Photo by Emily Paige Blodgett in Belo Horizonte
This summer I lived in the city of Belo Horizonte, a city in the city-state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Their culture is vastly different than ours, so in this post I am going to share a little with you- mostly my first hand experiences. Brazil is a lovely place to be! You may think the south is very hospitable, but the people of Brazil are more so. Brazilians do not have the concept of personal space; soon after living there for a while you no longer have this concept either. Normally in the states you have three people sitting on a couch, five is a more realistic number in Brazil.
Every time I went somewhere new, when I entered the room it was customary to great each individual person. This was the case whether I knew each person or not, and more often than not I would hug someone and ‘kiss’ them on the cheek before I met them. This same custom happens when someone leaves the place you are as well, individual goodbyes.
When having a meal you can count on rice and beans. Rice and beans with chicken, beef, pork, and even pasta. Anytime you go to a buffet you dress nicely- completely opposite of things here. You do not go to a bar that has all of the food options laying on it, but people carry around the options and they ask you if you would like it. As you can imagine buffets were usually the best places to eat- but the hardest for me because I do not speak Portuguese.
There are many other topics I could write about such as traffic- since I lived in a city of 3.5 million, or about the college campus- since that is where I spent most of my time, but I will save that for another post.
A New Look on Culture 