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In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

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Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#321

Post by ecocentrik »

brbrbrbrbr wrote: post #270
sonnyblarney wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As to 1, no, it's neither 'education' nor 'lack of resources' really. It's a matter of conscientiousness and responsibility. Even if there were no signs immediately available, nobody with an ounce of decency would leave a large hole unmarked. Signs are not expensive, if they're not available it's because of a lack of intelligent and responsible acting somewhere else in in the value chain. As for #2, it's still a lack…

that's what I meant by education, not formal education per se but social responsibility and conscientiousness. It is easy to take that for granted in first world countries. As for signs are not expensive. You gotta go to Brazil and see with your own eyes then. Brazilians are hard worker, just go and check with your own eyes. The problem is a bit deeper in my opinion and experience.

You mean social norms, not "education". In in some cultures a disregard for these norms is sometimes referred to as a "lack of education", implying the individual's behavior is the result of bad parenting. This assumption is usually a coping mechanism, a simplistic attempt at a resolution of cultural conflict by asserting that one set of norms are better than those of their cultural antagonist. In cases of cultural conflict, where cultures with sets of incompatible norms attempt to coexist, the result is usually conflict followed by the establishment of new refined sets of norms shared cultures.

Road work signage is an issue of liability in the US, not courtesy.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#322

Post by LeanderK »

I always struggle with these generalizations. People take them too literally. I don't think this is racist or belittling, it's just the impression of the author. I also think these generalizations are possible, because culture imposes norms and expectations on the individual. And different cultures emphasise different things. This is something beautiful and makes the world worth exploring.

But you to keep in mind that generalizations about the cultural influence on certain behaviours say nothing about the individual and not even a group of indivuals. There are probably a lot of punctual, hard working brazilians in rio de jainero. I think that's the line that racist ideas like to cross.

TLDR: I like the piece, but I struggle with the title.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#324

Post by socrates1998 »

This would definitely drive me crazy. I have a couple of American friends who are like this and it's really hard for me to not get angry when they are 45 minutes late to something.

I honestly do not give a shit what time someone shows up to a social function as long as they say an accurate time.

If you want to meet at 8, then lets meet at 8, but if you say 8 and then don't show up til 9, what the hell.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#325

Post by [deleted] »

nasredin wrote: post #34
foobarian wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some etiquette involved. You don't want to be the first person there, just as you should avoid being the 'lingerer' who stays too long or even worse needs to be asked to leave explicitly.

Why don't you want to be the first person? I've heard of "fashionably late", never anything about "early". IME early bird gets all the good nachos. And you can leave earlier.

[deleted]

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#326

Post by saulrh »

rezeroed wrote: post #298
mirimir wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also seen this in Mexico. Sometimes, roads just end, into holes and large rocks and equipment. However, this is mainly an issue in rural areas. And even though there may be no signs, there's typically a line of small rocks, maybe 0.5 meter from the edge.

Yeah, sounds like Africa too. I don't think this has anything to do with Brazil, rather undeveloped countries. The usual story of first-worlders thinking they know how the rest of the world works.

I don't think you get to claim cultural relativism on not putting up hazard signs. I'd also recommend against claiming cultural relativism on things like wheelchair accessibility, hard hats, fire and earthquake codes, or really 95% of the things covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the ADA, or similar entities. These are not things you should be proud of not having.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#327

Post by forinti »

alokrai wrote: post #107

Richard Feynman on Brazil: 1. “That evening I went for a walk in town, and came upon a small crowd of people standing around a great big rectangular hole in the road—it had been “dug for sewer pipes, or something—and there, sitting exactly in the hole, was a car. It was marvelous: it fitted absolutely perfectly, with its roof level with the road. The workmen hadn’t bothered to put up any signs at the end of the day,…

As a brazilian who has had some education abroad, the most interesting thing Feynman wrote about Brazil was his critique of the education system [1]. I studied chemistry in high school without ever going into a lab. This holds for all classes, even maths: everything was abstract with no real-world applications. Even Portuguese Language classes had this disease: about a dozen rules for diacritics could be simplified as the usual case and the few exceptions, but they were taught as independent rules (making things a lot harder to retain).

[1] http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#328

Post by always_good »

TheCoreh wrote: post #58
gota wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not accusng you of lying but this story is extremely suspicious. It conflicts completely with my professional and personal experience, which I'm pretty sure is close to the general truth. Unless you have found yourself working with a very peculiar group of people, you are being duped or just exaggerating to the point of being outright wrong. It is absolutely not a custom anywhere in Brazil, not even in Rio, to be…

It really depends on the industry, I guess. My observation, being born and having lived in Brazil for my whole life, is that there's a power/authority/seniority dynamic involved, too: If you have a meeting with a customer, you should be on time, but it's okay for them to be late. When meeting with your boss, they'll probably be late, but you probably shouldn't be. Internal meetings within the company usually start la…

There's definitely a dominance element here in Mexico, too.

My Mexican friend traveled a lot here for work to meet with various executives. These executives would be the ones who set the time.

She'd drive four hours and arrive at their office for a 8am 1-on-1 meeting and be directed to a sofa outside their room. She told me often 30+ minutes would pass and the guy would be in there twiddling on his smartphone, she could see him right through the blinds.

It was like some proof of time-burn to remind you that they had the power.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#329

Post by JumpCrisscross »

coldtea wrote: post #317
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to "true numerical minorities" than most representative democracies Source? Athenian direct democracy was only for males, legally sanctioned slaves and allowed for a simple majority to ostracize people. Sparta's direct democratic elements oversaw a large Helot slave population.

> Source? Athenian direct democracy was only for males, legally sanctioned slaves and allowed for a simple majority to ostracize people That's irrelevant to the discussion though, as that was simply the norm then across regimes, not a special characteristic of Athenian direct democracy. Not to mention that the US representative democracy was only for males until the 1920s, had slaves until 1865 and segregation until…

> That's irrelevant to the discussion though

You claimed "in most places where [direct democracy] was practiced (ancient Athens... etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to 'true numerical minorities' than most representative democracies." I'm disagreeing with that claim. I'm asking for a source for the the general claim because I'm confused about what separates "true numerical minorities" from other kinds of minorities.

I'm pushing back on the assertion that is has been shown direct democracy works well for minorities. It hasn't. (It has been shown that representative democracy works, or at the very least can be stable.) The tyranny of the majority has not been conclusively proven (nor disproven). This is an open question, and one that evolves as technology (and the population's education) progresses.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#330

Post by schoen »

alokrai wrote: post #107

Richard Feynman on Brazil: 1. “That evening I went for a walk in town, and came upon a small crowd of people standing around a great big rectangular hole in the road—it had been “dug for sewer pipes, or something—and there, sitting exactly in the hole, was a car. It was marvelous: it fitted absolutely perfectly, with its roof level with the road. The workmen hadn’t bothered to put up any signs at the end of the day,…

Huh, Feynman's host was César Lattes, one of the most famous Brazilian scientists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattes_Platform

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