It made for interesting if slightly predictable reading, with most of the seven giving responses you might expect of people with their backgrounds - the Caucuses, Central Asia and the Far East - who have been in the country for a short time. The most amusing (qv scathing and on the mark) came from the only female respondent, Brazilian Helena de Mesquita da Silva (pictured with the caption that accompanied her snapshot in the magazine). What follows are the questions submitted to the group and Helena's responses to them.
The looks I get, affronted and rude, because I'm black. And the fact that the teenagers get around in expensive clothes but spend most of their time in parks smoking and drinking and their parents don't seem to care at all.
What was the most interesting thing you heard about Estonia or Estonians before you came here which turned out to be a myth?
I hadn't really heard anything about the country or the people. I asked some Brazilians who knew a bit about it, and they said everything was OK, but when I got here I felt quite uncomfortable. I expected more from a European country. I'm from a Third World nation, so I was shocked when I saw that in some areas Europeans can be just as bad off or even worse off than we are.
How would you describe Estonians?
Cold and closed. Polite to the point of being impolite. They're easily intimidated and vulnerable and probably because of it paranoid about their privacy.
Estonian men consider Estonian women to be the most beautiful in the world. What do you think?
I guess Estonian men don't travel much. Men everywhere say the women in their country are the most beautiful. Some of these ideas cross borders, but before I came here I'd never heard that Estonian women were meant to be the best-looking in the world.
Estonian men often come across as male chauvinist pigs. Would you agree?
Perhaps that's why more and more Estonian women are marrying foreigners, at least statistically. Estonian men ought to think more about the way they behave towards women.
http://www.postimees.ee/230208/lisad/arter/313412.php?kas-valismaalased-armastavad-meid
2 comments:
I'd say it would be sad if a visitor from as far as Brazil discovered that our country is no different from hers. I'd go even further by saying that it would be sad if people from foreign countries felt comfortable everywhere. It is traveling abroad, can't always be nice or similar to home.
I guess she meant that she wasn't made to feel welcome here. She definitely sounded like she had culture shock, but rightly so...just a few days ago in Tartu dozens of people were walking around with their faces painted a ludicrous shade of 'black' to see what it would feel like to be African for a day. Imagine if you lived in Africa and everyone walked around painted like a peach?
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