He stands over the grill, chopping chicken, lamb, and broccoli with a metal paddle. After he stops chopping he presses down on the meat with an aluminum foil plate. As he presses, the juice from the meat spreads out slowly, bubbling away vigorously. He fills a large Styrofoam box with fresh lettuce and tomatoes on the left and a brown colored rice on the right. After filling the box, he removes the press and scoops the meat with two metal paddles and lays it upon the rice and vegetable.
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MD Islam’s Interview as told to Shio Fung Zhu
Country Life
I was born in Bangladesh, in Chandpur in 1993. I forgot a lot of the stuff, but the stuff I can remember was that it was more like the countryside. So it was not a city, Bangladesh was mostly country regardless. It didn’t have pavement; it had dirt roads. It had like those flea markets that see, those were markets. Our houses were not really modern; they had those metal roofs, the ones they use in the countryside [not shingles, perhaps similar to the metal roofs of houses in American shanty towns]. Bangladesh was like one of the most impoverished countries –a third world country– so it wasn’t high tech. Country was totally different; it wasn’t like the city at all. I also remember building a fucking a boat with tree logs or the like, and it would fucking float [the slang was used to refer to the act of building the boat as being funny; not in the disrespectful sense]. It was a raft; it was not like a canoe or whatever, so a raft would make more sense.
Continue reading MD Islam’s Interview as told to Shio Fung Zhu
