Your experience of culture shock in Brazil

I come from South Africa , which is the one place even more messed up than Brazil ( highest level of social inequality in the world , Brazil is second) so I never experienced any of the typical 1st world culture shock in Brazil of nothing working , or the crime and poverty ...in fact as crazy as it sounds these things I actually find notably better in Brazil than in SA.

Also I was lucky because I moved to Brazil having studied Portuguese for 3 years and had visited before twice .
Also my Brazilian wife is really wonderful , she helped me with everything I didn't understand , made sure I was in good company and helps me with learning Portuguese as she's a Language teacher. Also I came to Brazil with a VIPER visa already , so I had it really easy compared to a lot of people. But we also travelled all over the coast of Brazil in Buses , and explored places in Bahia , Morro , Valença , etc never had one problem.

That said the biggest thing is the language barrier , I can at least communicate , but a lot of time people in banks , supermarkets etc , just disregard you as a kind of village idiot the second they realize you are "gringo"...I've found this particularly in the São Paulo state....one older lady in the print shop wouldn't even speak to me , even though I was speaking decent portuguese....which is wierd. The whole mono lingual thing has been a bit wierd as I come from a country with 11 languages and people are generally a lot less uptight about language, but Brazil is good too because everybody from every station in life can communicate and understand each other.
Sometimes there would be a feeling of being like an infant again in public , especially with the family , when they all know exactly what to do and what to say in some typically overtly complicated Brazilian situation , like paying a mall parking or something that just has a totally illogical sequence. However I find these things all much more a big deal in SP state....in the jungles of the islands in the NE it's not such a big deal.

other little things are how the wedding rings work ( no engagement ring) and overtly complicated or "buearocratic" as they say , ways of doing everything....oh and a lot of the quality of various things is pretty poor.
Also the Brazilian style of buying everything on credit does my head in , raised in the typical tight fisted colonial style of saving every penny , however I can see their point of view given the economic history and the enviroment.

For my opition ! Living in Brazil ,first of all you need to learn the langues as much as you can .Portugues is very dificult langugues but when you star you learn and try to comunication with native people you will enjoy it . Most of Brazilian they dont speak english or the shy to speak . So better to learn the langues before you arrive to Brazil if you have a chance .
I live in Rio de janeiro almost 4 years ,,so still very dificult to get a long with Carioca .Most of my best friend here is foreingner .. Brazlian are very friendly at the way they meet ,they talk but make close friend with for go going for party you need times ...
Every thing expensive here including the product from Brazil .the rent ,the school ... Any way when you more to Brazil you need to get good job i mean good salary if you will stay in big City like Sao Paulo , Rio de Janeiro ..but the good thing is Brazilain they enjoy their life very much ,always party ,beaches at the weekend ,churracaria ( BBQ  brazilian tipo ) ..so if you quick adapted you will enjoy your times in Brazil ...
Right now there are many thing issue ..but let stay at the good way ..You will enjoy in Brazil if you can speak the langues Portugues ..basic ...

Almost every restaurant here serves black beans and white rice.  Sometimes the beans have pieces of pork in them.  The beans with pork is called fesuada.  The pork is usually a piece or two of fat an inch thick.  This seems do be very unhealthy.  I don't drink beer but I guess it is the custom in some restaurants to serve you with a beer whether you ask for one or not.  I asked for shrimp at one restaurant and the waiter assured me that he understood what I wanted.  I got rice and beans.  He was gone when I wanted to question him. The bill for the rice and beans was ridiiculously high.   I felt like they made a fool out of me.

elcamino1965 wrote:

Almost every restaurant here serves black beans and white rice.  Sometimes the beans have pieces of pork in them.  The beans with pork is called fesuada.  The pork is usually a piece or two of fat an inch thick.  This seems do be very unhealthy.  I don't drink beer but I guess it is the custom in some restaurants to serve you with a beer whether you ask for one or not.  I asked for shrimp at one restaurant and the waiter assured me that he understood what I wanted.  I got rice and beans.  He was gone when I wanted to question him. The bill for the rice and beans was ridiiculously high.   I felt like they made a fool out of me.

Actually, Feijoada is made with black beans, carne do sol (jerked beef), 2 or 3 different kinds of sausage (linguiça) usually Calabresa, Paio and Portuguesa, beef ribs, bacon, pieces of pork loin, pigs feet, tails and ears. It is very expensive because so many different ingredients go into it, all of which are expensive. But it really is worth every centavo you have to pay for it, it's delicious. It is traditionally served over rice, and accompanied with sauteed shredded kale (couve), orange lices, pork rinds (torresmo), and cassava flour (farinha de mandioca). It is the quintessentially Brazilian dish. It's almost sacrilegious to serve it witout beer. 

Cheers,
James     Expat-blog Experts Team

Feijoado - marvilhoso  !!

But it is very nutrisious so unless your daily work involves manual labour do not eat it every day or you will soon develop a waist line problem

James you must go to better restaurants than I do.  I have yet to see the kind of fesuata that you have described.  In America Tucanoes Brazilian Restaurant has this,  In my area in Brazil you are lucky if they put an old shoe in the beans.

When My Brazilian girlfriend asked me to move from Scotland to the UK, i thought it would be a good idea. So I arrived two and a half years ago not knowing very much about the cuture, language and local customs which was definately a shock.
The difference between my culture and brazil was huge and I realised I had to try and learn Portuguese as no-one spoke English. The Food was mainly the same and since I'm a chef I tried to change the usual beans and rice into something more elegant. I didn't find many ingredients at the local supermarkets  that I was used to in Scotland, like any food from China, India or Europe was difficult to find or if we were Lucky we could get some things from a very expensive supermarket in the next town.
Although i only had a visitors visa I thought I would try to find a job to survive and I was able to get a job in a local restaurant which didnt last long. I realised how poor the pay was and they expected employees to work 6 days a week for much less Money than they deserved. I then found a new job teaching English at a school which was better.
The last thing is that some of the people seemed really friendly and it's sometimes gives a gringo like me a false sense of security. Some people think that estrangeiros are rich and that they are easy targets. Think I learned this first after getting married and we tried buying a tv and computer off an old guy for much more than they were Worth and then the computer broke after two weeks. Now we just buy new things.
Things are much diferent here than in Scotland but now that I've been learning Portuguese and integrating more it's becoming easier than when I first arrived.

Great info guys and girls!

I would say the biggest culture shock is just every little thing been  slightly different
and figuring out how all the different systems work wether it be banking , supermarket lines(like standing in the preferencial for old ladies and mothers) , different road markings , how all the different bureaucracy and government offices work and so on.

On top of that the major and obvious thing is the language , feeling confused when someone says something quickly that you don't understand , not just been able to jump in and express yourself without thinking of what to say. These are the biggest things and it's really easy to feel out of place, lost and all of that.
Luckily my Portuguese is fairly good and I came to Brazil with an intermediate level.
I think it's hard to really live in Brazil if you can't speak Portuguese , you will be rendered more of an observer than an active particepent in daily life and the world around you.
I couldn't live like that , but the more Portuguese you learn and the better you get with it , the more confident and integrated you will feel.
I actually don't think Brazil is really as complicated as a lot of people make out , it's just very confusing due to the strong language barrier for most new comers and that can be overwhelming.