I wasn't born here (I was born in a former Portuguese colony in Western Africa), but have been living in Portugal (the home country of my parents) since 81.
Nice landscapes, nice people (in general, as everywhere else, there's the good and the bad), some good music too (as is the case with Dulce Pontes, the singer who sings the beautiful song on that video:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_Pontes ; the original song was from another Portuguese great singer, Amália Rodrigues:
), some good food, and in general nice weather.
But... (and there's always a "but"...) there's a whole lot of fundamental stuff that makes life quite hard for most people here...
Unemployment rates remain high (according to official numbers around 7%, but then again official data is IMO as credible as... "fake MSM news"... they don't count those having precarious jobs on their calculations, and there's a whole lot of people in such conditions), salaries are among the lowest in the EU, same for the minimum wage (600€, gross wage, in 2019), and the living costs are in many areas as high as for example in France (and in some cases, even higher, gasoline being for instance one of the most expensive in Europe), even thought in France the minimum gross wage is around 1.500€...
Yes, there's a social income, or Social Inclusion Income, that the Social Security provides for those in need, but it's less than 200€... Impossible to survive on that alone!
The country is (again, as before 1974) ruled by a small elite, be it in politics or in the financial sector (plenty of political Parties now, as opposed to before 1974, but in the end only two of them, always the same two, ever reach the power...) . Sure there's a new class of "new rich"/"middle class" that started after 1974 and has been growing since then, mainly in sales and new types of services (if successful in their businesses), but for the vast majority of the people, on paid employment, life is quite hard here...
Well, guess that the nice weather and the nice landscapes make it a nice place to live, especially when one is too old to immigrate (which a lot of younger Portuguese are still forced to do even today) ...
Cheers!
Dolf
