Capão is a hippie settlement at the border of the Chapada Diamantina National Park, 400 kilometers west of Salvador, Brazil. Hippies cohabit with the indigenous population and the tourists, but the overall tone is definitely flower childish. That’s where I met this French guy in his 50s. He made a little fortune in France during the Internet boom—something with porn keywords and Google indexing—so much so that he didn’t had to work for the next 15 years. We had a little chat where he explained me a bit the population of Capão. He pretended to have had a high managerial role in a big publishing company, and I could recognize traits of this breed of people in the way he was trying to stay intellectually alert. But the board room was 15 years away, and he found it hard to stay structured without the stimulation of the work environment.
He explained me that there was other foreigners living there, in the middle of nowhere. He pointed out that often they had an interesting life. “bien sur il y a des losers aussi” (of course there are losers as well) he added.
We use the word loser in French, a way to adopt the American archetype. We don’t do the loser hand gesture (extending the thumb and index fingers ) yet, maybe because France doesn’t have the same relationship with winners and losers. Our diagonal of success would be more between the pigeon and the grugeur.
Gruger in French means something between “to cheat” and “to exploit flaws in the system”. It’s often seen as trivial in France. For instance, cutting a queue without anybody noticing or by pretending knowing someone in the line , is a gruge, and all the other standing in the queue a bit longer because of you, are the pigeons. We often say: “La gruge est un sport national” (cheating is a national sport).
I have to say that not every French will do that. Most will be annoyed by that behavior. Nor will I pretend that French are the only one doing it, but the chances of this happening are definitely higher than in neighboring countries like England, Switzerland or Germany. I am only using this example to explain the concept of gruge. An other one will be to use the same bus ticket twice if you can. (Apparently in Australia that’s how you can distinguish a French tourist, I’ll go and check by myself).
The only problem I had so far to get my seat on a bus, was with a French tourist, who explained me he did not wanted to be the pigeon by being the one left without seat. I think that this fear of been a pigeon is not universal. Of course we prefer to have a seat rather than not. But I’m not sure the specific sociological category of the pigeon translate easily in other cultures. I would need to investigate more to back this affirmation. Still, there is in French an other bird we don’t want to be. And that is le dindon de la farce, which would translate by something like “the turkey of the joke”, or “the turkey of the stuffing”. You cant translate it literally, but what it means is the same: to be the pigeon.
So, as you can see, we French, really don’t want to be a bird. Maybe better to be a loser than a pigeon.
I was under the impression that this guy was a grugeur. But those notions of grugeur, loser, winner and pigeon, seemed to have little relevance in this place. Half of the village are hippies, and the indigenous Brazilians really did not seems to be overambitious, just enjoying the moment, Brazilian style. No chance here to feel a loser because you don’t have the latest Ferrari.
According to locals, Capão 10 years ago was paradise on earth, and it’s not hard to imagine: it’s still a very relaxing place to be, to say the least. Maybe it’s slowly being spoiled with judgmental values imported from overseas, like the myth of the winner. Or is it the obnoxious arrogance of the Brazilians nouveau riche, the winners of Brazil economic success? They have not really invaded the place yet, because hiking in the valley is not like playing golf. But our French friend have a plan to help them spend their money. Capão’s days are numbered. No Ferraris, but expensive 4X4 are showing up… But for now here is a photo of downtown Capão and your funky mean of locomotion to the nerest town, you loser…
