http://www.popmatters.com/pm/columns/article/50845/living-in-a-po-co-world
Expatriates in
The
[13 November 2007]
Kathryn Hummel.
Expats in post-colonial Dhaka have their hearts in the right places, if their generosity at fund-raising events is anything to go by, although the end result is haphazard, like a game of 'Pin the Conscience on the Public Servant' that has been played their tipsy spouses.by Kathryn Hummel.
A native of Adelaide, South Australia and a self-described hack, Kathryn Hummel's fiction and non-fiction has previously appeared in publications as diverse as Bread and Wine (advocating the ordination of women to the priesthood), Meanjin (one of Australia's top literary journals), and the Spiny Babbler Anthology (available out of Kathmandu).
It would be nice to think of a region I'll call 'expatriate
Most of those living in the north of the city, in Gulshan, Banani or Baridhara, seem reluctant to stray from their enclave. Not only do the non-migratory habits of these stagnant northerners put the kybosh on the harmonious image of hundreds of packets of popcorn changing hands across
The north and south of expat
Because of its high density expatriate population, the north has schools that seem to be transplanted from American teen flicks and grog shops that need passports and passbooks to access. There are also a smattering of international fast food restaurants and brand stores replete with assistants who speak charmingly accented English, and autodidactic rickshawallahs who articulate ditto while charging all bideshi the same inflated rate.
A bucolic element to the luxury flats is provided by the homeless who, apart from edging the man-made lakes with their picturesque tin shacks, rear goats, cows and children that roam the streets unregistered. Apart from the bag snatchers who target bideshi when they're at their most vulnerable (club-hopping under the influence), there is an air of ease and privilege in the north, mingling with the pollution and the clamour of the streets. Exclusive ease and privilege, that is, belonging exclusively to the bideshi and wealthy deshi (locals) who have made the north their own by super-imposing the West.
I've visited the north of
The south of
For those who go beyond facility and even personality, there is an undercurrent of competition between the north and south of
If northerners scoff at the culturally submerged self-consciousness of the south or the iffy nightlife that has made me rename (partly in defence) Dhanmondi 'Dodgemondi' or 'The Dodge', it won't be trumped by what is the most pleasant aspect of living here—we're removed from what my friend Jo calls 'Bideshipur', or at least by contrast. Residents of Mohammadpur live at such a grassroots level and have such a heightened cultural experience as to make us in the Dodge look positively bourgeois and our arses as lily white and pampered as any of those expats in the north.
And what expatriates they are, these po-co men and women. In the early 1930s Roald Dahl recognised he was travelling to
The younger po-cos are either confident and goofy and generous, or confident and cool and far from congenial. This junior breed live off fat salaries and tend to deride the earnest lifestyles of others who (like Australian volunteers) don't treat development like any other job and don't live within their means in the flashiest way possible. They strictly confine their social group (unlike Australian volunteers) to those whose confidence they can nourish and feed off. They may denounce the north for its very post-colonial colonialism, but they make their homes there anyway, because that's where the liquor flows freely and where their self-worth can remain unshaken.
It's difficult to be a bideshi in
Older expatriates I know believe that having a local maid or driver, and occasionally asking how they are, keeps them 'in touch' with 'the real people'. Others can't fathom that wireless internet exists in this country, think that any knowledge of Bangladeshi trivia is superfluous, demand that Nando's (famous for peri-peri chicken) open a branch closer to their home, and select their dinner from the same menu at the same embassy club each evening. They inhabit a world where man is still His Excellency and woman is His Excellency's Wife, who seeks the same worthy refuge sought by society ladies for generations: philanthropy, where panels are composed of other (self-described) spouses with names like Winki and who permanently reside in one of Dhaka's four luxury hotels.
Post-colonial Dhaka still seems defined by a fragment of the White Man's Burden, a duty which drove white people to virgin lands to show innocent savages where their centuries-old traditions were going wrong. After all, it's still 'us' who are aiding 'them' and there's no escaping that dichotomy in a hurry. Until our friend globalisation develops developing countries into developed ones, or whatever the wicked future has in store, expatriates half- and full-hearted can only attempt retain their balance; realise the value of the culture they live in yet not blindly accept every facet of it. Challenge, improvement, and ultimately development are impossible without understanding.
But is there hope for the most po-co, least P.C expat? Generalisations about other people and their lives are never profound and are often cruel. To a rough, smelly, shorn-haired Aussie volunteer who is coming nowhere near to making a difference in the field of sustainable development, however, they are ever so much fun to invent, and like those who characterise the north and south of Dhaka as the duelling houses of Montague and Capulet, we all need our diversions.
What a dramatic twist to realise that too much diversion can be unsafe. Living in a po-co world can make you sociable, confident, and generous, but can also leave you susceptible to severe reality shock, ignorance, or, worse still, floating away in your own little bubble, never to be seen again, scattering use, conscience, and character as you go.
A native of Adelaide, South Australia and a self-described hack, Kathryn Hummel's fiction and non-fiction has previously appeared in publications as diverse as Bread and Wine (advocating the ordination of women to the priesthood), Meanjin (one of Australia's top literary journals), and the Spiny Babbler Anthology (available out of Kathmandu). Kathryn's previous PopMatters offerings consist of her Travels in Little America columns, written to give outsiders an inside view of Australia; she now writes The Bengal Gaze as an outsider in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with the hope of becoming less of one. Kathryn is also the author of a film/gender studies manuscript entitled Deliciously in Between: Gender Transgression and Conservatism in Celluloid Gay Best Friendship. Expressions of interest from curious publishers are always welcome!
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