someone asked me about it, publicly: brazilian etiquette
i think the most important thing to remember is that, GENERALLY SPEAKING, brazilians are much warmer, much more social and much more spontaneous than north americans and europeans. of course, these are only my impressions. so:
1. the usual western standards regarding personal space and physical contact don't apply. if you don't like being touched or hugged or kissed (on the cheek, mostly - wink), you will have a problem. if you typically like to have a larger personal space between you and others, you will have a problem.
2. if you're open to it, when you leave your place of residence in the morning you could end up anywhere by the end of the day. along the way during your day you will run into acquaintances or even strangers (be VERY careful with the strangers, btw) who invite you for a drink, for dinner, to go to a gathering or party, to the beach, and so on and so forth. and they won't take "no" for an answer, so either go with it, learn how to say "no" firmly without seeming rude, or do what most brazilians do and say "yes", regardless of whether or not you think you will actually follow through.
3. i love being spontaneous, but in some situations the flip side of that can look to a northern american or european like what we would call ... unreliability? irresponsibility? once you've made plans, don't expect people to always be on time and don't even expect them to always show up or follow through. it almost always means simply that something else came up to which they decided they needed to attend first or instead, and is not meant to be a negative reflection on you or on them.
Note: please, no complaints or insults from people from anywhere in the world who may disagree with me: i did purposely say - in all caps, "GENERALLY SPEAKING" - and i also said that these were merely my impressions!
