 Brazilians often say they live in a
continent rather than a country, and
that's an excusable exaggeration. The
landmass is bigger than the United
States if you exclude Alaska; the
journey from Recife in the east to the
western border with Peru is longer than
that from London to Moscow, and the
distance between the northern and
southern borders is about the same as
that between New York and Los Angeles.
Brazil has no mountains to compare with
its Andean neighbours, but in every
other respect it has all the scenic -
and cultural - variety you would expect
from so vast a country.
Despite the immense expanses of the
interior, roughly two-thirds of Brazil's
population live on or near the
coast; and well over half live in cities
- even in the Amazon. In Rio and São
Paulo, Brazil has two of the world's
great metropolises, and nine other
cities have over a million inhabitants.
Yet Brazil still thinks of itself as a
frontier country, and certainly the
deeper into the interior you go, the
thinner the population becomes.
Nevertheless, the frontier communities
have expanded relentlessly during the
last fifty years, usually hand in hand
with the planned expansion of the road
network into remote regions.
Other South Americans regard
Brazilians as a race apart, and
language has a lot to do with it -
Brazilians understand Spanish, just
about, but Spanish-speakers won't
understand Portuguese. More importantly,
though, Brazilians look different.
They're one of the most ethnically
diverse peoples in the world: in the
extreme south, German and Italian
immigration has left distinctive
European features; São Paulo has the
world's largest Japanese community
outside Japan; there's a large black
population concentrated in Rio, Salvador
and São Luís; while the Indian influence
is most visible in the people of
Amazônia and the Northeastern interior.
Brazil is a land of profound
economic contradictions. Rapid
postwar industrialization made Brazil
one of the world's ten largest economies
and put it among the most developed of
Third World countries. But this has not
improved the lot of the vast majority of
Brazilians. The cities are dotted with
favelas, shantytowns which crowd
around the skyscrapers, and the contrast
between rich and poor is one of the most
glaring anywhere. There are wide
regional differerences , too:
Brazilians talk of a "Switzerland" in
the Southeast, centred along the Rio-São
Paulo axis, and an "India" above it; and
although this is a simplification, it's
true that the level of economic
development tends to fall the further
north you go. This throws up facts which
are hard to swallow. Brazil is the
industrial powerhouse of South America,
but cannot feed and educate its people.
In a country almost the size of a
continent, the extreme inequalities in
land distribution have led to land
shortages but not to agrarian reform.
Brazil has enormous natural resources
but their exploitation so far has
benefited just a few. The IMF and the
greed of First World banks must bear
some of the blame for this situation,
but institutionalized corruption and the
reluctance of the country's large middle
class to do anything that might
jeopardize its comfortable lifestyle are
also part of the problem.
These difficulties, however, rarely
seem to overshadow everyday life in
Brazil. It's fair to say that nowhere in
the world do people know how to enjoy
themselves more - most famously in the
annual orgiastic celebrations of
Carnaval , but reflected, too, in
the lively year-round nightlife that
you'll find in any decent-sized town.
This national hedonism also manifests
itself in Brazil's highly developed
beach culture ; the country's superb
music and dancing; rich regional
cuisines ; and in the most
relaxed and tolerant attitude to
sexuality - gay and straight - that
you'll find anywhere in South America.
And if you needed more reason to visit,
there's a strength and variety of
popular culture , and a genuine
friendliness and humour in the people
that is tremendously welcoming and
infectious.
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