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The United States is the world's superpower. The dream country for many. Humayun Ahmed spent significant time of his life in that country. He and his family have lived in Fargo for seven consecutive years, earning a PhD from North Dakota State University. Apart from these, he has been to America on various occasions. He even spent the last days of his life there for treatment. Humayun Ahmed has written in many of his books about the condition of America as a country, the life lived by Americans, their thoughts, attitudes, hard work. However, these are clearly found in his travelogues. There will be a little discussion abo
Humayun Ahmed's first travelogue about America; Image source: bdebooks.com
In the late seventies, Humayun Ahmed went to the United States to do his PhD with a scholarship. At first he stayed at the Hotel Graver Inn. He lived there at the expense of the University of North Dakota. No one I knew was there, not even a Bangladeshi. He was not very fluent in American pronounced English at first. There was a lot of money on him. At that moment, it seemed to him that he would leave everything and return to the country.
Gradually the city of Fargo began to like him. That story is also quite interesting. He had dinner with the same French toast at the same restaurant every night. Not that the food was very good. Yet he ate the same food, sat at the same chair-table. The waitresses of the restaurant came forward in her plight. They arrange an expensive and good dinner for the writer at their own expense without telling anything in one night. This incident changed Humayun Ahmed's mood, he gradually became normal.
Americans believe in individual freedom. When they become adults, their children become separated from their parents. Parents often separate their children during childhood. American men keep pictures of their wives in their wallets. Changing partners is not a big deal. When the companion changes, the picture also changes. In search of the golden deer of individual freedom, they push away their companions, children, family, relatives, kin, friends. Lives lonely in old age. After death it is seen that all the property has been bequeathed in the name of favorite dog or cat. One such old lady lived in the room next to the writer at Hotel Graver Inn. American seniors prefer to stay in hotels instead of oldhomes.
The author's mother Ayesha Fayez was once overwhelmed to see the US cemetery. He used to stand in front of the grave for the gravediggers and recite Doa Kalam, Ajifa. Once it was known that it was the graveyard of dogs and cats.
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Humayun Ahmed and Gultekin; Image source: Bangladesh Today
Much closer happened to the writer and his then wife Gultekin Khan. They too were overwhelmed to see fresh flowers every day in every grave in the cemetery. The Americans' love for their dead relatives shocked them. Once known, the incident is something else. Although all the flowers in the grave are fake, there is no way to see and understand that they are made like real flowers. Flowers are left once a year on the death anniversary, and love (!) Blooms like fresh flowers throughout the year.
"I want to know how many times an American uses the word 'I love you' all his life. Does this sentence have any meaning at all?"
Humayun Ahmed has asked this quest
The author studied at North
Dakota State University, Image source: Forbes
Americans also have a strong sense of humor. Their obsession with small matters is noticeable. There is a ghost in room 309 of Hotel Graver Inn, the authorities have written such a thing in the information booklet of the hotel. That room is empty year after year, but is cleaned every day, new bed sheets are given, new soap and toothpaste are given in the bathroom!
Homecoming festivals are held every year in American universities. Declaring the best beauty of the university as Home Coming Queen, there was a procession of noise and joy. In the first year of the author's PhD, the students set up a kissing booth one day with the most beautiful girl in such a festival. One kiss for every dollar, can't be hugged, have to pay dollar cash - that was the rule.
Another funny thing about kissing happened while the author was working as a teaching assistant at the same university. Marathon Kiss. The incident of kissing for a long time and recording in the Guinness Book of Records. The boy who wanted to record, his parents appeared to encourage.
Eastern politeness is obsolete in America. They like to talk and listen straight. There is a tendency among black Americans to name US presidents. The Americans understand English, the British don't. They put half the words in the stomach. The author has all these in his experience.
The author finds an injured bird resembling a sparrow on his way home in the snow from his university. Carefully bring it home. Gultekin built a cardboard nest for the birds and fed them. The news went through the neighbors to the Animal Husbandry Association. They sent people to take him to the animal hospital. Repairs broken wings by surgery. Adyapanta repeatedly informs the author about the condition of the bird on the telephone
.Americans also have a strong sense of humor. Their obsession with small matters is noticeable.
There is a ghost in room 309 of Hotel Graver Inn, the authorities have written such a thing in the information booklet of the hotel.
That room is empty year after year, but is cleaned every day, new bed sheets are given, new soap and toothpaste are given in the bathroom!
Homecoming festivals are held every year in American universities. Declaring the best beauty of the university as Home Coming Queen,
there was a procession of noise and joy. In the first year of the author's PhD, the students set up a kissing booth one day with the most beautiful girl in such a festival. One kiss for every dollar, can't be hugged, have to pay dollar cash - that was the rule.
Another funny thing about kissing happened while the author was working as a teaching assistant at the same university.
Marathon Kiss. The incident of kissing for a long time and recording in the Guinness Book of Records. The boy who wanted to record
, his parents appeared to encourage.
Eastern politeness is obsolete in America. They like to talk and listen straight. There is a tendency among black Americans to name
US presidents. The Americans understand English, the British don't. They put half the words in the stomach. The author has all these in his experience.
The author finds an injured bird resembling a sparrow
on his way home in the snow from his university. Carefully bring it home. Gultekin built a cardboard nest for the birds and fed them
. The news went through the neighbors to the Animal Husbandry Association. They sent people to take him to the animal hospital. Repairs broken wings by surgery. Adyapanta repeatedly informed the author about the condition of the bird on the telephone, but he kept a smile on his face even though he was annoyed by it. At one point, the Animal Welfare Committee released the bird to its peers in Seattle, Washington.
The Americans love so much for the injured birds, again the same Americans bombed Hiroshima-Nagasaki with atom bombs, exhausted Iraq, Afghanistan. This contrast of their character makes the writer think.
Americans love screwdrivers
. If they do not work, they open the machine with a screwdriver at the first push, even if they do not know the cause of the machine.
And Bengalis have machine fear. When I was a child, I had to listen to my parents' prohibition to touch the device, but even when I was older, this prohibition remained in my mind. Due to which we are afraid to catch the switch even if the electric fuse is cut.
Scattering of advertisements in American newspapers. 45 out of 60 pages are advertisements. Most of them are personal advertisements. These are not even printed in many papers because no one reads the editorial. One page is allocated for jokes. It can be seen that even if no one reads the whole magazine, the page of the joke is not left out.
Everything in America is available at a fixed price. They don't have time to waste by bargaining. The bargaining method is completely oriental.
According to the author, the American boys and girls who come to study undergraduate are the donkey type. Intermediate education is enough to work and eat. American boys aim to be millionaires, and girls aim to be cheerleaders or find rich partners. According to the author,
"In this very civilized country, I see that girls have no respect. They will see a woman as a woman. They don't see the motherhood of a girl, which we always see. A girl is valued as long as she is physically attractive."
Americans speak directly, simple-mindedness seems ‘fun’ to them. Two Bangladeshis living in the United States were brought to the David Lutherman show on the American CBC TV channel. Seeing all this, the Americans laughed and giggled and the Bangladeshi community felt humiliated. When the author was asked about this at the 8th Bangladesh North America Conference, he replied,
"When Americans learn Bengali, they say Bengali - they say more wrong than we do. If it doesn't insult them, why should we?"
In America, there is uncertainty about leaving a job from time to time. People have taken it for granted. They do not say or want to pronounce the names of foreigners correctly.
To solve this problem, the Hong Kong people took a Chinese name as well as an English name while in the United States.
The author took the matter of names very seriously, because he was always called 'Hamen', 'Human'
. He also wrote about these in the English newspaper of the university. His argument was that Americans deliberately mispronounce.
The title of 'bad head' in the forehead alliance. However, on the day of his return to the country,
the PhD course coordinator surprised him by calling him by the correct pronunciation.