Here is a blog with a list of places in Dhaka where you can get a drink. Pretty small list, right? Note that most of those places are hotel bars. You can go to the American, Nordic, British or other international clubs, but really, all you will do is shield yourself from the reality of Dhaka for a few hours and escape to a secluded bubble. Sure, that's fun (and also necessary from time to time) but that's no way to spend a weekend night.
In my quest to find things to do in Dhaka on occasional weekend nights, I've been trying to figure out if there's an active club scene and what I found wasn't particularly encouraging. The third name in the list I linked to is Privilege, supposedly the hottest club in the country at the moment. Is it really the best club in the country? I have no idea.
When I lived in New York City, we would find a new hangout spot every weekend and the next thing you know, the b&t crowd would show up and before you knew it, the place was no longer considered cool, and everyone would be on the lookout for the next "it" lounge, bar or club. The last time I was there, Pacha was the biggest b&t draw. I have no idea if it's still there. Didn't Pacha replace Webster Hall in that category? I have no clue.
Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I was talking about Privilege and well, it turns out that clubs aren't really all that legal in Bangladesh. Here is a report about cops arresting 113 people from a Dhaka club for "their links to different anti-social activities" which supposedly means they were drinking. Oops. I am not sure which part of the story bothers me more: that people were arrested for the "crime" of drinking, or that only 32 of the 113 people in that club were female, or that only 113 of the club's patrons were drinking? What about the rest of the people in there? Why weren't they drinking? Or maybe the club only had 113 patrons at the time; maybe the club had such a small crowd there because all the cool people had gone to Privilege; maybe the cops hassled the patrons of that club because they weren't a part of the cool crowd. Who knows? Anyway, I am sure they are all hella cool. Or maybe not. How cool could you really be if you were in a club with a 30:70 ratio? The first thing I learned during my gig as a bouncer (pretty short-lived, really, since I only did it my senior year of college for a pretty darn shady club) is that you never let the number exceed 70:30 because then there's too much estrogen in the club and it just gets hella catty but at the same time, you never let the ratio get close to 50:50 either because then there's too much testosterone and there isn't enough eyecandy for the men and they won't buy drinks for the women and that's just not a good situation from a business POV. So, no matter how you look at it, the people in charge of "the Korea and Bangladesh Nightclub" need to rethink their business strategy.
OK, maybe that was too TIC even for me, so I am gonna go back to what this post is meant to be about. Look, you can't stop globalization from happening. You just can't. While you can make laws and try to shield your country from the rest of the world by turning your country into an absolutely dry place where you can only get a drink in a hotel bar or an expat club and where drinking is considered a crime because it goes against the social and religious mores, you can't stop people from doing what they want to do. That's why people will go to Privilege, the Korea and Bangladesh Nightclub and wherever else.
What's happening in Bangladesh reminds me of something similar that happened in Chile a few years ago. Here's a quick history lesson, with my reductionist (and of course, revisionist) take on it. Under Pinochet, Chile went through a major social transformation and turned into one of the more socially conservative countries in South America. Sex ed was banned; abortions were not legal. You weren't allowed to divorce your spouse. Sounds kinda like Bangladesh, doesn't it?
Then the military dictator was overthrown, democracy was restored and the country tried to embrace free market economics. As a result, per capita income gradually increased, and one particular sector of the economy that saw tremendous growth (in fact, one of the highest in the region) was telecommunications. More and more people (and kids) had access to cellphones (and hence, cellphone cameras). They also had increased access to the internet. While the Chilean culture was still pretty conservative, Chileans now had access to foreign movies and TV shows.
Anyway, no matter how conservative a society is, kids are bound to rebel and that's what happened in Chile; they decided to break free from the social mores and it became trendy for these kids to tape their sexual encounters with webcams or their cellphone cameras and then broadcast these videos over the internet.
Believe it or not, that sounds an awful like Bdesh. When I read the last couple of paragraphs to a Bdeshi, without disclosing the name of the country, she thought I was talking about her country.
Now, going back to what we were talking about earlier, as if all that weren't enough, there's a new trend in Chile, according to the NYT.
It is just after 5 p.m. in what was once one of Latin America’s most sexually conservative countries, and the youth of Chile are bumping and grinding to a reggaetón beat. At the Bar Urbano disco, boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings.
The place is a tangle of lips and tongues and hands, all groping and exploring. About 800 teenagers sway and bounce to lyrics imploring them to “Poncea! Poncea!”: make out with as many people as they can.
And make out they do — with stranger after stranger, vying for the honor of being known as the “ponceo,” the one who pairs up the most.
I am no expert on teen psychology but from what little I've seen of kids, the more you tell kids NOT to do something, the more they will try to do it. Whatever these Chilean kids are doing, that's their (and their parents') business, not mine. What bothers me is that these shenanigans have been almost institutionalized, or so it seems, in Chile.
As you might have noticed from the tone of my blog, I am not uptight; I am pretty socially liberal and I really wouldn't care if these kids were necking in the bleachers. What bothers me is that the Chilean society is still pretty conservative and doesn't believe in sex ed for the most part; it's still at the point where abortions are penalized. So, for these kids to go to these parties and do what they do carries an inordinate amount of risk ranging from STDS to unwanted pregnancies and everything in between.
“Before, someone would meet and fall in love and start dating seriously here; at a party today, you meet like three people and make out with all three,” said Mario Muñoz, 20, co-owner of Imperio Productions, which organizes some of the larger 18-and-under parties.
On a recent Saturday, about 1,500 teenagers piled into the cavernous Cadillac Club, another downtown disco, for Imperio Productions’ weekly event. The partygoers, many no more than five feet tall, lined up at the bar to buy orange Fanta and Sprite, wearing oversize sunglasses.
Not too long ago, Mr. Muñoz and his brother Daniel were teenagers attending such parties themselves. Now they defend their parties as good, clean fun. Alcohol is not allowed, and cigarettes are not sold, though smoking was widespread among the teenagers at the Cadillac Club. Security guards monitor bathrooms and regularly throw out boys whose groping crosses the line — if the girls complain.
So, with or without alcohol, these kids are gonna do what they are doing anyway. I can imagine the same thing happening in Bangladesh. I've often heard from the locals that one of the reasons for the ban on alcohol in Bangladesh is that it will lead to activities that are contrary to the social and religious mores of the country. I don't think that's true. Anyway, as the Chilean example shows, even restrictions on alcohol won't stop kids from doing what they do on the Discovery channel. So, why have those restrictions in the first place? It's not like we or the upper echelon of the Bdeshi society don't have access to booze in the first place. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Anyway, I don't mean to offend any Bdeshis with my rant. Whatever I post here are my views and opinions based on what I've experienced during my stay in Bdesh.
Did you all here in Bdesh have a good start to your work week? I hope so. I also hope that you all back at home had a fun weekend.
