Glamour of Brazil
Brazil, 2007, digital, color, 6x50 minOn YouTube
On April 22, 1500, the Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral firstly arrived in Brazil, which turned out to be a colony of Portugal until its independence in 1822. In the 1530s, the Portuguese Crown sent his army to Brazil and designated the governor general in 1549, when the Portuguese royal court was transferred to Brazil for the colonial reign. In 1821, the Portuguese royal court was moved back to Lisbon with the prince Pedro staying in Brazil as the Prince Regent. On September 7, 1822, Prince Pedro declared the independence and established the Brazil Empire. A military coup d’etat was launched by General Deodoro Da Fonseca with the imperial system replaced by the republican system and the Republic of the United States of Brazil on November 15, 1889. On March 31, 1964, the military forces took office in Brazil in a coup d’etat and the country was renamed Federative Republic of Brazil in 1967. In January 1985, the democracy was re-established. The bicameral republican system has essentially taken root after 20 years of evolution. The central and right wing party alliance consisting of Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL) and Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) are maintaining its ruling of the country on a long-term base. Since the late period of 1990s, the central and right wing party alliance has gone through differentiation. By contrast, the left wing political force is becoming more and more powerful. On October 26, 2002, the leader of Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), the largest left wing party, won the election and he took his oath to be the 40th president of Brazil on January 1, 2003.
1. Immigrants
In addition to Portuguese, the 658 tea farmers from Macao and Guangzhou of China to Rio De Janeiro in 1808 can been seen as the first batch of immigrants to Brazil. Then Brazil has been drawing people of different background ever since. There have been immigrants to Brazil from more than 70 countries including Italy, Spain, France, Holland, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Czech, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arab, Japan, Korea, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, East Africa, Africa continent, and Angola.
2. Brazilian Football
The sport of football was not invented by Brazil. Yet it is Brazilian who has promoted the development of football sport into perfection. The Brazilian football match of uniqueness has gained its fame as well-known as the coffee and Carnival of Brazil all across the world.
The sport of football was introduced into Brazil by a British-Brazilian named Charles Miller not long before the ushering of the 20th century. Miller learnt to play football during his stay in Britain as an exchange student and brought with him the famous sport when he returned to St. Paul. Miller’s parents were among one of the earliest batch of British technicians who came to Brazil to assist the construction of railways, harbors and power plants in Brazil at the end of 19th century. Miller had had such a good command of the skills of the sport before he went back to Brazil in 1895 that he then taught his friend to play it in a sports club formed by British members in St. Paul after his return from Britain. By the year of 1901, when the football federation was established in St. Paul, the sports club presented the first ever football team in Brazil and won the championship consecutively in the first three football tournaments since 1902. The history of the British-Brazilians’ triumph in football match were finally ended in 1904 when the native Brazilian finally learnt the skills of the sport and made better performance in the match. Football has been overwhelming the whole country like the flame setting the prairie ablaze. No one, even the British who is the inventor of sport, can well compete with the native Brazilians in the football match.
80 years later, football is not merely a national sport for leisure in the eyes of Brazilian but a crazy and cheerful game for millions of fans in Brazil. When the football game is held every four years, the craze of the Brazilian fans for football reaches its peak in every field, small or large, whether of the town, school, or community, regardless of being just at some vacant land or in such stadiums capable of accommodating hundreds of audiences. Even in the far Indian villages of Amazon Basin, there stretch proudly the football fields. What makes them so unique is the football of coconut, the special material of which was made out of the local produce for the natives’ convenience and totally based on the originality of the natives.
Whenever the national football team is to attend the World Cup representing Brazil, all industries are suspended in the country, the scale of which will exceed that of a general stike. As a result, a lot of TV sets were equipped beside the factory plants in order to provide convenience for the fans to watch the game and in turn reduce the leave rate to the minimum. However, after several rounds of efforts which normally ended in vain, most of the enterprises, whether manufacturing or marketing, adopt the temporary close for the football match during period of the World Cup time and the follow-up celebrations for Brazil’s championship.
The reason why football has gained its popularity across the whole country perhaps lies in the fact that all the youth from all walks of life can well devote themselves to the sports. The sport in vogue has created a large amount of top players from the slums in Brazil, who strongly believe that it is the sport that eradicates the poverty plaguing their life. This is also the passport to the road of prosperity. The stories which revealed those guys who vault to fame and gain a great deal of fortune just by the skills of their feet on the football have inspired millions of juveniles in the slums to aim high and ambitiously become somebody.
In fact, the whole nation of Brazil will be great affected emotionally by the result of such important football matches in which Brazilian football team is in. For instance, the fame of the government under the leadership of President Emilio Garrastazu Medici had been raised dramatically just due to the fact that the Brazilian Team won another championship after twice of triumph in the World Cups. The government of Emilio Garrastazu Medici was once trapped for its insufficiency in the appeasing the civil strife stirred by the urban guerillas. To date, what earns a page for General Emilio Garrastazu Medici in history books is not his political achievements but the victory of Brazilian football team in the World Cups.
3. Samba
Samba dance is derived from umbigadas (originally meaning navel-pushing), which was an informal dance with the trace of religious ritual made by the Afro- Brazilian slaves. In the dance, people gather in a circle to sing and clap with the strikes of percussion instruments while a dancer makes circumgyration in the center until the pause of music, which means the invitation of another dancer to do the forward hip-twist before taking over the dancing and circumgyration in the center of the circle.
Most of the Afro-Brazilian slaves came from the west coast of African continent, whose activities were tolerated by the slave owners at the time. Later on, when the Afro-Brazilian slaves tried to establish their own religion in the city, the intervention and suppression of the police forced the slaves to combine their own gods into the Papistic saints, from which the slaves took their shelter. The instruments for the Samba de roda are originated from those used in the religious festivals and heathen celebrities including pandeiro (tambourine), atabaque (drum), berimbau – viola (berimbau with the smallest cabaça and the highest pitch), chocalho (rattle – a percussion instrument), and the drum heads fixed inside the atabaque which can let out the squeaky and husky sounds while being pulled. In addition to these, there is also one or a couple of circular cone bells together with the wooden or metal sticks to drum for percussion.
During the late period of the 19th century, the slave bands in the rural villages and urban ballrooms were required to simulate the style of such fashion dances from Europe as polka and mazurka. Privately, they would rather add their own flirting postures like hip-twists or waist shaking into the buoyant steps of polka, thus creating a new style of dance “Maxixe”. This type of dance, glamorous and rhythmic, was firstly belittled for its tendency of flirtation. It was not until a long time later that it was accepted by the upper classes. To date there are still some dance partners in a lot of ballrooms in Brazil, deeply attached to each other and performing skillfully Maxixe to their content with complex steps and delicate and sexy postures, the passion and glamour of whom can well amaze the audience.
Samba dance has become a fashion, owing a lot to the movie PeloTelefone that gained its fame all of a sudden, before the time of which the characteristics of samba dance was greatly influenced by different forms of music. During the following 50 years, the samba music has gone through dramatic changes from the pure percussion of Samba do morro to the carnival Samba enredo combining the singing and chorus. Samba today normally refers to the samba music and dance in the Carnival parades, which is an art for square performance with great enthusiasm, simplified dance steps, rhythmic and simply melodies.
Besides the samba dance in the carnival, there are another two kinds of samba dances: one is the dance of the northeast style with dense African flavor, clear rhythm and great movement; it can strongly stimulate the nerve center of the dancer and well impress the audience with the memorable African style. Another is called the Samba show, which is normally located in the special zone of the erotic industry. The samba dance performance introduced to China belongs to the latter category.
4. Churrasco
The country of immigrants can be well reflected by its cuisine art of diverse nationalities. In Brazil, you can have a taste of almost every kinds of food in the world including those of Italy, France, Germany, Russia, Arab, Turkey, Korea, Japan and China. Even those local snacks can furnish you the hospitality of the natives. Among all these, the Brazilian Churrasco can never be out of fashion.
Now you can have your Brazilian Churrasco gracefully in the churrasco store with all kinds of vegetables or desserts or a cup of sugarcane wine. The appetizer will stir up your appetite like tin-opener inviting the bubbles of wine. You might be amazed by your own appetite. You might even solute to the Brazilian cuisine and loosen your strap (due to the fact that you are too full) after your enjoyment of the food.
The origin of Brazilian Churrasco might be mean and accidental. In the southwest of the colonial Brazil, the skin and oil of buffaloes are the main products as the target of the contest between the Spanish and the Portuguese in Brazil. They try to find the skins and oil of buffaloes and eat the beef to sustain their physical force.
Churrasco was made firstly with barely any skills. Just dig a hole and set fire before you drop into the chopped beef together with the ashes of carbon. When the war was over, the buffaloes became less and less in amount gradually. People started to raise the cows, all the parts of which including ribs, brisket and neck were eaten. Beef became the main food that the southern Brazilian feed on.
Like other cultures, the cuisine culture of Brazilian Churrasco has been greatly influenced by the immigrants and their cultures. People from Germany and Italy have the soup first, and then the salad, rice, black beans, chicken, and noodles with the gradual serving of one piece of churrasco for once. The citizens of St. Paul invented the way of eating the beef between two pieces of bread, the style of which had not gained its popularity in other regions. Paranaense like to eat to fullness with the beef serving without even one moment of pause, the way of which was spread to the whole country by the truck drivers and becomes the mainstream of eating Brazilian Churrasco at present.
5. Dreams of Amazon
Since the discovery of Amazon River for the first time, human beings have been tried to recognize and conquer it while taking over its treasures. Beckoned by the so called gold dream of “Kingdom of Manoah”, Goncalo Pizarro, the Spanish adventurer who had ever conquered Andes, led an armed force of 20 soldiers, dozens of Indian guides, 2000 coursers and 5000 pigs to the legendary “Kingdom of Manoah” from Ecuador. Armed with the armors and noises of coursers and wolfs, the peculiar expedition team moved along the slope of the eastern Andes and tried to deepen into the jungles. When they descended from the mount, troubles offered themselves with the unexpected attacks from the Indian, which killed the slow-to-fight-back soldiers, scared away the guides and put the Spain into hunger and desperation. The expedition team was forced to move back with only 80 scarecrow soldiers left.
The famous American enterprises Henry Ford, who once tried to monopoly the automobile industry, bought the rubber plantations in Amazon in 1927, trying to compete with the British. However his plan suffered a miscarriage when his rubber gardens were plagued with the pests and achieved poor harvest. During the period of the 19 years, Ford lost 80 million dollars in the rubber plantations. Until now the two rubber plantations of Ford, namely Fordlandia and Belterra are still there. The trucks and generators were deserted behind the rows of white houses decorated with the curtains, decayed under the erosion of the moisture. Another dream of Amazon had turned into bubbles.
20 years later, another American billionaire Daniel Ludwig launched his plan of development in Amazon by buying large forests and farms. The super designer of oil tankers and the owner of the Universal Oil Tanker Corporation was once ambitious on the road to achieve his Amazon dreams. Unfortunately, he had no more luck than Ford.
During the 1760s, the engineers from Britain and America were engaged in the construction of the railways in Amazon, by which they hoped to transport large amounts of rubbers along the River to the outside. But each section of rails was built at the price of a life due to the diseases of malaria or pyrexia. Among those American workers who were sent to the Amazon River, 80 were drowned to death and 141 died of malaria. In addition, another 400 Brazilians and 200 Bolivians were killed. All the high price was paid for a mere section of railways of 6 kilometers in length. As a result, the railway was always being shadowed by bankruptcy, riots, and death. In 1903, the Brazilian government made an offer of the rubber plantations on the preconditions of the completion of the railway construction. After ten years of efforts and at the prices of 30,000 workers’ lives, the railway of 370 kilometers in length was finally completed when the stock market of Amazon rubbers was just trapped in the disadvantages of collapse. Except the section of 13 kilometers, all the rest of the railway was discarded uselessly.
In 1967,Ludwig paid 3 million dollars for the large area of jungles as wide as that of the whole Connecticut State. He was planning to set up a paper corporation featuring the manufacturing of wooden materials, paper pulp and the finished products of paper. The reason of his selection of the place is that it is suitable for the plantation of trees all year long. He bought the vast land, which seemed to be a wise choice. Yet he ignored the truth that the soil of the Amazon River bank is insufficient for the plantation of trees at a large amount. And this brought him a lot of problems that severely influenced the productivity including the multiplication of weeds and bacteria, and the infesting of the ants and other pests. He couldn’t help but transfer his focus onto the pavement of the roads, the establishment of schools and the build-up of power plants without the support of the government. In 1982, he had to sell the jungles at a price of 440 million dollars to the local company of Brazil, suffering a great loss compared to his total amount of investment of 900 million dollars.
The efforts of the developers have been gone with the wind, with the mere rows of tombstones in Kanterary Cemetery indicating so many plans of Amazon’s developers.
The most remarkable land expedition along the Amazon River was made by the team under the co-leadership of the former US president Roosevelt, famous Brazilian adventurer and the senior Indian agency Candido-Rondon. Setting off from the north of 马托格罗索, they travelled all the way for 59 days, covering a distance of 1451 kilometers. According to the records made by the former president Roosevelt, “we are entering into a place that no one else has ever set foot on. Nobody knows what is inside. It is a world of no civilization, without a white man ever to trace the origin of the river in its or lower upper section. The rain forest we are through has been unseen and anything might happen to us.” Several days later, Roosevelt continued this kind of recording in his journal, “mosquitoes are humming around us; the poisonous fire ants are biting us without mercy; the thorns of little palm trees left their traces on our hand with the cut festering…” what is the most horrified is Amazon River itself. “ the torrential water suspended our boats, which had been tried to be carried down and failed because of the steepness of the mountain… despite the fact that we may all lose our lives in the torrents, we have to take a risk. ” and even president Roosevelt himself might have once been deprived of his life by a severe fever in the adventure but for his good luck. When the expedition team held their celebration at the intersection of Madeira River with an unknown river, Rondon presented a metal plate with the inscriptions of “River Roosevelt”, since when the unknown river was named after Roosevelt as River Roosevelt. Brave and courageous as the president and his expedition team with their remarkable achievements, the impossibility of the thorough exploration of Amazon River was also proved by the tough journey.
Actually, the whole geographical situation changes frequently in the area. In 1836, there were five anchoring Portuguese merchant vessels pushed away crudely by a “grass islet”. The grass of the islet was pulled up by the roots with the strong torrents of Amazon River. To date, the islets of ghost will alternate the geographical fact of Amazon River so much at any time that the navigation map of the region has to be amended every two decades.
Obstacles block the way to the dream of Amazon as usual. The visitors with the consistent craving for fortune are still negotiating with the mysterious river now.
If you travel around the towns scattered around the branch-like sub rivers of Amazon River valley now, the surveyor of mineral resources, geologists and the managers of the jungle landscaping could hardly escape your notice. They all bear a bundle of adventure stories, each of which are fantastic and glitters as part of the legendary of 400 years.