elle089
Best/worst about living in Brazil

Learning a foreign laguage includes learning about culture, music, history of the country as well. Brazil is quite a distant country to me, my Portuguese level isnt enough to read newspapers or watcht news and my picture of Brazil is quite limited. I would like to ask you, guys, a quiestion - What do you find best and worst about living in Brazil? 

Elle

Feb 11, 2015 5:45 PM
Comments · 10
5

привет, Elle!

(Как вас зовут по-русски? Did I get it right?lol)

Как дила?

 

Best:

- Very welcoming and open people. One would be confortable anywhere you go. We are very informal most of the time, even at work. Culturaly, we are a melting pot, with strong western European and Afrikan incluence. Ate the same time, if you speak Portuguese you can speak to 99,99% of our 200 million population (the rare exceptions would be people you would never met, anyway: enderly european imigrants living in very small villages in southern Brazil and some native Brazilian living deep in the forest). We keep strong family bonds through life. And of course, astonishing nature.

 

Worst:

- Certainly corruption exists and it is widespread, but it receives much more attention by the conservative mass media, and, as a consequence, the general population, than it deserves. It serves well the conservatives. I've been trying to find a foreigner that doesn't complain about corruption in their countries, but I've been unable to find one so far. You, Elle, as a Russian, probably can figure out what I'm talking about...

- Poverty. It improved tremendously in the last 20 years (especially in the last 10 years), but income inequite in Brazil is absurd.

- Social security is a problem. Pensions are very low. One should totally get private health insurance if they can.

- Big cities are violent.

- Public transportation is very bad, in general.

 

I wouldn't say living in Brazil is hard. On the contraire. It totally depends on your income though. Privileged Brazilan complain as hell (in the US they call it "white people's drama") and you probably should see it for yourself.

Keep in touch.

До свидания!

March 14, 2015
3

I think Brazil is a beautiful country with beautiful places. There are nasty people and nice people here just as in most of other countries, I think. The living cost is pretty high, especially if you're a tourist, so be prepared for that. Brazil's culture and identity has been formed with influences from many other cultures from many other people and countries, that's why it's so wide in terms of diversity and variety.

In Brazil you might have to care a little more about safety than if you were in a more developed country in terms of public security. Also you might want to have a budget big enough to afford health insurance and related costs, because Brazil's public health system is not well known for being great in general, but it's not all that bad as it sounds, it depends on the region you are. Brazil's public health system might pretty good in some regions while it can be really poor in other regions.

There are cons and pros, obviously. But I can't just put everything Brazil is here. I think you have to come and see by yourself if you really want to know Brazil.

February 12, 2015
2

Ellle,

 

http://braziliangringo.com/life-lessons-brazil/ (24 Life Lessons Learned from 3 Years in Brazil) - maybe you'll like to read more about Brazil and Brazilians.

February 14, 2015
2

Thank you, guys, for your comments. When you wanna learn about Brazil, there are two extremes - on one side - friendly country with samba, carnaval and Jesus statue on the top, on the other - favelas, gangs, street kids, corruption etc,  so it could be difficult to learn about "normal", "average" life in Brazil.  From your comments though, it seems that life in Brazil is even harder that I ve imagened and I should have rather asked how do you survive over there. 

February 14, 2015
2

best- nature, beautiful places, foods and mix of culture.

worst- corruption, the prices is high, high crime rates and heath system.

February 12, 2015
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