{"id":3450,"date":"2018-05-22T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T14:51:07","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T18:51:07","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Brazil … Featuring Naty @ Naty’s Bookshelf & Thai @ Read Breathe and Repeat"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/span> It’s time for this week’s So Your Character is … Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last week’s  So Your Character is from Hawaii … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span>
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<\/span> Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span>
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Hello! I am Naty (short for Nat\u00e1lia), a 27-year-old German-Brazilian Engineer currently residing in the south of Germany. I was born in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil, where I lived for about 23 years of my life! My hobbies include reading, blogging, yoga, combat, and cooking. I love traveling and photographing, too!<\/span>
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I<\/span>\u2019m Thain\u00e1, but everyone calls me Thai! I live in the Midwest region of Brazil. I\u2019m a kindergarten teacher and I love reading and watching tv shows.<\/span>
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<\/b><\/span> What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/b><\/span>
\nNaty: <\/b>The diversity!<\/span>
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<\/span> Brazil is a continent-sized country, which used to be a colony from Portugal, meaning a lot of the people who lived there, in the beginning, were Portuguese and native Brazilians (more than 200 different tribes!), but as time went on, many different nationalities came seeking a new life or refuge in Brazil \u2013 Japanese, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, and so much more! There is also a huge African influence in Brazil, from the slaves that were brought to work in the fields and houses and also from refugees. They have deeply influenced the Brazilian culture. There are small cities where the most-spoken language is a German dialect that doesn\u2019t even exist anymore! I myself have German-Lebanese-Portuguese ancestry, and it\u2019s far more common to find people with mixed ancestry than it is to find someone with 100% Brazilian blood.<\/span>
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<\/span> Apart from that, due to its huge size, you can do pretty much anything in Brazil! Historical, unique architecture? Bam, go to Ouro Preto. More into big cities? S\u00e3o Paulo is a very cool place. Like adventures? Bonito is for you! Gorgeous beaches? Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Canoa Quebrada, Cambori\u00fa… so many options I would run out of breath if I were to list them all.<\/span>
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Capivaras em Curitiba (Picture by Naty)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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Rio de Janeiro State (Picture by Naty)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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Bonito<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Ouro Preto<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nBrazilians are very loud people in general, very friendly and we smile A LOT. Personalities change a little from north to south, since on the south you\u2019ll find mostly German and Italian descendants, making the people a little quieter, and in the north more Arabs, where people are not <\/span>quiet at all and very likely to ask you questions that, depending on where you\u2019re from, can be a little intrusive. But they mean well, I promise. <\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span> Landmarks we have quite a few! The Christ (Cristo Redentor) in Rio de Janeiro is our most famous one, though!<\/span>
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Cristo Redentor<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As for celebrations, I will name a few only! We are very famous for our Carnaval (this is Ivete Sangalo, the best Carnaval singer in my opinion!), for starters! Our New Year\u2019s celebrations normally follow many rituals that come from African cultures, such as wearing white, jumping waves and making offerings to the African goddess Iemanj\u00e1 (this is a picture of Copacabana, in Rio de Janeiro, during the New Year). We also have a party that is more well-known among Brazilians, namely S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o, which is celebrated in June and where we wear colorful, dramatic clothes, dance and eat a lot!<\/span>
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Ivete Sangalo Carnaval<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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New Year in Copacabana<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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Thai: <\/b>We have Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, which is very popular with tourists. I believe our only unique celebration is Carnaval, it\u2019s super fun and enjoyable. Carnaval we have this parade where we have samba (a Brazilian music style) schools presenting themselves. They have costumes (people are mostly naked though) on and samba choreography, it\u2019s very beautiful. But for people who aren\u2019t into that, there are a bunch of street parties where they basically just dress up (or down) and get drunk as heck. Kinda like Madri Gras in New Orleans. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\nTell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nNaty: <\/b>There are some cities in Brazil that hold a particular place in my heart. One of them is Curitiba, an underrated city where tourists don\u2019t go much to, but is absolutely gorgeous and has lovely parks to take walks on!<\/span>
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Curitiba Botanical Garden<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Curitiba Bosque Alemao<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Curitiba Museu Niemeyer<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I loved my trip to Ouro Preto as well! The food in Minas Gerais (the state where Ouro Preto is) is said to be the best of the country (controversies\u2026) and the people are incredibly nice. Institute Inhotim was a lovely place to visit next to Ouro Preto as well \u2013 you have plants, art <\/span>and more plants. Such a great trip!<\/span>
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I dream of going to both Chapada Diamantina and to Fernando de Noronha! Both are supposed to have gorgeous views. Chapada Diamantina is a nice place for hikes according to my friends and Fernando de Noronha is more for relaxing, scuba diving etc. It\u2019s very popular among newlyweds to have their honeymoon in Fernando de Noronha!<\/span>
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<\/span> Thai: <\/b><\/span>It\u2019s always hot in here, we don\u2019t know cold so we\u2019re always going to the beach or pools. <\/span>The beaches in the northwest is one of the main attractions for Brazilians, we love there it\u2019s so gorgeous!<\/span>
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Tell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nNaty: <\/b>I will do a top 4 because I can talk about Brazilian food FOREVER, it\u2019s the best food in the world (according to me).<\/span>
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Moqueca is a stew with lots of fish, seafood, some vegetables and spices, the flavor is hard to describe but it\u2019s unique and delicious! It goes with a side of rice.<\/span>
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CHOCOLATE GOODNESS. End of my argument. Just try it, it\u2019s heavenly.<\/span>
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Fried dough with whatever filling you like! My favorite ones are cheese, palm tree or shrimps! You can also have them with sweet fillings, though!<\/span>
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<\/span> P\u00e3o de Queijo is like a fluffy bread with cheese. It\u2019s more delicious than it sounds, really!<\/span>
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<\/span> Brazilian food has lots of variety as well, we do lots of dishes with fish, we have lots of fried dough stuff and lots of meat too! I don\u2019t eat red meat, so they didn\u2019t show on my list, but Brazilian barbecues are famous worldwide.<\/span>
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<\/span> Thai:<\/b> <\/span>I really love Brazilian food, everything is very rich in flavors and I\u2019m definitely a fan, our barbecue is fantastic and feijoada is the best thing ever, but I think my favorite is p\u00e3o de quejo, which is kind of like a cheese roll. We have brigadeiro as a dessert, which is a kind of chocolate but it\u2019s soooo much better than the normal chocolate! <\/span>
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Tell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/b><\/span><\/span>
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<\/b> Naty: <\/b>The country doesn\u2019t really have dialects, despite its size. Brazil is very unified when it comes to that, there are variations in the way people speak but it\u2019s still the same language so that a northerner would have very little trouble speaking to a southerner (except, you know, those tiny little cities where people hardly speak Portuguese at all). I\u2019m not your best source of slang since I\u2019ve been out of the country for 3 years, I\u2019ll sound very outdated if I use the ones I know!<\/span>
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<\/span> Thai:<\/b> <\/span>Portuguese is one of the languages that it\u2019s almost impossible to learn because it\u2019s one thing to be grammatically correct and it\u2019s another to actually maintain a conversation, we have so many slangs, almost every word we use in a casual conversation are slangs. We also change the meaning of words a lot and create new ones that don\u2019t make sense, but it becomes a thing and everyone starts using it.<\/span>
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