List of curiosities about Brazil
Living in a foreign country makes you realize how little people actually know about your own country, except for the stereotypes. This is not a phenomenon unique to Brazil, of course, but in any case, I decided to make a list of things that always get people off-guard when talking about Brazil. Some I probably have mentioned in other posts, some might be new.
So:
- Brazil is larger than the contiguous USA (that's the continental US without Alaska). The whole European Union can fit inside Brazil.
- France shares its longest border with Brazil, not Spain or Germany or Italy.
- It was the Portuguese king's son who declared Brazilian independence from Portugal, after a brief period in which Brazil had become the center of the Portuguese Empire and housed the Portuguese court. As far as I know, it's the only case where the colony became the political center of its metropole.
- São Paulo is the largest city in the Americas (followed close behind by Lima, in Peru). It's also the largest city in the Western and the Southern hemispheres. It's still smaller than some cities in Africa and Asia.
- The distance from São Paulo to Manaus, a metropolis in the heart of the Amazon, is the more or less the same as Los Angeles to Chicago, or Lisbon to Warsaw.
- The second most-spoken language in Brazil is a German dialect called Hunsrik.
- The country had a large influx of European migrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries, just like the US.
- Brazil is home to the largest Japanese diaspora in the world. The reason is largely due to an immigration pact between Brazil and Japan in the early 20th century.
- Brazil also has more Lebanese people than Lebanon.
- Taito had a subsidiary in Brazil, founded by the son of Taito's founder.
- In the 90s and early 2000s, Nintendo consoles for the Brazilian market were made in Brazil.
- Pokemon Trading Cards in Portuguese are made in Brazil, which is, apparently, the only place printing cards outside the EU and NA.
- Toyota's first factory outside of Japan was in Brazil.
- Faber-Castell's largest color pencil factory in the world is in Brazil.
- Brazil used to have a rainforest called Atlantic Forest, the second-largest in the world behind only the Amazon, but it was deforested during the colonial period. Parts of it still exist, the rest became farmland.
- Most of the population spoke Lingua Geral (lit. "General Language"), a kind of simplified Tupi that acted as lingua franca, up until the 18th century, when the Portuguese crown forbid it and forced everyone to speak only Portuguese.
- A large portion of Brazilian soil has a reddish color, not black or brown. It's called "terra roxa" ("purple earth"), a mistranslation of "terra rossa" ("red earth") spoken by Italian migrants.
- There are no bridges over the Amazon River.
- The Amazon River is the second-longest in the world (behind the Nile) and has the largest discharge volume of water.
- In Manaus, Rio Negro (lit. "Black River"), the largest blackwater river in the world, meets with the Amazon River, which is muddy. Due to differences in temperature, composition, and speed, they flow side-by-side without fully mixing for dozens of kilometers. There are plenty of cool pictures online.
- Marajó Island, at the mouth of the Amazon River, has the same size as Switzerland. The police force there rides water buffalos, as the wet season makes it hard to use vehicles or horses.
- There's a tidal event called "Pororoca" where waves from the Atlantic Ocean travel up to 800km into the Amazon River.
- The soil in the Amazon Rainforest is very poor. The forest is able to sustain itself thanks to a layer of decaying biological matter.
- Despite being a staple in "Japanese-style" "cozy games", Capybaras are native to South America, and the majority of their population lives in Brazil.
- The largest wetland in the world, the Pantanal, is in Brazil, with portions in Bolivia and Paraguay.
- The second-largest aquifer in the world, the Guarani Aquifer, is in South America (the largest is in Australia). It covers ~1/4 of Brazil and also parts of Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay.
- Brazil also has a savanna-like (the Cerrado) and a desert-like (the Caatinga) biomes.
- There's a city called "Americana" that was settled by fleeing Confederate soldiers after the American Civil War, when slavery was abolished there but still legal in Brazil.
- Brazilian society has become mostly cashless. The Pix system only made it easier, bypassing even the need of Visa/Mastercard cards.
- Brazilians shower at least once a day, sometimes multiple times a day, and I mean a proper shower, not just getting a bit wet or cleaning some bits or just washing the hair. People might think "so what" but, apparently, this is a big shock in a few countries, and a lot of people say it "isn't healthy for your skin", which is bullshit. It should be noted that "hard water" is an unknown concept in Brazil, and most of the running water in the country has the same quality as bottled mineral water (if not better). In a lot of places, you can literally drink water from the shower while showering.
- Brazilian homes don't have central heating, so Brazilians use electric shower heads to take hot showers. It's statistically safer than heating water with gas.
- Being a large country, there is a large temperature range, so it isn't hot everywhere all-year round. The southern part is colder, with snow falling in some places during winter.
- Despite the apparently "easy living" Brazilians show, it's one of the most unequal countries in the world. Most people "taking it easy" are actually working their asses off.
- Brazilian import taxes are crazy high, turning accessible products in developed countries into luxury goods in Brazil.
- This is kind of an "open secret", but most of the country's electronics at accessible prices are, actually, smuggled in from Paraguay.
- Brazilians can travel through most of South America without a passport, and travel to virtually all of Eurasia and a large portion of Africa visa-free for tourism. The Brazilian passport is, apparently, the 17th-strongest in the world.
- Brazil has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, one of the best logistics for delivering vaccines and medicines, and a pretty robust universal healthcare system (despite its issues). Even foreigners visiting Brazil can treat injuries or get vaccinations for free. There's no co-pay or co-participation like in some European countries.
- The third-largest producer of civilian aircraft in the world, Embraer, is Brazilian.
- Brazilian public universities are truly free, the only fee you pay is to take the admission exam (and the fee is waived for low-income families).
- "Brazilian" is a nationality, not a "race" or an ethnicity. Everyone looks Brazilian. Try searching Google about Kim Jong-il's fake passport.
- No, I've never been in the jungle.