Fragile

People usually associate Bangladesh with garment industry, cheap t-shirts, sweatshops, Rana Plaza, tragedy.

It is true, but business life in Bangladesh is much more versatile. One of the fast growing branches is the ceramics industry.

Last weekend one of the high positioned female diplomats here invited a bunch of women to a tour to a ceramics factory just outside Dhaka. 

Shinepukur's factory produces about 20 million pieces of ceramics and bone china annually. It's a huge heap of cups, plates and mugs. Beautiful things. You don't actually need them but you cannot get enough of them. 

The factory produces all the brands you and I used to have at home or at least we were dreaming of them. 

Later, we couldn't afford the products and the Western owners of the companies outsourced their production to Bangladesh. 

The prices came down a bit, the quality a little more, but we are buying again.

Now the Bangladeshi people have work, the employees in the Western countries are probably unemployed. We have a bad conscience. This is globalization, it hurts. 

The factory employs round 3000 people who work in two shifts from 6 am to 2 pm and from 2 pm to 10 pm. 

Naturally, for very little money, at best 4000 taka (50 euro) per month. 

The conditions were not wonderful but not totally awful either - otherwise the company wouldn't give these tours. 

Compared with Western standards many things are done manually and without visible safety measures. 

Safety at work is generally not a big issue here. 

Asphalt making is so dangerous and old-fashioned that even cavemen would look like astronauts. The workers melt stones to asphalt on fire, as fuel they use pieces of surplus clothes. Everything is done by muscle power.

Finishing a high rise building's facade can be done by two men sitting on a bamboo ladder. They were chatting, I was sweating.

Finally: Facebook was unblocked today.