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
Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh
Norwegian Light: Article Index for articles about Norway
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
Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh
Norwegian Light: Article Index for articles about Norway
