I was listening to music on the way to Downtown Seattle when a few seats away on the bus, I heard a rhythmic string of familiar words that someone once told me sounded like poured water over Spanish. In the usual way that I eavesdrop on the bus, I tilted my head to the four warmly-dressed people speaking Portuguese. I alerted myself to the fui’s, the lá’s, and the você’s that made up so much of my bridge year in Brazil. I turned off my musical distraction and hurriedly sat next to them. Then, with one fateful and probably butchered…

Before coming to Brazil, I did enough research to find that the country is predominantly Roman Catholic, a legacy of Portuguese colonization centuries ago. Growing up in a Chinese Buddhist family, I prepared myself to be immersed in a faith I had little exposure to. In the months that I’ve spent in Bahia, however, I’ve come across a wealth of different faiths. From the Baha’i faith to the evangelical movement and from the West African-influenced candomblé to even Nichiren Buddhism, I’ve encountered an unexpected rich religious diversity. Below are some snapshots of my experiences with a few of the many…

In the ongoing adventure to gain proficiency in Portuguese, there are times when I have to make the universal face of confusion and times when I really get a kick out of learning. Below are three accounts of my daily, hilarious trek through the Portuguese language.
The Difference Between Puxe and Pull
Besides the obvious difference in language, puxe (pronounced PU-shee) in Portuguese holds the exact meaning as pull in English. Without getting into the intricacies of the numerous conjugations per verb in this Romance language, this form of “to pull” is used as a command. Unfortunately, since puxe sounds…

As I reach town square, I can already hear deafening announcements coming from the gargantuan stereos strapped to the top of a car painted in primary colors. Gathered around the car and the announcer donned in a cowboy hat is a converging crowd of townsfolk dressed in white, coming together for a community event. While it’s hard for me to piece together the muffled, static phrases that the man in the cowboy hat is saying, I piece together the words, “paz,” “segurança,” and “nossa cidade.” Today, a thousand citizens from this mountain town are taking part in a walk for…

After a rocky, bumpy thirty minute truck ride into the dry, arid Chapada Diamantina region, we finally arrived at our destination, a town called Ouricuri II. What seems like an average small town is actually a comunidade quilombola. These communities, scattered around the northeastern region of Brazil, are the legacy of fugitive slaves who ran away from harsh plantations in search of freedom. Today, towns like Ouricuri II hold some of the poorest members of Brazilian society. In the past, the government had no desire to aid quilombolas. Today, bureaucracy and lack of government interest cripple these communities. As a…

After 13 years of schooling, nothing could have prepared me for my arrival in my new community, Morro do Chapéu, for six-months. Brain-melting quantitative physics tests, school-wide performances of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and freezing cross-country meets have prepared me to meet the challenges of academics, art, and athletics. I could complete practice problems, practice in front of a mirror, and train long distances for all of those things. But here, a seven hour drive from Salvador in the mountains of Bahia, I have faced immense and important personal challenges. Challenges that I couldn’t have prepared for in a classroom, dance…

Back in the United States, people sometimes ask me, “what type of Asian are you?” This sort of question makes me believe that I am some sort of species, ready to be examined for my assumed virtuoso violin skills, mathematical prowess, and whether or not I eat with chopsticks every night. I tell people that I’m Chinese with a hint of Vietnamese culture sprinkled in. As for those stereotypes, I played instruments just to be in the cool kids group, had to ask multiple questions to understand something in calculus, and used chopsticks incorrectly (unfortunately, those skills don’t come with…