Yesterday afternoon, one of my friends invited a bunch of us to her house for Sukiyaki, a traditional Japanese dish her family makes every once in a while, owing tribute to her father’s  Japanese ascendance. This friend of mine is what we call here, mestiça. We use it to define someone’s race as “Brazilian,” and anything else “not-Brazilian.”

A fun fact about Brazil is that the country has the biggest Japanese population outside Japan. Japanese immigrants have been here for over 100 years, and the culture has been deeply infiltrated into a number of communities in the country. In São Paulo and other places where there are a lot of Japanese descendants (best sashimi I’ve ever had!), we have become used to some Japanese words and they’ve been infiltrated into our day-to-day as well just as words from European and African languages have!

Before you get upset at me teaching Japanese on a Portuguese blog, I’m going to teach you some words as they’re used in Brazil – so it’s almost as if it was Portuguese, and at least Brazilian culture!

– Nipo-Brasileiros / Nikkeis – Japanese descendents in Brazil

– Nisseis – 1st generation Japanese in Brazil

– Sanseis – 2nd generation Japanese in Brazil

– Hashi – chopsticks

– Yakisoba – similar to Chinese Chow Mein

– Gohan – sticky white rice

– Saquê – sake/i

– shoyu – soy sauce

– karatê – karate

– tatame – mat (like the ones you see at gyms!)

– moyashi  – sprouts

– banshá – green tea

– ofurô – hot tub

– tsuru – paper crane (in origami)