The Brazilian football club Santos can currently be seen in an ad for, well, we really don’t know (something about their match with the Japanese football team) but we do know some would label the ad less than kind to those of Asian descent. In the ad, team members can be seen doing that thing you do with your fingers to make your eyes squint, an action deemed humorous decades ago but, today is, rightfully, seen, at least in America, as rude and, some would say, racist.
However, as some commenters on YouTube have bluntly pointed out (“fuck you American idiots”), in Brazil, this maneuver is not racist, rather it’s a sign of affection for the Japanese. Every culture has it’s own rules when it comes to this sort of thing and applying one set of rules globally isn’t always the correct way to go.
If any Brazilian or Japanese readers would like to shed additional light on this, we’d love to have your input.
