Rules of communication in Bangladesh

For a number of years the 'Goodmorning Bed & Breakfast', located in Bonani, has been a safe haven for visitors from many different countries. The guesthouse was suppose to be a training facility for young underprivilegde youth in Dhaka, and run by the Vialisa Foundation. However due to sickness of the founder of the foundation, the guesthouse had to close it's doors. An honest attempt to keep the guesthouse alive on a different location, with a legal status and a different management, turned out to be an idealistic, but impossible task.

So I decided to use this website for all you people who are planning to visit Bangladesh and can use some real life information about this city. I hope you find it usefull and if you do, please share and spread the word! We thank the people who have supported us and trusted us to be their host during their stay in crazy Dhaka.

Communication

Communication in Bangladesh Bangladeshi are more indirect then direct communicators. Many times you will have a whole conversation and at the end none of your questions are answered. Take your time to get used to this custom.

When meeting people for a specific problem or situation, most of the time there will first be small talk, before the actual topic is addressed. My advice is to go along and smoothly try to find a way to ask the questions want to ask and ask more than once, in different ways to check if the answer remains the same.

Emotions
Don’t show too much emotion during business or formal conversations. Being emotional is seen as a weakness in a person and will devalue your authority.

Keep in mind that your direct communication style will not be understood by locals and may even be seen as rude. It may also be that the information you are giving, in the eyes of a Bengali, is totally irrelevant.

Personal spaces
Bengali don’t keep personal spaces that much when they speak to someone of the same gender. This even applies to formal an d business meetings. However when a lady is involved the ‘personal space’ should be enlarged. .

Where is the guesthouse?