Soaking In The Tissue Culture
Good Morning Qatar,
Today, if you are not aware, is the World Environment Day – an apt day for us to open our eyes and think.
To blow our noses, tissue paper. Fair enough. To wipe off our sweat in this scorching heat, tissue paper. That too is understandable. But to wipe off that one tiny dot of dust off our computer screens, or off our steering wheels, or our bedside tables, or for cleaning our hands after a meal… tissue paper! Really?
According to figures, unofficial though, on an average in Doha, each person uses a minimum of 10 sheets of tissue paper every day. So, about 600,000 of us literally toss approximately six million sheets in a day. 180 million in a month! In a year? You do the math.
But you really don’t need any more figures to be assured that that’s a huge amount of paper going waste, when all you need is one handkerchief, or a napkin made out of cloth to get you through days and months. The only thing that it requires is washing. How big a problem is that?
Lets for a minute leave aside the fact that hundreds of trees are chopped off from forests to make this seemingly harmless paper, and that it’s contributing rather significantly towards pollution and global warming.
Just imagine how much paper is going waste, how much money, which can be saved, is going waste in buying these tissue paper boxes, one of which costs anywhere between QR 3 and QR 8.
Ask Mushtaq Khatib, a real estate agent from India, who has been living in Doha for the last 29 years, and he’ll tell you without thinking that between his family of eight they consume "two boxes every single day". That’s 400 sheets between eight people!
"You come to my house and in every room you will find a tissue paper box. There has to be. We can live without water but not without tissue paper," he says.
"In this part of the world we need tissue paper for everything. Be it before dinner, after dinner, to wipe off a drop off water from the table, or to clean our teacup. Don’t ask me why. It was a habit that was thrust upon me ever since I came here," he says.
"Now even when we go back to India, we have no choice but to carry boxes and boxes of tissue paper with us," he adds.
Walk into a restaurant and you are bound to see a box of tissue paper on every table. And how do we use the paper? Instead of probably taking out one, we’ll take out three to blow our noses. We’ll end up using five to wipe off our hands after dinner.
"The minute an Arabic would come in, before asking for water he would ask for tissue paper," remarks Irshad Wadood, Restaurant Manager at the Ramada Hotel.
However, he says, in his hotel’s restaurants they do keep cloth-made napkins as it is a "prestige issue", but in the bars and in the lobby there are tissue paper boxes all over.
"It is for no other reasons but hygiene. You can dispose off the paper napkins after use. Whereas, you’ll be using the cloth-made napkins again and again.
"In the small independent restaurants though," Wadood says, "they use tissue paper because it is obviously cost effective."
The owner of an Indian restaurant in the city’s Najma area lays a bet that he’d keep cloth napkins and tissue paper on one table, and assures the customer will go for the tissue paper. He wins the bet.
How about not keeping the tissue paper and just the cloth napkin there? He does that for the next table, and surprisingly, the customer ignores the cloth napkin completely and asks for tissue paper.
"You can’t change their habit, which has existed for years, in one day," the owner says arrogantly.
Not wishing to be named, a citizen of Malaysia, working in Doha for the last three years, describes the situation as "mind-boggling".
"When I first came here, I went to the hyper market and was shocked to see one whole aisle space given to tissue paper boxes. The space given to milk was not even one third of that!" she exclaims.
"And people here don’t use paper, they waste it," she says.
It is a catch 22 situation. An official at the Lulu Hypermarket says, "We only sell what people want to buy."
South American Maria Pires, a housewife living in Doha for eight years, counters with a shrug, while buying a pile of tissue paper boxes: "It’s what’s supplied. Can’t help it."
What started the tissue culture? If the expatriates influenced the citizens, or vice versa, is a big mystery. The only thing that’s well known is that the tissue culture has been here ever since.
But the question as to why the tissue culture, has answers ranging from "it’s hygienic" to "people of Doha are lazy" to "it’s status symbol".
Says Shakeel Kakui, an active environmentalist from MES Indian School: "Besides the fact that people have become completely dependant on tissue paper, it is true that it’s a sign of showing off their status. That we like to use things and throw them, that we won’t use a handkerchief, which we have to wash over and over again. And of course, some think using the QR 8 worth perfumed tissues takes them one step higher than the ones using the regular paper."
Kakui adds: "The perfumed and the bleached tissues have chlorine in them, which indeed is adding to the pollution contributing towards global warming. But even more harmful are the tissue paper boxes, which are completely non-biodegradable since they’re totally made of chemicals."
For those who aren’t aware of the warning of global warming, the drastic affect of which we may not witness, but there is a chance, if things continue to go as they are, our grandchildren and their children might just be in the middle of…
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 1.1°F (0.6°C). Seven of the 10 warmest years in the 20th century occurred in the 1990s.
Mountain glaciers the world over are receding. The Arctic ice pack has lost about 40 percent of its thickness over the past four decades. Global sea level is rising about three times faster over the past 100 years compared with the previous 3,000 years.
And as Earth continues to warm, there is a growing risk that the climate will change in ways that will seriously disrupt our lives. There will be a faster rise in sea level; more heat waves and droughts, resulting in more and more conflicts over water resources; more extreme weather events producing floods and property destruction; and a greater potential for heat-related illness and deaths.
Till about a couple of decades ago, winter in Qatar would mean sweaters, overcoats, hand gloves and mist out of your mouth while you spoke. But now, you can barely differentiate between summer and winter. The air-conditioners never used to be turned on before May, but now you need them in March.
Qatar has developed really fast - state-of-the-art buildings, great roads, flashy cars – and this is in fact just the beginning. But what’s the point if these mighty constructions are brought down to soil in a matter of years? That too because of a small piece of paper, which we couldn’t get rid of!
Have a happy World Environment Day!
Today, if you are not aware, is the World Environment Day – an apt day for us to open our eyes and think.
To blow our noses, tissue paper. Fair enough. To wipe off our sweat in this scorching heat, tissue paper. That too is understandable. But to wipe off that one tiny dot of dust off our computer screens, or off our steering wheels, or our bedside tables, or for cleaning our hands after a meal… tissue paper! Really?
According to figures, unofficial though, on an average in Doha, each person uses a minimum of 10 sheets of tissue paper every day. So, about 600,000 of us literally toss approximately six million sheets in a day. 180 million in a month! In a year? You do the math.
But you really don’t need any more figures to be assured that that’s a huge amount of paper going waste, when all you need is one handkerchief, or a napkin made out of cloth to get you through days and months. The only thing that it requires is washing. How big a problem is that?
Lets for a minute leave aside the fact that hundreds of trees are chopped off from forests to make this seemingly harmless paper, and that it’s contributing rather significantly towards pollution and global warming.
Just imagine how much paper is going waste, how much money, which can be saved, is going waste in buying these tissue paper boxes, one of which costs anywhere between QR 3 and QR 8.
Ask Mushtaq Khatib, a real estate agent from India, who has been living in Doha for the last 29 years, and he’ll tell you without thinking that between his family of eight they consume "two boxes every single day". That’s 400 sheets between eight people!
"You come to my house and in every room you will find a tissue paper box. There has to be. We can live without water but not without tissue paper," he says.
"In this part of the world we need tissue paper for everything. Be it before dinner, after dinner, to wipe off a drop off water from the table, or to clean our teacup. Don’t ask me why. It was a habit that was thrust upon me ever since I came here," he says.
"Now even when we go back to India, we have no choice but to carry boxes and boxes of tissue paper with us," he adds.
Walk into a restaurant and you are bound to see a box of tissue paper on every table. And how do we use the paper? Instead of probably taking out one, we’ll take out three to blow our noses. We’ll end up using five to wipe off our hands after dinner.
"The minute an Arabic would come in, before asking for water he would ask for tissue paper," remarks Irshad Wadood, Restaurant Manager at the Ramada Hotel.
However, he says, in his hotel’s restaurants they do keep cloth-made napkins as it is a "prestige issue", but in the bars and in the lobby there are tissue paper boxes all over.
"It is for no other reasons but hygiene. You can dispose off the paper napkins after use. Whereas, you’ll be using the cloth-made napkins again and again.
"In the small independent restaurants though," Wadood says, "they use tissue paper because it is obviously cost effective."
The owner of an Indian restaurant in the city’s Najma area lays a bet that he’d keep cloth napkins and tissue paper on one table, and assures the customer will go for the tissue paper. He wins the bet.
How about not keeping the tissue paper and just the cloth napkin there? He does that for the next table, and surprisingly, the customer ignores the cloth napkin completely and asks for tissue paper.
"You can’t change their habit, which has existed for years, in one day," the owner says arrogantly.
Not wishing to be named, a citizen of Malaysia, working in Doha for the last three years, describes the situation as "mind-boggling".
"When I first came here, I went to the hyper market and was shocked to see one whole aisle space given to tissue paper boxes. The space given to milk was not even one third of that!" she exclaims.
"And people here don’t use paper, they waste it," she says.
It is a catch 22 situation. An official at the Lulu Hypermarket says, "We only sell what people want to buy."
South American Maria Pires, a housewife living in Doha for eight years, counters with a shrug, while buying a pile of tissue paper boxes: "It’s what’s supplied. Can’t help it."
What started the tissue culture? If the expatriates influenced the citizens, or vice versa, is a big mystery. The only thing that’s well known is that the tissue culture has been here ever since.
But the question as to why the tissue culture, has answers ranging from "it’s hygienic" to "people of Doha are lazy" to "it’s status symbol".
Says Shakeel Kakui, an active environmentalist from MES Indian School: "Besides the fact that people have become completely dependant on tissue paper, it is true that it’s a sign of showing off their status. That we like to use things and throw them, that we won’t use a handkerchief, which we have to wash over and over again. And of course, some think using the QR 8 worth perfumed tissues takes them one step higher than the ones using the regular paper."
Kakui adds: "The perfumed and the bleached tissues have chlorine in them, which indeed is adding to the pollution contributing towards global warming. But even more harmful are the tissue paper boxes, which are completely non-biodegradable since they’re totally made of chemicals."
For those who aren’t aware of the warning of global warming, the drastic affect of which we may not witness, but there is a chance, if things continue to go as they are, our grandchildren and their children might just be in the middle of…
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 1.1°F (0.6°C). Seven of the 10 warmest years in the 20th century occurred in the 1990s.
Mountain glaciers the world over are receding. The Arctic ice pack has lost about 40 percent of its thickness over the past four decades. Global sea level is rising about three times faster over the past 100 years compared with the previous 3,000 years.
And as Earth continues to warm, there is a growing risk that the climate will change in ways that will seriously disrupt our lives. There will be a faster rise in sea level; more heat waves and droughts, resulting in more and more conflicts over water resources; more extreme weather events producing floods and property destruction; and a greater potential for heat-related illness and deaths.
Till about a couple of decades ago, winter in Qatar would mean sweaters, overcoats, hand gloves and mist out of your mouth while you spoke. But now, you can barely differentiate between summer and winter. The air-conditioners never used to be turned on before May, but now you need them in March.
Qatar has developed really fast - state-of-the-art buildings, great roads, flashy cars – and this is in fact just the beginning. But what’s the point if these mighty constructions are brought down to soil in a matter of years? That too because of a small piece of paper, which we couldn’t get rid of!
Have a happy World Environment Day!
posted by Once the Conman at 5:36 PM
4 Comments:
so many small things that each of us can do would go a long way in makin a difference....paper, plastic, fuel, water, electricity....we all know umpteen no of ways to conserve them. but the reason we dont make an effort is most often not lack of awareness but lack of responsibility. each of us think that we, as individuals, would not make much of a difference, for better or for worse. if this feeling alone changes, the world would be so much of a better place.
so what if she has to wear a veil in public... as conman says, she doesnt, at parties and at homw. also, its not about how other people think about ur lokks. its about what u feel about yourself. and looking good can def make u feel good. isnt it just like wearing makeup?
its of course more extensive, and expensive. and its permanent,. but if the woman is willing to take the plunge, who is the world to judge.
sorry. comment in the wrong place.
the Tissue-Issue (c) nodep, enjoy..I just happen to find yuor topic on the net..here is mine ...Regards, Norman.
Don’t ask me why because I simply had to write it down and it’s for a few reasons. The first one is to make a point thatactually we just live our life’s and that time passes by while we don’t even notice it and secondly to point out that there are so many funny things to see in our narrow world that we became blind for them. This isn’t actually a spectacular story but it’s an observation. There I have traveled quite some country’s it’s perhaps the eye that has been trained, I don’t know. It’s just a close observation.
I was sitting again in a taxi downtown in Kuala Lumpur for the trip towards the customer, while waiting for the traffic to vaporizeI noticed my nose started to drip again. Those air conditioners really do a good job for those that just came in and visit a country where the regular temperature is higher then a European can stand. So im seeking for a tissue. No tissue around so I grabbed my old piece of tissue from yesterday and try to clean my nose with that. My hand all covered with the fluid from my nose im wiping my pants, well there was no other way to get rid of it and the rest landed on the backseat of the Taxi. Which was on itself already darker at the edges then the original color.
So im sitting back putting on my sun glasses and enjoying the view, so far this existed of cars passing at a speed of 3km andsome motorbikes juggling between them. The taxi driver had glasses and his front window was covered with stickers indicating that he must be an experienced driver, I repeat "a taxi driver for a long time". I look in the front of the dashboard and there I see heaven. It was a big pink box with the tag "Tissue" and some beautiful white paper stuck out. I wonder why the driver did not pass me a tissue when he spotted me picking and cleaning my disaster in the middle of my face.
We stop again, yes we’re stuck in traffic, this time because a truck driver forgot to pull his stearingwheel when making a left turn so he ended up on the side of the bridge almost hitting the road below. "That happens all the time" the taxi driver shouts to the back and I look at him via the front mirror. At the same time I feel my nose dripping and the driver must have seen it too. No reaction at all from him. Im seeking like a mad rabbit for the last piece of clean paper cover to wipe my nose, the rest of my nose ends up at the backseat of the car.
So well that’s enough for me I thought I really hoped the driver would have passed me a tissue from his tissuebox in the front of the car. Somehow no reaction from the taxi driver thus I ask him about the purpose of the tissuebox on the dashboard of his cab. I may assume it’s for passengers that have caught a cold or for passengers that are not allowed to wipe their hands at the backseat? He gives me the answer "It’s just convenient to have it in the car" I look up and start to think that my nose must be invisible. Did he not notice the drips on the tip of my nose?
We arrive at the customer and Im spending the whole day seeking for papers from toilets and avoiding the air conditioners inside the building. Those cold wind blowers do a good job actually, but avoiding them is a big challenge. After 8 hours of paper seeking and running between airco’s I heading back to the hotel where I definitely will disarm my room air conditioner.
The taxi driver looks at me and ask’s "Where to Sir". I tell him to get to the Hilton as fast as he can and that the drive may not cost more then 20 ringit. He agreed and before I know im stuck in another jam. No problem, I will just lean back and enjoy the view. A car passes by and another car...then we pass a car, you know the drill in traffic jams I assume, then I automatically started to give an answer like "Tissue box". I don’t know where that came from because I did not hear any question, it just popped-up in my head, then I noticed that I saw the question! "The cars that passed me just now all had tissue-boxes in the back".. I started to observe and rethink.
We are passing a Toll-point and I have spotted a lot of tissue-boxes during our trip of 200 meters. Some people have them in the front of the car, like my taxi driver had, some have boxes in the back of the car. There are also people who have decorated tissue-boxes in the car, either in the back or in the front. And some don’t have tissue boxes at all, at least not that I can spot from being in the backseat of the taxi. All those tissue-boxes equally have all the same layout in geometrics but surprisingly the decoration differs.
The taxi driver pulls up, after paying 1 ringit to the white-black hand glove that entered the car for a second. My head bashed down into the pillow in the backseat of the car and while that happened I see this girl in a small car beside me. She has this tissue-box in the front of her car and it’s covered with millions of glitters and some velvet material. A tuned Toyota blasts by on the right side of the car an I just was able to see that the driver has a tissue-box in the front, no bells or whizzles, actually just a pain box. Im keeping my eyes on the people in the cars while at the same time Im trying to get a glimpse on the inside of the vehicle while we are rushing towards the hotel. Many different people and boxes in different cars passed while we are flying through the wilderness of Asian metal on wheels.
Again we stop, I see an older man and woman sitting in a secondhand Asian cool box beside me, but no tissue-box, That’s odd and I turn my head to see if there was no box in the back of their car. No visual box to spot. It seems after all that there are people who don’t like or use tissue-boxes. Speaking in terms of "use" I have actuality never seen anyone use any tissue-box ever since im here in Malaysia. Im trying to solve the riddle of this tissue-issue. "Why are some boxes in the front of the car and why some in the back and why does not everyone have a tissuebox? After closely observing the lonely passengers sitting inside the refrigerators on wheels a theory came to my mind; What if the tissue-box in front of the car is a sign? Could actually be, but would be ridiculous. So what if the box is just there..It’s just in there right when it rolls off the belt from the factory? but then again, "why is it sometimes in the back and sometimes in the front". Closely observing the drivers and find myself in a physiologic drama of paper and humans, my nose starts to drip once more. Im asking the taxi driver if he might have a tissue for me. "Yes it’s in the back behind you Sir". I turn my head, see the box and reach out to get a handful of paper for my nose. Its was in the back all the time?. The taxi driver says "It’s just convenient to have it in the back Sir".
I think I have reached a point where im able to put the pieces together regarding the tissue-issue. As it seems now, after an observation of some time on the Malaysian highway, that people who are single or are a couple do have the tissue-box in front of the car. Most of the time the tissue-box is in the front of the car when there is a girl or boy sitting in it, around the age of 25. But I cant clear the fact that when your a guy your able to buy a tissue-box cover so ugly that your deer to drive around with it! ..no, that part must be the work of a woman. So in a fact, the tissue-box in the front of the car is there when your single, have girlfriend or boyfriend and when its decorated then the guy has for sure a girlfriend. Plausible theory? But then what about the box in the back? If it is that "convenient"? being single its of an absurd logic to put a tissue-box in the back, you can't even reach for it while driving the car, or can they? The tissue-box in the back is probably for parents. Kids are in the back of the car, but then again those kids must be old enough to grab the tissue by themselves. On the other hand kids don’t like tissues at all, they prefer to wipe their finger on the backseat.
The taxi pulls over in the front of the hotel and I thank the driver for his tissue’s and pass him some extra ringets. Inside my hotel room im trying to kill the air conditioner. The whole idea of the tissue keeps me going, with some funny ideas, during diner and I forget about the issue when im having a delightful coffee in the launch of the hotel.
The next morning, my nose is in very good condition, Im grabbing another taxi and follow the daily maze towards work. I spot some elderly people in a car beside me and the tissue-issue starts to hit my head again. I all forgot about the "No tissue box inside the car". Indeed I did not spot one in this car either. So im again in the race for the ‘mystery of the lost tissue box’. I join my colleague’s at work and the day passes like I would be working at the North Pole. One of my college’s drives me back to the hotel and we talks and talks. Then the tissue-issue comes to my head again, I ask him, a Chinese guy, "what about those tissue boxes in all the cars here in Malaysia" He answers me like he spoke with the taxi-driver "It’s just convenient". Did I end up in a TV commercial? Ill just give him the facts and try; "You have a girlfriend you have no kids!" He says "Yes, why?"
Well for a start, my theory was solid in this case, "l...where did you get the tissue-box from?" I ask him. And he reply’s with a smile "My girlfriend, she bought it actually and put it in my car.". Good answer, but what about the use? "So..where do you use it for?" I ask. He starts to laugh and looks at me like im from a Mars-colony and replies "Do you people have spare tires in your car?". I really did not understand that answer but the relation with the word "convenient" is very close here, so I look at him and say "Well actually, did you notice that Malaysian people have, or their tissue boxes in the front, or in the back of their car". He looks on the road seeking for evidence and smiles. "Now you mention it.." he says...
He drops me off at the hotel and before I walk inside I see a car parked in front, I just could not reject, and I needed to peek inside. And there it was a tissue-box right in the middle of the car between the two front seats. I think I just discovered the third mystery. Im walking slowly to the front of the hotel and drop my laptop case and wait. Im waiting for my theory to become reality. "There will be elderly people stepping into this car for sure..." Ten minutes later the porter opens the front door of the car and a man and woman walk out of the hotel. They are around their 50 in age.
So that was a satisfaction in itself, some theory without the knowledge of knowing. This happens actually all day and there are professions in which you’re able to make money out of observations, seems easy but its not. Small things make our life easier, they also betrayed who we are and what we do. In my case I was hunting the tissue theory.
Sitting in front of my hotel room window with a great view over Kuala Lumpur I started to workout the theory, I had some grey parts left which Im unable to cover, but those Im happy to put towards ‘the human behavior of irregularity’. The theory is like this; "If you’re single or a couple without kids you have the tissue-box in front of the car. The bells and whizzles of the tissue-box are always from a woman, if its a plain box then the person is always single and a guy. If it’s a girl driving the car with a tissue-box then it’s covered with lots of bells and whizzles. If it’s a guy in the car with a tissue-box and decorated then his girl put it there or he’s driving the car of his woman. When the box is in the back of the car then the car belongs to a couple with kids and as it seems with younger kids the mother is always in the back. Handy if you might grab a tissue, but do they? If you have elderly kids then its just standing there in the back waiting to be decomposed by the sunlight.
So what’s the use of the box in the back? The box in the front just seems to obvious now. Standing there for ages hoping to be used. But know body ever seems to pullout a tissue. Do they get this tissue box for free, or what? Then you have the hidden tissue-box. This happens to be in cars where the owners are probably 50-plus and have kids which have in their turn a car with their own a tissue-box. These hidden tissue-boxes are often placed between the two front seats, you unable to spot them from within another car, do they have to hide it? Or is it just because they aren’t so flexible anymore? And then of course the cars with no boxes at all. Thinking back on those cars, they where by itself already clean from the inside. So the person driving it is or single or does not know the existence of the tissue-box. Overall we could relate the tissue-box issue to the personal situation of the driver and that’s actually fun to observe.
With a smile on my face and some tissue’s in my pocket im sitting in the taxi towards work the other morning. At the left a car I spot a girl, probably "Single and no kids" on the right a man "Married no kids" on the right again "50-Plus with hidden box" on the left a "Couple.." and another "couple" and a "single".. Seems to work out quiet well actually. Im telling the theory of the tissue-issue to my fellow workers in the hope to get answers to open questions, and they laugh about this strange European theory. But then on the way back, when my college drives be to the hotel, he starts to laugh "It’s true what you said, here look, a single girl with no kids.."
I ask my college about the tissue-box "Where do you get it from? Is it passed from generation to generation to have a tissue-box in your car? Do you get it as a present when you pass for your driver’s license? If it’s a mother-in-law thing? Why do you have it in you car while you’re not using it?". Because every time we go out to have lunch there are not tissues on the tables and I always have to wipe my fingers elsewhere or wash them in the bathroom instead if using the thousands of tissues that are just laying around in the cars? Do you ever use the tissues?" He looks at me and says "yes sometimes.. It’s just convenient to have them"..
Im somehow mixed-up here in a history of use-with-no-use product as people seems to have air conditioners in their cars and switch from cold to hot every minute without actually fetching a cold, they don’t use the tissues from the car. It’s just sitting there in the car being a tissue-box. Not one person I have asked the question "Why do you have it" could give me a straight answer like "It’s for use if you have a cold or its handy if your need to clean you hands of mouth or else" ..No it’s just "convenient" to have as it seems.
So with the unfinished theory of the tissue-issue its time to think about my way back to Europe, where we actually don’t have tissue’s in our car and if we do it’s a wettened-type of tissue wrapped in a plastic box for the use of our hands or kids faces. Would we answer "Convenient too?". I don’t have tissue-box in my car actually I might buy one to start a event of tissue mystery’s here in Europe, that is for the Europeans, the Asians find it normal although it seems they don’t know nothing about the purpose of it besides that it just convenient to have.
The tissue market in Asia must have a really good time, people just buy it and put it in their car, not to speak about the business created for the tissue-boxes. So if you ever seeking a present when in Asia think about a tissue-box or a rare box-cover, it must be a great present to give.
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