#2: Sex, Food & Life in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
From the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain.
2 Jan 2002
The Brazilians love to say this: “God made the world in six days. The seventh he spent making Rio.” Indeed, this is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Straddled at the entrance of Guanabara Bay, Rio is squeezed in a narrow strip of land between the green mountains and the deep blue sea. Rocky isles and steep cliffs dot the island like stars in the skies. And from above Christ the Redeemer overlooks love, sin, crime and everybody with his piercing eyes.
Here are some general observations of Rio the past few days:
Dressing
The weather is hot, so people dress as casual as possible. If the images of samba girls and the strollers in Copabacana and Ipanema are standard, one might think that the regular Brazilian wears swim suits (or even less – well, during the Carnival) everywhere! Of course, they dress like people everywhere else in Downtown Rio, the financial centre.
Eating
Food, food, food! Many places serve a buffet spread that charges by the kilo. A wide variety of dishes. I love that! And food is cheap too. I had a large helping of a fish stew called Moqueca, from Bahia state in the Northeast. It can easily feed two persons. In London, it would have been divided to serve 4 persons and charged at double the price, i.e., making 8 times the revenue!
Poverty
Brazil is a nation of vast contrasts. A nation of numerous large businesses and billionaires, as well as enormous poverty. Every day peasants arrive from the countryside, seeking their fortunes in the metropolises of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Shantytowns, or favelas, are seen on the way from the airport to the city. In fact, even on the beaches of Copacabana, one sees the favelas hanging on the cliff-face just behind Copabacana. In fact, when I passed through a favela on a bus to the Main Bus Station, I put on my dark glasses and looked motionlessly straight ahead when some dodgy characters got up the bus – realities of life in a large Third-World city.
Portugal
The Portuguese colonised Brazil in the 16th century, and since then they have retained a strong influence here. Portuguese is the official language, although Brazilians have their own accent and have modified the spelling of many words – in ways not unlike what the Americans do to the English language. As with the American-British relationship, increasingly the culture and business of the ex-colony begins to dominate that in the ex-colonial power. As my Brazilian friends say, Brazilians top the charts in Portugal, Brazilian dramas take the top slots in Portuguese TV, etc. Not surprising, since both ex-colonies have much larger economies and populations than the ex-colonial powers.
Race
Brazil has 170 million people – one of the largest and most-populous nations in the world. It’s certainly one of the most diverse too: 50% of the people are white, 40% mixed, 5% African, and the rest are a wide variety, including 1 million Japanese who emigrated here in the 1930s. In many parts of the world, people mistake me for being a Japanese and in Brazil they do too; the only difference is that they think I could be a Japanese-Brazilian and so speak to me in Portuguese.
Safety
The guidebooks make one paranoid about safety here! Yes, the crime rate is probably high, but one should take the usual precautions: avoid small alleys, be alert, and don’t get too drunk at night.
Sex
On offer everywhere. Women are on-hire in the clubs – one pretty lady exposed her breast to me on the street corner on the main street of Copacabana, Av Atlantica, with a police watching 20 meters away. The hotel bellboy asked if I have tried a local specimen and offered to introduce me to some. Temptations are everywhere.
Walking
Rio is a large city of 20 million people squeezed into a narrow strip of land. So it is a very long city! I did lots of walking, as well as took taxis too.
And no, no headway in learning Brazilian Portuguese…