I just finished up a great week in Sao Paulo, where I tried to fit in as much as possible with the little time that I had. I stayed with Miles in his swank Moema apartment, and met some really cool people throughout the week. I love big cities, so when I arrived I was super excited to ride the subway. Immediately I realized how incredibly diverse the place is and just how huge it is as well. Except for the trip to Museu AfroBrasil, this trip definitely felt pretty touristy for me, which is fine. I spent one day walking around the Centro, visiting old churches and markets and things of the like. Then I spent another day in Liberdade, the Japanese neighborhood, marked by sushi restaurants, stores selling geisha dolls and traditional attire, and fancy red street lights. The history of Japanese immigration in Brasil is fascinating - they really have a bustling community here - the second largest outside of Japan I think. I chatted with a few random Japanese people in portuguese, which I found so much fun for some reason. I think the many cultural collisions going on made it so interesting. I also visited Av. Paulista - the area of Sao Paulo with big businesses and skyscrapers galore - very modern with tons of interesting things to do. I finally saw Milk which was a great movie. And I took a bus to the areas a bit outside of Sao Paulo, which were markedly poorer and blacker. It was important to see those areas in contrast to the poverty in the city center and in contrast to the bustling middle class.
Nightlife was good too - Miles and I went to an 80's themed bar which had ridiculously expensive drinks. People were averaging 2 baby sips per 5 minutes. We went to a small dance club called Vegas that had some terrible music upstairs - loud, slow rock and a DJ so old I was worried for his health. The downstairs was markedly more fun, so we stayed there with some other friends acting silly until about 5am. Then my last night we went to Dolores Dolores, this place in Vila Madalena highly recommended by Dave from Rio. The place was spinning "black music" and was too much fun! They started with guys doing live performances of some hits - Ne-Yo, Usher, Snoop, etc. Then the DJ took over and played some classic 90's R&B mixed in with some newer stuff, and some songs I've never heard. I had a blast! I was in heaven. It was funny to see the difference in dancing though to American hip hop - not as much aggressive grinding going on (update: this little girl is getting really close to my laptop at the moment - you're only cute until you break something). The crowd was very young and hip as well. I couldn't help but wonder how a place like this would do in Salvador. I do love axe (the most popular form of music in Salvador), but I needed a break to be honest, especially after the Carnaval axe overload. Anyway, it's interesting thinking about how "black" music means solely American hip hop here - which leads smoothly into my trip to Museu AfroBrasil in Parque Ibirapuera...
I met there with a girl named Cristiane who I was introduced to a few months ago via facebook. She works at the museum, and invited me to come in to talk about the focus of my trip and her impressions of Africa and racial/national identity in Brasil (update #2: the girl is now crying again...). First of all, the museum is huge! It certainly put the small, rinky-dink one in Salvador that Chi and I visited to shame. There were Afro-Brazilian exhibits by some talented artists in two forms - the art by people who consider themselves Afro-Brazilian (and their art wasn't necessarily Africa-themed) and African-themed art by Brazilians who don't necessarily consider themselves Afro-Brazilian. Then there were of course Africa-themed exhibits by Afro-Brazilians (update #3:the little girl just hit my laptop, cabbage patch kid v. fof-master flex is about to commence). And I love that the focus was on the long historical exchange between parts of Africa and Brasil. There were exhibits on Brazilian communities that moved to Nigeria in the 19th century, on current Mozambican immigration to Brazil, and of course the intricate connections between candomble ceremonies and traditional West African forms of worship. And the focus wasn't only on the clothing and the masks, it was also on the people who history can sometimes forget. For example, freed slaves from Brazil composed an extremely interesting, cosmopolitan group who remade and molded visions of Africa throughout the country - it was important to see their faces. After walking around for about two hours, Cristiane and I sat down for a long chat. It was an amazing conversation - and a long one too, so I won't get into all the specifics. But one interesting question that emerged was how the meaning of Africa is evolving in Brazil today. As a younger generation grows up here, and identifies more with a black international identity, that uses American hip hop and rap as tools of resistance, does the idea of Africa and a connection to the continent become more diluted? Cristiane mentioned how noone knows much about Africa at all in her experience (sounds like the U.S.), even some Afro-Brazilians that she knows - interesting. There are parallels here with immigrant communities in the U.S. and the fear on the part of parents of a loss of culture over time. If kids don't speak the native tongue, if they don't know much about their mother country, what happens to the meaning of a homeland in those families? So, is it only a matter of time until the word "Africa" rings hollow? Does it already? After SP, these questions seem more pressing....(last update: after staring contest with little girl, fofmaster has defeated cabbage patch doll. she's now sleeping soundly in her mother's lap, undoubtedly dreaming about the magnitude of her defeat)...
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