21st CENTURY THANKSGIVING
By B. Michael Rubin
Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays of the year in the US. Nearly every American is given a 4-day weekend to travel long distances to reunite with family. Thanksgiving always occurs on a Thursday, and Friday gets bundled into the festivities.
Since Thanksgiving is the only multiple-day holiday in the US, it is also the busiest travel day for Americans. It is advisable for tourists to reconsider any travel plans they may have if it brings them to a US airport during this 4-day travel spree.
Curitiba in English elected to celebrate Thanksgiving this year with a traditional turkey dinner prepared by our web editor, Bruce Bell, and his Brazilian wife, Raquel. Some of the typical Thanksgiving foods were unavailable in the local markets, such as candied yams and cranberry sauce, but an enormous stuffed turkey with mashed potatoes was sufficient to maintain the culinary tradition.
To further satiate our foreign holiday celebration, the dinner conversation was conducted in English. I shared with my colleagues an English story I’d heard the other day from one of my students, who is a pilot in Curitiba. He informed me that every pilot all over the world is now required to pass an English proficiency exam if he wishes to work on international flights.
To keep our staff grounded in Curitiba, CIE founder and publisher, Nelson Santos, and his wife provided a traditional Brazilian dessert. Even after eating a large plate of it, I couldn’t tell you what was in it except there was a lot of chocolate!
The Brazilians at the dinner asked about the term “Black Friday.” It was explained that as most people are not working on the Friday following Thanksgiving, stores in the US have chosen to capitalize on consumers’ free time and create large retail sales opportunities to encourage Americans to begin their Christmas shopping. In recent years, this shopping day after Thanksgiving has come to be known as Black Friday. A quick glance at Wikipedia also provided us with this: The term Black Friday began in Philadelphia to describe the heavy traffic congestion caused by so many people traveling on the same day. However, recently the term has come to refer to being “in the black” or turning a profit, for the many retailers who look forward to Black Friday as the busiest shopping day of the year. Some large retain chains like Walmart have taken to opening at 12:01 am on Thursday night, the first minute of Black Friday to satisfy eager shoppers. Other stores will open at absurd hours, like 4 am on Friday morning.
I recently returned from a visit to the US. Even though I wasn’t there on Black Friday, I felt it was my duty to go shopping in my home country and assist the ailing US economy. And I wasn’t alone in my eagerness to support the store owners of America. During my visit, the New York shops were crowded with foreign tourists from Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. They were obviously cashing in on the excellent exchange rate of euros for dollars.
When I visited Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center once stood, I watched the construction of the Freedom Tower, the skyscraper designed to replace the Twin Towers. The closest subway stop to this location is on the E train, and the map still names it as “World Trade Center.” Ground Zero is the term people used for the hole left by the fallen Towers, but I didn’t hear anyone using this term at the construction site.
Alongside the Freedom Tower, more skyscrapers are going up, which will include the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. I had mixed feelings seeing the bustle of construction workers, like ants busy with their collective duties. On the one hand, I was happy so many laborers and electricians and engineers were able to work when unemployment is still the biggest obstacle preventing a US economic recovery. On the other hand, there was a part of me that wondered if it was wise to build a replacement for the World Trade Center. The Freedom Tower, whose legal name is One World Trade Center, will be the tallest building in the US when it is completed in 2013. Perhaps the hole should remain empty as a symbol, a visual reminder to contemplate a history lesson?
Across the street from the construction site of the Freedom Tower is a different kind of symbol. This is a store called Century 21, one of New York’s largest stores, full of name-brand clothing, housewares, luggage, etc. The store is so big and the prices so low that when you enter, they provide you with a shopping cart like in a supermarket.
Brazilians go crazy for these clothing bargains, which is no surprise. My wife discovered not only more items than we could possibly afford, but also that the store was filled with Brazilians. She spent hours there on several visits shopping and chatting with other Brazilians. They talked about the Broadway shows they wanted to see, their visits to the Statue of Liberty, and of course the amazing prices.
Brazilians are in love with name brands, as they represent not only quality products but the ability to afford them. Thus, they cherish the idea of buying a Ralph Lauren shirt with its logo clearly displayed for everyone in Brazil to see. Americans are more discrete, preferring the logos hidden inside.
In the luggage department of Century 21, we met a Brazilian couple who were buying two identical suitcases by Calvin Klein. When my wife asked them why they wanted two, the woman replied she needed an extra suitcase to carry home all the new items she’d purchased. When her husband saw her beautiful new Calvin Klein suitcase cost only 90 dollars, he was envious and decided to buy one for himself. Even with paying an extra fee to the airlines, it was still cheaper than buying the luggage in Brazil.
My wife and I flew home on Delta Airlines from Newark to São Paulo, with a stopover in Atlanta, certainly one of America’s nicest airports. We generally fly to the US on TAM, but we couldn’t pass up the price savings on Delta. I noticed there were many Americans flying to Brazil on Delta, while the TAM flights are entirely filled with Brazilians. Even though the price was lower on Delta, I didn’t notice a great difference between Delta and TAM service, although the food is a little better on TAM.
We arrived back in Curitiba safe and sound, just one day before the fierce winds and rain of a hurricane struck, closing the New York airports. Naturally, the first thing we did when we arrived home was to unpack our bulging suitcases, which were just under the weight limit of 32 kilos. We were delighted our bags had traveled thousands of miles without being damaged or lost. Opening up our suitcases was like being a kid again on Christmas.
Just in case Brazilians are envious of our trip, I would remind them that not everything in the US is better. For example, American stores have yet to invent escalators that turn off when they’re not being used to save energy. Also, try finding a taxi driver in New York, known as a “cabby”, who will help you with your suitcases. In Brazil, the taxi drivers always assist passengers, lifting their heavy luggage into the trunk, and unlike American drivers, they never expect a tip.
It goes without saying that arriving back in Brazil, even without any shopping bundles, is something to be grateful for. There are many people in the world who do not have a quiet, safe home or sufficient food. This is the message of Thanksgiving — to give thanks for all our blessings, lest we take them for granted.
Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba. He can be contacted at rubin.brazil@gmail.com
[Photos by Raquel Bell (turkey) and the author (New York)]
