Ham-flavoured corn cheerios and miniwafers milk chocolate coated.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Greetings
Today I'm gonna talk about how Brazilians greet when We meet publicly. We are worldwide "famous" for being a warm people, and We're proud of that. Other cultures may find weird how We hug and kiss strangers as friends even when We just met them for the first time, specially because in many cultures people Don't hug and kiss even friends.
In an informal context We greet and farewell people hugging and kissing although it's not consider proper in business situations, for example. We are plainly awared that our formal etiquette preaches hierarchic introdution as follows: The introducer presents the younger to the older, the employee to the boss, the friend to his own parents, the pupil to the teacher and so on. BUT, young people don't care about that anymore. By the way We Don't even care introducing people by their complete names, only the first name is enough. Other feature of this formal etiquette is always saying something about the two introduced ones, any brief information, mostly in parties when thus the newcomer can start interacting without depending on the host all the time.
*Men and women: some women may prefer start greeting shaking hands, or only shaking hands. Outside a business context it's considered suspect. Make seems they are too snob for hugging and kissing. Anyway the hands shake is a choice, followed by the kisses ceremony. Girl and guy kiss each other same time on the face, in a way We Don't really kiss faces but the air behind their heads hahahaha. Single girls receive three kisses cause it's said to bring a fortunate marriadge for them. Married ones receive only two kisses. The first cheek offered is always the right one, then the left (and then the right again for single girls) and being left-handed is not an excuse to offer the left cheek first, exactly because, when right and left cheeks are offered same time, obviously lips meet and it's not the objective at all. It's embarassing. After kissing, or while kissing, a short hug can happen, in which the girl's boobs barely touch the guy's chest, never press it. It's what We call an unpersonal hugging.
*Friends women and men: the hug can be longer and stronger, with chests pressure but no waist pressure at all. The two or three kisses are the same.
*Hands Shake: The offered hand is always the right one. The grab must be firm but not hurtful. A weak shake is interpreted as weak personality, or disgust by touching the greeted person. The hand palm must be dry and it's not offensive to clean it first, with a handkerchief or on our own skirt or pants.
*Women and women: same rules as above.
*Men and men: Men Don't kiss. Ever. They greet with a hug, unpersonal or longer depending on They be friends or not. They also use to slap each other's shoulder, loudly, the louder the better, with the left hand. 3 or 4 slaps are enough. Friends slap more times. Friends slap hurtfully for fun. Other type of manly greet is hanging the left arm on the other guy's left shoulder and slap his belly very softly, only once or twice.
*Women slaps: girls can also slap people's shoulders. The louder the better but never hurtfully.
*Business situations: no hugs. No kisses. Gentle shoulder slaps are allowed, hands shake is mandatory, no matter if boys or girls.
In an informal context We greet and farewell people hugging and kissing although it's not consider proper in business situations, for example. We are plainly awared that our formal etiquette preaches hierarchic introdution as follows: The introducer presents the younger to the older, the employee to the boss, the friend to his own parents, the pupil to the teacher and so on. BUT, young people don't care about that anymore. By the way We Don't even care introducing people by their complete names, only the first name is enough. Other feature of this formal etiquette is always saying something about the two introduced ones, any brief information, mostly in parties when thus the newcomer can start interacting without depending on the host all the time.
*Men and women: some women may prefer start greeting shaking hands, or only shaking hands. Outside a business context it's considered suspect. Make seems they are too snob for hugging and kissing. Anyway the hands shake is a choice, followed by the kisses ceremony. Girl and guy kiss each other same time on the face, in a way We Don't really kiss faces but the air behind their heads hahahaha. Single girls receive three kisses cause it's said to bring a fortunate marriadge for them. Married ones receive only two kisses. The first cheek offered is always the right one, then the left (and then the right again for single girls) and being left-handed is not an excuse to offer the left cheek first, exactly because, when right and left cheeks are offered same time, obviously lips meet and it's not the objective at all. It's embarassing. After kissing, or while kissing, a short hug can happen, in which the girl's boobs barely touch the guy's chest, never press it. It's what We call an unpersonal hugging.
*Friends women and men: the hug can be longer and stronger, with chests pressure but no waist pressure at all. The two or three kisses are the same.
*Hands Shake: The offered hand is always the right one. The grab must be firm but not hurtful. A weak shake is interpreted as weak personality, or disgust by touching the greeted person. The hand palm must be dry and it's not offensive to clean it first, with a handkerchief or on our own skirt or pants.
*Women and women: same rules as above.
*Men and men: Men Don't kiss. Ever. They greet with a hug, unpersonal or longer depending on They be friends or not. They also use to slap each other's shoulder, loudly, the louder the better, with the left hand. 3 or 4 slaps are enough. Friends slap more times. Friends slap hurtfully for fun. Other type of manly greet is hanging the left arm on the other guy's left shoulder and slap his belly very softly, only once or twice.
*Women slaps: girls can also slap people's shoulders. The louder the better but never hurtfully.
*Business situations: no hugs. No kisses. Gentle shoulder slaps are allowed, hands shake is mandatory, no matter if boys or girls.
Friday, April 02, 2010
A More Practical Begin
How Does everyday begin? Usually with a meal. Let's talk about breakfast. For some mysterious reasons not yet fully studied, most of Brazilian population wake up hungerless. Still, it's general mind families have their breakfast in home. Many families make close point of gathering all household members for at least breakfast considering one's regular occupations avert We share other meals aswell. In a regular basis, Brazilian restaurants, coffee-shops, groceries, snackbars etc. DON'T serve any breakfast at all. Hotel restaurants serve breakfast only for guests. Only the biggest companies serve breakfast for employees, and still, not for all of them, only directors' table and a bunch of selected executives. The biggest hotels may serve breakie for non-guests if You're intending to try a royalty breakfast and pay according for it (yes, I meant places Plaza-like, Hilton-like, You name it). Living in Brazil, You must be responsible for Your own breakie, although in all State chapitals cities downtowns it's possible to find some rare places which serve it. Don't rely on the rare event possibility of finding one of those preciousnessess.
During the 80's and 90's, many enterpreuners, aware of the fact European people use to have breakfast outside tried to offer this convenience in their stores but it failed redundantly. They Who cannot eat breakfast in home kept Their habit of quicly picking any packed stuff along the way from home to study or work and neglect the meals offered in the own stores where They stopped. How sad We'll never see urban people here munching choco croissants and sipping Their latte while try to deal with a newspaper, agenda, palmtop and screaming mobile to start one more exasperatingly urban beautiful day haha.
Not so much Europeans due to Their long-term baking tradition, Americans certainly find our breakfast menu short and triffle. We Don't use to have cake or waffles for habit, only when those are leftovers from the day before snacktime or dinner. We Don't eat pancakes or scrambled eggs even when there are leftovers when We wake up. Brazilians find disgusting to have eggs by the morning, so much as bacon or fried ham. Regular ham is ok in sandwiches. Wieners are also not an option, boiled or fried. As a rule We Don't eat anything fried by the morning. True enough fries are not healthy, but it's a national idea fries are "too heavy for morning time" no matter what. Other eating habit national ideas which are not exactly cientifical or superstitional based kept will be shown here later.
For short, Brazilian breakfast includes open or closed sandwiches made of a variety of breads, with butter or halvarina (cream or cream cheese are not rare) with cheese and cold meats as ham, smoked turkey slices or embutidos like mortadella or salami. To drink, cold chocolatey milk, and evidently the national beverage, cofee. During meals we drink coffee with a lot of milk and sugar in it, and plain black coffee to sip along the whole day specially when not in home. The coffee-milk proportion uses to be 50-50, many times 60 milk-40 coffee. Each region has its own very ways or naming the serve portions and We generally DON'T use the worldwide italian names. We also don't have the habit of drinking fruits juice on breakfast (most probably because our best fruits are for export so drinking juice is not commercially stimulated XD).
By the other hand, Asian people can be really in a pinch about having breakast specially soon after arriving, even more when They Don't speak Portuguese. There's no way to find places prepared to serve fish or boiled rice by the morning, even the Asian restaurants. All Asian-specific ingredients must be bought in specialized stores because our markets Don't offer them (for example edible seaweed).
P.S. Sugarcubes are extremely hard to find (and expensive) in Brazil. We use only granulated sugar.
During the 80's and 90's, many enterpreuners, aware of the fact European people use to have breakfast outside tried to offer this convenience in their stores but it failed redundantly. They Who cannot eat breakfast in home kept Their habit of quicly picking any packed stuff along the way from home to study or work and neglect the meals offered in the own stores where They stopped. How sad We'll never see urban people here munching choco croissants and sipping Their latte while try to deal with a newspaper, agenda, palmtop and screaming mobile to start one more exasperatingly urban beautiful day haha.
Not so much Europeans due to Their long-term baking tradition, Americans certainly find our breakfast menu short and triffle. We Don't use to have cake or waffles for habit, only when those are leftovers from the day before snacktime or dinner. We Don't eat pancakes or scrambled eggs even when there are leftovers when We wake up. Brazilians find disgusting to have eggs by the morning, so much as bacon or fried ham. Regular ham is ok in sandwiches. Wieners are also not an option, boiled or fried. As a rule We Don't eat anything fried by the morning. True enough fries are not healthy, but it's a national idea fries are "too heavy for morning time" no matter what. Other eating habit national ideas which are not exactly cientifical or superstitional based kept will be shown here later.
For short, Brazilian breakfast includes open or closed sandwiches made of a variety of breads, with butter or halvarina (cream or cream cheese are not rare) with cheese and cold meats as ham, smoked turkey slices or embutidos like mortadella or salami. To drink, cold chocolatey milk, and evidently the national beverage, cofee. During meals we drink coffee with a lot of milk and sugar in it, and plain black coffee to sip along the whole day specially when not in home. The coffee-milk proportion uses to be 50-50, many times 60 milk-40 coffee. Each region has its own very ways or naming the serve portions and We generally DON'T use the worldwide italian names. We also don't have the habit of drinking fruits juice on breakfast (most probably because our best fruits are for export so drinking juice is not commercially stimulated XD).
By the other hand, Asian people can be really in a pinch about having breakast specially soon after arriving, even more when They Don't speak Portuguese. There's no way to find places prepared to serve fish or boiled rice by the morning, even the Asian restaurants. All Asian-specific ingredients must be bought in specialized stores because our markets Don't offer them (for example edible seaweed).
P.S. Sugarcubes are extremely hard to find (and expensive) in Brazil. We use only granulated sugar.
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