Feliz Natal!

The weather has been unusually warm the past few weeks - yesterday it was near 60°F (about 16°C). 16°C is considered cool, borderline cold there. I used to keep my office at about 20°C, and my staff would literally bring jackets with them for meetings. For easy conversions of °C to °F, here's the trick I found: double then add 30°. It's approximate, of course, but close enough to know if you need to wear short or long sleeves. Converting weights and measures took some getting used to, and the English system sure is challenging compared to metric. It's no wonder that 99% of the world uses metric.

Here's hoping everyone has a Merry Christmas and a safe New Year. I'm off next week, and plan to make an overhaul to the blog, so stay tuned...

Someone caught Santa chillin' in Rio:

Still here...

I've been a little slow posting the past few weeks, what with the upcoming Holidays and all. I've been having some rather frustrating log-on issues with Blogger which has kept me off pace. In the meantime, I've been organizing our various pictures and videos from the past few years, and working on a few upgrades for FLFB, which you should be seeing in a few weeks. Stay tuned...

37000

I flew over the Amazon many, many times over the last few years, and never realized there was air-traffic control no coverage zone there. Apparently, it’s widely known within the air controller circles, and probably the kind of thing they talk about when they get together for picanha and Brahma on the weekends. You’ve all no doubt heard about the mid-air collision that occurred over the Amazon a few months ago involving a passenger jet and a corporate jet. The collision occurred at 37,000 feet. Here’s a link to a blog of one of the passenger’s on board the corporate jet who is writing to clear the names of the pilots. Reading through the stories of alleged corruption, cover-ups, worker strikes, and death threats for the two pilots, I can’t help but be reminded of “A Death in Brazil” (the book I told you about in a previous post). The situation is different, but the web of intrigue and drama seems straight out of a novela.

Following the continuing story here:
http://joesharkeyat.blogspot.com/

Cultural Learnings

Here's another funny Skol beer commercial. The last few seconds are the funniest.



It might seem odd that this commercial would be shown in Brazil - it could be misinterpreted that Brazil couldn't win any other way than cheating. Clearly, if that was the true message, the commercial writers and producers would not be able to show themselves on the streets anywhere in Brazil for fear of reprisals. So, I believe this is an example of a cultural perception bias. Here in the US, we tend to follow rules more strictly than in Brazil, for instance, so we would view this commercials as an outrageous act. But, I believe in Brazil this is probably perceived as a creative way to humiliate the Argentinians (their arch-rivals in soccer - think Yankees/Red Sox times 100).

Believe it or not, this concept of cultural differences towards following rules was a lesson we learned from our Cross-Cultural Trainer before we left for Brazil (more about this in another post). In anthropological terms, it's known as Trompenaars' laws of Universalism vs. Particularism. According to the class, Germans and the Scandinavians tend to be the strictest rule followers; The Chinese, Russians, and certain Latin American cultures tend to be less driven by the means, and more focused on the results. I really enjoyed our CC training class - I find these kinds of differences fascinating, which is probably one reason I enjoyed my time in Brazil so much. I looked forward to discovering these cultural differences or linguistic differences. (Overview article here, more in-depth cultural differences discussion here).

Generalizing here a bit... My perception was that the people in Brazil tended to find creative and unique solutions to problems; solutions which may somewhat push the boundaries of "the rules"; the kind of solutions that once the result was achieved - the rule that was overcome was re-written to match the newly developed solution. The solutions were often based on superior negotiation skills, interpersonal relationships, or just overwhelming personal commitment to finding a way.

In Brazil, they have a word for this: "jeito" (or "jeitinho" diminutive form). Basically, it means finding a way around your problem. Here's an article explaining a little more, although the author tends to focus on illegal activities - this is not what I'm implying about my experience. In my case, I saw this spirit in action at work overcoming challenges or, at times, when my boss's executive assistant would find ways to make things happen for us - like getting certain government paperwork rushed through or dealing with disputes with our cell-phone service provider.

This is an aspect of the culture that really left an impression on me. It's a filter for me now when I'm watching the news, dealing with the crisis of the week at work, or just life in general. I think I'm more apt to try to view a situation from the otherside as a means to finding a win-win solution.

This could also explain why Borat was probably one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. See it if you haven't, and you will appreciate cultural differences, even if they are made up.