Raphael Salvador Loureiro
I’ve had an amazing time this semester - though very busy - and much of that fun has come from the English II classes. The semester theme was “Brazil in the Eyes of the Other” and we started off discussing stereotypes and the concept of Culture.
While cultures are clearly different from one another, it is still hard to define Culture itself.
This question had remained in my head for a fair period of time until I finally figured things out.
The whole group was given a documentary* to watch. To put it shortly, it was about foreign stereotypes toward Brazil, specifically in movies. All the students were really mad because of what the entertainment industry made people think Brazil was like. What I was most intrigued by, however, was “if not that, then how is Brazil really like?” Well, I was soon after that given the opportunity to try to find that out.
We interviewed foreign students who had come to Brazil to study Portuguese. After
conducting the interview and analyzing their answers, I can say I was underwhelmed.
Having seen the extreme stereotypes displayed on the documentary, I was expecting the foreigners who were living here to have strong opinions as well. While their perspectives on the country did differ from the ones on the documentary (very, very fortunately), there was nothing too surprising about them, and I felt like they weren’t able to help me understand what Brazil was really like.
They told us Brazilians are more open, more informal, more cheery, etc. however, those are knowingly generalizations: not all Brazilians are like that. I still could not define what Culture was, let alone understand what Brazilian culture was like.
Hopeless, I decided to establish a closer contact with foreign students, most of whom were Chinese. Their culture was undoubtedly different from mine, so I thought it would be unpleasantly challenging to try to be friends: I was a cheery Brazilian, and they were shy Chinese people. Well, it turns out that I found a girl who hated mosquitoes, loved reading novels, and enjoyed my types of movies. We were just so similar in so many ways! I could almost forget where she came from.
Maybe I was asking myself the wrong questions. It’s impossible to describe a whole place and culture as if it were one thing; it’s impossible to describe the concept of Culture without relying on generalizations.
Maybe the right question is “Does culture matter?” and I would say “Not quite”.
Your culture can relate to you somehow, but the world is too diverse for us to fit in a tiny box. So, how do I see Brazil? I honestly don’t know, and I don’t think I’m supposed to. How do I see China? I don’t know that either, but I did make a really good friend who is from there, and I see her as the person she is, not where she came from.
You can only understand the world around you once you stop seeing cultures and start seeing people. I made that switch and it was really worth it. I think that is the most important lesson I have learned this semester.
I’ve had an amazing time this semester - though very busy - and much of that fun has come from the English II classes. The semester theme was “Brazil in the Eyes of the Other” and we started off discussing stereotypes and the concept of Culture.
While cultures are clearly different from one another, it is still hard to define Culture itself.
This question had remained in my head for a fair period of time until I finally figured things out.
The whole group was given a documentary* to watch. To put it shortly, it was about foreign stereotypes toward Brazil, specifically in movies. All the students were really mad because of what the entertainment industry made people think Brazil was like. What I was most intrigued by, however, was “if not that, then how is Brazil really like?” Well, I was soon after that given the opportunity to try to find that out.
We interviewed foreign students who had come to Brazil to study Portuguese. After
conducting the interview and analyzing their answers, I can say I was underwhelmed.
Having seen the extreme stereotypes displayed on the documentary, I was expecting the foreigners who were living here to have strong opinions as well. While their perspectives on the country did differ from the ones on the documentary (very, very fortunately), there was nothing too surprising about them, and I felt like they weren’t able to help me understand what Brazil was really like.
They told us Brazilians are more open, more informal, more cheery, etc. however, those are knowingly generalizations: not all Brazilians are like that. I still could not define what Culture was, let alone understand what Brazilian culture was like.
Hopeless, I decided to establish a closer contact with foreign students, most of whom were Chinese. Their culture was undoubtedly different from mine, so I thought it would be unpleasantly challenging to try to be friends: I was a cheery Brazilian, and they were shy Chinese people. Well, it turns out that I found a girl who hated mosquitoes, loved reading novels, and enjoyed my types of movies. We were just so similar in so many ways! I could almost forget where she came from.
Maybe I was asking myself the wrong questions. It’s impossible to describe a whole place and culture as if it were one thing; it’s impossible to describe the concept of Culture without relying on generalizations.
Maybe the right question is “Does culture matter?” and I would say “Not quite”.
Your culture can relate to you somehow, but the world is too diverse for us to fit in a tiny box. So, how do I see Brazil? I honestly don’t know, and I don’t think I’m supposed to. How do I see China? I don’t know that either, but I did make a really good friend who is from there, and I see her as the person she is, not where she came from.
You can only understand the world around you once you stop seeing cultures and start seeing people. I made that switch and it was really worth it. I think that is the most important lesson I have learned this semester.