Brazil
Brazil is located west of the Atlantic Ocean. It has the largest population area in South America; it has an area around 8,514,877 km2 which is the fifth biggest country in the world. The Equator passes though large parts of the Amazon River and their land is full of tropical forests and areas suitable for agriculture. Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvarez in 1500, fifty years later the Portuguese killed the indigenous people then they took slaves from Africa to work there. In 1822 they declared independence from Portugal. It is divided into 22 states with Portuguese still the official language of the country. The capital is Brasilia, and the government uses a federal system.
Today Brazil is rich in immigrants from many countries, in addition to the local people. The population of Brazil in 2009 was 192,272,890, mostly from different countries like Italy 14.8 %, Spain 7.81%, Germany 5.9%, Japans 0.7% Poland 0.7%. There are also Brazilian Arabs from Lebanon 4%, Syria and Palestine 2 %. There are indigenous natives in the country as well as a lot of African descent with the Europeans in the south.
Aside from the race and its demographic area, Brazil is a mixture of races and ethnicities, resulting in rich diversity. Portuguese are the original people of Brazil. Later on, people from Europe, Africa, and India came to settle in Brazil. Many original Portuguese settlers married native women, which created a new race, called 'mestizos'. Unlike many other Latin American countries where there is a distinct population, Brazilians have intermarried to the point that it sometimes seems that almost everyone has a combination of European, African and Portuguese roots or ancestry. Despite the mixing of ethnicities, there is a class system in Brazil. There is social discrimination on the basis of skin color, where people with darker color are from the low class system. Also Brazilians are people who tend to have big families, because they think that family is the foundation of the social structure. If we look at religion in Brazil, we see that 70% of the country is Catholic, although by law, there is freedom of religious belief and expression. Also there are other religions like Protestantism and a few with no religion.
In the meanwhile with all the diversity in Brazil their main language is Portuguese. Portuguese is spoken by 99% of the country. There is no difference in the dialect between the surrounding regions inside the country but there are simple variations of accents. The people of the country learn another language by options; with this in mind it seems extremely good that in this way the people won’t lose their language or it won’t vanish for a long time till colonization happens or most probably the people will fight back as they did in the past. There are many known programs in Brazil for foreigners who are willing to study Portuguese; one of the wide known and distinguished programs is “Dialogo” which is a program that helps people abroad to go to Brazil and learn their language as taught in their land.(Wikipedia 2012. 8. Jan)
As usual Brazil always impresses the world with a variety of things. Brazil has a lot of traditions but one thing they are widely known for soccer. Soccer is a traditional sport in Brazil. It is played all around the country from all living classes. They always make a big impression in the soccer industry from well known legends like Pele and Zico to players who made the soccer industry a better place, for instance, Ronaldinho who is a Brazilian especially well known for his soccer freestyles and techniques which has made a big impact in the soccer world. In fact he is one of the greatest players to raise the soccer to the next level. With this in mind he also uses samba in his techniques which is one of the famous Brazilian dances. Samba is greatly known all around due to the complex body movements and dynamics. At the same time samba is one of the music genres.( Brazilian Football,2012)
Brazil has a variety of foods for all regions around the country. The southern part has their main dishes of Churasco, Barreado; a strong influence is Guchos. While in the northern region the main dishes are Tacaca, Barreado. The desert is shared all over the countries with Bejinho and Cocada and many others. The Brazilians are noted for their exotic fruits! One of my favorite fruits is the taco berry which is a red looking oval fruit and is covered with soft needles as a shell and is cut thoroughly for the white stuff inside to be eaten. They also have papaya and passion fruits and lots of others which are not so common but are delicious.(Marian blazes,2012)
The Brazilian attire differs from one domain to the other. True traditional Brazilian attire can be seen in the countryside, where men’s clothes include shirts, jeans and dresses made from inexpensive cotton. In the southern region of Brazil, there is a mixture of German, Russian and Italian immigrants; while in Rio de Janeiro, immigrants from England, Portugal and Africa are predominant. The Bahia region of Brazil is influenced by African culture; hence their traditional clothing is Bordado Richelieu, which is a doily-like embroidered fabric. Rio de Janeiro is popular for its magnificent beaches. Hence, people in this region mainly wear beach style shirts, Bermudas and sunglasses.(Jirage Reshma, 2012)
After all Brazil is the place to visit from its Portuguese roots, the mixture of the ethnicities, people’s diverse background and traditions not to forget about the food and the exotic fruits. Where else have so many common traditions that are also distinguished around the world.
RESOURCES:
· Blazes, Â Marian. "Brazilian Food - Traditional Brazilian Food and Recipes." South American Food - Recipes, Cooking Techniques, Menus, Ingredients - South American Cuisine. Marian Blazes , n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2012. <http://southamericanfood.about.com/od/exploresouthamericanfood/tp/BrazilianMenu.htm>.
· "Brazil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil>.
· "Brazilian Football." Brazilian Football. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2012. <http://www.brazilian-football.com/>.
· Jirage, Reshma. "Traditional Brazilian Clothing." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Reshma Jirage, n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2012.<http://www.buzzle.com/articles/traditional-brazilian-clothing.html>
Done by: Ahmed Omar, Khalid , Saeed
