I have an 8 hour lay-over in Hong Kong, and SAMSUNG has free terminals set up, so I figured I would blog a bit about Bangladesh. I’m not too excited about blogging about this, as I want to put the experience behind me (my issues are less with Bangladesh than my family BTW, so no offense to citizens of the land of my birth), but I suspect some readers might find my observations more amusing than I do, as they did not have to live through the mega-city that is Dhaka, as well as the pressures and demands of my extended family. I will have some longer posts where I examine my perception of Dhaka society and culture through some of the lenses that we use on this blog from time to time. For example, I wonder if “arranged marriage” might be analyzed as “group selection” (that is, extended families making decisions that might be detrimental to the fitness of individuals for familial gain, and so enhance the fitness of the extended family-for example, one of my cousins who has a master’s in math and is rather attractive is married to a man who didn’t complete his college education and is a bit feckless [though rather nice!], but his father is an arms dealer and he comes from a very prominent family [his maternal uncle was one of the most important filmakers of the Pakistan era and was the victim of a targetted killing during the 1971 war], so it was good for the family, and theoretically her, though she has no children and is 35….).
Below are some disjointed impressions.
Caveat, I viewed Dhaka society from an extremely sample biased vantage. A distant relative of mine who is a development economist told me that 15% of Bangladeshis are functionally literate. That is, they would be able to read a newspaper. On the other hand, I would estimate that about 80% of my relatives (going out 2-3 generations removed) in my age cohort have university degrees, or, are enrolled in university (I suspect there is some credential inflation with the proliferation of private “universities” in Bangladesh, but that’s for another post, and most of my relatives seem to be associated with Dhaka University or some of the older educational institutions in any case).
“Fast Food” isn’t that fast.There is a strong covariance of light skin (olive to light brown) and fatness among women over the age of 30 (the correlation between wealth and light skin color surely accounts for this).Lots of weird trademark infringement. We went to “Dominous Pizza” (yes, that’s how they spell it!)There are many white brown people in the media (that is, South Asians whose coloration is olive or lighter). This includes Hindi film and television (I watched my first Hindi films, basically lush B-movies with a lot of cliched “dance offs”).There are plenty of ostentatious displays of virtue……in concert with an almost bestial treatment of social “inferiors.”Hindus are invisible, there is no “Hindu quarter,” and they look the same as the majority of Muslims (obviously phenotypically similar, but they basically dress the same too, though a few Hindu women walk around with that red streak on their forhead).A minority of Muslims sport the “pious look.” Using skin color as a proxy for SES status (as well as shoes and dress), I suspect there is a pretty strong correlation between the “pious look” and non-deprived economic status. That is, it takes some cash to keep your woman in purdah, wear the clean white pajamas and not let your beard get flea infested in hot muggy Bangladesh.I wore a face mask the whole time when outside. Scared the shit out of a lot of kids that looked homeless. I’m shocked more people in Dhaka don’t wear face masks. Some of the “pious” would smile and nod in my direction when they saw my face-mask, I think was part of their pretension of cleanliness (their problem in my estimation is that they value cleanliness as it is encouraged in the Koran & Hadiths, which means they often neglect new developments in germ theory since the 17th century!).People are as ignorant as the stereotypes might suggest in this rather developing nation (yes, there are fish and mangos in the United States!).The pious of my family are rather moderate in their opinions of the United States (to my surprise). Though they object to much of American culture, my most religious uncle (who is rather high up in a lay religious order that focuses on reforming personal conduct, etc.), asserted that in the United States it is the easiest to be a good Muslim if you so choose of all countries in the world.My other uncle who is an imam (one of the most common professions in my family historically, if readers find that amusing in light of my sometimes abrasive secularity) would like to find a place in an American mosque. His problem is that he won’t lie on his visa application, so he’s basically screwed in competition with all the dishonest “imams” who get some type of visiting or religious visa and try to find a job at a mosque once they come to the states.On the issue of religion, I found that in some ways my extremely religious uncles were most open to acceptance of dissent from conventions of Bangladeshi society. Example: they seem most willing to object to forcing a marriage between two people that don’t know each other well (that is, they’ve talked for 15 minutes) and don’t seem appropriate on the individual level (keep in mind the caveat above, my uncles are no illiterate fundamentalists, one is a geology professor, the other has an advanced degree in Islamic Studies) no matter the benefit to the family (that is, in some ways, they are the most open to individualism, so long as it operates within the bounds of shariah, they believe in something that trumps family!).The most anti-US individual was a law professor of Leftish sympathies who subjected my video-game-preoccupied-apolitical-12-year-old-brother to a rant about how evil Americans were in their support of Israel.I suspect that the mean height for men in Bangladesh might be about 5’4, but the distribution is influenced by differential nutritional inputs (read: “norms of reaction”).There was less shit in evidence than the last time I visited 15 years ago. That is, fewer open sewers.More people, more traffic, and more dust.Many internet cafes.Extremely close and supportive families in congress with an acceptance of no attempt at public spirit (though they complain about the lack of patriotism) and the resultant public squalor and corruption that comes along with that. That is, apartments and homes might be immaculate (75% of my relatives seem to have “working women,” a literal translation, to allay the drudgery of housework for the wives), but they have no problem with dumping their garbage out the window. The lack of trash-cans was pretty infuriating as I reflexively took to stuffing garbage in my pockets before someone told me to chuck it out the window.Everyone who has a car (and this seems to be about half my relatives, though some of my relatives who are more well off have several cars, so it might average out to 1 per family) has a driver because the situation on the streets is rather close to an anarchist exercise. “Lanes” exist in theory, and lights are usually non-functioning. We almost killed pedestrians several times from what I saw. But there are many people in Bangladesh….Fashion seems about 20 years behind the United States (big poofy hair-styles from Indian films are the norm).Young girls often shave their hair to a crew cut. Later, they grow it out. Portion size in restaurants is 50 years behind the United States.When I went to pray at mosque (don’t ask) I, at 5’8, estimated that it was 20-30 congregants before I saw someone’s head level who equalled or surpassed mine (you stand in a long line shoulder to shoulder, so it’s easy to judge height). So I would estimate I’m in the top 5% in Bangladesh. This is good when pushing my way through crowded streets, as chucking short people out of the way is really really easy. I envy the tall now even more than I did before.Bangladeshi women like tall men. I wonder if there was a high fitness cost to l
arge size in Bangladesh before the modern era. If so, it didn’t result in sexual selection.My 12 year brother accused my aunt of being racist because she was dissing on a dark-skinned acquaintance (for being attractive, but marred by her dark skin, my aunt by the way is one of the light skinned female fatties that seem to dominate the social world over there-the president is another example). He also asked why a salon that had a painting of Bengali women doing each other’s hair (they were dressed in saris, had black hair, and that little red dot on their foreheads) showed them having pink skin, as few non-albino or vitilligoed Bengalis display this phenotype. I just told him that they wished their asses were a little bit white.Speaking of chubby, I saw some semi-nude postings in major intersections of fat yellow women (yellow-skinned). Though Indian movies with their relatively thin women are popular, the native Bangladeshi media still tends toward fat (to my eye).Bangladesh is a country of chauvanistic Muslims, but, it is not really an Islamic country (more on this later).The government doesn’t seem to censor pirated DVDs, and Dhaka has some pretty open porn stalls (read about them in the English language daily, the police get paid off by “free rentals”).There are licensed brothels. And 70% of rickshaw drivers visit sex workers (according to that paper, The Daily Star).A lot of people seem to have gone to Japan, and come back (I thought Japan didn’t take guest workers? People do mention robots a lot though after they come back).A lot of people have gone to Europe and the Gulf to work. A lot of people work in the garment industry.Because of the above, poverty is a lot less in-your-face than 15 years ago.My uncle the poor imam said that it had gotten so bad that everyone had to recruit working women from outlying districts, there just weren’t as many takers up on the offer of doing drudgery for a pittance in exchange for being verbally abused and dehumanized on a regular basis.One of my uncles is an Awami League candidate (one of the two corrupt clone parties). Because of this, I’m going to switch names of people so no one can track this blog back to him (when I post longer pieces). Of his six brothers, he was the only one who didn’t go to college immediately after finishing his secondary work, but he is now something of a “big man.” It was kind of strange being able to scare the shit out of people by name dropping and getting them to bend over backwards for me. My aunt wants him to lose his fortune so he won’t get killed in political violence.Speaking of power, it does corrupt, it is soul-sucking and it is seductive. When I threw around my “weight” because of my family connections, it felt rather exhilerating and revolting, simultaneously. That is probably another reason I want to put Bangladesh behind me. When I noted the ostentatious virtue of Bangladeshi society, I couldn’t be help wondering how many middle and upper class men sexually abuse and rape their help. After all, these are women (now usually girls) with few opportunities or options. Seeing how debauched and morally lax my cousins became in the United States without “social supervision,” I don’t trust in the natural virtue of Bangladeshi males when unconstrained by other forces (perhaps my family is particularly amoral by nature, but I’ve observed this sort of behavior among other Bangladeshis, and cross-culturally from men who come from societies where sexual access to women is constrained).I was rebuked by relatives after addressing a driver in a polite and formal manner as if he was my superior. I did this because he was 50 years old and I felt weird acting as if he was my peer or inferior. People often address social inferiors with the pronoun equivalent of “boy” in the context of the Jim Crow South (not literally, but in its implication).My father kept saying, “So many people….”Bangladesh’s population has nearly doubled since he left 25 years ago.Oh, about Bangladesh’s drop in total fertility in the past 10 years, my economist relative told me that a lot of it was a paper drop, as functionaries cooked the books. Some change has occured, but it is inflated.Many of the people who work at NGOs or “own” them drive posh cars. 10% are really making out from foreign aid, while 90% are unaffected. Of course, if the money was given directly to the government, 1% would benefit. My economist uncle is working on “microdevelopment.” Don’t really know what it is, but sounds like getting illiterates to behave in a less stupid and exploitable fashion. I’m skeptical.One of my uncles is an inspector or something at an accounting firm. He’s pretty high up, but notoriously uncorruptable. The thanks he gets are heaps of responsibilities and a small salary. A distant relative that is about 3 grades below him is notoriously corrupt, and now lives in a mansion.There is the expected range in phenotype along a variety of vectors, from light skinned to dark, from “Caucasoid” to “Australoid.” But there is definately a significant “Asiatic” component in the population.There is also a lot of linkage equilibrium of the various traits (they are partly unassociated with each other because of intermarriage). The only person with blue eyes that was Bangladeshi that I met was a rickshaw driver with extremely dark skin and broad features (so it is unlikely he was the bastard of a European male coming through town).Too many people are majoring in business it seems.My cousin who is an IT sysop position at Dhaka University says that Linux isn’t as big in the Third World as American tech publications make it out to be. After all, when daily blackouts are salient points of your existence, having a mission critical robust O.S. that can run a heart-lung machine at the cost of more sysops is less appealing than point and click Windows.A lot of my relatives are abroad. One of my uncles who writes books about Bangladeshi society always complains about this. He has room to speak since he had opportunities to go abroad when he was a marine engineer and rejected them. There is a shit load of brain drain from this country. I always thought my father’s side was the religiously oriented one, but my maternal grandmother said her father was an imam and a pir. Does that make sense? I thought pirs were old school.My maternal grandmother is about to die, so she was engaging in a major data dump while I was in Bangladesh. She told me that her mother was almost killed by the insane elephant of the maharani of Tripura when she was a small child (her best friend was crushed, she jumped in a lake and hid in the reeds). Does this make sense? Was there a maharani of Tripura in the early 20th century who had an insane elephant she had to shoot because it had killed too many people?My father’s father was an Koranic scholar, as was his father before him, and so on. Therefore, my father and his brothers had a shit load of Koranic knowledge, though none of them went into a religious profession. They seem to enjoy telling preachers what is not in the Koran. For example, ritual cleaning before prayer and circumcision. They are practicing Muslims (more or less), but there definitely is a little bit of the heathen in them that has sprouted in me in full form.Sometimes I wonder if Bangladeshi society will ever progress if their women remain so tied into maintaining their kin networks. Let me elaborate, women spend far too much of their time utilizing their “social intelligence” in my estimation. This is a general female tendency, but, in Bangladeshi society with its extended familial obligations, and the fact your friends and your cousins overlap almost to an identity, the constant chit-chat about social bullshit seems overwhelming (to me at least, the reputation of the family that your female third cousin by marriage married into is not something that should require 1 hour to discuss). Many of my female cousins do as well in school as my male cousins, but as the years go by, they seem to be drawn into the world of social gossip, to the point where most do not pursue any career after their degr
ee (many go into purdah as well). These familial obligations also extend to males insofar as you are always expected to put up near relatives if they come to town. Spending all your time at the office seems implausible to me in a society where social interaction with near relatives serves as a crucial lubricant of the kinship networks that exist in place of civil society. My point? Just as there is some evidence that shows scientists become far less innovative after marriage, I wonder if the social pressures that intelligent Bangladeshi youth face means that they can never realize any real break-throughs (generalize this to societies that emphasize “family values”). For example, I can never imagine parents approving of their son or daughter spending their free time writing open source code when they aren’t coding for a company, when they could be cementing bonds with relatives or arranging their future marriage and so cultivating their extra-kin network (which becomes part of the kin network). My personal pursuit of non-career interests I attribute to the fact that the pressures of kin related social obligations were never brought to bear upon me because I had no kin in the United States! At least when I was growing up. (though my father received his Ph.D. in chemistry, his two older sisters were by reputation the academic superstars of the family. Of course, in their generation higher education was rare for females, especially for the daughters of an imam).Speaking of kin, there are as many terms to specify exact relationships as there are people in the city of Dhaka. To be more precise, there are different words for maternal and maternal everything. There are different words for brothers older than you and younger than you. And so on. It gets rather confusing, and my hyper-religious uncle expressed the opinion English simplicity was much more in keeping with the austere spirit of Islam than the baroque Bengali tradition of hyper-specific kinship terms.
I think that’s enough for now.
Posted by razib at 05:45 PM