People are of chocolate color and dolls dance to Hindi music

I never really thought about how kids perceive the simplest things in different countries too much. My little cousin Fayeza (4) drew my attention to it while doing her homework. She is a pre-schooler so her homework basically consists of coloring pictures with the most absurd combinations. Flowers can end up black, blue and red for instance.

One day when she was coloring I was sitting with her at the dinner table. The picture showed people at the lake feeding ducks. Before picking a crayon she told me which part she was coloring with which specific crayon. When it was time to color the humans at the lake, she picked brown, because “people are of chocolate color”. Boom! What I took for granted in Germany of course is different with kids here. People are brown and kids draw them in "chocolate color". Truth be told!

Fayeza (4) writing the Bangladeshi alphabet

My cousin Farzad faking as if he is doing any homework

A few days later my cousins were playing with a doll, that dances and moves to music. The doll nor the dancing were the factors that surprised me. It was the music! The white doll in a white dress was dancing to Hindi music! Boom again! South Asian dolls don't necessarily have to dance to Ace of Base or Beethoven. Somehow the Bollywood music I at times dislike so much, had a sweet sound to it.

While being in Comilla last weekend I saw my baby niece Zahra playing with her phone, a "Vodaphone" branded pink Blackberry. And if you push the buttons, a weird voice talks to you in Hindi...

If Walt Disney only knew...

Fun Fact: Bangladeshis don't care about copyrights. Well, let me think about it... they don't. For example if you go to "Nil Kheth", a book market near Elephant Road, and want buy any English textbook for university, you can do so for about 4 - 5 Euros. "The Godfather", "Harry Potter" or "The Da Vinci Code" are priced at about 1,10 Euros. Of course they lack in quality, but they fullfil their purpose.

The same goes for CDs and DVDs - wanna hear the latest music or watch the Oscar awarded movies? No problem. That is why you might hear a bunch of teenagers sitting in their car in Gulshan and bumping their heads to Trillville and Lil Jon ("WHUAT? - OOKAAY!"). And that is how I was able to complete my collection of Modern Talking CDs.

<3

After Kentucky Fried Chicken openend their first restaurants, you soon saw "Kentucky" all over the place, sometimes even spelled "Kentaky". I might consider buying my toothbrush at "Kentaky General Store" next time, but as of now, I'll have an ice cream with brownie at KFC.