For real, I forget that I made this post public. My writing is an attempt to straighten out the spaghetti string of thoughts flying through my head. I call it un-medicated ADHD. It’s about 90% of my personality. The rest is rice. You figure it out.
Let’s talk about the good stuff and why these traditions and customs below are my favorite things about my countrymen’s culture. Am I allowed to say ‘countrymen’ if I wasn’t born up in that land? If we as women are born with all the eggs in our uterus (or wherever they are stored) and my mother was born there. Then technically, I am from there as well? Back to the regular program!
- Mukho baath is one of the biggest events in our lives. It basically tells the world the type of person you will become. The event is set at 6-months when a child can have table food for the first time. The family gets together and feeds the child rice and other softish food. We reserve the naga for another day. Then we place multiple items in front of the child and they pick three items which represent different personality traits. I can’t remember them all but I picked a pen, keys, and a flower. This means that I would become studious, well-traveled, and a beautiful person. This can also extend as a signal to parents on the negative side of these traits such as a workaholic, can’t settle down, or self-obsessed.
- Over-extending yourself for guests is a hilarious thing that we do but do I feel it when I go other people’s homes who are not Bengali. We will literally let you eat food at our table and then sleep in our bed while we took the couch in the living room. I like to take a gentler approach and take care of the people I care about without crossing their boundaries.
- Celebrating Judoo day. For the longest time I thought it was our independence day because the community celebrated it like it was freedom day. March 26th is the day Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. Essentially this is the day we declared war. We celebrated this more in my childhood than Independence Day in December or Bengal New Year which occurs in the spring. We are people of passion who never forget. Do not cross us.
- I wanted to make this a cute list of five. So this is a two-part. Our food is incredible. From the fragrant bhaghar to the spicy borthas, the sour fish, and sticky sweet golab jumun our cuisine is so diverse and will bitch slap your taste buds. Our true cuisine is not present in the West. Befriend a Bengali who can cook. Who better to share food with than family? Cousins are like siblings. We don’t even have a word of cousin in Bangla. We say the ‘sister from my eldest maternal aunt’s side’. The kinship and family structure is strong and it helped me understand the importance of interpersonal relationships and how to really bond and grow with people.
- The arts. Bengali’s have a strong art history and love of art in all forms. Our textiles are unique, our stories are dramatic, our music is folksy, and our architecture is innovative. One of my favorite statues in Dhaka is of three people linked arms and charging forward in war. Each person represents a different major religion in Bangladesh: Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The monument represents our sense of culture and that we are Bengali first.
Okay, bye!