Buenos Aires Trees

The trees we see around Buenos Aires are one of the most pleasant things to observe. I loved all the trees in the city, but especially the Plane Trees of De Mayo Avenue and around San Nicholas District. I´ve come to discover a very nice blog called "Trees of Buenos Aires" which is a good way to have an idea of the beauty of the city´s magnificent trees. The Photos above were taken during nice walks around.

Buenos Aires

It has been difficult to write about Buenos Aires. Before leaving I just thought I would like the city and that it would be easy to write about it after coming back home. We always have to consider that just one week is not enough, of course, to get to know the spirit of a city. Nevertheless I thought I was going to find what I have always thought about it: an European City in South America.

Buenos Aires is much more. I knew I was going to see a French heritage in Recoleta neighbourhood and the Italian heritage in La Boca. But I was surprised also (and should not had been) with the Spanish heritage in buildings like the Cabildo and the Manzanas de Las Luces, both close to the Magnificent Plaza de Mayo, and the Church Nuestra Senhora de Pilar at Recoleta.

I have been to much farther places, to distant latitudes and longitudes, but had not been before to Buenos Aires, which is only a three hours fly from home, and that we can reach even by ground. The truth is that it took too long for me to come to this city.

Maybe because I thought (erroneously) I knew already before hand what I was going to see. Maybe because I thought it was just a copy of Paris in a smaller scale (also a mistake), or it was just a lack of opportunity of coming to the city with the right person, at the right time, when the economic aspect was appropriate.

Since I was a child, I always dreamed to visit two major cities in Brazil. Salvador and Porto Alegre. The reason, I believe, is that these two cities are the capital cities of States of very peculiar cultures that differs a lot from the rest of the country. The “baiano” and the “gaúcho”, the natives of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul are characters very much distinguished in Brazil. I have been to Salvador, but not yet, at the age of 44, to Porto Alegre. I prefer then to think that I need a time to mature, to get prepared to be ready to Porto Alegre.

I tend to believe the same was happening to Buenos Aires. I was just getting prepared to it. Unlikely Porto Alegre though, that most of my friends say I will not find a very interesting city (but I believe I will), Buenos Aires has always been told to me as a magnificent city.

And it revealed more.

From the politeness of taxi drivers, trains, subways and buses personal to the kindness of people on the streets and stores, always ready to give you an information. After you say “Gracias!" (thank you), they answer “No, por favor!" (no, please! - as if saying that it is the contrary, that they had the pleasure to help you. By the way, the Spanish spoken is so peculiar. And the human factor made a difference. There´s something that unite us, and though there´s no many oriental faces in Buenos Aires, I felt completely at home. Never felt as a foreigner.

In the endless walks you´ll take in the city you will find something very interesting. In every corner in downtown or close to Plaza Miserere or Recoleta or in the distant Barrio of Villa Crespo, you will see either an impressive neoclassical building, or a great sculpture or a romantic coffee shop or a bistro, and tables on the sidewalks, inviting you for a drink. You can have then a sidra (while Juliana preferred the Quilmes beer); the French fries (papas fritas) that I would compare to those one that are sold in the streets of Amsterdam and that were the best I had ever tasted; the dishes from Patagonia; the habit of sitting for a long time while drinking a coffee and appreciating the coming and going of people in the streets; the habit of going out for dinner late at night, usually after a show around 11 pm and walking back home through crowded streets.

The variety and amount of bookstores that still opened until 11 pm, some to midnight, with sales, in the downtown area are so nice. An invitation to reading. I am finally reading Adolfo Bioy Casares and loves it.

The city was a wonderful experience.

Socorro

The brazilian geographer Milton Santos once defined space as being the unequal accumulation of times. I like to visit old and historic sites and imagine how life has been happening since then.

On the first weekend of september we visited small towns on the border of São Paulo and Minas Gerais States, on the northeastern side of São Paulo.

We were based in a town called Socorro, located 132 km from our State Capital. The settlement started in the 16th century when the portuguese pioneers banished the native carajás indians. Most of the historic buildings though I most liked were built in late 19th century and early 20th (like the pink house in the first picture - 1892).

As I woke up early for a walk, I took the camera with me, and could take pictures all along the quiet and rainy town. One thing I don´t like about the brazilian historic towns is that for a long time, without recognition of its historic importance, many buildings were put down and replaced by modern constructions, with no architectural taste and value. That creates a strange mosaic of colors and shapes not pleasant to the eyes. It confirms though the definition of Milton Santos.

As I got closer to the main church in downtown, I stated seeing people arriving to the 7:00 AM catholic mass. I stopped at the square then, and kept myself for a time in the surroundings to watch them and see that life goes on very similarly all over in this part of the country. I didn´t want to go inside the church though because I was wearing running clothes and didn´t think it was appropriate. The slow walking of people and the friendly smile to say "Good Day" to everyone that crosses their way, including strangers and myself, indicate me that I am really close to Minas Gerais.

From Kumamoto to São Paulo

On June 15th, 1929, my maternal grandparents, Yoshitaro and Mitsue K., with their 5 children, stepped up the stairs of the Manila Maru Ship, in the Port of Kobe, and embarked on a long journey through the Pacif, Indian and Atlantic Oceans to Brazil. They all arrived safe and sound in Santos on August 12th.

In Japan, they lived in a small village in the surroundig area of Kumamoto, from where he could see the Aso Volcano. In Brazil they spent their first years working in the agriculture area of the city of Lins, and then in the city of Bastos. In Lins their first brazilian child was born, and in Bastos the two youngest daughters (the first being my mother). Later on they established themselves in Tupã, where I was born, and when some of the descendants had already left for the big city.

Today members of the family still live in cities like Lins, Bastos and Tupã, but also in distant cities of Brasil such as Arapongas, Belo Horizonte, Uberlandia, Patrocínio, Cuiabá and Ribeirão Pires. Others live in the United States in the cities of Boston, Los Angeles and Tampa. And some of the brazilian descendants made the way back of grandpa and grandma and are now living in Japan.

The family is already in the 5th generation in Brasil and most of the members live now in the city of São Paulo. On last August 16th, 53 of us got together in a family reunion in São Paulo to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the arrival in Brazil. Three daughters of Grandpa and Grandma still alive, including the two brazilians and Aunt Sachie, who was in the Manila Maru, and could tell us, 80 years after, how the trip was and how she amused herself, as a 6 years old child, to spend the time on board.

Istambul and São Paulo

I am reading the excelent "Istambul - Memories and the City" by Orhan Pamuk. On chapter five, named "Black and White", he writes: "Accustomed as I was to the semidarkness of our bleak museum house, I preferred being indoors. The streets below, the avenues beyond, the city´s poor neighborhoods seemed as dangerous as those in a black-and-white gangster film. And with this attraction to the shadow world, I have always preferred the winter to the summer in Istambul. I love the early evenings when autumn is slipping into winter, when the leafless trees are trembling in the north wind and people in black coats and jackets are rushing home through the darkening streets. I love the overwhelming melancholy when I look at the walls of old apartment buildings and the dark surfaces of neglected, unpainted, fallen-down wooden mansions; only in Istambul have I seen this texture, this shading".

Then there are dozens of pictures of Istambul in black and white, along the book.

I use to walk a lot in downtown São Paulo, on my way to the courthouses, where the old buildings go high and leave few space for the sunlight. I like it specially in the wintertime also, when the light that gets through is weak, with no much contrast, making it a beautiful scene to take pictures. Since I began taking pictures when I was like fifteen, I have liked black and white pictures. And that´s one of the reasons why the book caught my attention.

I have never been in Istambul, though I tried it once when I was in Europe in 1995, and felt Istambul was so close. Some years ago an Istambul native, friend Ali A., stayed in our home while visiting Brazil, and then I could talk and learn a little about the city.

I think about the many differences and similarities between the two cities. São Paulo has no Great Past like the one left by the Ottoman Empire and has no Bosphorus, that is so important to the function of the city and to the lives of the people. Here the "grandeur" of the City started with the coffee culture in late 19th and beginning of the 20th century, when the Ottoman Empire was going down. Here the many rivers that run through the city are abandoned and polluted. Both cities though are situated in "emerging countries" where modernity lived together with some poverty and both have lived economic crisis during the eighties to turn over to lead the country´s economy now.

Pamuk talks about a certain melancholy of the people in Istambul that he calls Hüzün. We brazilians also have a certain melancholy that came as a portuguese heritage, according to writer Moacyr Scliar in his book "Saturno nos Trópicos" (Saturn in the Tropics).

In this post I share some pictures I have taken in São Paulo, and wait friend Ali to tell us if he sees something that reminds him of Istambul. And else what do you prefer, the city in color or in black and white?