Tea, Cell Phones and Time

I have been traveling throughout Bangladesh for close to a month and the cultural experiences never cease to exist. For starters, the sun seems cooler than the temperature of this country and I have no idea why I thought it would be a fabulous destination to travel to during its monsoon season. Despite the frequent downpours and my great misfortune of being caught in several, there a few customs I've noticed that Bengali people hold dear— these are the daily doses of tea, usage of cell phones, and a very liberal management of time. Let me explain.

As I am writing this, I am partaking in an afternoon Bengali ritual—sipping a delectable cup of tea. People in this country drink more tea on a daily basis than was tossed overboard during the entire Boston Tea Party. Thanks to the British, people really seem to embrace this little bit of colonialism left over in the area. Tea is offered so often throughout the day, it appears to be the life source that sustains the nation. You are offered tea for every major meal and then additionally in between meals just in case you missed your cup the last time it was offered.

It's difficult to turn down a cup of tea because it is quite delicious and very sweet. If you have no control over who’s preparing your tea, you will typically end up drinking what resembles warm creamy syrup. Before milk is added, the tea is already sweetened with several generous spoonfuls of sugar. After the milk is added, I’m pretty sure more generous spoonfuls of sugar are added until one sip of the tea warrants instant cavities. No need to sell energy drinks in Bangladesh—the people here drink enough sugar to put Red Bull out of business. Given that amount of sugar in any one cup, I'm pretty sure that tea is the number one cause of diabetes in this country. I often feel like checking my blood sugar level afterwards.

Tea time in Bangladesh is typically a time to relax, chat with friends, and take a break from the days work. However, I’ve often seen tea time interrupted by another cultural norm in Bangladesh-- cell phones. Now, just about anyone who’s anyone has a cell phone in this country but it’s how people interact with their cell phones that I find most entertaining. No one ever misses a call. It's as if the silence button does not exist or maybe just that the person on the other line is always more important than the person with whom they're currently conversing. I have often witnessed individuals talking to a group of people and in mid-sentence, drop everything to answer their cell phones. It's not like answering a call is done discreetly either or that they are simply answering to say, “I'll call you back”. Full fledge conversations take place and everyone can partake in the phone conversation because it's likely that the person is yelling into the cell phone. It makes me wonder if the volume keys on cell phones in this country adequately work.

When walking down the street, amid the incessant honking are people having yelling competitions into their phones. This doesn’t change once they enter a store or restaurant or any other establishment where they no longer have to battle the intense noise that is Dhaka city. Bengali people speak with passion as a rule in their culture but this is detrimental to eardrums when they speak on the phone. Calling a Bengali person is like having instant speaker phone, which makes me wonder if that key even needs to exist on phones here. I thought Americans were permanently attached to their mobile devices but Bengali people have ousted us I believe.

Finally we have the concept of time, which exists in warped dimensions in Bangladesh. As a rule, I have learned to add, at minimum, one hour to any estimated time period given while traveling. This is a concept that is instilled into Bengali people from birth onward because everyone always seems to know how long things are going to take but me. Things just happen more slowly here and people always seem to know how to take into account the traffic, the weather, or their fellow country people getting in their way. When someone says that they’ll come by your apartment in a few, it could be literally hours before you see that person again. If a party starts at 21:00, you can be sure that people won’t actually show up till 23:00 at the absolute earliest. For those of us who are used to strict start times, this delay tends to make us anxious and feel silly for being the first person to everything. To be fair, I have enjoyed plenty of other fun cultural experiences while waiting for other cultural experiences to start.

Between my daily sugar intake, yelling into my cell phone and consistently showing up “late” to places, I think I’m really starting to adapt to this colorful culture. Bangladesh clearly knows how to show a girl a good time.