A very small Brazilian Christmas gathering. Very small! Christmas 2007
Thoughts are interesting things. They seem to have a life of their own. I find it interesting how one thought leads to another and another. Each thought taking a particular fork in the road, meandering around until, in the end, you end up some place that you never would have expected.
I was watching a movie the other day, Fools Rush In. It’s a cute story about a couple, a white man from New York, and a Mexican lady from somewhere in Central Mexico and their relationship trials.
One scene reminded me of an experience that I had on our trip to Brazil to visit my wife’s family: Isabel, played by Selma Hayek, has asked Alex, her boyfriend, join her family for their weekly family dinner. He agrees to go, thinking that dinner will be like it is in his parent’s house. Basically, he thinks they’ll just sit around quietly and eat dinner. That’s it. When they arrive at her house and walk around the back, there’s lots of music, laughter, and a great party atmosphere. The back porch is teaming with people. He’s stunned. He turns to her and says something like: “This is a family dinner?!”, clearly overwhelmed at the number of people present. She responds, a bit disappointed: “Yeah. I guess a lot of people couldn’t make it!”. After dinner, he said that he was overwhelmed, but amazed. He didn’t know that people actually spoke to each other at dinner!!! 
My own story
This was the type of feeling that I had when I met my wife’s family. I was extremely overwhelmed for the first week, quite honestly. We stayed in Brazil for 3 weeks. My wife has 4 brothers and 1 sister, for a total of 6 kids. Add to this about a gazillion cousins, all of who seemed to be there at that time. For the entire week, people spent the night, stayed up until daybreak, and partied. They didn’t party to get drunk. There ‘drunkenness’ came from the high that they got enjoying the togetherness of family. I had never experienced this. The remaining two weeks, only about 50% of them stayed. 
After about a week, I got used to it … somewhat, but it was a change. Over the past 16 years, I’ve changed and sometimes enjoy that level of interaction. I, for the most part, am a somewhat solitary guy, but I do enjoy family and friends, just not in huge doses.
Brazilian society, in contrast to American society, is night and day. It has been a difficult road for my wife, at times, as our society seems to value isolation … every man/woman for himself. Brazilians value leisure and family time.
You can just look at your neighborhood and think about how many people you know. I know a couple of my neighbors, and one of them, Harry, I talk to most every day. When I say talk, I mean I go to his house, we sit in the garage with the door open, our dogs play together, and we solve the problems of the world for 60 to 90 minutes at a time. The great majority of people that I know say that they have no clue about any of their neighbors. I’m 46. Harry is 60+.
I read a couple of psychology papers that talked about the increased use of therapists because Americans are so busy living the American Dream that they don’t have time to cultivate friendships. The number of personal confidants per person have fallen from 2, in the 1950s, to nearly zero in 2000. A confidant being someone that you trust and with whom you can discuss personal things.
So, if you are an American, do you still cultivate friendships? Have confidants? If you’re not American, how social would you say is your culture? If you are living in another culture, other than the one you grew up in, how does it feel? Do you feel isolated at times?
I just love learning about other cultures! Maybe I should have been an anthropologist!
BTW, my wife is the one in the screaming red sweater!
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5 Responses to “It’s a cultural thing!”
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I also find different cultures very interesting and in small doses can enjoy lots of people and group events. However, being an introvert I tend to enjoy my own time more. I wish I was more of an extrovert.
I do believe the American lifestyle has to take a great deal of responsibility for the breakdown of close friendships and confidants. Perhaps that’s why social networks (myspace, facebook, etc.) have become so popular. People, and especially young people, are feeling the need for those types of friendships and are trying to fill that need in the virtual world?
Paul…I, too, have four brothers and one sister!
We had friends at church who spent a great deal of time in a foreign country. They left the U.S. not being the “huggy” types and returned as huggers. They saw such a difference in cultures, and said we need to loosen up and express our feelings to our friends & family more. It IS interesting, seeing the different dynamics from one country to another. Your wife is fortunate to have grown up in a culture that isn’t afraid to express emotion.
@Earl: I’m glad that you mentioned the social networks. I thought about that too. Only last week, I learned what Twitter was.
Interesting. However, there is no substitute for meeting in person, sharing a smile or twelve; having a drink; telling a joke; shaking a hand; giving and getting a hug.
@Bonnie: What a large family! I think that we are so afraid of our own shadows know with the constant poison spewed forth from the television (yes! I hate that box). My family is certainly in the ‘huggers’ category, even before I met my wife. After people get to know us, they generally accept that there’s a hug coming when we meet up!!! Handshakes are a bit too stiff, for me, for someone who I met more than once. Even the guys hug each other … in that manly guy-hug sort of way.
I also find cultures interesting – sometimes confusing. Indian culture is again very close – big gathering. Example: In average wedding you will see more than 600 people. In every festival – people visit their neighbours, friends etc.
However, when I moved to Mumbai, India from by town – I found culture close to US. Lets say somewhere in middle of American and traditional Indian culture.
I think few cultures try to find the happiness from the group while Americans in general find their happiness by themselves. Sometimes, I wonder how much people get attached to friends/family. They are not heartless. I know they are very emotional about their dogs.
I think the reason is Insecurity – people are insecure about relationships/friendship/neighbours – they know it may not last so they subcnsiously resist making connection and eventually get used to it. May be that is the reason they are more attached to dogs then friends – as they own their pet but friends will leave them anytime.
I just thought the above theory while writing this comments and I could be wrong. I would love to know what you think of the insecurity theory?
Raj: Thanks for the input. I don’t know that I agree with the insecurity part. I think it is more of a type of being lost. Over the past few decades there have been many different movements; different peoples struggling for their independence. The more independent that we become, the more contact that we lose with each other. We become islands.
Parents want to raise their children to be independent. That is, grow up, go to college, move away from home, create your own family, etc. Contrast this to Brazilian, or from what I hear, Italian culture, where men may stay home until they get married at age 30, perhaps. Here, that man would certainly be frowned upon as a weak, unworthy, sorry man. No matter what his excuse. Perhaps he decided to stay to take care of his parents. Who knows?
When kids are raised to be very independent, that in itself can have an effect on family bonding. Also, our general fear of one another has a negative effect on cultivating friendships. Spend a few hours looking at or reading the news and you’ll be plenty afraid to go outside and socialize with anyone. So, we go to work, come home, only let the kids play in front of the house where we can see them. We lock our doors at night, and that’s it. No interaction.
What’s even more sad is that when we are ‘inconvenienced’ by the sickness of a parent, we want to throw them into a nursing home so that we don’t have to deal with. In other cultures, that would be frowned upon highly. I know of many men from India who say that when they finish working in the US, they will return to India to take care of their parents. I hope that is true. I know that it is a cultural expectation, or at least used to be. A good one for sure.