Brazil is mourning – well, those that have some musical memory are – the passing of Pena Branca. For almost five decades he partnered with his brother Xavantinho in a duo essential to the national country music. Even after Xavantinho’s death, 11 years ago, Pena Branca pursued a solo career that led to a Latin Grammy, in 2001, awarded to “Semente Caipira”.
Best of Pena Branca and Xavantinho
Pena Branca and Xavantinho authored some great música caipira (melancholic songs inspired by rural life, played with acustic guitars and normally sang by a couple of contrasting voices). The duo was one of the last successful representatives of a musical form that is slowly fading out, substituted by música sertaneja, the highly commercial Brazilian copy of American country music.
A worker that earns the average Brazilian salary would need to work 40 minutes in São Paulo and 51 minutes in Rio to buy a Big Mac. In contrast, an average New Yorker would have to work mere 14 minutes to buy McDonald’s bestselling sandwich. The so-called Big Mac Index is only one of the instruments used by the Swiss bank UBS to illustrate the fluctuations of the purchasing power in several parts of the world.
São Paulo and Rio are, indeed, pricey cities. The disproportion is the same for other products. To buy 1 kilo of rice, for instance, you have to work 12 minutes in São Paulo, 15 in Rio and 8 in New York.
Still according to UBS – that systematically compares the cost of life in 73 cities – São Paulo got the 45th position and Rio the 48th in the last survey. This means they are more expensive than Prague, Bangkok, Beijing or Moscow. Naturally, there are fluctuations depending on the product or service you look at. Even if renting an apartment is expensive in Brazilian metropolis it cannot be compared to the exorbitant NY rentals. This explains why New York appears in the UBS study as the 6th most expensive metropolis.
Thomas Berner, an American economist that works for UBS on this study, says prices have been growing consistently in Rio and São Paulo in the last 10 years. The price of the products and service that the bank uses as a reference became aproximately135% more expensive in reais, the national currency, between 2000 and 2009. Berner was interviewed by G1, a website related to Globo, the main Brazilian news network. G1 chose the Honda Civic to illustrate this. The car costs around 15,000 dollars in the United States and 65,000 reais (35,000 dollars) in Brazil.
Once the average income didn’t grow proportionally, you have to work many more hours to keep buying the same. Consequence: the average paulistano may consume less than half what a New Yorker can purchase.
What is your experience? Do you find you find your purchasing power lower in Brazil?
There are several ways of celebrating Carnival in Rio, if you are lucky enough to be there on February 13th, when the festival begins.
You can be in the audience of the huge parade of Escolas de Samba - at the Sambódromo (built specifically for the yearly event) -, you can attend some indoor ball, or you can participate in one of the hundred street manifestations that happen all around town. These blocos, as they are called, are semi-spontaneous, normally include a group of percussionists and may be thematic.
Their names can be really inspired:
“O Negócio tá feio e o teu nome tá no meio” (Things are getting ugly and your name was mentioned)
“Meu amor, vou logo ali” (My love, I am going next door – and I won’t come back before the party is over, it should add)
“Butano na Bureta” (Butane in the Burette, inspired by [sexual] chemistry)
“Xupa mas não baba” (Suck but don’t drool – no comments about this one)
“Lavou tá limpo” (If you wash, it will be clean again)
“Parei de beber, não de mentir” (I stopped drinking, not lying)
“Simpatia é quase Amor” (Liking is almost Love).
Check here for the complete list, in case you are in town to celebrate.
This week, Veja covers the 45 days of non-stop rain in the Southeast region (that includes Rio and São Paulo), that it attributes to a “rare conjunction of meteorological factors”, including the elevation of the temperature of the South Atlantic waters. I wrote about the violent resulting floods recently. Época goes with the progress of the bionics science and Isto É goes for an unexpected topic: government officially liberated the use of an hallucinogenic tea by the followers of Santo Daime, a cult that developed in the end of the 19th century in the Amazon and, today, is also practiced in the US and Europe.
From useful to futile, numbers that help explaining the country.
43% of adults that live in state capitals are overweight.
Those who have access to the internet spent 2.8 days connected in the month of September.
9% of the kids born in 2008 were not registered.
473 million reais ( 256.6 million dollars or 184.5 million euros) were collected by the government of the city of São Paulo thanks to driving and parking tickets. 99% of the Brazilian cities have budgets lower than that.
57% of the inhabitants of the city of São Paulo would like to move away (Is this related to the previous number? Maybe).
Brazil is the 88th country in the education ranking produced by Unesco. Paraguay and Bolivia are in better shape.
1 in 5 Brazilians that have a formal job works for the public service.
President Lula spent 87 days abroad in 2009 – a personal record.
9 in 10 Brazilians have a cell phone.
500 million reais (271.3 million dollars or 195 million euros) will be spent to fix up Maracanã stadium, in Rio, for the 2014 World Soccer Cup.
The Brazilian delegation to the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen last December had 743 members. It was three times bigger than the American delegation.
1819 houses and buildings at Brazilian roadsides have been used for child prostitution. It’s one every 27 kilometers.
A huge percentage of the Brazilian population spends Sundays in front of the TV (at least 60% watch the evening programs). So, Sunday shows are extremely important in terms of ad sales and the war to gain audience can be ferocious.
Three TV hosts are essential to understand what Brazilians see, learn and feel on their free time.
First the delirious, surreal Chacrinha. Abelardo Barbosa (his real name) was a huge success between the fifties and the eighties, till his death, in 1988. He will be remembered for a long time, thanks to a mix of his glittery outfits, catch phrases repeated over and over, double entendre songs, pineapples and codfish thrown to the audience and close ups of girls with large bottoms, shinny beachwear and white boots – the chacretes. Named as porn stars – Rita Cadillac, Fernanda Terremoto (Earthquake), Lia Hollywood -, they were huge sex symbols. Also known as Velho Guerreiro (Old Warrior) – thanks to Gilberto Gil, that payed homage to Chacrinha in his song Aquele Abraço -, he brought to the telly the spirit of the counterculture and the unconventional seventies. Lots of fun, anarchy and nonsense.
Then, Silvio Santos, the billionaire communicator that began his career as a street vendor in Rio. Today he owns SBT, one of the main TV networks of the country. He is capable of selling absolutely anything to anybody – I can testify. I attended one of his programs, Topa Tudo por Dinheiro (Money is worth anything, in a very free translation) in the mid-nineties. His domain over the audience – that was invited to do demeaning things to earn some extra cash – is almost supernatural (in this video, a guy offers to eat a blade, a battery and a whole egg). Silvio’s trademark is a huge smile and the ability to talk to his all-female audience as if he was an old family friend. He also tends to praise enthusiastically whoever governs the country (he is an apple polisher to the left and the right, no distinctions). His shows have been aired non-stop since the early sixties and used to be extremely long – he could be on the stage for 12 hours at a time when he was younger.
Finally, Fausto Silva, that leads the Sunday show aired by TV Globo, the main Brazilian communications network, since the late 80s. Known as Faustão, due to his huge dimensions, he developed a style that includes half naked dancers, insults towards the audience and his cameramen, lots of candy camera shots and live bands. He probably shouldn’t be here, in the company of two of the main communicators that ever landed Brazilian TV. But, if you visit somebody in Brazil next Sunday, there is a good chance the TV will be on – most likely, tuned on Faustão.
So, next Sunday, where are we meeting to watch the afternoon show? My house or yours?
Tonight, along the Brazilian coast, several hundred thousand people will pay their respects to Iemanjá, the queen of the seas, the beautiful orixá (deity) of candomblé, one of the main Afro-Brazilian religions. Brought to the country by the slaves of yoruba tradition, the cult of Iemanjá (or Yemanja or Janaína) can also be seen in other countries, such as neighboring Uruguay (shown in the pictures displayed here) and Cuba.
On Iemanjá Day, February 2nd, the devouts dress in white and bring to the beach all sorts of gifts for the orishá, such as mirrors and perfume (she is known for her vanity). She also receives flowers and certain dishes, such as fish, rice and a sweet milk pudding. The offerings are displayed on the sand or taken by boats further into the sea. The next morning, everything is washed back to the sand. People may also jump over seven waves and receive, over their head, a bunch of popcorn, in the candomblé tradition. In Rio, though, the celebration happens around New Year’s day.
Iemanjá’s figure is somehow related to the cult of Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes (Our Lady of the Navigators) – a representation of Virgin Mary that is celebrated in the same day. Several orixás have “correspondent” Catholic saints because, during the slavery period, Africans were not allowed to practice their religions and had to find creative ways to keep their faith. Intertwining candomblé and Catholicism was their only option.
Gifts for the orixá displayed in a little boat in Montevideo, Uruguay
Brazil is still very far from fulfilling its touristic potential. Despite its 7,500 kilometers (4,300 miles) of coast, the Amazon rainforest, the Iguaçú Falls and the cultural riches, the country attracts less attention than it deserves. Last year, only 6.5 million tourists landed in the country. It is huge, if you remember that this number was a meager 1.5 million in 1990. On the other hand, it is nothing if you compare it to the tourism influx of Spain, a particularly coveted destination but also a much smaller country. Spain attracted 52 million foreigners last year – lower than its average, thanks to the global crisis.
According to the Brazilian Tourism Ministry, last year 5.3 billion dollars were spent by foreign tourists in Brazil. This industry is responsible for at least 2 million jobs, a number that could triple if we include informal jobs plus bars and restaurants. Again, this may look good, but note that Brazilian tourists spent 10.89 billion dollars abroad in 2010. So, we are better exporters than importers of tourism.
There are several reasons that might explain the relative lack of interest for Brazilian attractions. First, the fact that Brazil is seen as a dangerous destination (the drug business, kidnappings and other sorts of crimes are broadly covered by the international media). Secondly, for many decades the Brazilian government made a very poor job in advertising the country beauties. Most of the material distributed abroad in the 70s and 80s would display naked ladies by the beach or dancing during Carnival. This stimulated sexual tourism and, somehow, may have scared families and conservative travelers. Embratur, the federal agency responsible for the promotion of tourism, progressed considerably in this department. Then, you have the chronic problem of lack of infrastructure (almost no railway system, roads that are not always in good shape) and of professionals poorly trained to offer a good service in hotels and restaurants. Also, here, there was considerable improvement in the last decades.
Bodies still star Riotur's ads
Embratur ad, 2009
In December, the Brazilian government announced its Plano Aquarela 2020 (Plan Watercolor 2020) that aims to double the number of foreign visitors in the next ten years. The 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, that will be hosted by the country, should be instrumental to reach this target.
Also in December, the government published the results of a yearly poll made with foreign tourists interviewed in airports. It tries to detects how the country’s image is evolving. According to the 2009 poll:
45% of the interviewees said the the population is the best attraction factor of Brazil, 23% mentioned the natural beauties, 18% prefered the beaches and the ocean, 14% chose the weather and 9% the diversity.
68% considered the quality of the products and services offered high or very high.
63% used the internet as their main source of information to organize the trip
All in all, Brazil seems to be well positioned to, finally, attract a larger number of visitors and boost an industry that can grow considerably.
Among the weekly magazines, only Veja went for the obvious: president Lula’s hypertension and stress crisis (that seems to be under control but was strong enough to prevent him from attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland). Época discusses the peculiarities of women’s relationship with money and Isto É talks about the dream of having a stable job in public service (10 million Brazilians are disputing 80,000 open positions in local, state and federal governments).
There is one thing you will find, for sure, when you drive in a Brazilian road: the good humor of truck back bumpers. They frequently sport dirty jokes, religious quotes, song lyrics, love declarations and whatever could brighten the other drivers lives.
Check here some of my favorites:
He-Man
Thanks to those who talk on my back. It means I am always ahead
I exist because I insist
Don't follow me. I am lost
Vote for prostitutes, because voting for their children didn't work so well
I am slow - but ahead of you
My face is ugly but I am good on the road.
The flag of Corinthians [popular soccer team] is like deodorant: it is always under the arm.
If work made you rich, donkeys would be millionaire.
A secret kept by three people? Only if you kill two of them.
If breasts were horns, the night would be noisy.
Mini-skirt is like barbed wire. It encloses the property, but allows the vision.
