[concord]

I've been home
for almost a month now. I received an email from Tasha, a UCLA film major I met during my first evening in Bahia. She'll be back in California in 3 weeks. She wants to hear some of my thoughts before she returns to America. The following is an excerpt from my reply:

"One of the great lessons i learned was that Brasil didn't have anything that was quantitatively more impressive or expensive. The coffee was sometimes super teeny tiny, and yet those few sips, like everything else in Brasil, was just what I needed. Not a big ice cream Jamba Juice, just a small R$1.65 suco de laranja. Not an SUV or even a Camry, but a Ford Renault. Not a super size McMeal Deal, but a piece of roasted corn or a shish-kebab.

While there, i racked my brain trying to understand whether the differences I'd observed were better or just different. The answer to this question was vital to my happiness back home. I remember how much I hated visiting the Philippines 7 years ago when i was 14. Everything was dirty, poor, and simply not American. I had not learned to change my expectations. All i wanted were American things. So now that I was in Brasil, I made sure not to expect America. And it kept me happy. I didn't look for Starbucks, i embraced the cafezinho.

But now that i'm back in America, i realize that the differences i'd observed in Brasil were in fact better, not simply different. I had hoped that cultural differences were to be celebrated, respected, and left at that. It's okay for Americans to want to shake hands and for Brasilians to want to kiss each other on the cheek. Aren't differences what make this world beautiful?

But pumping food with chemicals is not better. Greeting people the same way one opens a business negotiation is not better. Buying a Hummer when all your family needs is a sedan because you'll never take that luxury thing off road, is not better.

I tried not to get angry at America. I tried to believe that human nature is at fault and that America was lucky enough to get the chance to engage in excess. After all, I saw a few Chevy Blazers and Mitsubishi Pajero's in Brasil. Perhaps if Brasil had the resources, they too would have the same flaws for which Americans are hated. So indeed, some Brasilians also flexed their monetary muscle when they could. Everybody wants nice things.

But i think Americans can also learn to want simpler things, to give value to different items. It is difficult to make blanket statements as i've just made. I know there are Americans who don't place money and the things they can buy with it as their highest priority (after God or another supreme deity, if they are religious). But nevertheless, if we look at the vehicles next to us next time we're on the street, if we look at the width of the person in front of us at the movie theater, if we look at the sizes of the popcorn being sold at the movies, if we look at the way we behave around people we don't know, i would have to say Brasilians are better off. Far better off than we."