Hello Hong Kong

Dear family and friends,

It has been quite a while. To be more specific.... one year. As most of you know our Brazil adventure ended quite abrupt. Nevertheless, we managed to find an exciting spot again. Hong Kong it is for the next three years!!!

Three weeks back we arrived in this lively city. Ronald started working almost immediately. With a little one on your side your pace has to be slower. Even with this given, we already arranged: 1) a bank account, 2) our Hong Kong ID, 3) a signed contract for our apartment and 4) a nanny. Wow, we were astonished! This proofs that things are organized much more efficiently than in Brazil. In Brazil this whole process took us almost 5 months!

Another thing we noticed is that in Brazil everybody will provide his or her seat to people with disabilities, elderly or pregnant women while in Hong Kong people will almost run over them to catch a free seat. Even when you exit the train people simply don't wait for you to get out. "Catch that seat" is the only thing they can think of. On the other side it is also strange to see that local people are very service minded. At every entrance of the train there are officials pointing at the door, helping and guarding safety. Also in shops and restaurants there is always an overload of employees (this is one of the few things where Hong Kong resembles Sao Paulo :). We know were they can make any efficiency cuts :)

Besides the cultural characteristics the weather is also something we need to get used to. Yes, even though we have lived in Brazil! Hong Kong is getting hot and humid, actually at this time of the year it is very hot and very humid. The temperature climbs up until 30-33 degrees and the humidity exceeds the 90%. Especially for Ronald this means he needs to be aware. He couldn't prevent a humiliating situation when his colleagues invited him to have lunch at a restaurant with an outside terrace. Ronald had missed the sun for the last half year so he was very happy to catch some. Happy until he noticed that he was sweating all over. He had to jump into an air-conditioned toilet to take of his already wet shirt, dry himself and his shirt. When arriving at his desk he was very happy no colleagues were around. How the hell are all these people doing it, not soaking in their shirts? He didn't find out yet.

Will give you a new update soon!

A surprising personal development

Dear friends,

As I promised in our previous blog I owe you some more insights, this time not in Brazilian culture but in our own Dutch culture. I will share some of my insights which have developed in the last 7 months.

I did live abroad before, in a country which is probably far more different from the Dutch culture than Brazil, India, and I travelled a lot around the globe. Still, I can say that during my time here in Brazil I have learned a lot more. I knew that there is a huge difference in living or travelling abroad, but never could have imagined that this time the lesson would be so broad.

Where shall I start? Maybe, with the fact that I am a Dutch woman. What is typical about this?  Well, we Dutch woman grew up with the teachings that;

1.      We need to be (financially) independent

2.      We are equal to men: have the same rights, need to use these rights fully and proof that we are equal

When I first heard that I wouldn’t get a work permit in Brazil, my whole mind screamed to refuse this. I already saw myself begging for money to buy clothes. I have always arranged everything myself: had a good salary, was career-minded, had great friends and travelled a lot. I completely matched the image of how a Dutch woman should be.

Here I project these points on women, but it is actually applicable for Dutch people in general. Below some examples you may recognize:

1.      Never show off, we always say something like “ah, I was just lucky”. Here in Brazil people are proud of what they have reached and don’t hesitate in showing this.

2.      ‘doe maar normaal dan doe je al gek genoeg’ (act normal then you are already weird enough). In Brazil people don’t care at all what other people think. Result: showing their full proportioned bodies (in shape or completely out-of-shape) with tight and sometimes (too) less clothes.

3.      Treat people equal, that’s maybe why the Dutch are not so good in providing a service (example: the waiters at the Amsterdam terraces). Here in Brazil the client is king. They do everything for you and often there is an overload of employees willing to help.

However, after getting in touch with several women here in Sao Paulo, I got the insight that it would be really hard to find something without a permit and that it would be actually quite convenient/ a relief when there would be somebody who have time to arrange all the basics (car, house, governmental things, bank account etc.) for us. So, slowly I started to accept that the first couple of months I would be busy with arranging stuff for our life in Brazil. Notice that this was still in our preparation time, before moving to Brazil.

Then off course came the REAL experience. Not the imagined one, how it would be or what I hoped it to be. This experience turned out to be completely different then what I expected! I didn’t need to beg, I didn’t feel guilty. Actually it felt quite natural! Maybe there was still the old role pattern inside me of men and women, haha. Don’t get me wrong, for me it was not a license for doing nothing and spend my time at the swimming pool sun bathing. For me it was an insight in the fact that my mind made something up that I completely believed in. And if it wouldn´t be for our expat situation I would never have changed this. This process happens many times in our lives and is the cause for undertaking action or not.

Also the fact of not having a job was far easier than I thought. I really believed that I would be bored soon and would be horrified in taking the role of a housewife. But, Brazil gave me something to do all the time (see previous blogs). It was never finished. Suddenly, I also could sleep as if I never had slept before. Ronald asked me many times with surprise if I was ok, because in the past I was always the one who was full of energy and wanted to jump out of the bed immediately. What was happening to me?  I saw another side of myself. A side I always had avoided and still would avoid if this Brazil situation didn’t put me there.

A consequence of all this was that I could reflect much better on the pro’s and con’s of my working life (in NL) versus my non-working life. I clearly saw that our Dutch culture is very result driven: we always need to perform better, earning more money, getting a higher position and combining all this with our social lives. It doesn’t surprise me that a lot of people are stuck at home with a burn out! We make our work so important, maybe too important! Who we are completely relates to the type of work we do and how others value this work. Dutch people live to work (although they will probably deny) and Brazilians work to live, that’s the difference.

At this moment I am trying to find the perfect balance. Hopefully I am going to reach it soon!

Sanne

Some more lessons in Brazilian culture....

Olá!

We hope you all survived and enjoyed the extremely cold winter days in Europe. We saw all the beautiful winter pictures on Facebook and heard about the whole hype around “De Elfstedentocht”. So we could imagine a bit how the Netherlands turned into a picturesque landscape. However, really imagining is hard with 33 degrees and bright sunshine. At this moment it is so bloody hot that it is horrible to sit on a chair or couch inside the house. But no complains furthermore!

After our last blog in January, Ronald and I finally could enjoy our new house and neighborhood. Most of the (basic issues) where arranged, all movement done and the first Dutch visitors returned home. Mission completed?! Well, this is Brazil and unfortunately we found out that nothing is always completed in this place. At this stage we can write stories and stories about the Brazilian culture, but I will just pick out the most stunning one.

At the end of December I got a panicking message from one of Ronald’s colleagues that Ronald was trying to call me for already one hour, but that he couldn’t reach me. My poor husband was hit by a taxi driver and was now standing shocked alongside the high way. I immediately jumped into a taxi and drove to the place of the accident. Thank god, nothing happened to him, but our recently bought car was another story. It couldn’t drive for- or backward. In our minds we already thought about the whole annoying process we needed to start to get that car fixed, the damage paid and that we needed to arrange another vehicle to spend our Christmas at the beach. After a small 3 hours (which was said to be half an hour) we finally were picked up by our insurance company (at that time we were already used to the Brazilian lack of punctuality).  Well, in short the whole process we needed to go through was that the insurance company of the taxi driver needed to check the damage first before it could be fixed. Ok, fine. Checking that car would not take more than max 2 days and the garage confirmed it would take 10 days to repair the car. Our Dutch minds calculated quickly that the car would be ready somewhere in the first week of January (the accident happened on the 19^th of December). That was doable, because we didn’t need the car in between. But as you already can guess, that car was not fixed.  The insurance company didn’t even check the status of the damage even though we informed regularly. Finally on the 3th they gave the garage the permission to start the reparation. Quite annoying because Ronald needs his car every day for work and a taxi cost him around 70 Euro for a return. Well, the garage confirmed by phone that the car would be ready on the 17^th. Three days before we checked if this date was still the deadline. Yes, it is Mrs. Sanne, no worries. When contacting them on the 17^th the car was not ready and what did we get, off course, an excuse. Now the car would be ready on the 20^th, they told us.  We expressed that the car really needed to be ready by then, because we were going out of town that weekend. That Thursday our consultant (from our expat agency) informed again if the car would be ready next day. “Ready?” they asked. No, the car will be ready on the 6^th of February was their answer. I can still remember that I was running on the treadmill and that the steam was coming out of my ears. “They are going to arrange something otherwise they are not going to get their money! They have to arrange a temporary car!” I told our consultant. Oh, I was so pissed that I can still feel my anger. Well, off course I already rented a car (again) for that weekend, because I didn’t trust this whole situation. Surprisingly, I got a phone call on Friday afternoon that we got a temporary car, too late for that weekend, but at least we didn’t need to pay a taxi for the week after. I asked for a confirmation by email with location, date and time to pick up the car. Monday 8 am was the answer. On Sunday, on our way back home, Ronald was joking about the possibility that the car could have Rodizio (= you are not allowed to drive your car that day between 7 and 10 am and between 5 and 8 pm). “Nehhh, I said, if that happens they are very stupid. This will not happen”. So, next day Ronald went there and after half an hour waiting, making copies of his driver license and passport, the manager (!) came to him and said that he was sorry, but that the car had Rodizio. Wow, this guy was indeed the stupidest person in the world! Ronald needed to wait for 1,5 hour more. I have never seen him so angry, so angry that he completely  molested our trash bin.

Besides this story we have some more in the same category. Our lesson from this incident was: don’t trust the people you make agreements with. I can tell you if you have a high trust in human kind, that’s a shame, because this will be gone in a second when you live in BrazilJ. I experienced myself!

After this and the incidents we faced with Brazilians in the last 6 months, we also can conclude that they don’t hesitate lying (in our eyes). Lying (small or big) is something they grew up with and mainly used for not making another person angry. We, Dutch, immediately think about the consequences when the person in question finds out the truth. This guy would be even angrier! But, Brazilians want to protect their face at that particular moment and they don’t worry about the consequences. That’s something for later. If necessary, and that is often, they blame another person. That’s insight number three, it is never their fault. It is interesting to see how they are living in the moment: not thinking about the consequences, not planning ahead or thinking in process steps (I told in one of our previous blogs). Besides all these insights about the Brazilian culture, I also have them about our little country. This I will safe for our next blog.

Furthermore, we are doing well even though you may think our stress level would be sky-high after reading previous experiences. This is not the case J we are enjoying Brazil (and neighboring countries) in full pull. We went a weekend to a coffee farm, I went to Buenos Aires to see one of my best friends and last week we experienced the Brazilian carnival! What a happening! A bit overrated and I think the image the world has of the Brazilian carnival is way different, but it was great to see the kissing (a lot) and partying Brazilians.

Tchau!

Ronald & Sanne

In de Sambodromo

The coffee bean

The coffee farm we stayed

Christmas & New Year in Brazil

Gente, Feliz Ano Novo!!

First of all we want to wish you all a wonderful and loving 2012! We hope you had some nice days with family, friends, a real Christmas tree and off course good food and wine. That this year may bring a lot of positive things for you all.

For us it was our first Christmas here in Brazil, but it didn’t feel like Christmas at all. With 30 degrees, bright sun and fake Christmas trees it was hard to get that real Christmas feeling.  Despite the fact that Brazilians really try to bring Christmas alive and that they do get the Christmas feeling themselves, for us it felt different; over the top decorations (I don’t want to know the electricity consumption), long traffic jams (until 1 or 2 at night) to get a glimpse of THE Christmas tree at Ibirapuera park or the light decorations at Avenida Paulista. Mmmmm, maybe we had to act a little bit ‘more Brazilian’ and had to join them to get that real Christmas sense. Nevertheless, we spent Christmas at the beach just forgetting it was Christmas J

Christmas decoration Brazilian style

Decoration in Iguatemi shopping mall



The Ibirapuera park Christmas Tree




Even fake snow....

New Year we celebrated at Morro de Sao Paulo, a small island at the north east coast of Brazil. A place of which I have very good memories of:  quiet, white sandy beaches, small bays, blue ocean, a good mix of locals and backpackers, cozy (sandy) lanes with colorful shops and restaurants.  Unfortunately, at arrival this paradise of 3 years back was transformed into a crowded, loud and commercial place overloaded with Brazilian and Argentinean youngsters (fir those who know, it was like ‘de Bubbles on the beach’). Fortunately, we had nice company: Xander & Marliesa (a Dutch couple from Sao Paulo) and Michel (Ronald’s brother) were there to toast on the New Year. However, we said to each other…….. “We will never visit such a place again”. Apparently, we are becoming older J

New Years dinner

With champagne on the beach

Besides all the holidays we almost forget to tell you that we reached a big milestone: we live in our apartment! It took some time and frustration now and then, but we proudly present our casa in the pictures. It is just a 'little bigger' then what we were just in Amsterdam......

Our own Brazilian churrasco place

 ......the result of living an expat life

We really feel at home here, happy to finally have the possibility to make our own breakfast, invite people for lunch or dinner, bike with our ‘Dutch design’ bikes and have our own things from ‘home’. After almost two months of having Dutch guests here, it is very nice to have time alone now to enjoy and explore our new environment. The next big happening will be Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro and I will visit one of my best friends for a weekend in Buenos Aires.

Até mais!

Ronald & Sanne

The last two months

Oi Gente,

It is almost two months ago since our last blog, shame on us (!) But it also means we can tell some nice stories!

In those two months a lot of stuff happened. We found our apartment (which is still not ready), bought our car, arranged a lot of administrative things, travelled to The Netherlands and Greece for a wedding, went to Rio and Buenos Aires and we received our first Dutch visitor with whom we travelled to the Amazon.

Looking back we can say that the most time consuming (and sometimes frustrating) was arranging the basic things like a bank account (Ronald and I spent quite some hours at the Bradesco counter), a car (in contrary, this went quite quick) and an apartment (see description below). In the Netherlands you would probably finish all this in one month, but NOT in Brazil.

Why? They are in our opinion a bit slow, not very efficient and have difficulties in managing expectations. A good example is that every shop you visit seems to have an overload of employees standing, hanging, talking…..actually doing nothing. At supermarkets you have employees packing your groceries using a bag for almost every single piece, at restaurants you have somebody who writes down your order, who gives this to another employee who hands this over to the kitchen and who comes back with your order, which then will be served by the first person himself. But, we need to be honest; it also provides jobs to those millions of people living in this country.

Our new car

Another example regarding managing expectations is our apartment. We found the apartment mid September, but it needed some renovation. We set the deadline on the 28^th of November (already 2 weeks more than the original planning). Three days before the movement we got a message from the owner that the apartment was not finished yet and that we could move in the 29^th.  Just some small things needed to be done, he said. On Monday the 28^th we went there for the final inspection and for signing the contract. You can guess, it was not ready at all. The whole outside area still needed to be done, the painting of the second floor and some final things in the bathrooms. We, Dutch people, ask ourselves then “why didn’t he tell this before!!!” Why didn’t he set the right expectations?” We experienced many times that something was supposed to be ready or almost ready and it wasn’t. Especially for me, having quite a high trust in people, this is sometimes disappointing and a lesson in Brazilian way of life. Well, we now hope that we can move in next week. This would be nice, especially, since we will get a new guest, Ronald’s brother.

Besides the lessons in Brazilian culture we enjoy this country a lot. First of all, these people are the most positive people we have ever met, they can party as the best and enjoying life is something they are born with. I always say to people when characterizing Brasil “It doesn’t matter how poor people are they at least have three things: a big television (on high volume), music, a hammock and some (alcoholic) drinks”.

Second, this country offers one of the most beautiful natures on this planet. This we saw recently when travelling to the Amazon. Together with Suus (my former roommate in Amsterdam) we went on a six day adventure to the Amazon. Imagine: no internet or phone connection possible, no noise of traffic or people, only the sounds of the birds and insects of the rain forest. Ronald and Suus needed to adjust themselves to relaxing and doing nothing (I was already used doing nothing…) We have seen amazing animals like the Amazon dolphins, piranha’s (no toes where bitten off), flying Ara’s, monkeys, a black scorpion (that almost stung Suus), a tapir and one of the most dangerous snakes in South America.

The snake who was taken a refuge on our veranda



How we were sleeping in the jungle...



Our view from our room



The Tapir



Scorpio



Piranha fishing



After the Amazon experience Ronald went back home and we travelled further to Rio de Janeiro, Ilha Grande and Paraty. At this last spot Ronald joined us again and we celebrated his birthday together. We and the rest of the restaurant together sung “Parabens pra você” for him. This is also typical Brazilian, when somebody celebrates his birthday and people start to sing, everybody joins and claps. So nice!

Well, this was is it for now. In our next blog, which I promise will not take that long anymore; we hope to tell you more about our new apartment and to show you some pictures.

Beijos

Ronald & Sanne

Our first weeks in the big city

Oi!

It’s already a couple of weeks since our last blog. A lot of things have changed since then.

The temperature is slowly climbing (we have reached a lovely average between 22 and 30 degrees, often a clear blue sky and no rain) in contrary to The Netherlands (poor people). AND…. we are now living in Sao Paulo city in an temporary apartment with our own small kitchen in a very nice neighborhood with lots of fancy restaurants!

After weeks of eating pizzas with layers of cheese and desserts which make your teeth fall out (Brazilians love sweet and heavy food) we can finally cook ourselves. How happy we are with this you can’t imagine. We were already imagining ourselves developing rolls we don’t want to appear. We now also understand why the people and especially woman over here have quite round curvesJ. The kind of food is not only quite strange to us, for us it is also way too heavy. Apparently our Dutch digestion system cannot handle this! So now I’m playing the perfect housewife cooking every day healthy dishes and waiting for my husband to arrive ;)

Our street

Our view from the hotel

Our hotel room

Our hotel

The Brazilians also managed to surprise us positively (other surprises, see our previous blog). Why? Because they can be very inventive in finding a solution and they did. The prove? They have almost put Ronald already on the payroll (!!) Normally it’s not something to be so happy about, but for us it means that we can now look for our own lovely Casa. It was supposed to be December or even January due to all the bureaucracy here. Thus I’m now spending a great part of my day searching the internet for this dream house which we hope to find soon. An activity I enjoy a lot! Hopefully you can meet our new home in the next blog.

Off course we (read: Ronald) are not only here to work, so two weeks ago we booked our first trips: one to Ubatuba, a small coast village 3 hours from here and one to the famous city of Rio de Janeiro. The last one was a pleasure to visit. As I was still used a bit to my backpacker’s era I booked, with the best intentions, a double room in a hostel (because it was a lot cheaper than all the rest of the hotels in Ipanema and available. Yes, I’m still Dutch). This was the last time I  did so. A shared bathroom, being part of your neighbors feelings and curtains which were almost falling of the sealing were not really appreciated by my travel partner J.  BUT the rest of the trip was great! Rio really gives you that summer beach feeling and I compare it a bit with Barcelona. Both have a kind of tropical vibe with its palm trees, beach & see, nice restaurants and relaxed people standing outside in the evening breeze with their drinks. Things which are different from Barca? Yes, there are. Men are completely focused on their body and want to show it as often as possible (in contrary to what you would expect women to do) as they are walking up and down the Ipanema boulevard with bronzed bodies and no shirt! Not that bad if you are a womanJ.

As well, here it is also possible to get half drunk and have a headache next day of only two Caipirinha’s.

View on Rio

Copacabana

Ipanema boulevard

Well, our next trip is already planned: Ronald is heading off to New York tomorrow and I will go to Ilhabela (a pretty nice island) with some people I met here.

Ate logo!

Lessons in patience

Ola nossos amigos!

Tudo bem? Connosco tudo e otimo! Thanks for all the nice e-mails we already received. Especially for me it’s nice, due to the fact my days are not yet that filled as Ronald’s J

Let’s give you an update of last week experiences. As expected sooner or later, we got our first lessons in being patient. Not the easiest one for us, Dutch people, we can tell.

Lesson 1: Don’t have expectations and don’t plan

The first thing we needed to deal with was our hope to have our own apartment around October. As some of you know, we need to get a number from the federal police so that Ronald can be put on the payroll. Only then you can rent your own apartment. It was supposed to take around 50 days. Well, last week we got the news that it now would take around 110 days, which means that we can rent something from January onwards. Off course!

Lesson 2: Brazilians always make things more positive then they are

As mentioned in our previous blog, we were expecting to get a car last Friday and leave this ´lively´ suburb of Alphaville that weekend. We should have known that this wouldn’t be the case. After several times of sending e-mails, calling and passing by on Thursday and Friday we still didn’t get an answer at 5 pm Friday afternoon. At 6 pm we got the information that we probably would get a car on Monday and that they still didn’t found a place for us to stay in Sao Paulo centre. So, we needed to stay a bit longer in this vibrant place. Ok, …..we could deal with that.

That weekend we went to Ibirapuera parc (you can compare it with Central Parc) and we had a goodbye party of a Dutch couple. It was really nice to see the Dutch clan over here (a group of around 25 people between the age of 27 to 36). Very nice people. It is quite easy to get in touch with the Dutch, because there is most of the time already a link that goes back to the Netherlands (working at the same company, having same friends and off course sharing the same experience). Getting in touch with other nationalities or becoming really good friends with Brazilians is more difficult one says. Let’s see. We want to face this challenge and would love to put our effort in it. Then we will see what the result will be.

Bamboo in Ibirapuera parc

Lesson 3: Be flexible and live NOW

Last Monday we got our third lesson: Ronald heard at 5.45 pm that he needed to pick up the renting car before 6.30 pm, impossible due to the heavy traffic at this time of the day! He didn’t make it. So we needed to pick up the car the next day. Ronald also got the message that we needed to leave the hotel before 12 pm the next day. Ok, no problem! We are flexible. Where are we going then? They didn’t know yet. Ok, fine, we can handle it. Next day we first went to the renting car company. ¨Sir you needed to pick up the car yesterday, now I don’t know if it is still possible. Why not? We rented the car for at least a month! Yes, I know, but the policy……¨ After 1 hour we finally got our car. Pffff, at least one thing arranged.

Back at the hotel, still no news of our new place to stay. 12 pm: no news. 12.30 pm: we got the answer that our check/out would be extended until 2 pm. 2 pm: we finally got the news that they found again a temporary (for a few days) hotel, just on the corner of the previous one. Still not in Sao Paulo centre, which means still no Portuguese classes, not visiting people, not exploring Sao Paulo etc. Pfff, more filling my days with internet, reading books, doing some Portuguese exercises on my own (swimming pool/tanning was not an option anymore, no facilities). I really wondered how all those expat woman were spending their time!

Checking out was also challenging our patience, which was in the meanwhile disappearing more and more. The week before Ronald had checked several times with the guy from Philips if he could take care of all the payment for the hotel (Ronald is still not on the payroll in either Brazil our Netherlands so he can’t declare any expenses). ¨No worries, everything is arranged¨, he said. While checking out, nothing seemed to be arranged. Calling this guy several times, not picking up. Waiting, waiting in front of the hotel desk with all the luggage, after 40 minutes he finally called back. After Ronald still paid a certain amount, we arrived at our new place at 4 pm. We needed a break…….a relaxing massage was the ultimate solution. So we did.

Our lessons of this week:

1) Have NO EXPECTATIONS and DON´T PLAN

2) Brazilians always make things more positive then they are

3) Be flexible and live NOW

I need to tell, we also got one positive surprise. They found a way to get Ronald on the payroll before October. Well, as lesson number one says, we have no expectations anymore. First see, then believe.

Beijos!