Flamengo: Hexa!

So, my team just won the Brazilian Championship (Brasileirão). Hexa (6th title)!

I’m more than happy and proud right now. I guess not only me, but the other 33-40 million other Brazilians who nurture an intense love for this team.

Flamengo's fans at Maracanã



Here goes a translation of the Flamengo anthem:

Facebook

With the invasion of Brazilians and all the other random people on Facebook, check out this video

Eavesdropping…

So I was walking in the library, when I eavesdropped a conversation. One girl confessed to the other:

- It’s not that I’m not happy here. I am. But I just wanted a break from Mt. Holyoke, you know?

Oh, dear, I know. I do know. And I understand you, deeply.

The Olympic Step for the Brazilian Leadership

Under the eyes of the Redeeming Christ, a crowd gathered at Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro. It’s a Friday afternoon and people should still be at work. But instead, thousands of people had their feet on the sand and their eyes fixed in a large screen specially installed in the middle of the beach. They waited anxiously, hoping for the good news. And in Copenhagen, Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), brought it to then: Rio de Janeiro will be the host of the 2016 Olympics.

On the dispute to be city-host of the 2016 Olympics, Rio de Janeiro defeated Tokyo, Madrid and the favorite Chicago.The Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva went to Copenhagen fully armed – he campaigned for two days before the announcement, along with other famous Brazilians, such as the legendary soccer player Pele and the best-selling author Paulo Coelho. At the end, Mr. da Silva left Denmark with his objective achieved, putting Brazil on the spotlight of the world. But the Olympic Games can represent even more. Mr. da Silva wants to affirm Brazil’s leadership and its rising position in the international context. The 2016 Olympics can represent a turning point in the image that the world have of Brazil. However, there are some domestic issues that should be taken care of, otherwise, it can be a backfire – or in Portuguese, “o tiro pode sair pela culatra.”

The 2016 Olympics announcement came in one of the best moment of democratic Brazil. Brazilian economy experiences a great phase – the global economic crisis hit Brazil mildly, and the country even managed to grow 1.9% on the last three months, while the US suffered a reduction of -0.3%. With the recent discovery of new oil reserves and its pioneer role on bio fuel research, Brazil seems now far from the so-called “lost decade” in the 1980’s, when inflation took over the country and its foreign debt extrapolated. Actually, Brazil seems to be doing so well that even the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who used to be a rash critic, now praises the Brazilian economy. In its most recent report, the IMF affirmed that Brazil is one of the Latin-American countries that can handle economic shocks of any proportion and estimates that Brazil will experience a growth of 3.5% in 2010.

“Brazil has moved from being on the level of a second-class country to a first-class country.”  - Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

This is will be the first time that a Latin American country will host the Olympic Games. Brazil has performed very well its role as a good neighbor and holds a special support of countries in South America. As soon as Rio de Janeiro was announced as the winner by the IOC, leaders such as Michelle Bachelet, Álvaro Uribe, Alan Garcia and Hugo Chávez, from Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela respectively, expressed their emotional contentment for Brazil.

The 2016 Olympic Games are guarantee to happen in Rio de Janeiro, but there is still much work to be done. Rio de Janeiro hosted in 2007 the Pan American Games and Brazil will also host the 2014 Soccer World-Cup, which means that a lot of the infrastructure will already be present by the time of the Olympics. Still, the government estimates that U$15 billions will go for the 2016 Olympics, which for Mr. da Silva should be considered as investments, not merely spendings. Accountability in this case should be a priority and will be up to the Brazilian people to enforce it. Rio de Janeiro can follow the example of Barcelona, which was completely revitalized for the 1992 Olympics and get this opportunity to solve old transportation and more infrastructure problems through transparent investments.

But just as Rio de Janeiro represents Brazil with grandiosity in its natural beauty, it also reflects the country’s social inequality with a worst case when the subject is violence. Last week, Rio de Janeiro suffered a wave of violence, with conflicts between the police and criminal factions from slums in the north of the city. On the confrontation, a police helicopter was shut down and 39 people were killed, which raised international preoccupation. The federal government already mobilized and next week, Rio de Janeiro will receive U$58 million aimed to strength the security of the city. Certainly, that is not the kind of attraction that Brazil wants to show to the world.

Brazil can take advantage of not only the 2016 Olympics, but also the 2014 Soccer World Cup to present the country in its best self. It can follow the example of China, that in 2008 amazed the world with the Beijing Olympic Games, and showed the power of a revitalized China. In 2016, Rio de Janeiro will be the window through the world will be able to see a stable, dynamic and growing leader of the developing country. But it is up to Brazil to work on its weaknesses and use the Olympic Games and the Soccer World Cup as a stimulus to re-look its social inequalities. In an interview, Mr. da Silva declared that “Brazil has moved from being on the level of a second-class country to a first-class country.” Moving up to a first-class country also implies behaving as such, and that is a lesson that Brazil should not forget, with Olympics or not.

360 degrees – PRC’s Anniversary

Such a cool image!

http://imgs.xinhuanet.com/icon/photos/20091004/008_cube_out_2000.swf

Admission in Mt. Holyoke – For Parents

Admission in Mt. Holyoke – video for the parents.

In Portuguese!

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/admission/international_parents.html

And me, still blonde.

Don’t you love Pop Art?

Isn't it lovely?

ObaMao

The best of both, right?

Hm… Oh, well, I like it anyway.

Flag!

Hey everybody, anybody wants to give me a gift?

I really, really want a Brazilian flag!!!! Anyone want to give me one?

China’s press

Well, saying that China’s press isn’t the most reliable in the word, is not big news, right?

But still, I was extremely surprised by some of the newspaper’s content that I read there. China has some english publications, China Daily being the most important, but while in Shanghai, I also read the Shanghai Daily

Some articles a little predictable. For example, an article that I read on the China Daily talking about a counseling program that children from Xinjiang were receiving, in order to overcome the traumas from the recent riots.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009xinjiangriot/2009-09/01/content_8639356.htm

The funny thing about this is not only the propaganda about how the government is assisting the local population -Uighurs and Hans – but also the fact that when this article went out, new protests were happening in Xinjiang.

Another article that got my attention was printed out in the same day as the article above, but this time in the Shanghai Daily News.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200908/20090831/article_412273.htm

The article goes about a male prostitute that has been charging of spreading AIDS to his clients, consciously. The crimes charges are a result of new regulations in Shanghai, trying to control prostitution. The content by itself is already absurd, but even the way it’s written. The fact that this sexual worker, identified as Zhang, is a male is clearly emphasized by the newspaper in a extremely pejorative way. They use the term homossexual in capital letters intending to grab the attention of the reader, putting the sexual worker in a shaming position. But it gets to the extreme where the article shows Zhang as an irresponsible HIV infected person, trying to explain why he still was a sexual worker by “quoting” Zhang :

“I didn’t think much about the consequences … I just wanted excitement,” Zhang told them (the prossecutors, about why he continued working as a sexual worker).

Not only the China’s press content is sometimes very unreliable or only a mere reflection of what the party’s says, but also its wording is completely unacceptable.

Coming back…

So it’s time to go home.

Right now I’m writing from Incheon Airport in South Korea.

I’m sorry I got a little lazy by the end of the trip and didn’t really send much posts… I had such a great time in Shanghai that I barely had time to get on line and I wanted to enjoy my last days (for now) in Beijing as much as I could.

My Summer 2009 China adventures are officially over. But I’m sure that will be some more pretty soon.