No Please, No Thank You

It was Gulshan, for dinner.  ‘Do you enjoy living in the East?’ the Australian woman said, her first words to me on that evening, with enough vitriol in her tone to strip rust from a pole.  Why the bitterness?  I was confused.  I rarely think of East and West: and if I did, East might mean Russia or China, not Bangladesh.  Bangladesh is a South Asian nation but mostly I think of it as: Bangladesh.  It requires no reference point.

My Bangladeshi friend Situ was there, thankfully, and in the short conversation that followed she made mention of how she cannot tell the difference between Bangladeshis, Indians and Pakistanis, which might be alright if she didn’t work with these communities in Sydney.  She challenged my saying that Bangladesh was not India and required Situ to attest the fact the two countries actually differ.  And when I suggested Bangladeshis might be flashier in style than at least their Paschimbangan counterparts, she indicated Situ and said ‘I don’t see any gold anywhere!’  She’d been in Bangladesh for less than twenty-four hours.  It was her first visit.

She spoke of her trip, maybe a week, to a village in Western Ukraine.  The scene was of poverty, despair and people who didn’t know how to fix the village water pump.  They had kitchens smaller than her Australian bathroom.  ‘The country’s been ruined!’ she declared, ‘It will never recover.’ Then she almost spat out the word ‘Russians!’  I might not mention such unfortunate inanities except that she was certain her pending visit to a village in Jessore would be identical.  ‘I already know what it’s going to be like.’ 

For an Australian, a visit to a Bangladeshi village is a significant opportunity to learn, not only of Bangladesh but of oneself.  It seemed a shame that such a great opportunity might be lost before it began.

Fortunately we didn’t have to stay.  As we left she was busily telling a young Bangladeshi girl, maybe six years old, ‘In English we say please and thank you!’  She wanted to force the girl to say ‘please’ before handing her a candy.  There was some irony in her instructing on manners and it made me wonder if I had ever been so culturally judgemental. 

The young girl didn’t know what to do.  I wanted to say, ‘Look, it’s there, her ‘please’ is in her expression.  It’s in her shyness which means respect.’  I wanted to say, ‘Leave her alone!’ or ‘How about you learn some Bangla?’  But there was no point.

Reality: if an English-speaker sits at a Norwegian dinner table they’re likely to be shocked.  ‘Pass the salt!’ they’ll say, a little too directly.  On the Norwegian street, passers by stare, while in Sydney it’s usual if you catch a stranger’s eye to look away or smile.  The difference was significant enough that when I first went to Oslo at age eighteen the street staring used to have me scanning my clothes to see if there was something odd.  T-shirt is back to front?

Yet within days I’d learnt that Norwegian phrase takk for maten, ‘thanks for the food,’ to be said after every meal.  I learnt takk for sist, which means ‘thanks for the last time we met,’ and can be said on re-meeting someone.  In Australia there are not similar customs or not in the same way.

Reality: if an English-speaker goes to Iran it’s the locals who might be shocked.  You can’t just say salaam to greet someone; it needs to be a slightly sung, full-hearted salaaaam! to matter.  There might need to be a kiss on each cheek.  Farsi has several phrases for ‘how are you?’  It might be insufficient to use only one; and there are three versions of ‘thank you’, often strung together and with a ‘very much’ thrown in. 

There were other unique systems: Iranians will seat the most important guest furthest from the door and all things should be offered three times and twice refused before being accepted on the third offer, which is the genuine one.  More informally I remember scenes of Iranians passing handfuls of sunflower seeds down the intercity bus, row by row, passenger by passenger, until it reached the foreign guests!  When it comes to the verbal ‘thank you’ alone, Iranians leave English-speakers for dust.

Reality: in Thailand there’s the system of wai-s.  A wai involves palms together and shows differing levels of respect, dependent upon where the fingertips are placed.  A wai above the head is for Buddha or the royal family.  Fingertips that are positioned under the nose are appropriate for elders, under the chin for friends and below the chin for children.  Mere words are not required.

Reality: Bangladeshis are mostly polite, especially in the village; and it might sound strange but I used to wonder how they managed it since there is a deficit of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to an English-speaker’s ears.  It’s because in terms of sophistication, Bengalis leave English-speakers for dust.

Think about all the gestures the foreigner must learn.  There’s the ‘sorry’ pat on the shoulder if you accidentally bump someone in a crowd.  There’s the ‘even sorrier’ arm stroking, often favoured with friends or creditors.  There’s the perhaps old-fashioned ‘very sorry,’ displayed by sticking the tongue out, tugging on ear lobes and doing squats; and I once saw the ‘extremely sorry’ of hitting one’s cheeks with one’s own shoes! 

There’s the sharing a cup of tea to end a dispute and the process of village mediations that must go back for thousands of years.  We can show respect by offering or taking things with both hands.  Splitting bills, as is common in the west, is out of the question and within many a Bangladeshi family the concept of sharing property like clothes or jewellery is taken for granted. 

Think about the degrees of ‘you’ that no longer exist in English.  In place of every aapni, imagine if you put a ‘please’: how much more prolific they would be than in an ordinary English sentence, because aapni is there in every verb.  Tumi and tui may also have politeness when they indicate closeness or caring.

Think about the greetings.  It took me time to properly understand how all the villagers saying assalamu alaikum or namaskar were not simply saying ‘hello’ or ‘good morning.’  Walaikum salam, I could happily respond, without having a clue as to the respect present within the exchange. 

Years ago, it was common after a handshake to put your hand to the heart; and there’s the hand-to-mouth-then-heart gesture if your foot accidentally touches someone, the gesture that makes the villagers laugh when I do it because I’ve added a little signature flick to the end of mine.  Beyond that, there are indescribable smaller gestures, a look in the eyes or a smile of delight: nobody seems to do these things the way Bengalis do.  And let’s not even get started on the jamai, the son-in-law!  These ways of expressing politeness, caring and consideration are harder to fake than the verbal version.

Unfortunately, telling that girl to say ‘please’ is not a neutral act.  It is a cultural imposition that sets the English-speaker’s way as the standard to live up to and be judged by.  Let’s not do that anymore.  This is the twenty-first century and we tried that last century. 

The girl can be polite in the very many local ways available and if she wants to attend English class or go to Australia later, let her learn the petty forms of politeness then: it’s easy to adjust to the Toyota model if you’ve been taught to drive the Mercedes.

It’s understandable the Australian woman didn’t know these things.  What’s sad and embarrassing for another Australian is that she couldn’t imagine she didn’t know.  Then again, she didn’t know the Cold War ended either.

In these heady days of a nationwide reaffirmation of what it means to be Bangladeshi, there’s this minor matter I’d like to throw into the pan: Bangladeshi manners.  I’m busy trying to reduce my use of dhonnobhad, the verbal thank you.  I want to drive the Mercedes!

It's not only about manners of course, but different ways of thinking, perhaps what a culture sounds like, or even perceptions of paradise. 



This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: No Please No Thank You














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Russian Intelligence in Bengal

Mughal Painting, a Girl with a Parrot, from around 1580 (image from wikipedia)

‘How do they do it?’ I’d often wondered, back in the village in Hatiya, when villagers regularly seemed to know exactly what I felt whether I wished it or not. In the days when the heat was strong, without the benefit of even a fan to temper it, when homesick or down, annoyed or happy; when I’d try to do the Australian thing and push emotions deep inside so that, well I thought, there was not the smallest ripple left on the surface of my face, they knew. ‘They can see straight into your soul,’ I used to say, and it was true the day my aunt died in Australia and I’d wanted to ride for many kilometres on a rickshaw without purpose. On reaching the main town, the driver, who is my friend, took me to a restaurant instead, and though in those days, 1999, we could barely talk to each other, he ordered mango juice and muglai paratha, a fried egg dish, and things seemed a little better after that, as he rode home again instead of continuing to the ghat as I’d wanted and he’d refused!

I’d seen it with other people too. In those days when a boro lok, an important person, would wander into the tea shop the locals used to, out of politeness, get out of their seats and move to the back so the important person could sit front and centre. Often the local politician or businessman or whoever it was, even someone they’d never met before, would address the whole shop, and as long as what they said was sensible, more importantly caring, there was no problem. But, as sometimes happened, if they spoke nonsense or spent the time big-noting themselves, then while the locals would listen patiently, when the person left and was out of earshot, they’d say what they actually thought. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was pretty accurate.

The villagers, whether or not they’d been to school, had read widely, could read at all, had something. ‘Is there a loss when our lives are removed from the natural world around us?’ I used to wonder; and I don’t suppose I could say, but when they said someone was a ‘boro moner manush’ a big hearted person, one who was honest, good to spend time with, generous and compassionate, someone who would help the poor and disadvantaged, it was quite likely the biggest compliment they could give. It’s what was valued. There’s a kind of highly-developed Bangladeshi village intelligence and at its centre is the heart.

Wall painting of Nefertari (image from wikipedia)

Perhaps the Ancient Egyptians, something I learnt at university, would have fit in, in the village: they believed the seat of human intelligence was not in the brain but the heart. After death, in preparation for burial, Egyptian embalmers chiselled through the nose bone and using long, iron hooks and spoons, scooped out the brain, to be discarded as waste. Organs considered important were preserved and stored in Canopic jars for burial with the mummy; the most important organ, usually left inside the corpse, was the heart.

The emotional intelligence of the village, not to the exclusion of other intelligence but so well-developed, is striking. It’s not something I’d seen before.

Soon enough I’d be back on the plane; soon enough I’d be facing the yawn of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the impressive sheen of the Opera House in a land dominated by cerebral intelligence. Were people in modern Australia embalmed after death, there can be little doubt those iron hooks and spoons would be turned on the heart, with all reverence reserved for the brain.

According to the concept of Australian intelligence, what matters most when valuing thoughts are position in life and the completion of formal education, for such things are simplified to equate to cerebral intelligence. Thoughts and ideas need a pedigree; they hold employment positions and graduate from tertiary educational institutions together with their thinkers. In educated circles, the weight of a person’s words and belief are measured almost exclusively along the logic lines of rationality. Words like ‘logical’ and ‘reasonable’ become synonyms for ‘good’, though they have no such meaning.

Emotions are easy to hide in Australia, everyone does it, and it’s quite liberating to be able to show, most of the time, just the image you want. Emotions are private, and a weakness; so supposing someone breaks down at a party, for whatever reason, they will certainly be led away to another room where their emotions can run in the company of no more than a few closest friends, while the party continues unaffected. Emotions are embarrassing gatecrashers at a public occasion; what in the Bangladeshi village is collectively embraced.

My Harvest Home, by Australian artist John Glover, 1835 (image from wikipedia)

The problem of ignoring the heart is that the ability to understand the human condition is altogether less; psychology is so underdeveloped it offers no meaningful substitute. With the simple lines of logic unrestricted, it’s easy to justify the unconscionable, such as Australia’s infamous treatment of asylum seekers over the years, or the massive loss of civil liberties that hangs from September 11. Australians who object to such things are easily dismissed as ‘bleeding heart liberals’, for the heart has no relevance.

Intellectual cerebral intelligence is compact and neat; it’s a straightforward system: add a few brush strokes of logic and all is fine, because there is no morality, no values and no vision; being free from these things is considered its virtue. It is after all a matter of simple science, and who could argue with that?

In educated Sydney circles, the biggest compliment might be ‘he or she is brilliant!’ which means they have a responsible job and the airs of someone with a few qualifications to their name.

And for me that would be about the extent of things but for a simple kitchen in a small Soviet-built apartment in eastern Ukraine, in the city where I was lucky enough to live in 2002. We used to sit there in that kitchen, my Ukrainian friend and I, with the constant companionship of delicious Ukrainian food and discussions, often heated, that could stretch from early evening until morning. My Ukrainian friend was as eager to know what someone from the other side of the world thought of well, everything, as I was.

One day she said she was having trouble with the English concept of intelligence, asking if it was solely cerebral. It took me by surprise, even after the Bangladeshi village, having never before properly questioned it.

She explained that in Russian, the language of that city, the noun ‘intelligent’, also to be found in Ukrainian as ‘inteligent’, meant someone who was not only good with their brain, but also possessed a certain refinement, a certain decency in their behaviour towards others; a respect towards not only other people, but all creatures. A type of intelligence with incorporated moral values is what she described.

According to the internet, the Russian intelligent is an educated person who comes from any class or background, with the term itself stressing democratic principles, thus making no distinction on the bases of class, gender or race. The term includes an ability to be flexible and self-sufficient, with a consciousness to the needs of others and a willingness to meet those needs; and a penchant to be truthful to one’s opinions and moral principles in meeting everyday life challenges. As a result of these qualities, the Russian intelligent often finds him or herself in opposition to autocratic government, and undertakes activities to help achieve enlightenment, education and the protection of human rights. In other words, compared to Australian norms, the Russian version of intelligence is an altogether bigger thing.

It is from the Russian indeed that English has adopted the term intelligentsia, but in English it is not really engendered with the full range of qualities outlined above.

In the House of Artistic Creation of Old Ladoga, by Russian artist Vsevolod Bazhenov, 1977  (wikimedia image)

So is it a matter of Russian intelligence in Bengal? Well, yes and no; Bengali intelligence is undoubtedly a unique creature, and a multifaceted one. In Dhaka in particular the intellectual cerebral intelligence has its sway, where formal education counts for a lot, where it’s well-documented how much emphasis parents place on the academic schooling achievements of their children.

But like the Russian version there is behaviour in it too; think of the bhadralok or gentlemen, a word that in Bengali combines a high education with gentility in behaviour, unlike the English translation with its greater emphasis on etiquette than education. Or is Bengali intelligence of the village, including the emotional intelligence that could easily be dismissed as something less in Sydney, as instinct or intuition, because there it is something less?

It may be that Bengal intelligence, uniquely, has a spiritual component. It’s not the ‘he does namaz or prayer five times a day so he is a good person, intelligent etc.’ Rather, perhaps something deeper, stemming from prayer or religious practice, regardless of the religion.

I don’t have a definitive answer, but in considering what ‘intelligence’ means in Bengali culture, one thing is clear. It cannot be wholly cerebral; else there would be no respect for Lalon Shah, and Nazrul Islam as national poet would be unlikely, given his lack of a formal ‘cerebral’ education; indeed in Australia there are no such icons attracting that kind of adoration. In Bengal there is something more.

The brain alone can delude as well as enlighten. In denying the contradictions and complexities of emotion and human tradition, well it’s not even that the answers are wrong; it’s that sometimes the questions are not even the ones worth asking.

Chimpanzee brain image (from wikipedia)

It's also worth considering if life isn't about a salt lake in Cyprus, a pretty river in China, or even an over-sized wheel.  Just saying.


This article is also published by Star Magazine, here: Russian Intelligence in Bengal










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