Workshop on Brazil
Attending the workshop on Brazil was very informative. There were many things that I learned about Brazilians and some things that I already knew about Brazil and the culture. The native language of Brazilians is Portuguese. This was a fact that I was already aware of having learned about it in Spanish and history class. Brazil is huge and covers nearly half of South America.
Brazil consists of twenty six states and one federal district. The country was founded by Europeans. It was very interesting to learn that the culture is the exact opposite of the culture in the United States. In Brazil physical contact is acceptable. Brazilians find that touching is acceptable while engaging others in conversation. Also the some Brazilians are not very punctual. Because of the crowds it is sometimes a hard to be punctual. The minimum wage in Brazil is a thing that really shocked me. The minimum wage is 678.00Brazilian Reais which is 310.00 U.S dollars. This was shocking because how could anyone sustain off of only that small amount of money monthly. I found it to be a little humbling because many people complain about the minimum wage in the U.S being low. But the fact that the minimum wage in Brazil is low and their products are higher goes to show who has it better.
Brazil has huge taxes and serious protectionist against imports. The reason for this is to keep the countries industry alive. The prices have risen in the last year as demand is higher than production. I learned about supply and demand in Economic my senior year of high school and never really thought I would use it but now I understand. With the country bringing in more products than they are putting out it causes the demand of prices to rise high than what they are producing.
I found it interesting that Brazilians have a strong beach culture. This is much like some of the hotter regions of the United States. I also learned that to some Brazilians plastic surgery is a huge deal. I found this to be funny. It looks like since the development of plastic surgery, there are not going to be a shortage of plastic surgeons anytime soon. I guess Brazilians are much like some Americans in the