Something about Sao Paulo felt so familiar, like I’d been there before. The physical landscape is almost identical to Seoul - 80s/90s/00s high rise and malls interspersed with 60s/70s/80s concrete slab factories, shantytowns and anonymous housing blocks.
But something felt so different - think about it:
- they are on opposite sides of the globe, almost 180 degrees of longitude and latitude apart
- Korea is like 98% ethnically Korean - the biggest city in the least diverse country on earth. The only city in Asia without a Chinatown! Sao Paulo is more diverse than any place I’ve ever been - no two people look alike. I could sit all day and watch the parade of Paulistas’s faces
- Seoul is incredibly safe. Sao Paolo is… not.
- One physical difference - Sao Paulo is full of barbed wire. In Korea, its all confined to the DMZ.
- Finally, Koreans have no butt. Sorry but its (mostly true). And as Camille Paglia explains, its quite the opposite in Brazil (thank the wife for this sexist insight)
I have a feeling this list is almost endless.
