Well,
since I
wrote about my anticipation of Christmas in Rio
not being what I
am used to, I
should write about how I
experienced it now that it happened.
First,
my comments were not meant to
denegrate other people's
cross cultural
expressions of the Christmas holiday.
Just to relate
my own reactions to
perceived differences.
And this post is
intended to
react to
those after the fact.
Christmas with Bianca's
family was very different than I
am used to. I
enjoyed it because of the relationships.
We had a
relaxing day at home.
Watching some
movies,
read emails,
talked to
her family, ate, etc.
But I
will say the traditions I
have treasured most of my life as
the epitomy of Christmas were pretty much absent.
Not judging their expression as
wrong,
mind you,
just saying it is
not much related to
my own.
That is as
far as
the family thing goes.
But it was still delightful in its own way because I
was with the one I
love.
As for
the community,
of course,
Christmas feels different when it is 107
outside and it did not cool down until this week.
It was in the 100s
all last week and the week before.
So,
it did not bring images of snow, etc. to
mind.
But there are
lots of Christmas images around from decorations at shopping malls,
stores,
and other businesses to
those in homes.
Bianca's
family does
not have a
Christmas tree,
but they have various Christmas items around.
They don't do
the exchange of presents my family so enjoyed,
but we did give presents.
It just wasn't
set aside for a particular time,
with bows and wrapping, etc.
the way I
am used to.
But the shopping malls,
the sales,
the deocrations all struck a familiar
chord. Some
of the Christmas displays at the malls must have cost a
lot of money and taken lots of time to
put together.
There is
also Christmas music on the radio
and playing at various places.
This,
of course,
always makes one nostalgic (
at least me).
And it is
fun to
hear Brazilians,
many of whom speak little English,
sing the words in English,
memorized from just such moments repeated time
and again.
We even saw the world's largest Christmas tree, floating in the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. It changed colors regularly and was quite a site, and they also had lasers and water dancing (a combination of fountains, jets, etc.) all against an amazing background as you see in the picture above. Then we sat and ate crepes and pastels and talked. It was indeed special and moving. I guess I got new sentimental memories after all.
So Christmas in Rio
was not all strange and unfamiliar.
It was just different,
and overall,
that is
not always a
bad thing.
Most of us,
if we are
honest,
will admit to
hating change.
And we will also admit to
struggling with it when it cannot be avoided.
One of the reasons I
love cross cultural
travel is
that I
get the opportunity to
deal with change and am forced to
deal with it. I
have to
dig deeper inside myself,
look at things with more
introspection and intensity,
and to
grow in our expectations of and understanding of the world.
Christmas in Rio
has helped me
with that,
and I
think that's a
blessing.
No comments:
Post a Comment