Dec 24 2006
Brazil Trip Diary: Day 11
Nice day today. We came to Brazil at the beginning of the rainy season. It is not the best time to see anything: flowers would be better in spring and animals in fall.
There are four visitors beside us in the lodge. Two Chinese guys from America (like us), Li and Aiwan. Li is a Brazil-phile, if there is such a thing: he’s been here four times now. He travels the same way he speaks, very deliberately—like spending a month just in one place. He learned about Brazil from a college roommate and fell in love with the country ever since. Li learned to speak Portuguese in college and our guide said he was pretty good. For Aiwan, this is his first trip aboard outside of the U.S. and China. He is kind of like us (our second trip aboard anyway, not counting Canada): a bit more curious and a bit more critical.
The other couple is from the U.S. too and is even more interesting. The lady, “Jane”, is married and teaches in a community college in Orange County. The guy, “John”, works as a consultant for a federal agency in D.C. area. Before we had a chance to talk to them, Aiwan told us about their companionship status so we came somewhat prepared the next day.
Apparently their MBA (married but available) status offended Aiwan’s sensibility. Even that Song and I have learned not to judge others, conversing with them does stretch our imagination a little. Jane is not shy about her married status and talks about her husband and their married life freely. John, on the other hand, is very withdrawn. He talks very little and never comment on anything Jane said about her life and theirs.
Jane fits the stereotype OC housewife perfectly: a blue-eyed blonde with an attractive body and is properly “manicured” all the time. Although at times I found her repugnantly pretentious, I have to say she appears genuinely happy with John.
If anything, encounters along this trip substantiate what I thought about the concept of “family” for a while, that it is as much a social control unit as a union of love. Brought up in China, I was fed with the idea of the sacredness of family because the existence of the nation-state depends so much on the integrity of family, for tightly-knit families would cut the administrative targets down to a fraction for a ruler.
In China, the culture and the tradition made people more than willing to comply. In other words, Chinese are more likely to go through the matrimony and to form a family. In Brazil, however, this is not the case. People stay together at will. According to the owner of the lodge, federal and local governments recognize this reality when they dish out entitlement. When Jane asked “what is the divorce rate here?” I was rather amused—of course the divorce rate is lower in America if everyone does what she does.
Brazilians are aware their life style differences. Our guide in Iquacu, Valdir said it matter-of-factly. Another guide in Manaus, Milton, put it more philosophically. He said marriage has little to do with a couple’s mutual commitment toward each other, rather it is a ceremony to show your commitment to the society. This functionalistic feature of marriage is more detectable in Brazil because the gap between its normative function, championed by non other than the Church which is a foreign import itself, and the prevalent practice of unmarried civil union. For example, Milton told us that there are services in Brazil where selected men and women are trained to be proper companions and the services will rent them out for formal functions. They have to follow the latest news, the stock market and so on so they can behave as if they are the spouses of their clients.
It makes so much sense, had this type of service does not exist yet and the law of supply-demand still works, it almost has to be invented.
We also went hiking in the “jungle” for the day. It wasn’t really a jungle for we could see the sky most of the time. The foliage is dense enough that we did not see any animal. It was a hot and humid day, I sweat through my backpack.
We encountered the “telephone” tree, the bread tree, the quinine tree and some other trees. Our guide, Joseph, is a short native guy. He speaks good English, is very knowledgeable about the jungle but constantly updates us about money and lodge politics: how poor his family is, how Lee and Aiwan argued about their tips before him (“you thought they were good friends”)—we found the story least believable, how jealous the bartender could be and why the chef did not get along with anyone. He did his job really well but I didn’t care for him as a person.
Late in the night, we celebrated Christmas with the owner’s family (husband is a Dutch and the wife is of Italian-Indian heritage. They speak English in the family with their daughters who would go to Orlando in a month) and all the staff in the lodge. With Jane in the loop, the conversation did not go very far. We retired early since we have to tour another city and fly to Rio the next morning.
very nice and well done!