for many expats ,  brazil's high cost of living today is enof to make a guy look elswhere .  what u pay in rio one couild live in manhattan easily a nice little 1br with view of central park .

Megabyte:

Originally posted by nikkij12185 Originally posted by FlyingGuy MY experience is that the lower classes are the most honest.   They're just waiting for their chance to be theives.Once, on a bus, I got a woman from a favela talking about corruption.  She told me she wished she had studied more and continued further in school because if she had, then she would try to get involved with the government so that she could steal too

Cultural shock again. She was being bitterly sarcastic. It's like my father saying, "those churches earn so easily, so I'll open up my own church!"

Thing is, he could have actually have opened his own church and earned a lot of money. Churches pay no taxes in Brazil. Yet, he obviously didn't.

People don't seem to understand what can be a cultural difference.   My best example is the Arabs value trust worthiness, but not honesty.  The two go hand in hand for most of north America.  If you're dishonest, you're not trustworthy.  Done.   But because of the extreme pressures to save face in those countries, honesty doesn't hold the same values and it's not necessary to be honest to build trust.    It's a very difficult concept to accept for most.

Likewise, most people are okay with cultural differences that don't change their core beliefs of what is required to be a society.

People can't get around apparent friends taking advantage of them, especially when they're considered friends.  If someone takes advantage of you, you simply won't see a crowd ostracise that person.  They'll shrug it off and say "oh that's bad" but say they're family, what can you do.

The cultural difference there is that you would expect everyone to never talk to him again, but did that even happen?  That is the cultrual difference.    Having someone steal from you is one thing, for very little to happen to this person socially is where the cultural break down comes in.