Here And There — Life Abroad

Yes, we do pull doors when we should push. Do you want to know why?

Living in a foreign country can be challenging. Actually, I would love to describe it with unprintable words, but let’s keep some perspective, at least in the opening paragraph. There are a lot of differences between the person who I am in US and the one I am in Brazil. I could say that culture shock is responsible for this behavioral mess. Accordingly to Paul Pedersen, author of The Five Stages of Culture Shock,

“(…) culture shock is more or less sudden immersion into a nonspecific state of uncertainty where the individuals are not certain what is expected of them or of what they can expect from the persons around them”.

Well, it seems confused enough to use his theory to compare my life between the two countries.

In Brazil, I am outgoing, talkative, engaged. I am a TV reporter, so I’m not scared of speaking in public, I love to give my opinion, I don’t need to know you really well to tell you about my life. We will hug and kiss, and we don’t care about germs. On the contrary, in America, I am quiet, reserved, and most of the time I use a soft voice to say or ask something. I pray that people won’t ask my opinion, and on school presentation days I am sweating, with a migraine, and I am freaking nervous. Oh, and I can’t deny I am getting a little more concerned about germs here.

And how to explain these changes? I am pretty sure that language can make you switch your behavior. Learning a new idiom can be hard. Trying to speak with natives can be a little harder, and foreigners go through so many embarrassing situations, that we end up becoming shy and blocking ourselves to try to have a conversation.

For example, trying to order a meal can be basically impossible. The waiter/waitress will ask so many questions, ask for so many details, that in the end you don’t have any idea what you are going to be eating. I really don’t know if in Brazil they ask you so many things and I just answer naturally, by heart. Or if we are more direct and just order the meal. If you want anything different, you will say it, and won’t be asked about it.

Even if you attend to English courses in Brazil you won’t be fully prepared for American life. Do you really think they will teach us all the ways we can have an egg? Hard boiled? Soft boiled? Scrambled? Over easy? Poached? No! We just learn how to say egg in English. Period.

Some courses have specific exercises for conversation. “Oh now we are going to listen to a dialogue at the grocery shop”.

Now you tell me: Do you really think the conversation will prepare you to answer the cashier at Safeway that yes, you need a bag, and, no, you don’t play Monopoly. God no! They will just teach us to say: How much? Cash! Thank you.

On the other hand, in Brazil, in most of the places you don’t have to pay for the bag. You just grab a bag and help the cashier or his assistant to throw your stuff in.

In English, there are nasty things called phrasal verbs. Which means that: you have learned a word, but this same word in combination with another word means something totally different. Easy peasy. Just memorize it.

You can put makeup on, but you also can make up with someone who was mad at you, because you made up a story. Don’t even get me started talking about make out!

Oh but don’t you have expressions in Portuguese? Of course we have. The most hilarious and nonsensical ones. I consider myself the queen of expressions, know them all, use them all the time… but when I am speaking with some foreigner, I try to use clear Portuguese. I try to make their lives easier! But let’s be honest who wants to learn Portuguese? Who is having a hard time with our expressions? Basically no one! At the same time, the whole world is in the US struggling with its phrasal verbs.

And that is not all.

There are also the similar words that means something totally different. The best example: push and pull. Did you know that push, however spelling p-u-x-e, means pull in portuguese? Doesn’t make sense? Read my sentence again. Push is pull in portuguese. Confusing? Well, but that is the truth. Now, whenever you see me getting stuck at a Starbucks door, trying hard to pull it, you know the reason. My brain can’t figure it out that fast. Suddenly I am in front of some door and I have to do something. And I will do the wrong thing 90% of the time.

And of course, last but not least important: pronunciation. First of all, in portuguese the sound of the letter e is the sound of the letter i. And the letter i sounds like the letter e. (My brain hurts right now checking if it makes sense, and maybe it doesn’t, I admit). So guess why we are shy when trying to read something? Because a lot of times we are over thinking: OMG how do I pronounce that? I or e?

Of course most of the time we choose the wrong one because Murphy should definitely be Brazilian.

Sometimes I can’t say it is a pronunciation issue. We just don’t understand what other people are saying. In Brazil, people from different states pronounce a lot of words differently and sometimes it is just impossible to understand each other. In the same way, I remember during my firsts months in America, my host mom asked if my class was mixed (students from all over the world). My answer was: yes, there are a lot of mexicans. There is no grammar explanation for this one, I just got it wrong.

So I created my own rule. I can try to understand twice. I will say: Sorry?, people will repeat it. Then if I don’t get it I will try one more time, and if I don’t get it again I will just make up a answer. Yes or no. I remember on my first date in the US, Daniel asked me if I had ever been skiing, since in Brazil it doesn’t snow. I said no. And then he asked me something else. I said sorry? He repeated. And I didn’t get it. So I just said no. End of the conversation. Afterwards, I found out he was asking if I would like to go skiing with him.

Well, we have to develop our own tools to survive abroad. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Is all this culture shock? Or also language issues? The truth is it is totally different. It is hard to compare, and definitely a huge cultural contrast. Along with the choice of moving to a new country come a lot of challenging situations and embarrassing conversations. We just have to learn how to deal with and laugh at it.