If you’re a Bangladeshi who has decided to put on a pair of grown-up pants and move overseas, you already probably have a brigade of aunts and uncles, along with your parents, who can't wait to share with you the dos and don’ts of travelling and living overseas alone. It's because they believe they’re experts at everything. But sadly, there are some things, even these set of geniuses cannot prepare you for.
Here's a list of situations that you probably have to figure out how to deal with on your own, if you ever move abroad. The jaywalking situation You might be used to strutting about the streets of your country like a gangster, might even get away with showing the drivers a “Mama Thamen” gesture with your hand and stopping traffic, but be assured that these facilities are not going to be available to you once you move overseas. Since the first time you jaywalked was probably while holding the hand of one of your parents, it’s not likely that they would enlighten you on how illegal and fineable the deed actually is. Worst case scenario - you find out it’s illegal while being fined and then try to bribe your way out of it, and figure out how that doesn’t work in the other end of the hemisphere.
The tissue paper situation Now we all love tissue paper, don’t we? It’s there when we need to wipe our tears after a heart break, or when we need to wipe our boogers off before anyone catches us in the act. But tissue paper alone, especially when it’s number two, is like Thor without his hammer - weak and sad. If you’ve made up your mind about moving abroad, it’s time for you to kiss your “bodna” or water spray goodbye, and start adding a lot of water bottles to your grocery list.
The hide and go seek situation Important things like keys, credit cards, spectacles, wallet, etc, are the easiest things to lose. You look away for one second, and whoosh, they're gone. If you were in your country, you’d panic, turn your room upside down, cry a little, and then complain about your tragedies to your mother. She, after having smacked you for being so irresponsible, would go to your room and find whatever you lost within five minutes flat. Once you start living alone, no matter how many self-help books you’ve memorised on being tidy, you can never replace your mother’s magical powers.
Homesickness After moving abroad, you might feel alone now and then, but that feeling seems to be on steroids when different festivals are celebrated in your country. No one teaches you how to deal with your feelings, neither do they warn you to stay off of Facebook for a while. Your wall becomes bombarded with updates about how that particular celebration was just a blast, and you cry tears of sorrow, only to realise that you don’t even have a day off. Back to work you go while they post selfies with very, very deep captions about life.
The Chinese food situation Since you were young, Chinese food has been synonymous to celebrations. Stood first? Chinese food. Inviting the in-laws for the first time? Chinese food. Trying to impress a girl? Chinese food. You’d naturally assume that the same kind of food would be served after walking into an authentic Chinese restaurant abroad, but nope, not happening. Just a heads-up - if you read fried cockroaches on the menu, don’t think that they’re fried vegetables arranged in the shape of a cockroach, they’re as real as dead cockroaches get.
The all in one mechanic situation “Regardless of the number of lectures your parents have given you, no one can really anticipate what the exact circumstances would be, once you move.” When you were in your country, if anything went wrong, there were numerous people helping you out, or you would just inform your mother and let her deal with it, because, as mentioned before, she’s magic. But once the bags are packed, the all-time available life line gets cut off and you have to start doing everything yourself. Finding a band-aid, dealing with bullies, unclogging your toilet, fixing a bulb, buying groceries - everything needs to be done by you. Oh how the mighty have fallen!
The tipping situation Who are you kidding? You’re cheap and so is everyone related to you. And fortunately no one judged you when you were in your country, because everyone else is cheap as well. So you can only imagine how heart-wrenching the tipping situation can be for those who move abroad. Sadly, to my knowledge, no books on the matter have been published to make the circumstances any easier.
