Backwards country my ass!

Brazil is a country of paradoxes. Wow, holy cliché. Anyway, it’s true. When you wander through Sao Paulo it’s incredibly easy to forget that you’re in a developing country. The skyscrapers, the banking technology, the fashion, and the pockets of massively wealth people can overshadow the fact that this country has some of the greatest inequalities in wealth in the world. But today I want to share with you two of the best examples of technological advancement in this country that make us look like we’re bass-ackward:

1 – Fast-food efficiency. I love going to food courts in shopping malls here. First off, there’s actually a menu to look at for each business, one that you actually hold in your hand! And there’s a person there whose job it is to actually help you choose things and answer your questions! I know. It’s crazy. Then she fills out a bill for you which you take up to the cash desk. You pay, and you’re given a number and you can go sit down. Then when your order is ready, the ‘now serving’ sign shows your number and you go get your food. I know this doesn’t sound very exciting as we have restaurants like this (ah…the old DQ). But this is in every food court restaurant! All of them (except the buffets)! There’s no 40-person line-ups for a burger while you wait for some teenager to figure out how to make a combo. But here’s the best part: you get real plates and cutlery!!! Real ones! And no one steals them, no one breaks them. But of course, they still must be savages down here. Clearly, the more advanced you are, the more you should trash the environment. Sigh.


2 - CD listening booths. You’re probably saying ‘well hell, we have those here, what’s the big deal’? But we don’t have booths like this. Fnac is the major department store that’s responsible for books, music, and entertainment here; it’s a great store. Anyway, scattered around the music section are various little listening booths. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out how to use them though. There were no images to tell you what CD was playing, no drive to put a disc in, nothing. Then I realized what the deal was. Attached to the booth was a scanner, which I thought was just for prices. You simply scan the UPC symbol and voila – THE ENTIRE FRICKIN’ CD PLAYS FOR YOU!!!! They have EVERY SINGLE CD IN THE STORE scanned into their computer system. As soon as I discovered this I ran around the store like a madman trying to find the most obscure albums I could to see if they worked. And they did. Every single one of them.

If this isn’t the penultimate sign of modernity and civility then I just don’t know what is.

Of course there’s all that poverty and homelessness stuff around too. But let’s just forget about that for now.