Sao Paulo at random

[Deleted]

Everything they say about Sao Paulo appears to be true -- big, dirty, just a tad dangerous (certain areas after dark), loud, chaotic, modern... but most of all very interesting.

Here is the early morning view from the apartment where I am staying just off the Paulista. It is an older building not at all like the big apartment towers, no doorman wearing a funny suit at the entrance, but still three sets of gates to get into the building, two of them locked at all times. But there are plenty of Paris apartments with lots of security, so I certainly will not criticise what they do here.

Yesterday absolutely all of the banks were on strike. The unions cover all of the buildings with 'strike tape' and plaster all sorts of stickers on the windows. It looked to me like it gives lots of work to the window washers to get all of the stuff off again, because at the end of Friday, some of the banks had begun to pull the stickers off with the same result that we have when we try to pry an annoying stickers off something -- you just manage to tear off a tiny strip and all of the rest of the sticker is there. Anyway, the result of a strike is particularly impressive here because every other building in the main areas is a bank. Nevertheless, the ATMs were working, and I was able to get some money on my 3rd try. The ATMs are completely different here and totally counterintuitive -- as well as very slow. There must be reasons for this.

There is a beautiful tropical park on the Paulista named Parque Siqueira Campos but referred to as "Trianon" by the locals.







The city would need a park 10 times bigger to have any hope of escaping the traffic noise all around, though.





This is more true to character of the area.

[Deleted]

The metro is full of book machines. "Pay what you want, minimum 2 reals." (0.65€, US$0.88)



I wanted to see Liberdade, the largest concentration of people of Japanese origin outside of Japan -- 60,000. It didn't appear immediately.





And then the streets began to change.

[Deleted]

Busy, chaotic and as you say, interesting! Can't wait to see more.

[Deleted]

Even the local Brazilian banks adapt to the neighbourhood.

[Deleted]

The transition back to more tradition Paulistan streets is pretty rapid.













Clearly it isn't a seismic region -- or perhaps they like to live dangerously.

[bixaorellana]

I wonder if the window washers are unionized & due for time & a half.

Very interesting & good pictures. I quite like the native style and all the color. The Japanese lantern streetlights are the greatest!

Lots & lots & lots of people!

In those two pictures where you comment "Clearly it isn't a seismic region", are the two tall buildings as abandoned as they look?

[lagatta]

Yes, Sao Paulo is a huge city - up there with DF Mexico...

I really liked the Japanese neighbourhood - it gave me the impression that people of that origin actually live there, that it is not simply a commercial district. And of course would like to know if K2 had a simple meal there - it is always interesting to see how typical foods from Asian cultures adapt to various new homes.

Yes, it would be interesting to know more about the window washers' working conditions. Of course there is a lot of casual, "informal" labour as in all countries in the global South, but Brazil also has a powerful trade union movement and a social-democratic government.

[Deleted]

Oct 2, 2013 6:07:41 GMT bixaorellana said:

In those two pictures where you comment "Clearly it isn't a seismic region", are the two tall buildings as abandoned as they look?

I think the taller skinnier one is fully in use; the other one was never even completed.

Anyway, the central district has a semblance of a pedestrian zone, which is a relief from the traffic.







In big cities, I tend to look up, though.

















This is the municipal theatre.

[Deleted]

I went down some "budget" streets towards the main market.





















Ah, here is the market building at last!

[Deleted]

[bixaorellana]

I'm intrigued by the building in the photo right above the municipal theater. At first I thought it was rather ugly, but on closer inspection it's a somewhat interesting update on streamline moderne. The color doesn't enhance it, but the building shown beneath the municipal theater is the same color. Native stone? Polluted cement?

After all the bustle you show, that almost empty area with the ornamental paving is a relief.

I can see how someone could really get into Sao Paolo. You've shown some trash and some poverty, sure, but even the "budget" streets have a cheerful, prosperous liveliness to them.

[fumobici]

I'm smitten. Sao Paolo, and particularly the pedestrian center, look endlessly intriguing.

Do you know any Portugese K2? Does knowing French help at all? I can make out pieces from knowing some Italian and French but I can tell I wouldn't get by with that.

[questa]

I love the orange and purple shop houses and multi-coloured, multi-storeyed building. You share my love of colours, it seems.

[tod2]

Sao Paolo amazes me when I see clean streets with no litter bins overflowing every couple of yards.
How fantastic! The photos reflect a vibrancy everywhere. I loved the indoor market and could make out most of the fruit on offer....my gawd aren't those strawberries huge!
Ditto on Questa's love of vibrant colours - just so pleasant on the eye!
I was wondering who those old couple images could be in DE Marco street? Could they be bronze?

So nice to see some photos Kerouac! Glad a student friend of a friend manage to salvage your camera card.

[Deleted]

Oct 3, 2013 3:46:13 GMT fumobici said:

Do you know any Portugese K2? Does knowing French help at all? I can make out pieces from knowing some Italian and French but I can tell I wouldn't get by with that.

I'm amazed at how much vocabulary I have picked up in just a few days, but it has helped to be with my friend who has lived here for 3 years. Even though he is trapped in a French speaking working environment, he gets by in Portuguese quite well, even if he is not yet at conversational level. He has been able to answer most of my vocabulary questions in the street when the Portuguese term is wildly different from French, Spanish or Italian.

And for certain things, it is just so obvious once you have been told. For example, everywhere in Europe, no matter what language is spoken, I am used to seeing "P" on the parking/no parking signs, so I was struck by seeing the letter "E" here instead.

"What does the letter 'E' stand for?"

"Estationnemente."

Duh!

Meanwhile, I am still working with photos that I had wisely downloaded from the camera before the tragedy.

[Deleted]

back out on the street after leaving the market building











This street is specialised in carnival costumes.



There is a real old woman in this costume scaring passersby when she suddenly shrieks.











When you don't have videosurveillance, how about a tennis chair?





This is the principal local chain for cheap knicknacks.

[Deleted]

I had passed through the cathedral square before -- the tree-lined plaza in reply #4 -- but had not stopped there at the time. It looks delightfully inviting, but actually it is the location of the largest collection of vagrants, homeless people and drug addicts in the city, with an equally large number of police trying to keep an eye on them. I was told that in any case, it is most definitely a place where you do not want to be at night if you are not looking for trouble.

This is point zero for all distances from Sao Paulo.



I took a quick look inside the cathedral, which isn't very old.











And here is the view when you are standing on the steps.



Another view of avenida Paulista



There are only 3 old manors left on the street -- this is one of them.

[bixaorellana]

Ahh ~~ we were simul-posting last night, so I only saw you arrive at the market & did not see the great photos of the inside. So much for my ignorant notions! I did not anticipate the sophistication & upscale feel of the place at all.

Love all the architecture photos. There does indeed seem to be some kind of brownish native stone being used.

[Deleted]

The metro is full of book machines. "Pay what you want, minimum 2 reals." I guess this means the machine does not give any change?

So busy, crowded and lively. It would really interesting to walk those streets. How many tourists or people from other countries are there walking around?

[Deleted]

Oct 5, 2013 19:56:46 GMT deyana said:

The metro is full of book machines. "Pay what you want, minimum 2 reals." I guess this means the machine does not give any change?

So busy, crowded and lively. It would really interesting to walk those streets. How many tourists or people from other countries are there walking around?

Well, the machines take only coins and the biggest coin is 1 real, so I suppose there is no need to give change.

I have no idea how many tourists come to Brazil, but during this past week, I saw plenty of Italians, French, Americans, Canadians. I'm sure there were plenty of Spanish speaking and Portuguese speaking people, but it was harder for me to identify them.

[Deleted]

I have just a few more photos of Sao Paulo, but at least they have the originality of being taken at night.

Here is the municipal theatre again.







And these are just a few other downtown scenes.







The newsstands on the street are huge compared to Paris.







And here are just a couple scenes in the metro.

[Deleted]

As my photos of Sao Paulo have come to an end, it is time to deliver my impressions of the city. Believe me, it was frustrating to not be able to take more photos when I returned to Sao Paulo after my trip to Rio, because there were so many incredible street scenes, crumbling architecture, and of course the graffiti that Ilbonito showed us in his Brazilian threads. I have been seeing the famous "Sao Paulo style" graffiti in Paris for the past few years, more or less dripping from the roofs of buildings, but also just the purposely smeared graphics of the style. While a lot of people think that graffiti is improvised, when you begin to pay attention, it is almost as though these people have gone to a special graffiti university. Styles are carefully chosen and executed with precision.

Another thing that I found surprising was the way that many restaurants and snack bars are organised. As you enter the establishment, each person is given a big rectangle (almost like a ceramic tile) with a number and a bar code on it. If you ask for something, the details are entered into the device, or if you pick up things yourself, you present yourself to a person who enters all of the items into it. You pay when you leave by presenting your 'rectangle' (or the rectangles of your group) to the cashier, who scans them to come up with the total. A number of restaurants have indications like "any lost rectangle will be charged 400 reals" (that's 136€!).

Buffet style restaurants are extremely popular, and meals are charged by the kilo. You pile food onto your plate and it is put on a scale to determine the charge. If you return for seconds (or thirds), the new plate is weighed and added to your account. Obviously, drinks are also added to your account. Some places have a flat rate for the buffet, often accompanied with a warning of an additional charge if there is any food left on your plate!

I found all of this weird but sensible.

Another interesting aspect of Brazilian life is the "cupom fiscal" -- basically just the receipt that you receive for any purchase. This does not concern us visitors at all, but for the Brazilians, it is very important. They all have some sort of fiscal card number, and it is entered into the cash register every time they buy something, to prove that the money was spent legally and that the merchant sold the product legally. Twice a year, the customers receive a tax refund from the government for a percentage of what they spent. For a person of modest means, this is generally at least 150 reals (50€), so it is not insignificant at all.

Speaking of modest means, as a country with a population of more than 200,000,000 people, Brazil has a lot of people to employ, and just about every place is totally overstaffed, mostly with people who do not do one lick of work more than their low salaries warrant. There are sweepers who sweep nothing, three cashiers for the work of one person, sales staff who just wander through the shops, countless police officers who only stand around and chat -- you get the picture. I was able to determine that it was a major source of frustration for the customers or users of any service because it is very difficult to find an employee who actually does something. However, it is very impressive to enter a modest snack bar with tables for about 30 people and to see 4 people working at the sandwich counter, 3 people doing drinks, 5 people doing desserts, 2 people in charge of takeaway, 5 people cleaning tables and 3 cashiers at the exit.

I learned that crime is really a major problem but in general, people don't worry about it. They just wait for it to happen sooner or later. I never felt unsafe in the Streets, but I was never alone and was never taken to the known unsafe places at night like in front of the cathedral. Everybody knows at least 10 people who have been robbed, often at knife or gunpoint, or carjacked, or whatever. You absolutely do not resist and just hand over whatever they want. Even though there is massive video surveillance everywhere, it does not seem to be of great help. The day before I left, we had drinks with one of my friend's colleagues who had just had all of her important possessions stolen, but not even in direct contact with the thieves. All of the banks in Brazil have lockers either out on the street or in a vestibule. This is where you leave all of your "stuff" when you go to the bank, because otherwise it is almost impossible to get in through the metal detectors and physical searches. Most of the lockers are electronic -- you swipe a credit card, any credit card, and one of the available lockers opens. You get your stuff back out of the locker by swiping the same credit card. Anyway, this colleague left her laptop in a locker, plenty of important documents and also an envelope full of cash -- and the locker was empty when she came out of the bank. This meant a year's work, schedules for the next six months and lots of other things. When we ran into her, she had been mostly crying and drinking, so we took her out for drinks. Everything had been done with the police already and they were waiting to see all of the video surveillance items to see who had done the dirty deed. But obviously, she was not expecting to get any of her stuff back. In the Lycée Français where they work, about a quarter of the staff has been robbed at one time or another and obviously the rich parents of the students have even bigger problems, but they also pay for much more personal security. It seems to be a problem that will not be solved in Brazil any time soon.

The Brazilians themselves fit all of the stereotypes that we have learned -- smiling and optimistic, full of fun, etc. However, I was able to observe the enormous difference between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which is also a stereotype. In Sao Paulo, people are in a total rush and life is all about business. In Rio, the joie de vivre just flows out of the people and they are not at all in a hurry. They stroll happily down the streets, whereas the word "stroll" is not at all in the vocabulary of the Paulistas.

Anyway, those are my first impressions but I'm sure that more will come to me when I have recovered from the trip.

[htmb]

With in-depth narrative such as this, who needs pictures! Looking forward to hearing more about your trip.

[Deleted]

Really like the night scenes, K. Always facintating.

It's interesting that you noticed that there were too many people doing too few jobs. I found that in India too. Especially in government establishments. Labor is cheap, so I guess it's how things are done. It was strange seeing people just standing around after being used to a busy and active work place.

[Deleted]

Sao Paulo is the only city in South America where the French artist "Invader" has left some of his work, but I saw a number of them, some of which were quite large. Since it is a world centre of graphic art, Sao Paulo is obviously a natural home for this sort of thing.

However, this is the only example of which I took a picture.



www.space-invaders.com/sominv.html

[Deleted]

As part of my Sao Paulo experience, I feel that I ought to mention Brazilian billionaire Silvio Santos, whom you cannot miss if you turn on the television. He started as a street urchin in Rio but worked his way up to becoming the biggest private taxpayer in the country. Unlike Silvio Berlusconi, he failed his attempt at politics and had to be satisfied with just being very very rich. I think he has probably had even more facelifts and dye jobs than Berlusconi, so he barely even looks human anymore, just like something that escaped out of the movie "House of Wax." He is 82 years old!

His television network is his principal play thing now, and he has his own 5-hour variety show every Sunday in which he makes little paper airplanes out of banknotes and throws them into the crowd.



There are a number of other appalling things on his TV channel, which shows huge numbers of Mexican telenovelas. Besides the normal commercial breaks, the channel inserts 1-second images of beauty products or other things right in the middle of the love scenes. It is all pretty amazing.

Anyway, Silvio Santos is extremely popular with the poor end of the population, because he personifies the self-made man who struck it rich through hard work. He likes to think that he is Richard Branson's role model.

[bixaorellana]

5-hour variety show? FIVE HOUR VARIETY SHOW?! Out of all the different, interesting, odd, unexpected things you've told us about this big foreign city, that's the weirdest. It's not the only future-novel sounding thing, though. The rectangles definitely apply, for instance.

Surrendering your possessions upon entering stores is a big deal here, but not at banks. Wow. I'll bet what happened to your friend's colleague is pretty common. That system just begs to be corrupted.

[lugg]

Chaotic and interesting certainly.
I am surprised that Silvio Santos does not melt after spending 30 mins, let alone 5 hours , under the camera lighting.

Super report K2.