Last weekend I met a Brazilian priest who came for an informal meeting with other friends of mine. It was the first contact with him, but when I said: “Hi, I’m from Brazil”, he opened a big smile and gave me a hug. My other friends were surprised with our familiarity. After some years far away from my country, that hug seemed strange coming from a priest. However, I remembered hug was a quite normal greeting among my people, especially when you want to make friends. Living in the U.S., I’m discovering that many things are different in my culture as compared to American lifestyle. As a foreigner, I’m having a hard time to communicate because my native language is so different from English.
One difficult thing for me in English conversation is when I want to use Portuguese expressions or common gestures from my culture. Some of them can be misunderstood in America, for they have an especial meaning in the Brazilian social context. For example, if a woman gives a hug or a kiss to a man, it can be just a sign of friendship in Brazil. On the contrary, in USA or in Asian cultures this act could mean they are engaged or even married. Besides, some Portuguese idioms like “He who treads softly goes far”, or “Do not count your chickens before they hatched” can sound a kind of funny in English, but in Brazil these proverbs are part of a popular wisdom. I have to pay double attention to my words and gestures if I don’t want to get in trouble when I’m talking to an American person.
Another problem I encounter when I’m speaking in English is putting my feelings into words. Sometimes I want to explain a social or political situation in Brazil, but I’m not able to give the entire meaning of my thought. I think it happens because who is talking to me doesn’t have complete information to figure it out, or he has never found himself in a similar situation. For instance, one of my American friends who usually throws food away, cannot understand why her atitude makes me upset. More than once I tried to tell her about children in Brazil or Africa who live on the streets, having to get their meal from garbage, or to kill rats for food. Although my dramatic stories, she never changed her nonchalant attitude.
A further subject in conversation that I’m having some problem is because I really don’t know the listener’s background. In Brazil, I know I can talk about religion without even think if I’m offending my collegue because almost everybody is Christian. Or I can make any comment about other countries because 90% of the Brazilian people were born in Brazil. On the contrary, in this country, people come from different countries and have different upbringings. For example, the other day I was talking to a friend about the huge Mexican immigration in America, but I didn’t know her mother was from Mexico. I felt embarrassed because it seemed like I was judging her mother. Before starting a new dialog, I have to remind that who is in front of me is not from my same country, and can have another point of view about identical things.
Since I’m learning a new language, I feel like I’m breaking my brain in thousands of pieces, and then putting them together in another way to be able to express my thoughts. The prasal structures, patterns of organization, forms of communications, and a thousand other language skills that I still didn’t get, give me an uneasy feeling when I get in a new conversation. When I lived in Brazil, I never thought communication as a problem, but now I’m a foreigner trying to avoid hard discussions. Almost fifty percent of my ideas I keep in a hidden box into my mind, only because I don’t know how to express them. A box with my Portuguese thoughts that get lost in translation.
2 comments:
I agreed that life is very difficult for us who are immigrant in US. It is very hard to switch to a new life in US because everything is different from what we have been used to in our home countries.In my culture hug are not accepted. We shack hands to acknowledge each other. It is difficult for me to speak with people here because they have rules and expectations in communication that i don't want to break. People are rich here that throw food and will never know what it mean to live in poverty like in Africa where thousands kids are starving to death.
Hi Cintia.
When I was reading your essay I was thinking that many times I had the same problems.I think that it is even harder for me because I am not really tolerant person and I can't understand that someone can actually think differently.This is really hard learn to respect others opinions and traditions.
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