Since most people would try to rebut my points by saying “But Brazil is so beautiful and the weather is so great”, I’ll start with that:
Nature
1. Brazil is beautiful indeed, we have beaches, lakes, rivers, mountains, waterfalls, such a diversity of plant species and fauna but we’re also among the biggest polluters and champions of illegal logging and deforestation;
2. It is sunny in many regions of Brazil but it’s also very humid throughout the year what makes temperatures as nice as 35°C feel as dreadful as 45°C in less humid places.
People & behavior
3. "Friendship" is built easily but also forgotten in the blink of an eye;
4. Brazilians dress up too much and worry a lot about how they look and what people are gonna think of them. Looking clean is also very important.
5. They tend to repeat themselves a lot;
6. They talk to you inadvertently about things you don't want to know nor asked for (without ever seeing you before);
7. Brazilians are loud when they talk, they lose only to Americans in that aspect;
8. Brazilians are compulsive liars. They cannot handle the truth well or be straight forward, they tell little lies all the time and get offended easily if you’re honest with them;
9. There is a deep fear ingrained in society that either discourages changes of social rules/behaviors or makes people believe they're not possible;
10. Brazilians are patriotic and cannot bear criticism on national matters;
11. Brazilians are lazy or let's just say "take the easiest path to almost reaching a goal";
12. Brazilians don't take responsibility for their mistakes. It's easier to blame it on someone else;
13. Rich people treat poor people like they were "equals". A sort of tyrannical camaraderie;
Personal safety
14. In São Paulo, Rio and a few other cities, there is a realistic chance that you'll get killed by a bullet;
15. There is a significant chance that that bullet will be fired by that same police whose duty is to protect you;
16. If you're a woman, chances are you're gonna be harassed in some level if not raped;
17. If you're poor and black, chances are you'll be mistaken for a criminal;
18. Brazilians drive like they're racing the Formula 1;
Politics & legislation
19. High-degree corruption as seen in the Petrobras scandal and the presidential coup;
20. Low-degree corruption a.k.a bribery;
21. Disguised corruption a.k.a “jeitinho brasileiro”;
22. Politicians don’t know how to separate State and religion affairs;
23. Politicians often use their parliamentary immunity to undermine democratic principles;
24. Given you have enough wealth, you can virtually ignore the existence of laws a.k.a buying a judge off;
25. The senate and the lower house are dominated by conservatives;
26. There is no legislation addressing the problem of illicit drugs except for putting everyone behind bars, including users since the law doesn’t specify objectively how to differentiate drug dealers from drug consumers;
27. Abortion is illegal (can only be authorized by a judge on a case-by-case basis);
28. Churches are tax-exempt;
29. Mass media outlets are largely controlled by right-wing wealthy ruling class;
Economy
30. Income inequality. The highest-paid workers earn on average 100 times more than the average low-income worker;
31. 21% of the population is below the poverty line, 5% even below the extreme poverty line;
32. Minimum wage is US$ 200, as of today;
33. Tons of jobs are created or maintained solely to address the growing unemployment rate. A lot of jobs are totally meaningless, like lift operator, car guard, doorman, bus cashier when there's a card-reader and a turnstile in every bus, etc. People are not encouraged to get better education or learn something new;
34. In many offices, you'll see people struggling with a lot of work and people not doing anything. Also 40h/week is a joke, not even accounting for all the facebook browsing and whatsapping. Inefficiency at its maximum, specially in the public sector;
Education
35. Brazilians don’t speak another language. Living in Europe, I feel retarded because I cannot communicate in 5 different languages;
36. Public schools are a disaster, there aren’t enough seats for all the students, kids enter schools with guns and bombs threatening the safety of other kids and teachers and more recently it was unveiled that public money meant to buy meals for the students was being diverted by politicians in São Paulo;
37. Private education is unattainable to the poor;
38. Only 1 in 4 Brazilians is considered to be integrally literate, that means only 25% of the population can read, write and correctly interpret texts in Portuguese. The functional illiteracy index reaches 38% even amongst people with a bachelor's degree;
39. Brazilians watch on average 4,5h of TV every day. 79% use TV as their main information source;
Food & Drinks
40. Sugar is added to everything, even naturally sweet foods like fruits or naturally dry drinks like wine;
41. Vegetarianism and veganism is frowned upon unless it’s linked to a physical condition;
42. The biggest-selling Brazilian beer brands use up to 45% of corn in their recipes and they taste nothing like beer;
43. The best-quality coffee beans produced in Brazil are exported which leaves us with no hope of getting good coffee at the local market;
44. Brazil is the world's largest consumer of agricultural pesticides;
Transportation
45. Trains are not used for long-distance travels inside the country. It takes 5 days non-stop to go from north to south by bus;
46. There are no timetables for public metropolitan transportation lines;
47. It’s normal/average to commute for 2,5h a day in big cities;
48. People aim at buying their own cars to drop out of the public transportation system and not the other way around;
49. Car owners see bikes as causes of traffic retention;
50. Sharing lanes with cars couldn’t be more dangerous to cyclists;
51. People don’t see biking as a mean of transport but as a leisure activity;
Services
52. Tips (10% by law) are always included in your bill at bars and restaurants no matter how the service was;
53. Manual laborers have close to no formal education including no training in the field of work, which means they’re often not prepared to execute a task without supervision;
54. Hired professionals will likely consider their jobs done when the client is 80% satisfied (many won't even show up anymore if they already got part of the payment);
55. In most places where they provide public service you’re supposed to wait in line for hours with no option to make appointments;
56. When you go to the doctor, even if you have an appointment and are on time they still call you in on a first-in-first-out basis;
57. Services like cellphone communication, Internet access and banking are among the worst rated by consumers;
Manufactured Goods
58. The overall quality of products is very low compared to European standards. It’s not uncommon to have them replaced in the first week of use because of malfunction. If you don’t do it within a week of purchasing, you can’t get a replacement at the store where you bought it, you have to send the product to the manufacturer and they have a 30-day term to present you a solution, which they’ll use up until the end;
59. Plastic bags everywhere. If you buy the newspaper they’ll put it inside a bag for you;
60. You often have to go to different stores to buy simple items that have the same application.
And I’m not even gonna start talking about soccer fanaticism, okay?
I should now mention that I have no intention whatsoever to explain the matters here described nor am I proposing any solutions. I’m not saying those problems are exclusivity of Brazil either and it’s very likely that most of them only have some significance in big cities. This is meant to be a depiction of observed facts from my sole perspective. The overall relevance given to each of those topics will vary from person to person, naturally.
To those who consider this an attack on the Brazilian image, a defamation of their sacred culture, my response will be, please read it again.
To those who think I’m an escapist, as you might have grasped from my text, I don’t feel invited to propose changes and honestly I don’t think a lot of people are bothered by many of the things I described here so, as my grandma used to say: “Os incomodados que se retirem.” (Like it or lump it).
