Ok, I admitt: I am a soap opera junkie, a "novela" addict. I have been following soaps all my life as long as I can remember. When living in Brazil, I followed the novelas religiously, Monday thru Saturday, especially the one that came at 8:30pm.

The Brazilian novelas are different from the American soaps. They do not last long. The ones I watched, from the Globo channel, divided the themes back then.

The one at 2pm was a re-run, at 6pm was a historical soap (from the Brazilian colonial times when slavery took place and Portugal ruled Brazil) and at 7pm was more of a hip, youth theme and at 8:30pm were for adult and mature audiences because of its social themes.

Once my family moved me to Egypt, I started following the shorter Egyptian soaps (mussalsalat), which usually lasted a month at the most and also I was introduced to the American soap operas, precisely "The Bold and the Beautiful" which came after 9pm for only 30 minutes.

American soaps are immortal. The stories go on and on as well as the actors. The Bold and the Beautiful became a huge success in Egypt in 1992-1993, so much that the main actors came to Egypt to meet their fans at a reception by the Pyramids, and even do some commercials for Egyptian beauty and health products.

As teenagers, to watch it was the cool thing to do and my father as well as many fathers, hated it. The soap was eventually dropped once the beautiful character "Brooke" started getting involved with every man in the same family...go figure!

Nowadays, I can follow all my Brazilian, American and Egyptian soaps/novelas thanks to cable. I noticed a key difference between them: American soaps are mostly about wealthy families, people that come back from the dead and that mostly everyone gets acquitted in court. Basically, a escape from reality.

Brazilian novelas have mixed themes. They are actually filmed on location, in homes or outside studios. They explore social issues, history, taboo, and even social myths for fun.

One of my favorites is "O Clone" which was partially filmed in Morroco. It was about a story of an Arab girl that lived in Brazil, but later taken back to the parent's country of origin to get married. It felt real too.

Too close to reality are the Egyptian soaps. Most of them have a dramatic tone, not a "feel good" type of endings or themes. They are realistic and filmed in actual Egyptian homes or buildings or outside locations too. And many times, its endings leave us hanging.

What I like about Egyptian soaps is the social themes they cover: multiple wives, marriage of second wives without telling the first, the Israeli-Egyptian war and terrorism. It talks about how radicals take over mosques and affects families and how its teachings does not make sense.

The one thing you will not see in Egyptian soaps is kissing with second intentions or anything of that sort, but you will see guys kissing each other on the cheeks when they meet or a respected man wanting to get married with a belly dancer
:-P LOL.

One thing I wish, as a gesture of good-will, if Arab channels were available to the American public for free to watch and vice-versa so that both would see what it is being presented or discussed.

In the meantime, let me go catch my Brazilian novela, "Paraiso Tropical" (tropical paradise) which is set in Rio de Janeiro.

Tchauzinho!