Culture Smart Brazil : The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

For many people Brazil conjures up images of football, Carnaval and fine coffee, but it is much more than beaches and bossa nova. If you could choose only one word to describe Brazil, it would be diversity. The variety of racial types, lifestyles, wealth, landscape and climate is enormous. Jeitinho is the Brazilian means of dealing creatively with life’s everyday complications. Literally translated as a “little way”, in practice it means that regardless of the rules or systems in place, where there is a will there has to be a way around them. The jeitinho is so ingrained in daily life that you can see examples everywhere; managing to get a seat when all the places are booked up, traveling with more luggage than is allowed or successfully ordering something that is not on the restaurant menu. Culture Smart! Brazil is a concise guide to understanding the Brazilian people and illuminating the complexities of their national identity. Familiarise yourself with their customs, traditions and culture and experience Brazil authentically.

SANDRA BRANCO is a Brazilian-born writer now living in the UK. After graduating in Communications from São Paulo University she worked as a video and television producer and scriptwriter in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Bahia, and Ceará, before going on to gain an MA in Screenwriting at the Northern School of Film and Television in Leeds. She now lives and works in London.
 
ROB WILLIAMS is a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster
in London, running MA programs in Applied Language Studies and International Liaison and Communication. He has lived and worked in France, Spain, Germany, Romania, and Brazil. He is also a lead consultant for CultureSmart! Consulting.