Brasil Trip Report Part 2

[Long_Way]

Trip Preparation: It took me some time to prepare this trip. My preparation consisted of reading other trip reports about Brasil, visa requirements, what to bring....From those lectures, I decided to go to Brasil in May and come back in June. The reason for that was that May and June are considered low season: the tickets are cheap, there are not many tourists as opposed to January and February when they have carnival in Rio.I am living now in Washington State but since my passport still carries the Minnesota home address, so I sent my passport to Brasilian consulate in Chicago. I have been told that the brasilian consulates in California complicate sometimes the stuffs: I don't know if it is true. A friend of mine from Asia who is now a US resident decided to join me on my trip. It was a good thing for me since I knew him for a long time from school where we met.  Since my friend is from India, he ended up paying 20$ to get a tourist visa valuable for 3 months from the date of entry. In my case, being a US citizen, I was charged 110$ for tourist visa. Normally, the fees are 100$ but if you send your passport with someone else, you have to pay 10$ extra. However, I was happy that the consulate gave me 5 years multiple entries tourist visa. I get a round trip ticket for 850$ (Seattle -Rio de Janeiro) from cheaptickets.com. My friend got it for 650$ (Minneapolis to Rio and back). Both of us had to fly to Washington DC and take the same plane to Rio.
Hotel: Instead of going to hotel, my friend and I decided to rent an apartment. I made contact with Mrs Norma. This is a very nice lady. She is educated: she used to teach history and other courses at Federal University of Rio. Now, she is old and lives in apartment building located on Atlantic Avenue and facing Copacabana beach. She is a manager of apartments for temporary stay located on Rua Francisca Sa 4 to 5 minutes of walking distance to the beach. They have Type A apartments (for 2 people),type B (4 people)... We were paying 80 reals a day; thus 40 reis for each of us. When I left, one dollar was equal to 2.25 reals. So , it is like we were paying approximately 36 dollars a day (18 dollars for each of us). Keep in mind that Copacabana is a touristic area, so things tend to be expensive there and 36 dollars a day is a very good price. Mrs Norma gave me the list of prices for apartments for all year . The ones who are interested can contact me. Mrs Norma is fluent in Portuguese, English, and French. She gives very good advises and is very honest person. For those who kow Rio, Rua Francisca Sa is perpendicular to Atlantic avenue. When you are on Rua Francisca sa with your back facing the beach, the first avenue parallel to Atlantic Avenue and perpendicular to Francisca sa will be Copacabana avenue. At the corner (Francisca Sa and Copacabana avenue), you have a police station, not far from there you have an internet cafe (they charge 2 real for 30 minutes, they have also phone services), after Copacabana avenue, the third avenue is Raoul Pompeia. when you continue walking on Francisca Sa, after passing Raoul Pompeia, the apartments I am talking about are located to your right. You will see a secured tall building : it has 10 or 12 floors ( I don't remeber very well).
Those apartments have stove, cooking pots .... you can cook if you don't want to spend money in restaurants.
Why did I choose rio and why did I choose Copacabana?
My choice of Rio and copacabana was dictaed by two reasons:
1) Copacabana is a tourist destination: I thought that by staying in Copacabana, I will have the chances of meeting other american citizens and other foreigners who have been living in Brasil for a while and who could be a good source of information about the country and the brasilians women. This seems to be true.
2) The second reason for staying in Copacabana was to understand the reasons why some brasilians women end up in prostitution, what those women didn't find in brasilian men and that have push them into prostitution, what were they looking for that the brasilian men didn't have? This may seem stupid thing to do but for me, I was conviced and I am still conviced that you have to understand very well the culture and see both sides before making any important decision.
To be continued....

[bad40]

looking forward to your future reports. i agree with you.. knowing the culture is important.. knowing why do the women there do what they do is important.

also thanks for the apartment information. i want to visit there in october; add sao paulo, and bahia to my itinerary though.

[Long_Way]

My impression about Brazil: the country, the people and the culture.
How do you study the culture of a country?
It is sometimes difficult to study the culture of a country because the way of doing things is different from one country to another. There are however some general clues for studying the culture. In each culture, there some themes that comes up over and over. Those themes are indicators of the main traits of that culture. To discover those traits, you have to talk to people, read the newspapers, watch the movies, the shows and programs on TV, interact with people, etc... My first week in Rio was spent on those issues. I have read about Brazil before; now, I wanted to find out if what I have read was reflecting the reality. Some stuffs I found confirm what I read before. For example, Brazilian society is a hedonist society: Brazilian people worship their bodies and they are very proud to show it. This can be seen at the beaches (Copacabana, Ipanema,...). At those beaches, you can see all the family in bikini (father, mother and kids). It is not a problem for them, it's acceptable in Brazilian culture. My friend and I were walking along the beaches, looking at the girls lying down. When some of them realized that we were looking at them, they just smiled. It seemed to us that starring at the girls in Brazil was making them feel very happy and appreciated.
If you take a bus from Rio to another state, the bus will stop some places. At those places, you have not only the restaurants and the restrooms but the showers as well. You will see people getting out of the buses, going to take showers and change their clothes. Because people want to stay in good shapes, in many cities you have fitness rooms everywhere; even the building we stayed had one. When I went to Brazil, according to the books, May and June was like winter time there. But in Rio and northern states, winter there was like summer here. It was too hot for us. I don't know how Summer can be there. Because it is too hot, people take shower many times a day. Consequently, Brazilian people are among the cleanest people I have met so far. I have been to the Philippines, to some countries in Europe, in Africa but what I saw in Brazil is out of ordinary. I don't know about Colombia. This is something to consider if you want to attract a Brazilian girl; you don't need to wear suit but you must present yourself in a good way. If your dress and look display some disorder, I don't think you will be very successful despite the amount of money you may have. It is just my impression. I may be wrong. Another trait of the Brazilian society is the mixture of the people. In fact, Brazil is the country that has the highest population of black people than any other country outside Africa (there are more black people in Brazil than in USA); Brazil has also the highest population of Italians than any other country outside of Italy and highest population of Japanese outside Japan. There are also a lot of race mixtures in Brazil than in any other country I know. The good thing about this is that apparently, all those races seem to live in harmony. It is for this reason that some brazilians consider their country as an example of racial democracy. I have been in Belgium, in Switzerland, in France, many countries in Africa, in Asia but I have to confess that I have never seen a country with too many beautiful girls as Brazil. This, I think, is the result of mixture. Sometimes, you look at on what they call favelas (slums) and you see some girls coming from there that look like the models. Sincerely, for almost 4 weeks, my eyes were happy, very happy. I was waiting for a bus and there was one beautiful girl standing close to me. I looked at her and I said: "You are so beautiful!". She smiled and said: "Obrigada (Thanks)". Then I asked her: "Why is it that Brazil has too many beautiful girls? " Her and her friends started laughing. Then she said :"Deus foi generoso" which means "God was generous" and both of them started laughing again. From what I saw, it came to my mind that Brazilian women like American or western men for the simple reason that American or European men tend to be fidel and good husbands; this task is however very difficult for Brazilian men because they have too many beautiful women to choose from and the temptation is very high. You may see one girl today and you think: "Ah, this one is the best"; tomorrow you meet another more prettier than the one you saw before. It is also good to keep in mind that while Brazilian women accuse Brazilian men of being infidel, they have also a part of responsibility in that for Brazilian men to be infidel, they have to find Brazilian women who allow them to be like that. What I found out personally is Brazilian girls are very easy to talk to; they don't have what we call here attitude. Here in USA if you try to talk to a girl that doesn't know you and you start asking personal questions, the girl may run away, she will then generally tell her friends that one guy I don't know wanted to hit on me. For Brazilian women, this is not an issue. Unless if she is in a hurry or have something special to do, she will take time to talk to you. One of the good thing also is that Brazilian women are very open to talk about anything, they don't play games at all. The only game I saw is that Brazilian women know that to attract a man, they must make him feel very important and then, he will give them whatever they want. For that reason, Brazilian women , even prostitutes, are very sweet when they talk to the man. My friend (34 years old) fall in love with a 19 years old girl despite he knew very well that the girl was going out with tourists. For my friend, that girl was the nicest and sweetest girl he has so far met in his life. I asked one Brazilian girl what she was thinking about feminists. She told me that feminists were American women who hated the men. One thing I would like to point out here is that because Brazilian society expect a woman to be very feminine, very kind, very romantic, very submissive, proud of being female... this become part of culture. Consequently, this trait can be found even among prostitutes. Clearly speaking, being sweet, very kind, romantic...doesn't make a Brazilian girl to be a good wife. There are some other things you need to consider. For those who have been to Brazil, they know very well that the prostitutes at Help disco are so sweet, so kind and so romantic that it will be hard for a foreigner to recognize them if he had never saw them there (at Help). It is for this reason that I keep repeating that if you don't know the culture, you can make a big mistake in choosing your soul mate. Unfortunately, among the thousands of girls listed on Latineuro, some are nice girls and some are prostitutes. As a precaution, when you buy the addresses from Latineuro, it is not good to try to be engaged to a girl after talking to her few months on the phone. The best thing to do is to visit the girl, to see her family (if she can't introduce you to her family, forget about her). Don't just make decision because she is writing to you nice things and talk to you nicely on the phone: most of them are like that; it's a part of their culture.
Age difference: I was in Rio, in Sao Paulo, I visited also some towns in northern states (Joao Pessao, Campina Grande in Paraiba...). It appeared to me and my friend that Brazilian girls don't care about the age difference. We saw many couples everywhere where the man looked like in the sixties or seventies with a very pretty  girl in her twenties. I tried to understand why things were like that and I came up with three possible explanations. Those explanations are just my interpretations (so, I may be wrong). The first explanation is that Brazil has between 160 millions to 180 millions people but more than half of this population is under the age of 30. So, basically the population is very young. The result is that even the old goats need fresh grass in order to survive. Consequently the old people are always searching for the young girls and this become acceptable by the society.
The second reason is that while Brazil is the 9th economic power and has a lot of natural resources, most of the money is in the hands of 5 to 7% of the population. As a result, the rest of the population is very poor; the middle class is almost nonexistent. Because of the poverty, if an old man has something, the young girl will not hesitate to go towards him. As a result, Brazilian girls tend to have sex with adults while they are still very young (13, 14, 15 years old). Fortaleza is known as the capital for children in sex tourism. I talked to one girl and she told me that she had sex when she was 15 and at that time her boyfriend was 28 years old. I asked her if it was not prohibited by the law. She said that the law was there but not enforced; that she didn't complain to the police and so her boyfriend couldn't have problem. I talked also to two girls in their early twenties at Help disco in Rio. I asked them: "You are very pretty and sweet girls. but why are  you engaged in prostitution instead of waiting to be married?" They told me this: "This help disco is an illusion. There are too many girls who come here but sometime you can stay here all night without getting anything. We want to be married but if we are doing prostitution, it's a necessity for us. I came from Minas Gerais and my friend came from Campina Grande. We were expecting to get a job here in Rio but it is hard. What can we do?" I was very affected.
Brazilian people socialize a lot, they are happy people, they like to party but poverty is one of the problem. I am not saying that all Brazilian girls are bad; not at all. Some girls work in restaurants and stores in Rio and according to what they told me, they make 400 to 450 reals a month (less than 200 dollars) and they are very happy with that. One guy from Angola I met and who just finished his studies in medicine told me that the starting salary for a Brazilian physician was 4000 reals (less than 2000 dollars). When young girls who are not mature are having sex with adults , where this lead to? Well, this lead to the kids making also other kids while they are unable to support them. As a result, at one time, they were too many streets kids sleeping outside in Rio. Many newspapers were talking about that. During my stay, I didn't see that. I asked one American guy who is living there and he told me that because those kids were most of the time involved in crime and the crimes were affecting businesses, the Brazilian government paid 7 millions dollars to the former mayor of New York Guliani to come up with the plan to solve the problem. Now they have removed those kids from the streets and put them somewhere where they are teaching them basic skills. From what I wrote here, it is clear that among many girls listed in Latineuro, some have kids but they don't mention it. One has to understand also that when writing to a Brazilian girl, it is good to just say that I got your address from Latineuro instead of saying I bought your address from Latineuro. First, most of those girls don't know that they are selling their addresses and second it will be hard for a Brazilian girl to understand how can someone end up buying her address. Sex is part of Brazilian culture, Brazilians don't consider it like something very special. Sex for them is like a food. Reason why they have even one expression  in Portuguese: "Comer a mulher" which translates by to eat a woman or in other words to have sex with a woman.
The third reason is about litteracy. According to what I have been told by Brazilian students, the illiteracy is very high in Brazil. Unlike in USA where the universities are open to everybody, in Brazil, it is very hard to be admitted at Federal University. Some students have point out to me that there are only 3% of all the population that attend the Universities.(This information need to be verified but many students in Rio, Bahia and Joao Pessoa said the same thing to me).The illiteracy is even very higher in the northern states: some girls I met had hard time to write their names. (Again, like I said, all of this is just my interpretations and impressions. I may be wrong).
To be continued....

[bad40]

great information. there are very few internet websites that provide this level of detailed cultural information about brazil. in fact, latineuro is one of the only places that provides information about women there; and this site is lacking when compared to latin-wife.com based in colombia. are there any aspects of brazilian culture that would prevent someone from starting an international introduction agency like latin-wife there?

does latineuro provide current information about women?

[Brazilophile]

great information. there are very few internet websites that provide this level of detailed cultural information about brazil. in fact, latineuro is one of the only places that provides information about women there; and this site is lacking when compared to latin-wife.com based in colombia. are there any aspects of brazilian culture that would prevent someone from starting an international introduction agency like latin-wife there?

does latineuro provide current information about women?

There are many travel oriented sites with information about Brazil.  For example,  there is a recently created site called brasilbrothahood (dot) com.  It has info relevant for men visiting Brazil.

[Maestoso]

Long Way you are making me want to give up DR and go to Brazil.

[tjay]

Man, Thank you for your trip reports. IMO, As a newbie, this one is the best one on here by far.... I enjoyed your insightful mixture of personal recollections, historical perspectives, and advice. And It would be so awesome to know how many times an address was ordered or how long they've been a member of the website.

If you could kindly answer these questions it would be a great service.

How did you find the North of Brazil compared to the South? Were the people significantly different in their outlook and respective cultures?

Even though they are likely a small number, where did encounter the majority of English speakers?

How was your overall reception as somebody who is not only American, but also directly from Africa? Were people knowledgable about Portuguese speaking Africa (Cabo Verde, Angola, Mocambique, etc..)

Did you meet any women of recent Asian (Japanese) or Arabic descent? I've always been a little curious about Asian and Middle Eastern women South of the US Border.

Anyways, great post!

[Long_Way]

Man, Thank you for your trip reports. IMO, As a newbie, this one is the best one on here by far.... I enjoyed your insightful mixture of personal recollections, historical perspectives, and advice. And It would be so awesome to know how many times an address was ordered or how long they've been a member of the website.

If you could kindly answer these questions it would be a great service.

How did you find the North of Brazil compared to the South? Were the people significantly different in their outlook and respective cultures?

Even though they are likely a small number, where did encounter the majority of English speakers?

How was your overall reception as somebody who is not only American, but also directly from Africa? Were people knowledgable about Portuguese speaking Africa (Cabo Verde, Angola, Mocambique, etc..)

Did you meet any women of recent Asian (Japanese) or Arabic descent? I've always been a little curious about Asian and Middle Eastern women South of the US Border.

Anyways, great post!

[Long_Way]

Man, Thank you for your trip reports. IMO, As a newbie, this one is the best one on here by far.... I enjoyed your insightful mixture of personal recollections, historical perspectives, and advice. And It would be so awesome to know how many times an address was ordered or how long they've been a member of the website.

If you could kindly answer these questions it would be a great service.

How did you find the North of Brazil compared to the South? Were the people significantly different in their outlook and respective cultures?

Even though they are likely a small number, where did encounter the majority of English speakers?

How was your overall reception as somebody who is not only American, but also directly from Africa? Were people knowledgeable about Portuguese speaking Africa (Cabo Verde, Angola, Mozambique, etc..)

Did you meet any women of recent Asian (Japanese) or Arabic descent? I've always been a little curious about Asian and Middle Eastern women South of the US Border.

Anyways, great post!

TJay,
Thank you for reading my reports about Brazil. I will try to respond to your questions. But, like I said before, keep in mind that what I am writing is my impressions about Brazil and my own interpretations about the country. So, I may be wrong! This was my first time to be in Brazil. You wanted to know how many times the address was ordered and  how long they were members of the website. It is a little hard to reply to this question. Here is the website of latineuro where the addresses of Brazilian girls can be purchased. www.latineuro.com or www.brazilgirls.com. It is the same website. If you go there, they don't tell you how many times the address has been ordered and how long the girl has been a member. But, I found the answer indirectly. I ordered some addresses 4 or 5 years ago. The same girls are still there, or even six month in a life of a girl is a long time: anything can happen. the girl may find a boyfriend, may be married girl can move and the address will change.... To know how many times the address has been ordered is hard also but the girls I have the chance to meet during my trip told me that they have received between hundred and two hundred letters but people who promised to see them didn't show up. This means that the address was sold more than hundred times.
What advise can I give you if I can be helpful? Well, I would say that it is a big risk we are taking in trying to find a girl in a foreign country but risks are part of our lives. If we don't take it, nothing better will happen. We have however to do our best to minimize the danger. In this perspective, the key point is to understand the culture. It is wrong to think that once I marry a Brazilian girl and she comes to America, she will understand very well American culture. This approach will be wrong, completely wrong. When I came to USA, I was in my early twenties. I have been living in this country for many years (10 years). I went to university here, I dated American girls while still a student but I can tell you that I run through a lot the culture confusion and things were not easy. Until now, I keep running sometimes through a lot a confusion. the American girls I dated were not bad; the big problem was the culture. I am going to give you some examples, may be this will make sense. The first girl  who became my friend was called Shelly. She was a nice girl coming from a small town in Minnesota. I was very new in USA and was starving to learn English. My strategy was to talk to many students to practice my English. As you know, American guys are very reserved, they don't talk too much at school (to be cool). My only choice was to talk to the girls. Shelly didn't like that. For her, the other girls were taking too much attention she needed. Even talking to my friends students from Africa on the phone was a problem. She will get very nervous if I stayed on the phone for more than 5 minutes. I liked Shelly but now I was feeling like I was in prison. In Africa, students socialize a lot but here, Shelly wanted me to look at only at her when we go to school. It was funny because I was forced to do my best to look at her only a and to close my eyes to other girls. One day, it was during winter time in Minnesota; there was a lot of snow in the parking lot. Shelly saw me talking to another girl. She had a double of my key's car. She went to the parking lot, open the car and put a lot of snow everywhere in the seat and in the engine. When it was time to go home, I went to my car and found that she has done a lot of disaster. I started laughing seriously. I called one friend from Cameroon to give me ride. My friend asked me: "What happened to your car?" When he came and saw it, we started both laughing seriously.  This kind of things continued until we broke up. The second girl was a different story; she was mad at me because I was not carrying her cat and this was very very bad for her. I told her: I don't have problem with your cat: your cat lives here, whenever you ask me to go and buy food for your cat, I do it. Where is your problem? She said I was not playing with her cat or carrying it. I was saying to myself: " What is the importance of a cat for an African guy? In Africa, people domesticate cats in the villages so that they can eat mouses if there are mouses in their small cases but here, this girl consider the cat like a baby. I have a problem here".   What I was trying to point out here is that I can marry an American girl here but because the American culture is different from the culture I grew up, I will be always having problems. The same thing applies also to people who were born here and want to marry foreigners. This start with purchasing addresses of the girls. I am not sure but I am thinking that people from Latineuro are from Brazil. They must be Brazilian Americans. If this is true, it means that they know very well Brazilian culture and American culture and they use both cultures for business purpose. They know very well that in USA, it is hard to be connected to people. In fact, how do Americans meet here? They meet at school when they go to study, at work, at churches... you must be in some organizations to meet people. It is a little hard here because almost everybody drives and you can not stop a girl who is driving and doesn't know you to talk to her. American people will not trust you until they know you very well; it is apart of the culture. As a consequence, you can live in one building many years without knowing the names of your neighbors. This lead to loneliness; everybody is in his house or apartment watching TV and changing channels. Because, the owner of Latineuro knows that boredom is part of this culture, they sell everything: a copy of the letter that a girl sent to them costs 5 dollars and they know that people will buy it. Now, just to put your name in their database, you have to pay 13 dollars to be a member. When you purchase the addresses, people from latineuro know that at 95% you will not go there. They know that the fact of you getting some responses from Brazilian girls will make you happy. they know also that they girls address may change at any time. That's why they tell you that if something goes wrong with the address, we can give you other addresses to substitute. Some Brazilians living in Brazil know also that and exploit it to their advantages. This means that among the thousands of girls listed on Latineuro, you have very nice girls who are searching for soul mates, but you have also many crooks who want to exploit you. You have to be very careful. I have been told there that some men send the pictures of their sisters or girlfriends and information. When you write to the girl, she will respond very nicely even if she has boyfriend or she is married. You can even talk with her on the phone and she will be always sweet. if you ask her to send her pictures, she will tell you that she doesn't have money and that she will do that once she has it. She will not ask you for money directly but indirectly through her kindness and the way she will be treating you. Sometimes when you send a letter, the men (boyfriends or relatives) give her some ideas on how to reply, sometimes the men reply... Bref, I am trying to say that there are many nice girls and many crooks also. The crooks have acquired also some survival skills on how to exploit the foreigners. As a general advise, before you go far with a girl, plan a trip and visit her. Her lifestyle will tell you a lot about her. Keep also in mind that in the countries were many people are poor, something that belongs to a single person generally belongs also to the community. So, if a girl gives you her phone, it may be her own phone, it maybe a neighbor phone, it may be a friend phone or a phone belonging to someone living very far from her.
After buying the addresses, check where the girl is living. For example, there are two Rio do Janeiro: Rio DE Janeiro city and Rio DE Janeiro state.
If a girl write for example: Duque de Caixas (Rio DE Janeiro) or Nilopolis (Rio de Janeiro) or Itaguai (Rio de Janeiro)..., know very well that she is living in the village in the interior. Use search engine to find the information about that city or village. If it's a favela, don't go there. In my report, I mentioned a visit to one girl in Itaguai (Rio de Janeiro). Apparently everything was quiet. On my way back, the girl told me that any time I wanted to see her, I had to take a taxi because Itaguai was a lot of crimes and prostitution going on. I will not advise foreigners who are looking for wives to o to the favelas, favelas are very dangerous place. The same thing is true for Sao Paulo: there is Sao Paulo city and Sao Paulo state. In my case, I was a little lucky and many things played in my favour. I speak Portuguese even with Angolan accent, I was wearing Brazilian clothes (the national team colors), so I was easily assimilated to Brazilians.
Tja, you asked another question: How did you find the North of Brazil compared to the South? I will say that I was in Rio, Sao Paulo and Northeastern states. Brazil is divided in 5 regions: North, North East, Centro, West and South. When you talk about South, you are referring to Rio Grande del sul, Santa Catarina, Parana... I didn't go to the South but I was told that South has a European flavor and that things are different there. May be next time, I will try to go there. What I can say is that I didn't see too many smiling faces in the metro in Sao Paulo. The reason is that they were coming from work. People from Sao Paulo work a lot as opposed to people from Rio who want to relax a lot. I saw the same paulistas (people from Sao Paulo) very happy on the streets the day Brazil was going to play his first match against Croatia.
I didn't see people from the Northeastern states significantly different in their outlook and respective cultures as compared to people from Rio or Sao Paulo. The only thing I noticed is the change in accent: People from the Northeastern states have different accent when they speak Portuguese. Another thing to keep in mind is that among many people you see in Rio and Sao Paulo, some of them came from the Northern states to look for jobs since the North is very poor. So, they are the same. May be if you go to Rondonia or Amazonia, people may look different because of the strong native Indians influence.
The majority of English speakers from my point of view are found in Rio ( Copacabana area) since it's a tourist area. I was in Sao Paulo but I visited only the main point of the city: Paulista Avenue (the main avenue in Sao Paulo), the Banespa building (the tallest building in Sao Paulo), the downtown Sao Paulo... Sao Paulo is the third biggest city in the world after Tokyo in Japan and Mexico City. This means that it takes a lot of time to find out what is going in this kind of city. The chances are there may be many English speakers in Sao Paulo but I don't know very well.
You wanted also to know "How was your overall reception as somebody who is not only American, but also directly from Africa? Were people knowledgeable about Portuguese speaking Africa (Cabo Verde, Angola, Mozambique, etc..)"
I don't have anything to complain: Brazilian culture seemed to me very easy to understand that American culture where I have been living for years. I found a lot of similarities between Brazilian culture and the culture from where I grew up in Africa. In fact, for two decades (1964 -1984) Brazil had the most brutal dictatorship in all South America. This happened when President Joao Goulart, elected in 1961 was overthrown by a military coup in 1964. This means that democracy is something new in Brazil. Even now, the government is still corrupted because it is hard to change the mentalities in a short period. What I am trying to point out here is that people who grew up in dictatorship regimes have developed survival skills to adjust to their environment. I grew also in dictatorship, so we have something in common. There are also more blacks in Brazil than in any other country outside Africa. This means also that Brazilian culture is strongly influenced by African culture; which make it easy for me to understand them. In American culture, almost everything is tied to technology, even the human relations. When everything become tied to businesses and technology, they loose the natural flavor which is very sweet. We have mass production of food and everything, what counts here is money, the rest comes after. In USA stores for example, girls are told to smile just to make the customer happy. This becomes an artificial smile instead of natural (a manufactured smile). Someone is sick but according to our American culture, it is not good to bother people. So, when you ask: "How are you?" The person will tell you: "fine". You are fine but why are you going to the clinic! In Brazil and in Africa, people are open and they will tell you what  they think. May be some examples may illustrate what I am saying.
Brazilians have developed also their own ways of doing things: the brazileiro way and they know that very well. Brazilians say for example that "Africans invented the party. we didn't want to party like Africans; so we took it, we added many ingredients and came up with the biggest carnaval in the world. They say also that England invented the soccer; but we didn't want to play like them. So, we took it, added many ingredients and turned the soccer game to show". The same thing goes with the AIDS prevention. Brazilian government doesn't tell people to stop having sex, instead, the government gives thousands of Condoms for free; the government has even asked the Thai companies to come to Brazil and make more condoms from Brazilians. When I was there, one day, we were walking with my friend. We saw one guy and one girls wearing the uniforms of a store " Baja coracao" coming. Another guy just came in the opposite direction, crab the head of the girl and start kissing her. The girl was fighting to remove her lips from the guy's mouth but the guy was holding her head. Finally, when the guy released the girl, both of them were smiling. In USA, such thing will be sexual harassment and will involve police. In Brazil however, it was a part of the fun! Again, differences in cultures.
Personally, I didn't have any problem to interact with them. This may be due to my personality but I think it is mostly the problem of attitude. If you are humble, funny, trying to assimilate with them and treat them with respect, they will open up and tell you a lot of secrets. If you are arrogant and have bad attitude, they may easily complicate your life. In Itaguai for example, the people we visited didn't have chairs. so, I was dressed like Brazilian, I went to sit on the floor together with them. They were very happy to see that. This gave them the courage to make small cup of coffee for me and my friend. If you are looking for good wife, you have to put you down to learn about the country and its people. When dealing with Brazilian girl, keep in mind that they like drama. When your relationship becomes very deep, they become very possessive because they don't want to loose you. One white American guy I met in Rio warned me about that. He had a girlfriend but wanted to hit another girl. When her girlfriend found out that, she just scratched her back but she didn't call police and she will not do that according to what the guy said.
The asked also a question question about the women of Japanese or Arabic descent in the North. It is hard to tell. What is true is that except 5 to 7 % of the population that is rich, the rest of Brazilians are seriously mixed, it is hard to find pure Japanese, pure Arabic ... they are all mixed. My friend was from India but he looked like the real Brazilian. Many people thought he was Brazilian. Some people are descendant of people of many races. Reason why Brazil is like a rainbow: you may find a girl incredibly beautiful and it is hard to tell if her parents are blacks, Asians, Europeans or native Indians because she has strange skin coming from the mixture of all those ingredients.
Man, if you like beautiful girls, go to Brazil. But Brazil is not the country where you can go and look for Virgin Maria. The Virgin Maria may be found in the province in the Philippines Islands; not in Brazil. Filipinas are traditional wives but they don't have the romance that is found with the Brazilians: this is my view.
Hope I have answered all your questions.
Again, thanks for your interests in my reports!

[utopiacowboy]

I like your posts but you make an awful lot of generalizations about Americans. Here in Texas people from Minnesota may as well be from another country. I would not make assumptions based on your Minnesota experiences or California experiences - the US is made up of several very different distinct areas and the people are not at all alike.

[Long_Way]

I like your posts but you make an awful lot of generalizations about Americans. Here in Texas people from Minnesota may as well be from another country. I would not make assumptions based on your Minnesota experiences or California experiences - the US is made up of several very different distinct areas and the people are not at all alike.

Utopiacowboy,
I agree you are right about generalizations. My experiences are based on people I have been in touch with and doesn't apply to all Americans. You have brazilian americans here, Asian americans... what can I say about them? It 's for that reason that I say that my reports are based on my impressions and not a scientific study. Myself I am a naturalized American with my confusion of the American culture. Again, those are just my impressions and should not be taken as an axiom. thanks for point out that.

[utopiacowboy]

People down here think people from Minnesota are cold fish who don't talk to anyone. I guess people can't help generalizing because I'm sure there's gotta be a few Minnesotans who are friendly and talk to everyone. I am very impressed by how much you learned about Brazil - you're very observant.