Collaboration and commonality

In an earlier life, I had quite an interest in aircraft, to the point of studying it at university in the form of Aerospace Engineering. 

In what now seems like a parallel life, the UK joined up with other major European nations to form an aircraft manufacturer to compete with the big American ones. 

Airbus was to be, and had to be, disruptive within the industry in order to compete effectively. Airliners have one major differentiator which is their width - wide-body have two aisles and narrow-body just the one^[1]. In 1987, Airbus created a portfolio of aircraft offerings with the launch of the narrow-body A320^[2] which was wildly successful and integrated advances in digital communication to use a fly-by-wire system that allowed the plane to be controlled by fewer people and with a small side-stick rather than a hulking great yoke. What was different about this new plane to the previous wide-body planes was obvious and this could definitely be considered disruptive^[3] in a positive sense. Disruption is kind of fun but it should lead somewhere. The A320 was successful and that meant some demand for some slight differences leading to the A321, A319 and A318 - even named as derivatives of the original - which were added to the portfolio. 

The differences were obvious from the outside but the similarities were not. From the inside, the similarities were obvious yet the differences were not. 

What Airbus decided to do was introduce the concept of commonality into their operations and by sharing large parts of the cockpit, from the pilot's perspective, with different planes, a new plane became instantly familiar. Flying a plane (like many things such as rally driving: see some casual skill here), is both trivially simple and also hugely complex at the same time depending on your skill level and experience. Shared design allows you to draw on your previous, similar, experience - at work we often call them transferable skills. I’m no longer in the careers that I have passed on, but there are plenty of skills that I picked up that I have transferred over - skills are transferred to people, not to jobs. 

To that end, pilots flying Airbus planes can fly other Airbus planes with “Cross Crew Qualification” that gives training to fly any aircraft within the family. This has large savings of time and cost for running an airline with multiple types of planes - the portfolio^[4] of planes of traditional carriers, such as British Airways, is quite broad. 

Modular design is a time saver, things slot in and out saving the time and efforts of redesign. Any redesigns can be slotted into multiple products so designers can spend their time on something else. Truly modular design is very difficult but now most often seen, but not necessarily appreciated, within computer design. When you open a file in one bit of software, that file open screen is usually the same across multiple bits of software. Why waste time writing an “open file” screen when there is a perfectly serviceable one that you can latch onto? 

Good design is rarely about saving the designer time, it should be about how the design works in active use and modular design ends up saving the user time too. Whilst true that familiarity can breed contempt, it is also quicker to pick something up when it is familiar - to the point where you may not even consider it “picking something up”. I rarely get shown how to open files in new software, for example, yet it is theoretically a new task each time. 

Flying a plane effectively also depends on understanding the often huge amounts of feedback that a control panel is giving you. There is a question of how much information that you need at a time and how much is ignored (active and passive ignorance being different things) which is why there used to be a larger crew with a flight engineer to help with swimming in that information. With a truly reductive approach, everything that we do is a binary choice of either doing it or not within a sort of decision tree and a well-designed panel can do the simple thinking for you to leave the complex stuff for those with complex brains - humans. The Airbus approach here took those dials and meters and decided to light them only when they were needed which both hides the irrelevant and accentuates the relevant.

As thoughts of UI and UX seep into normal conversations, mainly as a result of the pervasiveness of smartphone design, it is worth thinking about the end user for things we design at work. Even if they aren't aeroplanes. What can be added or taken away to streamline things to a common flow? What is necessary right now and what is not?

That “Airbus” approach, as I like to think of it, is really a defining point of my attempts at work (and sometimes outside too) and we should strive to achieve a common language, even if we do not have the same output. Not only is that shared culture more enjoyable, it is also much easier to switch from one to another if you can find the common threads that bind different elements. The common threads that bind us together.

<sup>1. The body distinction usually corresponds to distance but not always as some Asian carriers can use wide-body planes such as the 747 for short flights where the market dictates and BA offer a flight to New York from London on an A318! Airbus, as would seem sensible, started with one model and although some of the philosophy around design were different to Boeing planes at the time, as a first foray that is what you'd expect. ↩
2. The first commercial Airbus, the wide-body A300 was introduced in 1974 and was fairly unremarkable but gave a sign of how collaboration across national borders could work. The bulk of the orders for the A300 were from countries that had a stake in production so it was not as successful as hoped but a lot had been learned. The 1982 launched A310 was released as a derivative of the A300 - in many ways a more refined, but slightly different, version that saw a much more marketable product. First, competence was proven but the A310, as a second product was less risky for the buyer. ↩
3. Modern companies, usually American tech companies such as UBER and Amazon, are often called disruptive when they enter a market and change it in some way fundamentally. They often do this by breaking the laws of the land and losing a lot of money - but having the capability to lose money that their competitors do not. It also helps if you do not have to pay too much tax and you get government assistance.”Amazon was founded in 1994, first traded publicly in 1997, and didn’t turn a profit until 2001” Amazon Never Makes Money But No One Cares | Investopedia  ↩
4. The lack of variability in planes is actually one of the major reasons that low-cost carriers are able to run so efficiently. This makes all parts, human or not, within the process chain interchangeable. Having a warehouse full of parts for multiple planes is much more expensive than lots of parts for one plane. It also means each aircraft can replace another quite directly if necessary.↩</sup>

My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday (2016) / Boku wa Ashita, Kinou no Kimi to Date Suru / ぼくは明日, 昨日のきみとデートする

While looking at a list of films, I could not help but notice a strand of similarity between the film title and the title of this blog:

Now this is material. Whether terrible or good, this is ideal for blog posting and kind of interesting in its own right. I can start off with a little bit about how I came to choose it and then go on about the nature of choice and naming. If it is the standard kind of derivative Japanese film that i have seen so many of, I can actually say that too. Perfect.^[1]

And that is the only reason I chose to watch this film, even the poster looks terrible^[2]. I checked the main cast and crew and did not recognise any of them so this was a real shot in the dark.

The film starts off at a leisurely pace following an art student, Takatoshi as he makes his regular way to college on the train^[3] and on that train he is rather taken by an attractive girl that is also on the travelling. Although not the type to approach girls, as almost all Japanese protagonists seem not to be, he decides that he will talk to her if she gets off at the next station, which she obviously does. When she does get off she also gets off little bit too quickly for him to follow in a particularly cool way so he chases after her. It works though so he does speak to her, belying his lack of experience and tact, he straight out asks her for her email address^[4].

The young girl (Emi) responds by saying that she does not have a mobile phone. In 2016. This seems pretty unlikely and so the boy apologises and she reiterates that she really has no mobile phone. After a short chat, they part and Emi, rather cryptically instead of saying bye, says "See you tomorrow".

Tomorrow comes, labelled definitively as Day 2, and although quite taken with Emi, he seems unable to find her again having retraced his journey from the previous day in order to let serendipity play again. 

See you tomorrow.

Drawing giraffes at the zoo, Takatoshi, is suddenly approached by Emi who'd remembered that he'd be at the zoo. After some stilted and awkward conversation between the two of them, Emi inexplicably persuades Takatoshi that they should go and have a wander around and even offers her telephone number to arrange a proper date. Japanese romantic films are almost always based around first experiences or inexperienced couples and often revolve around an awkward chat fantasy whereby love blossoms as a result of awkward yet heartfelt chat. It seems inexplicable that Emi would be taken with someone that seems so inarticulate and awkward, but it is a pretty standard trope. I always have a little difficulty with this as it seems so far fetched but with it being such a common thread within Japanese films I can only assume it is vaguely realistic or a very common fantasy that gives hope to those that are not socially capable. In this film, the couple are both 20 years old (which is the age of majority in Japan) and as the film progresses, it depicts a number of relationship waypoints such as holding hands, cooking and the stages of informality for names^[5]. 

These stages are shown quite mechanically, almost in a step by step way. The sharp focus of the moment, with quite specific timings feels pretty forced and a little too heavily signposted for my liking. When Takatoshi wants to do something new, he asks whether it is OK to do, such as hold hands, which has the effect of signifying them as important moments in their relationship and lives. It is kind of sweet to see them get quite so excited, Emi in particular is wont to cry, but also a little tiresome initially. It begins to feel like going through the motions, it all feels quite prescribed. Cinematically, it feels a little unoriginal with the soft, advertesque music bed also feeling like a by the numbers construction. 

Once the basic foundations of the relationship are set in the film, things do get significantly more interesting after Emi’s secret is revealed which changes the nature of their relationship quite markedly. It also entirely changes the nature and complexion of the film. It both isn't fair to say what that secret is and also quite difficult to review a film without doing so. Suffice to say, the motivations and excitements of each person is basically flipped on its head although it definitely retains a romantic edge throughout the film. 

As I have intimated before, I really love films that dizzy and disorientate me and the changeover^[6] here does that both subtly and neatly which makes the remainder of the film pass by in a bit of a daze. There is considerable lightness of touch here to make the fulcrum of the film so easily understood with a willingness to suspend belief. After the changeover, the previously smitten Takatoshi is a little dazed himself as he comes to terms with it and that fits perfectly with how the viewer feels. He starts to reconsider the last few days with a fresh perspective as I also started to do at a cinematic level and some of what were weaknesses can now be reassessed. 

Without giving too much away, the questions asked of the viewer about the nature of relationships and their purpose are intriguing enough to consider for some time. The numbering of the days also reminded me a little of 500 Days of Summer (which I rather enjoyed) as did some of the tone of the film. I cannot quite put my finger on what it was that seemed to link them in their atmosphere other than maybe the tension within both films of connection and disconnection. The number of days being displayed works well, acting as a constant reminder of how finite a given situation is. 

I can say that the director has done a very good job of creating the narrative and the construction of the whole film is truly brilliant. It is a little difficult to judge some of the film as I did think that it was quite poor initially but the end makes you reappraise the beginning and made those odd moments coherent. The handheld, yet relatively static, camera style is used to give a level of intimacy that is important for a piece that really does revolve around two characters - the friends and family are rarely seen. The dates take place in and around Kyoto are well captured and the details of the city come through well without having to show a tourist/highlights reel of temples and suchlike. As much of the story takes place in the suburbs of Kyoto, there are some nice little details of the space which appeal. 

The level of serendipity involved in watching My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday is kind of covered within the film itself as it revolves around coincidence and whether it ever really is coincidence. Was it always destined to catch my eye? I'm not sure I believe in that kind of destiny and I hope that some may be prompted to not wait for coincidence and search this film out (and you can start with the trailer).

^{1. I think this counts as breaking the fourth wall.↩}

^{2. They say you should not judge books by their covers but surely, the cover forms part of the book and surely it is fine to consider the whole product holistically - the cover is there for a reason.↩}

^{3. This train looked very familiar to me and as the film is set in Kyoto, I wondered where it was set. I did not have to wait very long as it is fairly integral to the film that it is around the stations/areas of Takaragaike and Shugakuin which I happened to visit in 2016. These little details always ground me into films.↩}

^{4. In Japan the email address is a very personal piece of information as it is implicitly linked to the mobile phone and so is the most direct way of contacting people. As this was used instead of text messaging, it is also quite personal.↩}

^{5. At what time do you switch to casual? This question is asked within the dialogue and captures the social structure set within the Japanese language so it may not be so clear to everyone. Initially names have an honorific suffix, most commonly -san. As a relationship develops, and this is true of platonic ones too, that suffix can change to a more informal one, such as -chan, and nicknames can also develop. This gives quite clear defined ranges within any interaction you have with a a person.↩}

^{6. "It's called a changeover. The movie goes on, and nobody in the audience has any idea."↩}

Resting with the ball

I have recently, done a fair chunk of solo travel and that makes you a little selfish in terms of how to approach things.
Travelling more recently with some companions, we ended up doing a few days of my kind of sightseeing - aimlessly wandering around with a hope of getting somewhere interesting. This was in Prague, where I've been before, and although I recognised a lot of it, we saw plenty and walked a lot. At the end of a day of this kind of traipsing around the city, the others were tired (as was I, to be fair) and asked me about how on earth I was able to do this without breaks on trips.

They may not have been the first to do it, but the Barcelona team of the late 2000s were known for keeping the ball for huge periods of time in a match yet they often finished the game fresher and fitter for the next game than the opposition. This flipped on the head the received wisdom of how to expend energy (I know that they were far from the first team to do this, I think of this more of how the terminology around the game was altered) by keeping the ball rotating around the team and barely attacking at points but just resting on the ball. In reality, the resting was less physical than mental but forcing the opposition to run and marshal space was introducing fatigue which they could explore and exploit. Possession was the key and being in charge meant they decided when to exert and when to rest. Others tried to follow the ideals, some more successfully than others but it is probably most closely associated with Barcelona (Football is pretty dynamic, tactically, and since this period, a number of teams have been successful in switching this around and almost resting without the ball in a set defensive position ready to spring. This method is still about the management of exertion).

In travel, what represents resting on the ball? Well, that must be the travel itself. Some of my favourite trips have involved quite a lot of sitting down on trains or boats and soaking in the atmosphere and I think that this is a state of mind. I can't really relax so much on planes but sitting at a window seat on a longer train ride is a joy that allows me to rest and wistfully look outside at rolling landscapes. Why should that be more tiring than sitting and reading outside?

The difference when I am travelling alone is that I rarely rest during the day, I don't feel like I need to stop for a drink and it is only when I want to stop that I stop. With companions, it only needs one to stop for others to. I find this a little like going to a restaurant when you are hungry and ordering more than you can actually eat. I end up walking around when I am beyond the relaxing walk threshold - the incremental effort of walking seems lower than the incremental gain of seeing new things.

I feel like the ideas of resting with the ball can be applied to lots of things not just travel. Maybe it is a good idea to plan ahead so you can coast through the active stage of a project, unthinking your way through to the end. It seems like a perfectly effective way of using your time to productively relax.

As in so many things, a simple conversation in Prague about one thing can lead to ideas about others. Should I be having more simple conversations? Should we all?

How can you get out the vote?

Democracy needs a lot of things to operate effectively, but the most obvious seems to be people to vote. 

Proper political parties have a ground operation that is active all year around knocking on doors and making contact with the electorate that they either serve or seek to serve^[1]. Amongst the many questions that those parties will be asking as they go door knocking is whether they support that particular party or not - the classic "can i count on your support at the next election?". That answer, replicated across the constituency, gives data to use. It gives a good indication of how people will vote throughout a given ward^[2]. If someone has pledged to vote for you, then that means that not only have they said they support your party but they also say they will vote for the party. As turnout is so important and the government of the day (2017) focus all their attention on certain demographics - it is clear that supporters are not always the same as voters. 

The GOTV, or “get out the vote” operation is something you may have unwittingly noticed at the polling station but like an iceberg, that is just the tip of a deeply submerged plan. 

Telling

Tellers are those people outside the polling station with a scrap of paper and a pen that will often ask for your electoral number and note that down. They are outside the polling station as they cannot interfere with the station itself. The people administering the polling station must be impartial and there are strict instructions to not in any way persuade you to vote. The tellers are, however, party specific so you may be wondering what they are for. They can't persuade (this also should include the rosette that tellers even wear. They cannot ask you to vote for a party so a rosette labelled "Labour" is OK but "Vote Labour" - an instruction, is not) you and they can't ask you how you voted so what is their purpose? Why would they want your electoral number? 

Command Centre

The telling operation works in conjunction with other parts of the election day ground operation run from base and the tellers pass those numbers back to base where the tellers from each polling district can also send data. Those numbers are cross-referenced with the contact data to see whether the "pledges" have been out to vote. The number of people that can vote is known so the operation knows that x thousand are able to vote. The telling operation gives live (or close to live depending on how quickly the tellers can collate numbers) data on y thousand people that have voted. Cross-referencing the electoral numbers against the pledged votes means that the operation can also have a good indication of how many votes (z) it can rely on that have been cast. It can only ever be an indication as you never know how people have voted in the security of the ballot box. The UK has a secret ballot system so people that profess to vote in one way can very much actually vote in a different way. This "shy" voter phenomenon is one of the reasons why, over the last few years, Labour polling has been stronger than their actual performance and the Conservatives have had better elections that their polling suggests. The Shy Tory phenomenon is hypothesised to be where people are so ashamed of themselves for wanting to be more selfish than they actually want others to think they are - which extends even to speaking to strangers on the phone when polled. This is also thought to be a factor in the eventual "surprise" in the EU referendum of 2016 as people weren't feeling comfortable to say different to what those around them did. The Conservative party have traditionally done better with lower turnout for myriad reasons but the recent methods used by the Conservative party have been increasingly obvious to keep the numbers of voters lower. This has mainly involved making it harder to register on the electoral roll^[3] and although most parties have urged people to register, the government party of the day have been conspicuous in not reminding people. 

Door knocking 

So x, y and z makes it such that you get an idea of turnout as it progresses in the day and if your pledged votes are coming in. What can you do with such data? Well, this is where some foot soldiers help as you can go and remind people to vote. For reasons that don't fully make sense, you can't campaign on this day so this process of chasing down your own votes is the finishing off of a job that is almost complete but it needs to be done. It also means that you only ask people if they have voted rather than any other questions which means there is less opportunity for aggressive behaviour (this is also a good time to flag up potential issues to elected politicians and I have noted down, for our councillors to follow up, where residents have asked for help on an issue or dangerous situations) . I have also been involved in helping with transport to the polling station although it must be clarified that this can still not be only for those that vote in a certain way. When I have done this, it has always been as a result of contact by the councillor in the area asking if they want help. I'm proud that this help is given too, it is not efficient due to the time taken but it is incredibly heartening to help people exercise their democratic rights. I mean, they can use a postal vote too, but I rather like the act of voting and I hope others do too. 

As the day rolls on, the "command centre" will have an idea of how it is progressing and, if they decide to, can realign the resources appropriately. This may mean asking other groups to help or donating resource to other groups - this is an effective way of doing what you can and only really works if people believe in the same thing. Polling finishes at ten so you can make a call as to whether it is worth continuing or reallocating the time. 

Volunteers come in and out as they can to fit in with their day, some come with kids, some with friends but everyone with a sense of duty and belonging. 

I've found these days to be amongst the most important for me to be involved as you see the action, you see the fight and you feel, for some moments, a little bit of hope. I would highly recommend donating a little bit of your time to do this if you can, you might like it but you will be helping. Let's try and get turnout as high as we can.

<sup>1. And these should be the only options available to them↩
2. A constituency is made up of wards. For example, I live in the Holborn & St Pancras constituency which is represented by my MP. For Council elections, I am in the Kentish Town area made up of a number of wards. A councillor will generally, here, be responsible for a few wards which can constitute quite different demographic elements, as of course a given constituency does too.↩
3. There is decent evidence on how making it harder for those that are more geographically active in moving around has the effect of making it harder for non-conservatives more generally by affecting the younger generations more. This is thought to be another potential reason why the Brexit vote ended up as it did as the Conservative party had tried to lock in the older, more traditional voters and not the more open-minded progressive voters (generally).↩</sup>

The return from Dhaka

In many ways, the ending is so often like the start and so it was, sort of, when leaving Dhaka.

I arrived at the airport at 0630 as suggested for my 0830 flight to be greeted by lots of people waiting in lines. Previous experience told me that these were not queues in the sense of being one after another [1] [These are called serials in modern Bengali.] but they were all waiting to pass the security to enter the airport building. Dhaka Airport does not, normally, allow non-passengers into the airport terminal so there is a wait to get in and people saying goodbye outside. Once my cousin had cleverly found the queue for foreign passports, labelled as the “staff entrance”, I was able to get in after a little wait and only a few people pushing in front. 

Once past the security scanner, I could not see any signs so I walked forward as far as I could and saw that my check-in desk was B. I had no idea where I, or that, was so took a guess to go left and found D. I kept going until I found a queue that seemed to be for Qatar but I asked to check.

"No, this is to Dubai",

I checked with someone else and it was to Doha when I asked them. I chanced it and waited in line as it was heading to the Qatar Air counters - and it was actually a line as there was a woman telling passengers which desk to go to and giving them the departure card to fill in. This was relatively organised although the line still moved slowly and it had taken me 30 mins to get to the back of the line - so it was 0700. The desks themselves were a little bit of a scrum but then as I got closer, the woman just walked off. She didn't return, nobody replaced her and the queue stood still. It was about 0730 at this point and the guy in front would not move without her say so (he seemed a little worried so was unlikely to be a regular traveller) and the desks were not empty anyway. Someone else moved and then so then did I to the desks. Here, they spent quite a long time weighing the bags and talking so I got there at 0740. I explained to the desk that I would like a window seat and that I had tried online check-in but the mobile app was stopping (as had happened before). He admonished me for not being there at 0630 to which I said that I had come at 0630 and then he said I was lucky to be getting on at all - this with a fairly large line still to be checked in. Lucky? He then weighed my bags and told me to go to immigration quickly, which I did. He did not listen to my request at all.

Dhaka airport is all about regular micro-aggressions and it is tiresome. It is really tiresome. After the pushing and shoving to enter the airport itself, the queue for immigration was short but, of course, not without its own micro-aggressions as a few people pushed in front again to present passports to the officials to be allowed into the passport control. As I reached the front, again, a couple of people came in front of me and as the second was being checked, I said "What is this?" in English. The passenger in front ignored me with his sense of entitlement but the official actually saw this and stopped checking and checked mine instead and told the guy that he'd pushed in. It was a small victory, but you have to take them. Micro-victories are better than none.

Getting into the foreigners' queue for passports, it was quite short and orderly, but of course, this changed when someone pushed in and then when I was called, the official decided to split the line into two for reasons of apparent inefficiency - it was inexplicable. 

My gate was at the opposite side to check-in necessitating a walk across the terminal which seemed a little underplanned for such a small airport. I'm not sure why you wouldn't put the gate nearer the desk when you have so few gates and desks but it might be to appreciate the architectural features. Unlikely, but possible. Sensing a pattern, I assumed at the gate that there would be a queue for some security at which some people would push in front and I was not disappointed. Well, I was still a little bit disappointed but not surprised. Here, I was asked by a man with combat fatigues to take my belt off and keep it separate along with my wallet, phone and laptop. As I got the security belt, another man told me to put it all in the bag. He did this as the other man was telling everyone loudly enough, to separate them. I just wanted to get through so I followed the instructions of whoever was closest...

Not bothering to wait at the gate, I walked through to the plane and the noise made me desire the blissful separation of some headphones. There were a lot of mobile phone conversations taking place and at volumes that were not exactly trying to be discreet. It may be a little unfair to keep commenting on the microaggressions but it really does make a not particularly pleasant journey type even worse when it is not smooth either.

The flight itself was not too eventful but it felt long as I was tired but it wasn't really comfortable enough to sleep (I was also sat somewhere with a little less legroom as the seat in front had the entertainment system under it) so I didn't. I had a single serving next to me but not a friend by any stretch of the imagination. I did have headphones though.

Doha was a quick stop as it was only a little over an hour before the next leg so I pretty much transferred directly to the gate whereupon I was told that my seat had changed again. There were plenty of children travelling, apparently, and so I had been moved from an aisle seat to the worst kind of seat - the middle of a three so no window and no aisle and the engine noise too. And plenty of children.

London was not too faraway now and although my time in Bangladesh had overall been a delight, the flight back seemed wholly appropriate.

London to Dhaka

Bangladesh, like a number of Islamic countries, does not have the same weekend that we have in the UK but actually has Friday and Saturday as the weekend. This is kind of interesting in its own way, but less convenient for me than I'd like - it means a Saturday departure meaning a Sunday arrival just means no weekend at all. Thus, a Friday departure is needed to get some weekend time in. (obviously, this is sort of reversed on return as I can leave on a Sunday and still have a bit of weekend on returning) 

And a Friday night departure would not really work, so I took an extra day off and made my way. 

A morning flight from Heathrow is both a delight and a pain. It is marginally easier and less busy on the tube but still busier than I'd expect, or hope. London is quite busy… I was flying with Qatar Airways and so had a stopover in Doha. Qatar, like so many Middle Eastern countries, is trying hard to reputation launder and other than the obvious sporting methods of holding a World Cup through dubious means, it is also spreading the brand through air travel as Emirates, Etihad, et al are doing. What this means is quite a decent service using new planes at a relatively low price through an airport hub in Doha. I chose a flight on the A380 for reasons covered before but was unable to properly check in before due to technical issues and so was assigned a seat in the middle, which I'm not a fan of. As the flight was full, this was not something that could be changed so I saw the flipside of A380 travel - boarding takes ages. The person at check-in was very pleasant and although I didn't actually complain and just asked if there were other seats available, she did try to accommodate this, albeit unsuccessfully. The flight was at 9am yet boarding was printed on the pass at 8 and they actually started then too. And they needed to with plenty of people and many of them being rather young, it was due to be a noisy leg. 

The flight itself was not too bad as I was fortunate enough to be seated with a very pleasant neighbour - one of the better single-serving friends. As she was on her way to Melbourne from London, she really was in for the long haul but had some experience of the airline and transit so was able to fill me in with some useful info. I reciprocated with, what else but, stories of London changes in popularity and places to visit. Needless to say, the Museum of London was unknown to her. I even managed to talk of social arbitrage as done, in my opinion, by Middle Eastern countries. That wasn't a phrase I expected to use. 

It was a flight that I'd hoped to sleep on but it didn't really happen so I dozed while listening to (previously reviewed) Your Name like a duvet and wished I could sleep. I had about 7 hours to wait in Doha so maybe I could nap there. Or maybe not.

Doha Airport is new and has the modern feel of all the modern airports with the similar colours and feelings. And, similarly to some airports designed for the future, it feels empty and soulless. Having checked a website about long transit times, I was expecting a nice, convenient stop which it was in many ways as there was plenty of seating but I assume, as it was an evening to night break, that it was quiet. Of course there was plenty of shopping opportunities to indulge in. More notable was the internal rail system to go from one end of the terminal to the other - usually done with moving walkways. It is something to remember but I was the only one on it and it seemed a little ostentatious.

After a spot of food, I found a few different places to sit and rest - there was a “quiet room” with reclining chairs which was a bit more comfortable for a lie down. The airport also makes great play of free wi-fi in transit which was pretty handy for checking my boarding time and gate. As I was checking the flight time, I noticed that my seat number had changed. As a result of my comments about my seat being assigned automatically, I had been told that there was a chance of an upgrade on the Dhaka leg - it seems the chance was not just a placation tactic. 

I went to the gate to confirm and the soft introduction began. The queue was long to get in and completely not a queue. Not at all. I went to the desk/priority boarding to check but then one person just went straight in front of me to the desk and then another stood in front. This was at the “priority” bit where I was asking a question, but maybe they took it more literally. Waiting at the gate after this, the introduction continued as staff explained to different people that “you can't do that” as they pushed the door or tried to go past boundaries. It does not look like a fun job. I've always wondered whether I just thought that Bengali people talk louder because I understand it but I am now pretty sure that isn't the reason and the noise of people just having conversations was like listening to arguments. 

The upgrade was very fortunate and insulated me from the noise and frustration that seemed certain earlier. In terms of the difference, of course the space was far greater and the service was very good with better food. I did not, however, have the benefit of a single-serving friend with whom to be convivial so there was that. The seat itself, with reclining flat and the screen to keep you entertained, reminded me very much of the lounge in a capsule hotel - but not the one that aped airline cabins. Also, people were sleeping and one particular person snoring was louder than all the kids on the first leg... 

Landing at Dhaka was uneventful but the airport was not uneventful - it never is. Passport control was relatively short due to the fact that I got out fairly quickly but they spent some time doing paperwork and I'm pretty certain they took my picture without telling me when or where to look. Once past the first guy where I feigned ignorance of the language, there was another queue to give the immigration form to someone to be let out. This actually was a queue as it was a thin corridor but of course that didn't stop people pushing. Baggage reclaim made me feel pangs of nostalgia as it seemed unchanged from decades back and so looked a little tired. I don't mind it as it feels quite honest but it must hinder foreign investment when this is the first view of the country. There were a number of ripped and broken sections on the belt. I could not see how the process was managed but I waited at the baggage reclaim belts from the point suitcases came out and a full one hour after the first suitcases plopped onto the belt, I was still empty handed along with what seemed like most passengers. The belt itself was also empty as the baggage was brought out in instalments and with nice gaps between them so that the belt would empty (but not fill) a few times. I think I was in the fifth instalment which was after more than an hour.

It was frustrating so I thought it best to change the music I was listening to from the dark, dank electronica that I had been listening to to something a little more calming. As I had people waiting for me outside, I collected and moved on fairly briskly and then was greeted by what looked like a queue. After a few metres, it looked like two queues and then a few more metres later, three queues. And then, it looked like a scrum of people from all directions with trolleys and bags. All the baggage needed to then go past customs and was being scanned so all of the passengers then had to go through a single gate in order to be processed. With nobody queueing properly and tension high, this was not a pleasant experience but i eventually got near the front after thirty minutes or so with only a few bumps to my legs. As I went to the scanner, I noticed most were loading onto the luggage scanner and some were walking past - neither group seemed to be spoken to so I went past the scanner. Then, a man asked me where I had travelled  from and with the answer "London" I was waved through. London is such a great answer, isn't it? Having landed at 10am, I left just before 1pm and the airport is not that busy. You could say it was eventful, but maybe it wasn't eventful enough.

Something that I am not particularly used to is being received at the airport, either at home or away, but this was due to happen - about an hour or two earlier. Apparently my cousins that were meeting me were not sure if I had left or not but had stayed around and greeted me which was a huge relief. It was longer than normal, and longer than they expected but still within the bounds of the possible. I grew to learn that in Dhaka, everything was. 

I was happy to be collected by some cousins when I got outside at Dhaka airport for had that not happened, then whatever could happen next?

Bangladesh after some time

Where are you from then?
London
No, where are you really from?

This is a conversation that I've had in my head for years but, in reality, it has never happened in this way^[1]. The second question is always phrased much more carefully than this, with a clear interest in my background rather than the accusation of not being from London/UK. As I have said before, I am comfortable with the answer of London and I am fortunate to be able to say that.

When I do get the more carefully phrased question, the answer is usually

"My parents are from Bangladesh"

Which they are^[2].

When I was younger, I went to Bangladesh quite a few times, every 3 years or so up to age 11 and I have plenty of positive, wonderful memories which are etched into my mind and have clearly shaped me. But, since then, I have only been twice more and the last time I went was 11 years ago, via Hong Kong (as mentioned briefly). That particular trip was a strange one in many ways as I also saw a lot of people from the UK who happened to be there too (including my parents) for the first time in a while too so it was not quite the same experience - there was a dual layered reunion to it. It was, however, the first time that I travelled alone to Bangladesh and so it was also the first time I entered alone.

I have travelled to a few more places since then so I think I can take a more rounded, and comparative, view to Bangladesh now so I am looking forward to it although I cannot consider it as a normal holiday as I am not sure how much control I'll have within the week.

I didn't massively enjoy visiting Bangladesh the last time I went, as positive as seeing my family was, the country as a whole didn't leave a positive impression on me. Navigating parts of the social and actual infrastructure myself gave me a different view to that when I had my parents do much of that for me. The flight from Hong Kong to Dhaka was the first blast of Bangladesh that I had had in a while and the flight reminded me of the fact. The passengers were, as a group of passengers, a little more brusque and there was a greater sense of guards being put up by the cabin crew. This was something that I had always noticed but it was a stark difference from Japanese passengers on the previous flight to the Bengali ones on this. It was a plane with two aisles and I was sitting in a middle seat of the side/window grouping. The man next to me appeared initially to be travelling alone. Initially. Once the flight had been going for a while, I noticed that he was travelling with a woman and young girl (not the same ethnicity so I assumed wife, also based on interactions but I did not ask and confirm.) This seemed odd to me but he did not seem bothered as he still conversed with them and another man while at his seat. Which would not be too bad across the aisle, but he did so across the aisles. That isn't really possible quietly or with consideration. Luckily he did not have that much to say except to admonish his (assumed) wife when the little girl cried. When we were served food, he finished eating while others were being served and asked the crew to take it away. They explained that they had to serve everyone else first and he complained. When they went to continue serving, he decided to loudly say to them that he was going to leave the tray on the floor and put his seat into the reclined position. It struck me as more than a bit selfish. Flights can often be the soft introduction to what you'll get when you land, and so it proved.

It was also, the first time that I had left alone too and this was on a flight to Hong Kong, an 18 hour delayed flight to Hong Kong^[3]. This delay meant that the airline gave me a hotel to stay the night in with other passengers - another interesting journey into a Bangladesh I hadn't seen. The Hotel Sonargaon was pleasant enough but it was not always clearly explained what was happening and I think especially tricky for those that did not understand Bengali. I befriended some Japanese men that looked a little dazed and confused and explained the procedure but it was another insight into the social infrastructure. Had I not done that, I am not sure anyone else would have noticed. The men found themselves in Bangladesh as the were driving around the world and flew back home every so often to see their family. It sounded hellish to me, but they seemed to like it.

My last memory of Bangladesh, and the one that sticks with me, is the passport control as I left. I handed over the passport, and I paraphrase as it was not in English.

Officer opens and looks at passport and asks:

Hello, are you married?
Is that in my passport?
No, it isn't. Are you married?
Do you need to know that for passport control?
No. Are you married?
Is there a problem?
No. Have you had a wedding?
No, I am not married.

Officer smiles, looks a bit smug, closes passport and slides the passport to me.

I think it is about time.

This interaction left a mark on Bangladesh for me. I received so much advice from strangers about how to live my life in the UK and Japan and the implication that I was doing it all wrong. Unfortunately, that mark stayed and although there are many instances of it happening with people that had never met me before nor had any experience of living in either the UK or Japan, that was an almost perfect encapsulation of my frustration. Having spent the previous 18 hours in the company of strangers, it ended up being the line under the trip. Underlined.
Maybe that was unfair, but that was how I felt.

In 2005, I was flying from Tokyo via a stop in Hong Kong and so I was, culturally, in a different place to when I've flown from London. I speak with my parents in Bengali (as mentioned in comments on immigration statistics here) and so I do still use the language relatively frequently and am fairly comfortable with it for basic conversations - I'm less comfortable with it for the conversations that I'd like to have with a bit more complexity. But even so, my fluency is not too bad and I can get by. In 2005, it was less active and although I spoke to my parents on the phone^[4], it was clear that the fluency was not there in the same way. Since then, I speak Bengali more frequently and although it is still not at a level that makes me able to express myself, my lack of vocabulary means that I think I end up expressing a more friendly and child-like version of myself. Which is pretty useful actually as it is a a more likeable version.

The theme that runs through 2016 and early 2017 for me is the disconnect between myself and what I thought that the UK was. The fractured relationship that I now feel that I have with the wider UK^[5] has made me wonder whether that is why I'd quite like to visit Bangladesh again - or it could be a function of wanting a little more nostalgia after the success of it in 2016. It was an active decision to go so I hope that they were positive reasons when I dive down into my subconscious - I definitely hope the trip is positive.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my extended family again and what time has done to Dhaka but as a trip, it will be very different to how I usually proceed. Maybe that will be good too - and appropriate as I arguably defined my travel process last time I came to Bangladesh and maybe my method needs an update too. Maybe lots of things need an update.


<sup>1. This Life was a TV series set in London in the 1990’s which I rather enjoyed. It also had a cracking soundtrack which helped. It was about young graduates continuing their university friendships in a shared house while starting their legal careers. One of the characters was an Asian female and there is a specific scene I remember where she is asked by an Asian man where she is from, and he then asks again about where she is really from. She gave the British answer both times, but it sticks in my mind as the first time I remember that slight disconnect of second generation immigration being represented.↩
2. Incidentally, neither was born in Bangladesh as the country did not exist at either time.↩
3. I also ended up missing a day of work due to missing the connection to Tokyo and this was compounded by oversleeping after that for a first day at one school. I was very lucky that it was a school that I already had a decent reputation at and the lesson I ended up being late for was with a particularly lovely student who I continue to be in vague contact with. Fortune does not only favour the brave.↩
4. Rather strangely, just less than a month before I went to Bangladesh, I met a Bengali family in Nikko when travelling. I tried striking up conversation with them, which was noted to be out of character by my Japanese friend, in order to practice. Does everything just end up being practice for real life?↩
5. I have felt, conversely, an even greater positive connection with London as a result of taking on an almost safe haven status for me.↩</sup>