secret that I use BBC as my main source of news, and for good reason: they like to use facts in their stories. What a novel idea! As such, this author gets a 1 for sticking to facts and restraining himself from stirring in sensationalist little adjectives and tidbits.

Beer-Loving Brazilians Adapt to the Dry Law, Washington Post: Even though many Brazilians do love them some beer, just from the title we're going to have to add a point, and the use of the word "debauchery" also deserves another point. The use of the words samba, caipirinha, beaches, and beer all in the lead also win another point, even though the story is about drinking. Finally, a final point is given due to the implication that all Brazilians ever do is party and drink. Nevertheless, I happen to really like this story, and wholeheartedly agree that some laws in Brazil are meaningless because they are improperly enforced or not enforced at all. You sir, receive the honor of a Cachacahead.

Two sets of tales from Rio's underbelly, Seattle Times: Even though this is a book review about two novels from famous Brazilian authors, that doesn't excuse the writer from overdoing it. You've got your beach stereotypes, your hot Brazilian body stereotypes, your sex stereotypes, your tropical paradise stereotypes, and the bloody violence stereotypes. It's all there. I hereby proclaim this writer a Nympho Nut.

Girls, guys, and hair gel on Ipanema Beach, the UK Telegraph: Ok, technically this was written by an amateur and not a professional journalist, but it was picked as one of the best stories in the "Year of Discovery" travel writing contest the newspaper held, so it counts. Frankly, I think it's dreadful, between the poor writing and plethora of stereotypes she manages to wedge in merely five hundred words. You, madam, are officially a Samba Skank. Better luck next time!

Creepy Critters

Lots of foreigners incorrectly believe that the Amazon covers the whole of Brazil and that exotic animals freely roam around. While that's not true, you'll still find some pretty interesting creatures even thousands of miles from the rainforest.

While we were in Minas, we came across:

-a troop of army ants lugging leaves up a wall

-a two-foot long snake on the sidewalk in the middle of the city

-several spiny poisonous caterpillars, which were about 7 inches long and 1 inch wide, one of which we found in Eli's grandma's kitchen (she very calmly swept it outside)

-a couple of wild capybara families along the edge of a river, which thrilled me to no end.

 

Eli took this from across the road of a capybara mom, her little capybara babies, and a bird friend standing on her back.