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Gajeman · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:00 pm Post subject:

Here in Brazil I have encountered a strange sort of contrast in the culture. The people who seem to give me the hardest time about being from the U.S. are usually the ones with hip, new American clothing or some trendy catch-phrase written in English on their tee shirts. "Bush is a Nazi" is spraypainted on the sides of buildings but the caf� in the hospital is called "Speedy Lunch". For the most part I have no problems here and the majority of people are simply curious about my country. I also speak Portuguese and don't walk around promoting the fact that I'm a foreigner, so I'm sure that helps. Every once in a while though I'll be confronted by a young Brazilian male with a Che Guavara shirt who wants to tell me how evil America is and that George W. is the root of all problems in the world, so I sit patiently and listen and pretty soon this kid is telling me that when Winston Churchill was president and stopped the vietnam war... or that the Amazon territory is on the map of the United States listed as American soil I have to laugh so hard that none of it bothers me any more. Then I get scared that maybe a lot more people are that ignorant and that I should be very, very careful.

Cdaniels · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:56 pm Post subject: Ignorance is bliss...

Gajeman · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:55 pm Post subject:

I'm afraid of people filled with hate for something they know nothing about. I'm not afraid of Brazil or Brazilians in general, just the look of desperate rage in a young man's eyes for what I supposedly represent when he obviously knows little to nothing about the U.S. and has some idealistic vision of a "Blood and Fire Revolution" that will somehow make things better for him in Brazil. I am afraid of that ignorance combined with angered passion. That's a bad combination in my book. I have had many interesting conversations with people who have a negative opinion of the U.S. but they were calm discussions between two rational human beings exchanging ideas and opinions. The majority of my friends here realize that the first step is to better things in Brazil and that pointing fingers isn't going to help anyone. The ol' "Think globally-Act locally" thing. Ironic that I took so much s**t back in Boston defending my Brazilian friends from ignorant Americans and now I have to defend myself from ignorant Brazilians. I guess it's everywhere. But fortunately those instances aren't very common and I'd much rather confront these issues than go hide away somewhere and pretend it's a perfect world.

stillnosheep · Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 2068 Location: eslcafe

No irony at all, unless you still think in terms of Americans and Brasilians.

In Boston you were defending people from ignorance, not from Americans. Perhaps the people you speak to in Brasil are not ignorant, but passionate in their feelings about US foreign policy. Rage is an understandable reaction when your country's chances of peaceful development are obstructed by outside forces. Understandable; but not necessarily productive.