âGracias!â
Huh⊠obrigada?
People of Rio tend to use common Spanish words with me when completing simple transactions, even though I show no sign of not understanding them. Iâm far from being proficient in Portuguese but I donât have any problem with numbers, buying stuff, asking for directions, etc.
âWhy are you saying âmuchas graciasâ?â I asked once.
âWell, because youâre from Chile.â
Am I? I had no idea! Let me call my parents, I have to tell them the news because presumably, theyâre also Chilean and they donât even know it!
Note that I wasnât wearing a I-love-Chile t-shirt and that Iâve also been mistaken for Argentinian, Uruguayan and Paraguayan.
So Iâm from Chile, and this is just fine because guess what, Feng happens to be Japanese. Feng has been Japanese for a long timeâI remember kids shouting âsayonara!â in Bolivia in 2002 and I found it puzzling back then. I get it, he looks Asian, but are all Asians Japanese? And why this need to greet a random Asian person in the street?
Feng didnât seem offended. âGive it a few years. When Chinese start to travel, weâll take over the world.â
He was right. He was âni-hao-edâ several times in the past few years. People are starting to learn Mandarin. But in Brazil, itâs always sayonara or konichiwa, which leads to this awkward moment when a Chinese kid who grew up under Mao canât possibly say something in Japanese because one, he doesnât speak this language, two, thatâs kind of like betraying motherland. After all, Feng spent his childhood chasing imaginary Japanese soldiers.
Maybe Iâm being unfair to Cariocas. Thereâs a large Japanese population in SĂŁo Paulo, so it may be easy to assume that Feng is Japanese. And I do speak Portuguese with a Spanish accent.
I canât help it. Until my adventures in Portuguese, I had always thought that either you knew a language, either you didnât. Of course, there are various levels of proficiency but if you use the right word or expression, locals generally understand you. I know Westerners who claim they just canât pronounce anything in Mandarin and I always thought it was bullshit. I mean, it does take practice but Mandarin isnât that cryptic or tongue-torturing once you understand how it works.
Well, now I know how they feel.
âA que horas fecha?â
âNĂŁo entende.â
(Yes, Cariocas are straightforward. If they canât understand what youâre saying, they just say it.)
âA que horas fecha?â I repeat because I canât think of any other way to ask what time the supermarket closes, adding hand gestures that may or may not make things clearer.
âAh! âA que horas fecha!â”
“THATâS WHAT i JUST SAID!” I feel like screaming.
But I canât help it, most of the time, I pronounce words like I would in Spanish, especially when they are very closeâllamada/chamada, deixar/dejar, posso/puedo, etc.
I wish I spoke Portuguese better to chat with people like I do in the rest of South America.
Here, I mostly observe and listen.






































I wonder if I travel to Brazil! what nationality I’d be? surely not East Asia, not west Either
I wonder too! Hard to say. Without the hijab, I think you’d be American by default, or maybe Eastern European. With it, you’d be associated to a Muslim country but I doubt Indonesia would come to mind!
When I went there everyone spoke Portuguese to me (I only learned a few words on the plane over) and spoke Spanish to my brother who actually lived there and spoke the language haha
to be fair I felt I had a good grasp of written Portuguese but pronunciation was a b*tch đ
I truly admire your brother for being able to speak Portuguese. It’s a tough language! I’m not surprised you were addressed to in Portuguese, you could very well pass for Brazilian.
I know, despite his brain injury and accident he managed to get in touch in Portuguese with one of his friends there as well!
And while I was there it was the first time I think that I felt like “I was blending in”
And I loved that everyone was wearing a tiny bikini, no matter their size / shape / age
I know, I’ve never seen so many butts in my life đ It’s a very body positive culture overall I find.
Your brother is pretty amazing. I really hope you two can do something together… he deserves it and so do you. He sounds like a great person who happened to be in a bad place at one point but has a great future.