lol - fancy trying portuguese in spain!!!!!!! apart from having been rival empires for centuries the spanish like to think they are a notch above. but anyway i wasn't sure of the stuff in my head about the rivalry was correct so i looked it up. here we are:
Observers point out that the Portuguese national character is more sentimental, ironic, mild, and even more melancholic (as can be hear so clearly in the lilting strains of Fado music). These characteristics are often held up as the opposite of Castilian culture. Two scholars who have dealt with this question at length find both cultural and geographical factors at work. Pierre Birot put it this way (Le Portugal; Etude de Geographie Regionale, 1950): Thus, the typical characteristics that so gracefully distinguish the Portuguese soul from its peninsular neighbors, were able to ripen in the shelter of frontiers which are the oldest in Europe. On one side, a proud and exalted people (the Spaniards), ready for all kinds of sacrifice and for all the violent acts that inspire them to be concerned with their dignity; on the other hand a more melancholy and indecisive people (the Portuguese), more sensitive to the charm of women and children, possessing a real humanity in which one can recognize one of the most precious treasures of our old Europe. …
that's sort of sweet really.
Darn - can't remember if NBD told us which country he was from. i have poland in my head so i looked them up too. i always remember thinking t uni that there was such a distinct difference between the people from the different baltic states and Russia. the only way i could ever describe russians was as black and white, light and dark, happy and sad, melancholy and fun, cold and warm, brusque but surprising generosity, sophisticated and brutal, cruel and kind, thoughtful and thoughtless. such opposites seemed everywhere. i read a review of one of Glinka's operas and he was supposedly the wellspring for russian classical music - but he pinched polish dances even if he used them to denigrate the poles - and thus his own forebears.
the poles - different - they seemed to carry some sadness but less helpless, hard working and less pessimistic, rough but more refined. more than that i don't know and i am coloured by the fact that i have never been able to reconcile their treatment of the jews with what i saw of them as people. but then the same would apply to the czechs and hungarians
that might be a topic best covered by NBD and Tau.
it seems a bit weird to do this stereotyping of national character given that all this talk of racism and prejudice. but the differences exist and they are actually fascinating.
