Biking in São Paulo

I should write about Antarctica, about my final project at the Kaospilots, about my Magic Kombi and about Wind People, or even about my "facing my fears" climbing experience last weekend, but instead I rather talk about BIKES! Bikes in São Paulo!

The motivation: I love biking and I've done it since I was a child. A bit hidden from my parents, who would naturally advised me against, while in reality I was happily building self-confidence in exploring my hometown, Porto Alegre. I loved it. It was dangerous. I moved to São Paulo and continued doing so, without realizing the crazyness of such an attitude. Then, Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Aarhus (Denmark), and the "bikeland", the two most bike-friendly countries in the world. I had reached Paradise :)

Four years later, back to São Paulo, I was going for a 20min ride from Vila Mariana to Bela Vista this morning, crossing one of the main avenues in Brazil, Avenida Paulista, and I met Marcia:

An article on TreeHugger explained: "Márcia Regina de Andrade Prado [40 years-old] was a well-known bike activist who was run-down by a bus last January 14 (2009). Her accident exposed one more time the fragile situation of bikers in large cities and caused great mobilization among the Sao Paulo's bikers." Quite shocking and real!

Another cool website and some background info on biking in São Paulo...

• São Paulo has 6 million vehicles (3 times more than in 1980)
  
• There were 262km of traffic jams in 2008
• Being inside a car in the middle of a traffic jam is 2 to 4 times more damaging for health (pollution) than biking in the same situation
• There are 30km of cycle paths in São Paulo, for 250.000 bikes
  
• One citizen dies every 4 days biking in São Paulo (84 people in 2006)
  

As the CriticalMass movement states (Bicicletada.org in Brazil): (Each bike means) one less car! I recommend reading the Manifest of the Invisibles before calling me crazy, and for a better understanding of what the whole thing is about!

Join the movement... control what you can!

Forget Travel Buddies - Hit the Road Alone

This article is fantastic. I decided to copy (steal) it and publish it here. I wish I had written this. It's so true!! Well, enjoy it... the bold parts are mine. My "rite of passage" was back in 1998, 11 years ago, during a 7 weeks trip into Bolivia and Peru together with 2 friends from college. My life has never been the same since then.

Myself traveling in China, alone, April 2008

You don’t need anyone to hold your hand.

Written by RoadJunky, published at Road Junky Travel, yesterday.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it’s brought travelers together; in forums and on social networks, backpackers and vagabonds can share experiences and tips, discover new places and ask questions about destinations they’ve yet to hit.

But in the end, the only real travel is done alone.

When you head out on the road by yourself there’s no longer anyone around to define you, no one who knows your personal history, no one who knows where you’ve been and where you’re going. You’re forced into the Now.

And unless you make the mistake of carrying a GPS phone and check into internet cafes every ten minutes to report back to friend and family, you digest your experiences by yourself. There’s no one to hold your hand when you get scared, no one’s shoulder to cry on when things go wrong. There’s no childhood buddy to help you decipher the train timetables and no one to introduce you to the cool bunch of travelers sitting at the other end of the hostel.

Travel should be a rite of passage, a sacred journey, a vision quest. It’s about leaving behind the cloying emotional support system of family and friends and learning to stand on your own two feet. Then, later on, you’ll be able to support others in their time of need.

Although we do our best to deny it, filling all our quiet moments with Messenger updates and shuffled tracks on the Ipod, life itself is actually pretty scary. It’s a blank slate for you to make what you will of it and no where is that more true than when you travel. You could get lost or injured, you might get married or change religion. You might even die: the greatest journey of all and one which is almost certainly a solo trip.

You can only find yourself on your own terms and that’s why just about everyone should leave home and head out on the road for a year. Your prejudices and values will be challenged, you’ll have to get by on your wits and find out who you really are.

Compare such a voyage of self-discovery with the gaggles of school leavers who head off i groups of 5, all armed with Eurorail cards and guidebooks, collectively bumbling their way from train station to hostel to local bar and back again. Each time something out of the ordinary happens they shrink back into the safety of the herd and they carry with them a mini-world from home with them as they go. Why did they bother leaving in the first place?

When you travel alone you’ll meet more people and move at your own pace. Sure, you’ll team up from time to time with other travelers and find yourself sharing a train carriage with an Israeli, a Finn and a couple of locals. Spontaneity and variety are what it’s all about.

Hitting the road alone you’ll grow in ways you never imagined. You’ll experience stuff that your friends and family will never be able to understand.

And nor should they. It’s your trip and it’s entirely up to you to make sense of it.

An inspiring story

Last December I traveled around Europe with couchsurfing, and I stayed at Bartek's flat in Krakow, as I wrote earlier in my blog. Bartek wrote a welcome note for all couchsurfers, recommending to check one book on his bookshelf. And I did.

The book was called "Led by Destiny" and wrote by Kinga Freespirit, based on her 5-years journey hitchhiking around the world with Chopin, the love of her life, from 1998 to 2003. The book is a precious collection of stories from the road and from all the places they visited and people they met. They flew from Poland to New York and arrived with $600 in their pockets. That's it!

Their motto: "Every dream is given to us with the power to make it come true."

Not satisfied with the trip, there was one continent missing, so in 2006 she left, this time alone, hitchhiking towards Africa. Months later she passed away, from Malaria. As Chopin wrote in her website: "Kinga lived her life to the fullest and passed away at the peak of fulfilling her dreams, in the happiest time of her life. She left us with the great power of inspiration to live a meaningful life and cherish each of its precious moments. Kinga passed away peacefully, strong and well prepared for her next and greatest journey... and such readiness I wish us all from the bottom of my heart."

As the Tibetan saying goes:
"You never know what will come first: a new day or the next life."
I wanted to share this story, because it's just so powerful. At least for me. I rather live my own life (as more difficult it might be sometimes) than live other people's expectations. Hope you like it too...

Ilha das Flores (best documentary/short film ever)

For years and years I've been searching for the subtitles!! Subtitles that would enable me to share with the world this piece of art. Ilha das Flores ("Isle of Flowers") is a Brazilian short film/documentary by Jorge Furtado, shot in 1989 in my hometown Porto Alegre.

The film got many awards over the years. According to IMdB votes, it's the best Brazilian short movie and best Brazilian documentary ever made, and it's the global #15 and #11 (respectively). According to wikipedia, "chosen by European critics as one of the 100 most important short films of the century".

So, today I finally found them - the subtitles :D

Enough said, just enjoy 13min of your time and watch it. And maybe you want to watch it again. And again. Reflect about it. I also would really invite you to post your comments and thoughts here...

Ilha das Flores-sub Eng
Uploaded by Simud

As the closing lines of the movie say (quoting Cecilia Meirelles):

"Free" is the state of those who enjoy freedom.
"Fredom" is a word that feeds the dream of humanity;
that no one can explain, bu everyone understands.

PS: a lot has changed in the Isle of Flowers over the last 30 years. Still, this is the reality of most of our population in the planet today.

Democracy in Russia

It's 4.39am and I'm somewhere in the outscurts of Moscow, in a kind of "comunist-style" sports-center, facilitating a 6-days conference for 80 young leaders from all around Russia. The organization is well-known to me, AIESEC.

The main part of the conference is dedicated to the elections of the national executive board of AIESEC in Russia, in a very competitive environment where 4 people run for President and 15 people run for the 7 Vice-President positions. Besides that, there is a "history" of local and national politics, and a Constitution (where the rules of the process are described) that is very weak, full of flaws. Also, as last components, we are in a very young democracy, Russia, and AIESEC is made of young people, average around 20 years old. It's definitely a school for all of them, to choose and to be chosen by democratic means to run an organization at local, national, and international level.

I had a similar experience one year ago, where I was facilitating the same process for AIESEC in Brazil, my home country. There we had the non-typical situation of 3 candidates running for national president (first time in the 37 years history) and NONE of them got enough votes - in front of 600 conference participants [a second round was needed a month later to finally elect the new president] It's not easy to coordinate, facilitate and maintain a healthy emotional level when it happens. I felt challenged and I survived (thanks to the support from a few special friends).

This year in Russia we had some other particularities, such as an incomplete Constitution, written in Russian, a tough competition among 4 candidates and only 7 local committees (among 15) having the rights to vote, due to their past performance. Were the remaining 8 committees lowered to a "second grade citizenship"?

Despite all, I survived once again, and AIESEC in Russia has a new president elected in a fair and trusted election. For the first time in years, it's a male, and it's from Romania. Congratulations Victor!

My conference is only half-way through, 3 long days and short nights to go, following AIESEC's principle of "working hard, partying harder!"

Dobre noche!!

Clonado no orkut!!! (impersonified!!!)

(no version in English this time...)

Gurizada, essa é de rir pra não chorar... dilemas da vida cibernética-pós-moderna. Fui clonado. Minha identidade usada de forma ilegal, crime de falsa identidade, nessa vida virtual. E o pior, já é a terceira vez em que isso me acontece!!

Alguém criou um perfil do Orkut usando uma(s) foto(s) minha(s)... confira aqui! Como já pedi pra Google cancelar o perfil, ele desaparacerá em breve, por isso gostaria de copiar aqui a introdução do rapaz - sugestivamente chamado "Henrique Raniere"...

Sou romântico, quase um amante a moda antiga, como diz a música do Rei... "do tipo q ainda manda flores"...
Sou do tipo q se apega facilmente as pessoas.
Sou calmo, tranquilo,fiel, não sou muito ciumento, só cuido daquilo q amo e q me é importante.
Sou um pouco tímido, mas estou aberto a novas amizades.
No momento, estou solteiro, e a procura da mulher q vai me conquistar e preencher minha vida por completo. Sei q é difícil, mas sou paciente e sei q ela está por perto. Estou muito carente... alguém se habilita??? (risos)
Sou muito ligado a minha familia e acho q isso é a base de tudo, e tudo q tenho e sou eu devo inteiramente a eles.
Tenho bom humor... mas sem exageros.
Trabalho muito, mas sempre arrumo tempo para me dedicar a pessoa q estiver do meu lado, aos meus amigos, e aos meus passatempos prediletos.
Acho q é isso!
Vlw

É brincadeira, né? Coisa de pentelho cheio de espinhas na cara. O pior é saber que ele tinha mais de 100 "amigos" e uns 40 e tantos FÃS!!! E eu!??

Ainda em 2006 minha amiga Licia encontrou um "Henrique Paulo Vedana", que foi desmascarado antes de poder fazer muitas amizades (embora ele tivesse até testemunhos!). Há um ano atrás, foi a vez do "Sr. Vedana", denunciado por um internauta Baiano "detetive particular", que também me advertiu sobre um sujeito do Acre estar usando a minha foto para seduzir gurias num desses sites de namoro online... sujeito bacana, né? (O Baiano, claro!)

Dessa vez foi minha futura hóspede pelo couchsurfing, que apesar de ser uma guria inteligente e interessante, deixou-se levar pelas palavras doces do solteiro Henrique... reconheceu as semelhanças, pensou que Raniere era meu nome do meio, me avisou, e ainda deve estar em dúvida sobre quem roubou as fotos de quem! ;-)

A foto maldita...


Essa foto foi tirada pela Laura, no inverno gaúcho de 2005. Eu estava gripado tomando um chimas em Santa Maria (dá pra ver a Roberta ao fundo) com velhos amigos. Dois meses depois eu estava embarcando pra Holanda e criei esse blog veds.nomadlife.org para documentar a experiência no exterior... e dei upload dessa foto como teste >>>

E não é que o Google Images "tagueou" a minha cara de doente, e todas as pessoas procurando por fotos de chimarrão passaram a ver a minha lata. Algumas pessoas, que hoje acabaram sendo amigas minhas, me adicionaram no MSN ou mandaram e-mail. Outras pessoas usaram minha foto em PPTs, sites de namoro, Orkut e outras coisas mais... até sobrinho da Mãe Elô eu virei!!!

Não quero assustar ninguém, mas é fato... caiu na rede, é peixe. Botou coisa na Internet, é imprevisível o que pode acontecer. Pra bom e pra ruim. Muitas coisas boas já me sucederam por ter um perfil no Orkut, no Couchsurfing, no Linked-in, no Flickr, além dos blogs no nomadlife.org... mas tudo faz parte dessa nova era e dos seus dilemas...


E ae, já deixou recado pro Henrique Raniere? Vai lá, pode sacanear a vontade... :D

Chinese New-Years... the year of the RAT!

Last Wednesday evening we celebrated Chinese New-Years, as part of the Spring Holidays in China. I didn't know much what to expect, after spending New-Years eve in 5 different countries in my life.

First of all, Spring Holidays is "THE" holidays in China. For two weeks, over 300.000.000 (yes, 3 hundred million) people go back home to see their families. As people work a lot in China and many of them live far away from home, this is the only opportunity in the year to see family. For that reason as well the snow storms last weeks were so devastating, because it made most trains and airports slow down or close while millions were on their trips.

New-Years eve seems to be like Christmas eve in Brazil, a moment for the family-at-large get together and eat a lot. In our case here in Shanghai, we also had a fantastic dinner, but with bunches of internationals and expatriates who didn't go home or didn't spend time with Chinese friends (which is also something not very common, but I will write about that later when I figure out more on that).

After dinner we went to a local club for the party, and at around mid-night we went outside to see the fireworks and firecrackers. I must admit that I prefer the Brazilian version, it's noisier and more beautiful, usually. What called my attention was the risks involved with setting up fireworks and firecrackers in the streets, by local Chinese people, while taxis try to go around and people cover their ears for the noise and try to protect themselves against possible accidents. The whole street looked like a war zone with bombs, smoke, fire and people running all around... peaceful, happy but still not very safe, at all...

Later on after a couple of hours I got tired of the music and expensive drinks and together with some colleagues we found a private party, someone met someone and there we went, partying at this amazing flat in a rich building, rented by a French guy who is the marketing manager for another famous top club in town. We left his home at 7 in the morning when the sun was rising, and the year of the rat was just starting...

Last night I was trying to go to sleep, and I was surprised by the fireworks and firecrackers outside... really noisy, actually it seemed even more than during new-years eve... today we asked and indeed it was more noisy. The logic behind is that Chinese people celebrate the 5th day of the new-year (as part of the spring holidays) as much as new-years eve, and by setting up fireworks they "welcome the new to arrive"... so now I can say the year has started!! Or maybe I misunderstood the whole point, which by the way might be very possible :P

Anybody have seen the film Lost in Translation...?? Yeah, that's me!

The Danish Secret Revealed: The Jante's Law

This is one of the first posts I write about Danish culture in my blog. There are many reasons and excuses for that, which I might comment later. After over one year living here, and trying to understand the complexity of the simple way of life of the Danes, I might now be able to "guess" something.

Everybody who comes here can easily see how Danish people are open to other people, lovers of individual freedom, rich and egalitarian (social welfare system, for example), having a high standard of ethics. Especially when I compare with the country I come from.

Under the surface, someone ask her/himself: how come this country can be so liberal, so capitalistic, so individualistic, and at the same time to egalitarian, so socialistic??

Well, under the water there is a huge iceberg of cultural assumptions and truths that even the Danes themselves deny! Or they try to deny...

A long time ago, in 1933, a Danish-Norwegian author wrote a novel about a little village in Denmark called Jante, a typical small town where nobody is anonymous. The 10 rules that define life there are:

1. Don't think that you are special.
2. Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
3. Don't think that you are smarter than us.
4. Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
5. Don't think that you know more than us.
6. Don't think that you are more important than us.
7. Don't think that you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think that anyone cares about you.
10. Don't think that you can teach us anything.

The law is meant to preserve social stability and uniformity, and the Janters who break the "unwritten" law are treated with suspicion or even hostility.

The movie Dogville was filmed in Sweden and directed by Lars von Trier, a Dane. Although it's a clear critics on the American culture, some might speculate saying that it has many elements of the Law of Jante: Grace (Nicole Kidman) arrives and people accept her as long as she seems inferior to them, and as soon as she becomes too special, too important for the eyes of the people around her, the negative attitude starts: "who does she think she is...?"

Being here has taught me a lot and living "with" the Jante's Law is very difficult sometimes. But you got to admit that it brings a lot of benefits as well...

For another article on Jante's Law, I recommend this one written by a Turkish journalist:
Janteloven: Egalitarianism or restrictiveness?