I'm certainly getting to know the state of Pará a bit better, and while most of this knowledge is concentrated in Belém itself, my understanding of the state as a whole is growing. However, before I get to know the state of Pará well enough to consider it on its own terms and leave useless ethnocentric comparisons by the wayside, I want to make sure this one goes down in the books: if Brazil had a Texas, it would be Pará.
It's the second biggest state in the union.
True, there is one state that's bigger (in this case, neighboring Amazônia), but Pará is an easy second. And it's not crumpled up into rolling hills and mountain ranges—it's sprawled out, stretched flat across millions of acres of dense rainforest.
Its citizens identify with their state before their country.
Most of the Paraenses I know are quite acutely aware of their cultural inheritance, and they love being Paraense. There's also a pretty fine distinction between which aspects are generally Brazilian, which are Amazonian, and which are just plain Paraense.
It wants to secede (kind of).
Given such a strong identity as a state, it naturally follows that a substantial minority of its citizens have the long-held and unfulfilled dream of seceding from the grossly inefficient and corrupt federal government and forming an entirely self-sufficient state that is once-and-for-all an independent nation. This has been a half-taken-seriously movement for years (decades, really), and it still has a following, and it still probably will never happen. But that doesn't keep many in the state from pretending it already has.
It has a distinct regional dialect with a single iconic, dead-giveaway word.
The Texans have their "y'all," the Paráenses: "égua!" When traveling outside the state, you can usually get away with being generally native to the country. Open your mouth, and your accent makes it rather evident that you're from somewhere closer to the equator than most folks. But if you let slip the one word that everyone knows is distinctly your state's battle cry, it's over: you're just plain Paraense, and you can't help but agree.
Traditional gender roles are pretty strictly adhered to.
There's certainly a counterculture, if you know where to look. But on the whole, the gender divide is rather fixed. I believe I can count on one hand the number of women under 40 that I've seen with hair shorter than shoulder length. That's about equal to the number of male knees I've seen, since shorts are always full-length. Always. Unless you're gay. There is a gay presence, but it's not generally smiled upon by most folks over thirty, and thus often relegated to those pockets of counterculture where it's considered safe. In families, the gender divide is, in my experience, generally quite traditional, at least in the division of labor among husband and wife. (Real men don't wash dishes.)
There will always be more cheap, ice-cold beer than anyone can drink.
There are several varieties of the same watery, tasteless beer, and in most bars that's all that is served. And folks love it. If you're gonna be partying for hours on end, you're gonna have to pace yourself. And that obviously doesn't mean drinking less. It means drinking weak. Won't fill you up; never lets you down.
Food is best when meaty and/or deep fried.
Imagine a restaurant where you sit at a table talking and the only interruption to your conversation is one of several waiters gliding efficiently around the table, offering you one-by-one more varieties of meat than you knew existed. (Fine: if you're from Texas, you probably knew they existed.) You look, probably say "yes," and proceed to choose from which part of the enormous skewer you would like the waiter to so skillfully slice your next selection. You proceed to eat until you roll out the door. Or imagine, alternatively, you're just in the mood for a snack, and pass someone on the street selling food. Only every item is the same color, because they're all equally deep-fried. They might have chicken, cheese, beef, or shrimp on the inside, and they're delicious. Until like ten minutes later, where you realize your hunger was stronger than your memory, and this is gonna hurt. (Unless you've got the stomach of a native.) Want a snack that's not fried? Everything's bigger in this state. So imagine a cheeseburger, with lots of...no. Just imagine someone massacred a farm and collected everything on a hamburger bun: ground beef, egg, chicken breast, ham, cheese, pulled pork—its the miraculous "x-tudo," or "cheese-everything." My arteries are getting tired just thinking about it...
Alright. The last two items are pretty much generally Brazilian, but seven reasons seemed a stronger argument than five.
Over the last three months, it has slowly occurred to me that I'm living in the Texas of Brazil. That said, I'm beginning to pick up on the nuances that make Pará simply Paraense, without ignorantly comparing it to something with which I'm more familiar. But I thought I'd get this out of my system before that actually happens.
Since this post hasn't yet featured a legitimately Brazilian photo, here's a picture of a monkey contemplating the tragedy of such insensitive and fruitlessly ethnocentric thinking that would allow someone to make the crude comparisons I have just so shamelessly made.
It's the second biggest state in the union.
True, there is one state that's bigger (in this case, neighboring Amazônia), but Pará is an easy second. And it's not crumpled up into rolling hills and mountain ranges—it's sprawled out, stretched flat across millions of acres of dense rainforest.
Its citizens identify with their state before their country.
Most of the Paraenses I know are quite acutely aware of their cultural inheritance, and they love being Paraense. There's also a pretty fine distinction between which aspects are generally Brazilian, which are Amazonian, and which are just plain Paraense.
It wants to secede (kind of).
Given such a strong identity as a state, it naturally follows that a substantial minority of its citizens have the long-held and unfulfilled dream of seceding from the grossly inefficient and corrupt federal government and forming an entirely self-sufficient state that is once-and-for-all an independent nation. This has been a half-taken-seriously movement for years (decades, really), and it still has a following, and it still probably will never happen. But that doesn't keep many in the state from pretending it already has.
It has a distinct regional dialect with a single iconic, dead-giveaway word.
The Texans have their "y'all," the Paráenses: "égua!" When traveling outside the state, you can usually get away with being generally native to the country. Open your mouth, and your accent makes it rather evident that you're from somewhere closer to the equator than most folks. But if you let slip the one word that everyone knows is distinctly your state's battle cry, it's over: you're just plain Paraense, and you can't help but agree.
Traditional gender roles are pretty strictly adhered to.
There's certainly a counterculture, if you know where to look. But on the whole, the gender divide is rather fixed. I believe I can count on one hand the number of women under 40 that I've seen with hair shorter than shoulder length. That's about equal to the number of male knees I've seen, since shorts are always full-length. Always. Unless you're gay. There is a gay presence, but it's not generally smiled upon by most folks over thirty, and thus often relegated to those pockets of counterculture where it's considered safe. In families, the gender divide is, in my experience, generally quite traditional, at least in the division of labor among husband and wife. (Real men don't wash dishes.)
There will always be more cheap, ice-cold beer than anyone can drink.
There are several varieties of the same watery, tasteless beer, and in most bars that's all that is served. And folks love it. If you're gonna be partying for hours on end, you're gonna have to pace yourself. And that obviously doesn't mean drinking less. It means drinking weak. Won't fill you up; never lets you down.
Food is best when meaty and/or deep fried.
Imagine a restaurant where you sit at a table talking and the only interruption to your conversation is one of several waiters gliding efficiently around the table, offering you one-by-one more varieties of meat than you knew existed. (Fine: if you're from Texas, you probably knew they existed.) You look, probably say "yes," and proceed to choose from which part of the enormous skewer you would like the waiter to so skillfully slice your next selection. You proceed to eat until you roll out the door. Or imagine, alternatively, you're just in the mood for a snack, and pass someone on the street selling food. Only every item is the same color, because they're all equally deep-fried. They might have chicken, cheese, beef, or shrimp on the inside, and they're delicious. Until like ten minutes later, where you realize your hunger was stronger than your memory, and this is gonna hurt. (Unless you've got the stomach of a native.) Want a snack that's not fried? Everything's bigger in this state. So imagine a cheeseburger, with lots of...no. Just imagine someone massacred a farm and collected everything on a hamburger bun: ground beef, egg, chicken breast, ham, cheese, pulled pork—its the miraculous "x-tudo," or "cheese-everything." My arteries are getting tired just thinking about it...
Alright. The last two items are pretty much generally Brazilian, but seven reasons seemed a stronger argument than five.
Over the last three months, it has slowly occurred to me that I'm living in the Texas of Brazil. That said, I'm beginning to pick up on the nuances that make Pará simply Paraense, without ignorantly comparing it to something with which I'm more familiar. But I thought I'd get this out of my system before that actually happens.
Since this post hasn't yet featured a legitimately Brazilian photo, here's a picture of a monkey contemplating the tragedy of such insensitive and fruitlessly ethnocentric thinking that would allow someone to make the crude comparisons I have just so shamelessly made.