Cultural Aspects

Religion

In Brazil, Roman Catholicism is the most popular religion among people. If you remember the fact that Brazil used to be a colony of Portugal in the 19^th century, I suppose this data is not so far from your imagination.

Of course, there are many religions other than Christianity in the country, though the number of believers is much less.

Figure 1 Religions: Roman Catholic is taking the dominant position in Brazil. (IBGE Census, 2010)

Language

The official language of Brazil is Portuguese. Basically, conversations and social actions are done in Portuguese.

However, in the rural area like amazon, the traditional, minor languages, which were originated by South-American people, are used in daily life. Tupi-Guarani languages are the most prevailed ones. Then how do they, for example, register for the pension system? Officers in the city hall don’t speak their language. How do they declare births? No problem. In addition to their mother tongues, they can speak Portuguese, too. Also, there are some states that have co-official language(s) other than Portuguese.

Food

Brazil has a history of slavery, so we can find its “parting gifts” here and there in the country. The national dish, feijoada, is one of them.

Feijoada was first invented by the servants who worked in sugar-cane fields. The owners gave them barely-edible meat, which was bland and hard to bite if they grilled it. One day, one of the servants who wanted to improve the quality of their meals, started to boil meat with beans. At this moment, feijoada was born. Together they tasted better than when cooked separately – beans absorbed fat from meat, and they turned juicy. Since then, this dish spread among servants, and finally, it got to be called a “national dish”, the most popular dish in Brazil. Recipe’s here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/feijoada-brazilian-black-bean-stew/

Figure 2 Feijoada, National Dish (From Bizarre World Foods, http://www.bizarreworldfoods.com/feijoada/)

In rural areas of Amazon, cassava (mandioca in Portuguese) is eaten as a staple diet. The edible part of cassava is its tuberous root, but it’s hard to digest in a raw form, due to the hardness. So, people in Amazon grind it first, and then add water to the powder. Finally, they knead it into dough and bake it.

Figure 3 Mandioca and Its Powder (From Explicaki.com, http://www.explicaki.com/1673-mandioca.html)

Samba

If you are asked to tell anything you know about Brazil, most of you may mention about samba first. Yes, samba is one of the things that reflect Brazilians’ heart most. As you may know, samba is a kind of dance, and it’s mostly performed in carnaval (carnival), by private samba teams.

Carnivals are the competitions of samba, as well as mere shows of samba. The judges evaluate the performances of each team and choose the champion. The leaders of the champion, called king & queen of samba, will be celebrated and respected by everyone for a year. Carnivals are hold in a lot of cities in Brazil, but, among them, carnival of Rio de Janeiro especially gains popularity. It is taken place in a closed street only for samba (see Fig.4).

Although samba dance or clothing the dancers wear carnivals appears meaningless for outsiders, they are based on one concrete theme. Each samba team can choose their theme to perform. Figure 5 is the performance of a samba team in Rio 2012 carnival, whose theme was “You dance samba there… And I dance samba here! The free chant from Angola!”.

Figure 4 Map of Marquês de Sapucai Street (From Camarote Carnaval.com, http://www.camarotecarnaval.com/rio/sambodromo.asp)

Figure 5 Performance by Vila Isabel, 2012 (From UOL Carnaval 2012, http://carnaval.uol.com.br/2012/rio-de-janeiro/escolas-de-samba/vila-isabel/)

Architecture

The statue of Jesus Christ on Corcovado hill was built in 1931, to celebrate the 100^th Independence Day of Brazil. It is 39.6 meters tall and 30 meters wide. Its weight is 635 tons. This statue was chosen as one of the New Seven Wonders sites.

Figure 6 Statue of Jesus Christ, Corcovado, São Paulo. (From Ministério Jovem – RCC Brasil, http://www.rccjovem.com.br/novo/agenciadenoticias/geral/item/672-miss%C3%A3o-alagoas)

Literature

The most famous Brazilian writer is Paulo Coelho (1947.8.24-). His work “The Alchemist” got the best-selling book in the world in 1988. Translated into 71 languages, it sold over 65 million copies, in 160 countries.

Figure 7 Paulo Coelho (From Official Website of Paulo Coelho, http://paulocoelho.com/en/)

Sport

Brazil is famous for football. Football is so popular in Brazil, that the government in mid-20^th century took advantage of its popularity to unite the citizens. However, Brazilians today don’t show so much interest in football as they used to, said Mr. Pichitelli, our Portuguese teacher from Brazil. “Today we can play other exciting sports like volleyball, basketball, and so on, so it isn’t reasonable to cling only to football.”

Music

Bossa Nova is a typical Brazilian music. The meaning of the words is “new trend”. People were surprised at the pleasant tunes of Bossa Nova, when it first came out in 1950s.

Sources

http://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/c/no-brasil-atual/linguas/introducao

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristo_Redentor_(statue)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(novel)