Brazilians who live in Rio de Janeiro are called cariocas and their character is known up and down the country. Their accent gives themselves away at once with the emphasis on the 'sh' sound and makes everything they say sound easy-going. Rio de Janerio is a beach city and one of the advantages of living there is hitting the beach whenever they can to sink a few beers and hit on one another.
In short, cariocas are renowned for their inability to take life seriously, something that annoys the paulistas from Sao Paolo, who are famed for their dedication to making money and working too hard. Cariocas love to party, to gossip and it's fairly easy to head out on the town and meet new friends each night. Just don't expect them to remember your name the next time they see you.
“Te Ligo!” = I’ll call you, they smile. Never mind that they didn't ask for your number.
“A gente se ve!” = We'll meet up soon, they say. They'll have forgotten all about you by the time they turn around.
The cult of the body in Rio possibly rivals even Los Angeles or parts of Florida. Everywhere you turn you see beauty salons or gymnasiums and it's all about looking good when they hit the beach. Brazilians in Rio love to pose and that's why one and all wear as little as possible when they get to the sands.
The Brazilians that you see on the beach in Rio tend to be the ones with enough money to sit around doing nothing, though. Particularly if they're getting a tan on a weekday, it's a fair bet that their daddy has a nice job and they live in a house with a maid to do the dirty work. You'll notice that most of them are white, too.
Although in Brazil you'll see every colour under the sun represented, as usual the money shies away from the melonin. Head to an expensive night club and you'll see hardly anyone there who's black and the general colour spectrum will be from light brown to white. Visit a favela though and you'll note that more than half the people there are African black.
You can walk down a rich neighbourhood like Ipanema and you'll see rich chicks walking along with their poodles whilst the black kids from the favelas, wearing nothing but shorts, crash out stoned on the sidewalk from sniffing glue.
The rich couldn't care less and if you ask them about the favelas that overlook their gated communities they'll tell you about how they live in fear of them breaking in. Granted it's no fun to be robbed at knife point but it's far worse to have the military police storm your home once a week and rob you.
In either case this kind of subject would bring most conversations to an embarrssing halt in Rio. The point of life there is to enjoy yourself without getting bummed out by anything like social conscience. There's far more important things to think about than the grannies who have to climb 1000 steps to their over-crowded concrete hovel on the hill - the latest bikini for one thing, and did you hear what happened in the telenovela last night?
There are some amongst the privileged who recognize these hypocrisies and they often atone for a sense of guilt at their fortunate birth by volunteering to teach in the favelas. There is an alternative scene in Rio but you'll have to stray out of the safe tourist spots to find it.