A while back I came across [this tweet](https://twitter.com/CronicasTxt/status/1446513458720215043), which I found rather interesting. Reading through *The Culture Map* by Erin Meyer, I got the opposite impression: that Portugal, like other Latin countries, relies on implicit communication ([her first parametre](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-culture-map-8-scales-for-work-2015-1)), which would imply that kind of interaction would not happen, because the norms are similar.
Is Meyer wrong about this? Or maybe the scenario in the tweet is mostly a regional thing?
…And while we’re at it, where would you say Portugal be on the axes described in the article?
**EDIT:** To clarify, I’ve never even been to either country.
9 comments
I don’t know what you’re on about, but the usual answer to that question is telling you where the product is in the store.
You’re absolutely right. The tweet can be a joke, referring to a particular difference in humour – though the ending deflects it a bit. Portuguese humour tends to be more cynical, hence you’d see a whole lot more of these somewhat British jokes.
Edit: reading it again, I don’t think that tweet can be saved. it’s just some kind of jab or plain incompetent.
The first and most important thing you should know is that what Brazilians write about Portugal, or the Portuguese, are 99% worthless sheat, including that tweet.
Portugal would be quite near Spain on all the axis.
I do not think you can use that tweet for evaluating business cultural norms. That seems more an invented story of a reality: the literalist humor. The waiter or dad humor.
You also have to be careful when it is stories between the encounter of Brazilian and Portuguese culture. I am not sure Portuguese are direct, but they are direct when compared with Brazilians. And what is efficient communication for a Portuguese is rudeness to a Brazilian and what is lovely informality to a Brazilian is rudeness to a Portuguese.
Brazilians don’t understand Portuguese humour and when we joke they believe we are being serious.
Ignore 99% of what Brazilians say about Portugal, especially on the Internet. The vast majority of it is made-up shit.
Hum.. Brazilians tend to tell a lot of anecdotal experiences that happen in Portugal that make it sound like the Portuguese are very literal, when it’s rarely the case. Those stories are usually made up, or are deadpan humour or dad jokes.
There’s this chat between a Portuguese and a Brazilian comedians (Ricardo Araújo Pereira and Gregório Duviver) that has a good example of this. Gregório talks about how when spending a week at a hotel in Portugal, he wanted to extend his stay for an additional week, but the hotel was already fully booked. On the checkout day, the reception called him and asked if he was planning on staying longer. He asks “Can I stay longer?” and the answer is “No”. Gregório tells the story as if the receptionist was joking or teasing him. I interpreted it as he being a bit late for checkout and the receptionist trying to tell him that a bit more indirectly/jokingly.
Which one of us guessed the receptionist’s intentions, that I don’t know. But I don’t think Portuguese people are very literal, we usually tend to rely on cues for politeness reasons.
Just don’t believe them. Ever.
Due to cultural differences, sometimes certain Brazilians come up to us without using pleasantries, so we answer somewhat sarcastically. I know if I got asked “moça, tem horas?” just like that, I would answer “tenho sim”