The Concept for Bangladesh

Most of my colleagues are heading off to Vietnam for our upcoming Spring Festival break. To my knowledge, no one has asked them why that’s their destination. Vietnam is chic, reportedly beautiful, and possessed of Buddhist cool. I’d like to go there someday.

But not now. Instead, I will be traveling to Bangladesh.

The reactions I have gotten to these plans range from perplexity to dismissiveness.

Some of my Chinese friends have scarcely heard of the country, despite the fact that it’s only about 100 miles away from the People’s Republic. “I think it is a mysterious place,” said one of my local friends with uncertainty in her voice. I have had to show a number of them where Bangladesh is on the map.

Some of my American friends have nothing good to say about the place. “Dickens-like poverty with brown people and water-borne diseases; one of the places I thank god I wasn’t born.” Another confused Bangladesh with Pakistan and then, after I pointed out the error, wrote “Pakistan? Bangladesh? Meh. Starving populations, corrupt governments and miserable earthquakes. What’s the diff?”

It’s clear that the eighth most populous country in the world has an image problem.

And I can understand why. I’ve read and enjoyed Rabindranath Tagore’s novel The Home and the World, but other than that, what little I’ve ever heard about Bangladesh has been overwhelmingly negative. I can understand my friends’ impressions.

But I can’t believe that there is nothing wonderful, fascinating, or entrancing about the eighth most populous country in the world. I’ve decided to go looking for that other Bangladesh, the one that (I hope) exists outside of the disaster headlines.

Part of my inspiration for the trip came from reading Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson is the founder of the Central Asian Institute, a charity that has established over 50 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He relates a comment made by one of his early financial backers, Jean Hoerni: “Americans care about Buddhists, not Muslims. This guy’s not going to get any help. I’m going to have to make this happen.” Bangladesh is an officially Islamic country where 90% of the people are Muslims. I wonder if part of the reason Vietnam is chic and Bangladesh is not has to do with Americans’ religious and cultural preferences, rather than with the character of the people or the lay of the land.

There’s a painful, dangerous truth here. In the last fifteen years, the US has bombed, invaded, or otherwise intervened militarily or covertly in many other Muslim nations, including Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Syria. I’m not making any claims here about the propriety of any of those actions; I’m simply observing that from the perspective of the ordinary people who live in those places, America is the country that bombs them.

I’m not going to Bangladesh to work for peace, but I do believe that travel can be (although it isn’t always) a conduit for international understanding. I’m going to see what is to be seen, to talk to people, and get a sense of the country. It will be my first trip to a Muslim nation. And I’m very much looking forward to it.

I will fly direct to Dhaka from Kunming. From the airport, I will go directly to the docks and board The Rocket, a paddlewheel ferry built in the 1920s that still plies the rivers and tributaries of the Ganges Delta. I will sail overnight to Barisal and spend a day there exploring. Then I head back to Dhaka on The Rocket. Dhaka will be my base for the next five days. I am definitely planning a day trip to Sonargaon, the old capital, where decaying Raj-era buildings are said to be picturesquely moldering away. I’ve picked out a few other sights to see in Dhaka, but to a large extent I will let my feet take me where they will.