Tupã

Tupã is my hometown. Located about 530 km west of the State Capital, the City of São Paulo, Tupã has a population of 60 thousand. I was born and grew up there. I first left it when I was 17 and went on a exchange student program in 1982, to the USA. Back home, I left it again to preparatory school for college, first to Londrina, State of Paraná, for just 2 months, and then to São Paulo, where I live since then, for 26 years now.

Part of my family still live in town, so I use to go back, at least once a year. In the past I would come home more often. After so many years living in São Paulo, I do feel it is my home now. But whenever I come back to Tupã, I still feel myself at home too.

This last time I was in Tupã, I visited two places especifically to take pictures. The first is a new place. It´s the square built in 2008 in tribute to the 100 years of the japanese immigration to Brazil. There is a large japanese community in town, as well as a portuguese and spanish communities.

The second place is a very old one. The old railway station, now abandoned, and waiting to be transformed soon in a museum. It reminds me of the good old times when we traveled by train, and the economy was on growth and commodities were transported by trains.

São Paulo

One of the things I like the most about São Paulo are these small bars or cafes around the city, sometimes completely out of the commercial areas, that offer nice small food. I like particularly those run by immigrants bringing delicious things from abroad.

I´ve just found this "Caminito" establishment where we can eat Argentineans Empanadas and drink a nice wine or a coffee, near home at the Planalto Paulista District.

São Luiz do Paraitinga

The rainny season of 2009 - 2010 brought many tragedies in the southeastern states of Brazil. Dozens of deaths in Rio de Janeiro State, just like it happened in the same period one year ago in the southern state of Santa Catarina, for the same reason, as it has happened, unfortunately, often.

São Luiz do Paraitinga, a town located in the hills of the Coast of São Paulo State, was almost completely destroyed by the rain, thunderstorm and flood on January 1st. It is a historical town that preserved a past of splendour from the coffee culture in the 19th century. Preliminary studies shows that 80% of the houses and constructions protected by the Historical Society came down. It seems to have 400 buildings that were protected because its architectural value. More than 300 probably don´t exist anymore or are enough damaged.

We visited the city in a hot and sunny day of December of 2005. I didn´t take a picture of the Main Church (180 years old) at the Central Square, because it didn´t fit in my camera´s angle. I didn´t take many pictures around town either, because I thought the city would always be there to be pictured. And now most of it is completely destroyed.

We walked all over the place in that ocasion, and saw the little girls, dressed up (The "pastorinhas" or "little sheperd girls"), keeping an old catholic tradition of singing while walking through the streets in order to visit the crèches (nativity scenes) that the families prepared in their living rooms. The people kept their doors opened and the girls would come in to see the crèches and pray. Some hostess served coffee and breads. We were invited (every one is) to come inside two houses to see the scene. It´s something we don´t find anymore in modern Brazil.

I walked endlessly until I found the house where lived, when children, the great Brazilian Geographer Aziz Ab Saber and his sister Nidia, also a professor at the University of São Paulo, who was a teacher of mine and a friend.

All we wonder now is how the city is going to come out of this tragic flood of the Paraitinga River.

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.