Party Vibe

its usually age 18 where people can enter into a credit agreement on their own in most countries.

Telephones have been around in Bangladesh for many years; but were not common in many houses other than rich ones. parents are also unable to monitor use of a mobile telephone if as easily as a fixed line where the teenager would have to physically go to the place where the telephone set is installed. (in Asian countries many such phones were 700 series dial telephones, where the bell often tended to “tinkle” when you picked up the receiver or made a call, and/or parents could listen in on extensions).

The main mobile provider in BD is quite right-on (it is also set up to provide telecoms facilities to poor villages) and gives away a lot of free airtime (the running costs of GSM networks are lower in Eastern countries as there is more space, repeaters can be further apart and no-one whinges about masts like they do in the West!)

TBH it is more the older generation getting jittery about the fact that the youth have “access to electrified telephones and other abominations without parental supervision which is causing great decline in morals” (imagine the last bit being read in a comedy Indian accent by an old man and it may make more sense).

no, the words “control” and “direct” are a very good choice of words.

I am Asian, and although born in London and brought up in a mixed environment my parents initially tried to discourage me from taking part in such activity as raving, despite both my parents having had “hippy friends” in the past (original 70s South London hippies) and an interest in music and partying in their own youth.

This they abandoned around the time my younger sister was born, and started voting Conservative (they had a small business then so it made sense).

They wanted me to study hard and my Dad wanted me to become a computer scientist in the local atomic bomb factory so I could earn lots of money etc; and initially they tried (unsuccessfully) every tactic possible to stop me “staying out late and hanging around with the wrong people”.

My father was also very strict about being in control, even telling off our pet cats if they went beyond certain points of the house (“no jungle animals are to be on the stairwell!”) One cat obeyed and he didn’t bother it; the other defied him and he would beat it with a rolled up Guardian. Yet he looked after the family well and would never grudge these cats their food costs or vet bills…

The thing is I fully understand why my parents were like this and have no malice against them – it was being done not so much to hold me back but so I could do reasonably well at school and be able to compete in a country where despite (or perhaps because of) political correctness there is a lot of hidden racism particularly amongst those with power – so Asians have to be better academically to get the same jobs…

This is the same thing going on in Asia at the moment. The people there know at the moment to survive they have to wrestle work away from others in Western companies, to do so they need to create this fake “hard working Asian” stereotype (which is actually the cause of global resentment and conflict on all sides).

Its worse when kids get pushed like this by all the social control and then there is nothing for them such as jobs… – it is one major reason why many turn to radical groups such as Al-Quaeda….