"Things Amusing"

Adjusting to a new culture is always challenging, but on the brighter side every now and then you see or hear something that tickles your funny bone. After spending three weeks in Brazil, from the various things that crack me up, I would like to share three specific ones

The greeting

Probably the first thing you learn in any language are the basic greetings…stuff like, hello, good morning, good night etc. They say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing…well in case of Brazilian greetings little knowledge…

It is 5:00 pm local time on a beautiful Friday evening; I enter the conference room for the last meeting of the week. As soon as everyone settles in, the lights are dimmed, slides projected….and the speaker starts…"Boa Noite a todos!"…literally translated to English “good night everyone!” …probably the speaker wasreally able to read the minds of his audience!!

In Brazil “Boa Noite” is used for both good evening as well as good night…the other day as soon as I entered a fancy restaurant for dinner, a beautiful blonde waitress came up to me and greeted me with a bright smile and a warm “good night" :)

The accent

Asians are generally seen as people with peculiar accent for English, but this one bowled me over...

A few of my Brazilian friends were giving me some tips about Brazil….one of them asks, “Did you see any bitch here yet?”…another one jumps in, “you should go to the south; the bitches in south are beautiful”…yet another one, “yeah! I miss the bitches in Rio, Sao Paulo is not really a bitch city”

Of course by "bitches" they meant "beaches" ;)

The law

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Mandatory warning besides the entrance of an elevator on every floor, its a law in Sao Paulo!