Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Tintin's visit to Brazil.

Tintin’s visit to Brazil.

Part A: Tintin’s arrival in the country and his first glance at the Brazilian culture.


On November 25th 2006, Tintin arrived in Brazil. After travelling for about twenty-three hours on a direct flight from Brussels, Tintin was exhausted and so was his good friend Snowy (he’s a dog!). Tintin arrived in the big city of Rio de Janeiro (state of Rio de Janeiro, same name as the city), a city populated by 6,136,652 inhabitants (the whole state has 15,383,407 inhabitants), and very famous for its beautiful, clear water, fine-white-sand beaches, yearly carnival parade and football. Upon arrival at the airport, Tintin saw so many different types of people that really made him think about the ethnic groups that the country has. Tintin decided that his trip to Brazil was going to be not only for pleasure and to see an old friend, but also a historical one; and he wanted to know all about Brazil and its people. That wouldn’t be difficult because Tintin had already learnt to read and write in Portuguese by correspondence.
Tintin had a Brazilian friend called Pedro, whom he met years ago (in 1997) in Brussels while Pedro was touring round Europe. The lads met for the first time at a library while both were doing some academic research. The lads immediately took to each other and became good friends; and since then, they had been corresponding. While visiting Rio, Tintin intended to stay with Pedro and his family in the suburb of Copacabana (a very famous place) which is surrounded by beautiful beaches, cafes, restaurants, night clubs, big expensive residential buildings and, of course, the shanty houses (slums) on the hillsides. As soon as they arrived in the borough of Copacabana, Tintin was shocked and astonished to see so much richness and poverty coming together in the same area.
Tintin asked: ‘Pedro, why are there so many shanty houses in this city?’
Pedro replied: ‘Because there are some very poor people here and the government doesn’t provide inexpensive accommodation for all of them; and because they can’t afford the expensive rent, they build their own houses somehow.’
Tintin thought the whole situation was very unfair but he didn’t understand it; after all, where he comes from there isn’t such poverty and such richness alongside each other. Tintin looked on the bright side of life and thought that once he’s there he’s going to learn about everything, good and not so good.
Although Tintin was very tired, he couldn’t wait to go out and about meeting people, talking, looking at the beach and getting to see the tourist places this big city has.
‘Well, what are we going to do after we meet your family, Pedro?’ asked Tintin.
After thinking for a few minutes Pedro said: ‘I think we should go round Copacabana for you to get familiar with the locals; and also for you to practise a little bit of Portuguese.’
‘Am I going to be all right with what I’m wearing, Pedro?’
‘Well, it’s hard to say, Tintin. The fact is: you do stand out with your blonde hair and blue eyes; and besides, your clothes are little bit different from what we wear here in Rio. Therefore, I think you’re better off changing into something that looks like our Brazilian style of clothing. And by the way, don’t wear any jewellery because it does attract thieves.’
‘Perhaps we should just go around the block today because it’s nearly dinner time and Mum has invited my grandparents for dinner; and they want to meet you.’
While the lads were getting ready to go out, Pedro’s mum started making a nice big dinner for the family - it is very common in this society to have a cooked meal at lunch time as well as dinner time.

15 comments:

Yasodhara said...

Hi everyone,
After struggling with the computer to post (because I have poor computer skills) the first part of my fanfiction, I finally succeeded; and it's there for everyone to read it.
Please, do comment on part A, so that I can improve part B upon your feedback.

Yasodhara said...

Hi everyone,
Sorry about not putting any pictures in the first part; but I am working on that. With good luck (I mean better computer skills) I shall have some lovely pictures in the second part of the fanfiction.

rebelde said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rebelde said...

Hi Yasodhara,
im also having difficulties wit my IT skills to post.I have read the first part of your fanfiction and I think in general is good but I would like to give a feedback on what may help to improve it if you think is worth to consider.
I think you should try to go more directly to the main issue, the central theme of the story considering the limited amount of words that the task require (1200 words)in order to really advance with the plot of the story and from there built up on the details and descriptions of the environment and characters and avoid facts.(number of inhabitants etc.)
I hope this comment can be productive for you. I am about to post the first part of my fanfiction.
Could you please give me a feed back for it ?

Yasodhara said...

Hi everyone,
Thanks for your feedback, Rebelde.
I shall try my best to improve the second part, by going straight to the central theme. I just thought it would be interesting to describe the city a little bit.

Ashleigh L said...

Hi Yasodhara,
I enjoyed reading your part A of your fanficiton. I found it very intreging adn can't wait to read more of it. But I also must agree with Rebelde about getting more straight to the central theme of your fanfiction. Although it is interesting to know other facts about the countries etc and how "it is very common in this society to have a cooked meal at lunch time as well as dinner time". This really has need to be added because the readers are more interested in what Tintin is doing in Brazil and the interesting thigns he will be getting up too. With the short limit of words we hve to write our fanfiction, these things like the inhabitants etc do not need to be included, I feel they have no relevance to be included in the story. This is just what I have discovered when reading through your fanfiction. Other than that I think it is very brilliant and cannot wait to see what Tintin gets up to in Brazil next!

Yasodhara said...

Hi everyone,
Thanks for your feedback, Ashleigh.
I realise now that I was not very creative in making those comments. However, one can only learn by getting it wrong, and then, trying to correct it. So, I must start doing some corrections.
I have to point out though, that I am not a very creative person (not very imaginative if you like). So help me God!

Ashleigh L said...

Thats cool, this whole thing is kind of a trial and error like me needing to look more closely at my grammar etc.

Yasodhara said...

Hi everyone,
Please, can somebody give me feedback on today's class?
I'm not going to be in class today because I'll be at Auckland Airport to pick up my brother.
Thanks.

rebelde said...

Hi Yasodhara,
Yesterday, October 11th, we were watching another episode of Buffy so, if you have seen Buffy already and you know what is all about, you did not missed much.

Yasodhara said...

Hi Rebelde,
Thanks a lot for your feedback on last class. I never watch Buffy at home; the first time I watched it was in class two weeks ago. I didn't mind watching it because it was something new to me. But I much preper to watch The Sopranos and Outrageous Fortune, as both deal with real-life facts.

Yasodhara said...

Sorry, I meant prefer.

Yasodhara said...

Hi everyone,
Can somebody tell me what I have to do to remove the first part of my fanfiction story off the screen? I am ready to post the whole story now.
Please, help me.

Seung Hee said...

Hello :) sorry for the late feedback !! I was not in a good condition recently-

anyway, I have read your fan fiction story..and I think its fantastic-First of all. I like the way how you use Tintin.( he's my fav character ) and also the use of descriptive words and how you have structured your sentences in a simple way which makes easy to understand. I love the way how you have introduced some of the brazil culture into the story that provokes the reader's interest!

Yasodhara-
It would be more nice if you put more of the dialogues!! ^^ that's all from me thanks~~~~!

Yasodhara said...

Hi everyone,
Thanks for your feedback, Seung Hee. I shall try to put more dialogues into my fanfiction story and make it more interesting.
It's good to hear from you.
How have you been?
Are you feeling better?