Civilized Matters

It has been a while since I have posted a blog, as I’m settling into this experience in Brazil as more of my life and less as a giant adventure. My first months in São Paulo was a blur – paperwork, government protocols, trips to the notary public, scrambling to find an apartment, make friends, squeeze in some exercise and combat hangovers. Oh yeah, and getting acclimated to a new job. All in Portuguese.

During this time, I always had “blog” listed as a little box to be checked off of my To-Do list. After 3.5 months, I only managed to draft a few which never got rounded out enough to be published. Here is a summary of what hit the recycle bin:

• Business meeting etiquette: Seriously, it is apparently perfectly acceptable that the speaker making a profound point lets his/her phone ring a few times (I am pretty sure Brazilian iphones do indeed have a silence feature), and pauses midsentence to answer his/her phone, tell the caller that he/she is in a meeting, and then proceed to talk for 30 more seconds. Depending on the hierarchy of the speaker, the meeting with either patiently wait, or someone will speak up and make their own point, thus derailing the conversation. Of course, the person on the phone stays seated and talks with a normal phone voice. On the upside, coffee is always served during meetings, and this includes the coffee literally being served to you in little espresso cups by the coffee lady. Better yet, if it is a fancy meeting, there will be little baskets of dry snacks served by the coffee lady, like peculiar salty flavored puffy balls or tiny cookies.
• Public Transport: I drafted up this blog, but needed to get an accurate escalator count to make a point so tried for 3 straight days to count how many escalators I took on my commute, and I kept losing count after 12. So this entry dead-ended.
• Dating: This one was getting really juicy, but then I realized that most (yet not all) of my dating partners indeed speak English, and are connected to me on facebook, so publishing this one might not be wise for my future Saturday nights
• Banking technology: While banking technologies are really advance here, this one got too complicated and techie, so I just decided to schedule a Skype session my one friend, Panzarella, who would actually care.

 
Back to the lecture at hand – Civilized Matters. I am really soaking up everything about the culture and behaviors here, and there are a couple norms that have just charmed my pants off.  Today one of these truly made my day and I felt incline to type up now, in hopes that it will encourage you to follow suit.  But before I explain these two notable civilized matters to you, I will first share two of the most uncivilized things I have heard or witnessed here in São Paulo to illustrate the contrast.

Uncivilized Point #1: The first uncivilized thing is the time that I was walking the two blocks from the train to my office with a colleague. A blind colleague got off of the train in front of us (we only knew this because he was wearing a backpack with our companies name on it. Well, that is how we knew he was an employee of our company. We knew he was blind because of the stick). In a very civilized fashion, he was escorted the first block crossing a busy intersection by an employee of the public transport system. The next block was a straight shot to our office. Or so we thought. 

 

We were walking directly behind him,  deep in conversation talking strategy of an upcoming proposal, when suddenly we see a car backing up directly in his path. Onto his foot. Not over his foot. But onto his foot. The tire was basically stuck on top of his foot. Since the car was up on the blind guys foot, the driver needed to accelerate a bit in either direction for enough momentum to roll off of his foot. But he couldn’t accelerate forward or he would hit a wall, and he couldn’t accelerate backwards because the constant stream of people walking behind him didn’t stop. My colleague ran over to the driver, screaming at him as I grabbed hold of the blind guy where I learned a whole new vocabulary of curse words in Portuguese. After a good 10-15  seconds, the stream of people stopped and the driver was able to accelerate backwards and roll off of his foot. The blind guy stopped cursing, said he was ok, walked away and presumably clocked in and got to work.

 

 

Uncivilized Point #2: When I did my Portuguese lessons in Denver, I had a teacher from São Paulo. We spent one entire lesson talking about cars and terms involved with cars. He was adamant I learn the word “atropelado” or “to hit/run over.” Kind of an obscure word to learn when I was still trying to conjugate verb tenses of “to request” and “to lose.” Reluctantly, I wrote the word down and did not realize how useful this word would be until I got here. It seems every day there is an article about someone being hit by a car, or worse, run over. This is the most disturbing one that happened just a couple weeks ago. I will summarize for those of you too lazy to click on the link, and unwilling to use Google Translate. On second thought, I wont even put a link because no one will click on it, and if you are really that darn curious , you are all resourceful enough to just google it yourself.

 

Basically, this young 22 year old playboy was leaving some nightclub at 6am. Most likely he was using the “Lei Seca” app to avoid the checkpoints that try to catch drunk drivers under São Paulos zero tolerance, drunk driving laws. He ran over a bicyclist. The bicyclist was a window washer on his way to work. To make matters worse, when he ran over the bicyclist, the guys arm FELL INTO THE CAR. Yes, fell into the car. What would any civilized 22 year old do in this situation? Leave the scene, drop his friend off at home, ditch the arm into the river, and THEN sober up enough to turn himself in. The bicyclist lived, and the doctors were confident they could reattach his arm, but it was somewhere in the river.

 

Now, onto more civilized matters.

 

Civilized Point #1: The first is queuing in line for elevators at office buildings. If you have ever taken the Metro during Rush Hour here, you would never believe that those businessmen pushing and shoving their way ON to the Metro before anyone even gets OFF were capable of such manners. But once they leave the Metro, they apparently transform from Caveman to Debonair.  At the elevator banks in office buildings in large cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, I have seen this with frequency. The office workers queue in a single file line, one behind the other, and patiently wait their turn to board the elevator. Once an elevator car is free,  they file their way inside until it is full, and then politely wait for the next one. I was flabbergasted the first time I saw this in Rio de Janeiro, and really think that the rest of the world should adopt this custom. 

 

Civilized Point #2: This second one is the most heartwarming pieces of public transport etiquette I have ever seen in my life. Besides the global, consistent rule of offering your seat to the elderly, pregnant, disabled, etc, those lucky enough to get a seat actually ask if they can hold your bags. It can be quite crowded and sometimes holding onto a plastic bag amidst sweaty bodies is uncomfortable while also gripping the sweaty metal handles. The first few times I witnessed a standing person hand over their bag(s) to a seated person, I assumed they were friends or acquaintances.

 

Then I started paying attention. When the person getting off the train took back their bag, there was only a brief thank you when the bag handed over. And we all know that Brazilians take 5 minutes to say good-bye with lavish departing kisses, so clearly they did not know each other. I was still a bit skeptical though. Why would anyone actually hand over their personal belongings to a stranger on a train? Then today, I was on the train, and it wasn’t very crowded, but crowded enough that not everyone got a seat. I didnt get a seat. A seated woman asked a standing woman next to me if she could hold her small plastic bag. The standing woman gladly handed it over. Then the same seated woman asked me if she could hold my backpack. I was so flattered, but of course I declined the offer. Mainly because I was kind of in shock that she was offering this, and also that  I actually understood her Portuguese. I watched the ritual with interest, feeling inspired to finally have a reason to return to my blog.

 

In closing,  I hope these little acts of kindness encourage you to make a little effort to ease someone’s day, even if it is a miniscule way. However, if you are reading this in NYC, I highly encourage you NOT to try take someone’s bag on the subway.