New Year Greeting

Thank you very much for having me for this interview. It’s all with pleasure to talk to the audience of CRI. Because CRI has radio connection with Bangladesh, and CRI has been playing a very important role in promoting Bangladesh-China friendship. So, once again, greetings to fellow audience of CRI. Because I, myself, am also a very dedicated listener of CRI. I think my Chinese is not very good, but still I can say: “新年快乐”(Happy New Year). “新年快乐”to all the CRI audience at home and abroad.

Home Promo

I will very much love to encourage Chinese tourists to Bangladesh to visit the countryside in Bangladesh. While most countryside may have a lot of things in common, but it has its uniqueness. The ease of life there, I think the Chinese visitors will be very pleased. But there are very important and very unique tourist attractions in Bangladesh, which they must not miss either. Like, when I talk about tourism in Bangladesh, I’ll talk about three largests in the world.

One should go to Bangladesh to see the largest Mangrove Forest in the world, which is the home of the Royal Bengal Tiger. “孟加拉老虎”(Royal Bengal Tiger). I think all Chinese people have heard about “孟加拉老虎”, So, that is the home ,the Mangrove Forest in Sundarbans, is the home of the “孟加拉老虎”. And then, of course the largest uninterrupted natural sea beach in the world, at Cox's Bazar. You can drive for 100 kilometers or more along the beach without interruption. So you can imagine how big this beach is. And more and more infrastructure has been built there, and it has been more and more convenient for the tourists to visit this place. And then, a part of the whole country is the largest delta in the world. The delta was created by three main mighty rivers, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna. The Brahmaputra is the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River, which starts in China. So I think Chinese should have very natural attraction to go and see the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River.

So these are the three largests in Bangladash. Apart from that, we have huge number of historical relics. Some of them are as old as 1.000 or 200 years old. Some of the relives are now already declared as World Heritage by UNISCO.

And I think these include some old temples, from Buddhist temples and also Biharas quality. The Buddhist temples and the Hindu temples, as well as Muslim mosques and other beautiful architectures, relics. And also we have some more ancient relics in certain places or much older civilization. So these are things that people should be seeing in Bangladesh.

Apart from that, we have some beautiful rolling hills in the east and south of Bangladesh. Thos areas are also have some, we call, tribe population, which is like the minority nationalities in China, like you have the “瑶族”(Yao Nationality) and “傣族”(Dai Nationality). We have similar small minority groups. These groups still remain a little different from main stream because of their very unique and traditional culture. Those are something that their traditional life are something that visitors from China will be very happy to see. But particularly, many of these people have Mongolian origin. I mean they are mongoloid in race. So they look like you ,the Chinese people. Maybe they also have some customs lik esome of the Chinese minorities like I have seen in the Yao Zhu (Yao Nationality) in Guilin. They are living in the wooden houses which are rasied from the ground. So these people belong to many of these groups have similar housing arrangement. They are also living in the wooden houses which are raised from the ground. So they can connect with them, straight way. These are some of the attractions. But there are many more attractions. And I’ll encourage Chinese tourists to go for themselves and visit Bangladesh to see and enjoy all these on their own.

There is another thing that I think I should pick up from what I’ve said earlier. Actually I have pointed out several reasons why it should be interesting for a Chinese tourist to go to Bangladesh. One of those is the historical connection between the two countries many centuries ago. You have heard about the Chinese traveler Fa Xian. He traveled to Bangledash more than 1400 years ago.

And there is anther very famous Xuan Zang, the traveler traveled for the whole of his life. You have this very attractive Chinese classic Jouney to the West. “西游记”（Jouney to the West）is very famous. “孙悟空”(the Monk King) and others. The priest there is Xuan Zang. He also traveled to Bangladesh. Because in the 6 7 centuries, Bangladesh is the seat of Buddhist civilization. That’s where Buddhist really built. Of course then it moves to other parts. There is a lot of up and down in history. But that was the golden time for Buddhism in Bangladesh. That is also when the Bengali Literature grew with the Bengali language to the flourish in Bangladesh.

Also later, a very famous monk from Bangladesh went to Tibet, and then he went to Sichuan and other places. His name is Atish Dipanker. He came in the 11th Century. He came to Tibet. If you go to Lhasa, or any other places in Tibet, and ask them about, especially in the temples, if you ask about Atish, they will all know and start revering him. Because everybody knows him, every Tibetan who has some religious background will know about Atish. He is also known as one of the bionians of Tibetan traditional medicine. He is also known as architecture designer of some ancient irrigation system in Sichuan and Chengdu. So there are all our connections.

And of course, all Chinese now know about Zheng He. Zheng He has visited Bangladesh with his fleet. And our main port city Chittagon is where he stopped his fleet for some time. And many people say this name Chittagon is a Chinese name, Chittagon means great port, or some people say “Xi Da Gang”, which means the great port in the west.

Beijing Impression

I love this place. If I just mention one place in Beijing which I like most, it should be unfair. I think the way keeps growing bigger and bigger, being more beautiful every day. Most of the time when I tell people I have stayed here for so long, many people asked me： “What are the changes do you notice?” That is another thing that impresses me. Changes do take place. Most changes everybody noticed are the buildings, the roads, the cars on the streets instead of the bicycles. Huge number of cars every day. But what impresses me most in Beijing is the face of the people in Beijing. That has changes so much. When I was here earlier, people less showed off themselves. They were not as confident as they are today. Everybody I see, the young people, the old people, the rich people, the not so rich people, the officials and others, everybody looks more confident. They look more proud. That is what really impresses me.

New Year Celebration in Bangladesh

All societies have their own way of celebrating New Year. New Year is the major festival throughout the world. But like the Chinese people, we have our own New Year, Like you have your “春节”(Spring Festival). This is our particular New Year. The English New Year or the Gregorian New Year is also celebrated in our country. But I think, more popular with the people of Bangladesh and more close to their heart is the Bengali New Year, which always falls on 15th of April every year.

It is similar to every country in this region. Many parts in India also follow this calendar. All of countries of southern Asia, also have the same calendar, like Thailand, Laos, they also have their own New Year at that time. Usually the date may vary one or two days, but in the same period of the year. This is also something that links us, the tradition of this New Year. We celebrate it in different ways. One of the most important things we do in the New Year is the businessmen, they all close their all account, and hold a kind of open house or reception in their business houses, invite their customers to com and enjoy the New Year with them, give good food, all kinds of gifts. In various parts of the country we have fairs, the New Year’s fair. Not large fairs but small fairs in all over the village and all over the city, in different places. And children are the ones who make the most of them. These days are also becoming a big event in urban areas, with the centralized programmes. And people also try to visit each other, to greet each other in different ways. Official programmes are held. We have a official holiday on this day. So basically people have a lot of fun. Not staying at home.