That is why Sri Lankans fail. Because they are stuck up and proud about their pathetic state in life.

I live in Sri Lanka too. I’ve seen first hand.

And I definitely love watching the purple faced leaf monkeys, all the many types of birds, the cows, and all the rest of it. It does make for its own kind of entertainment.

We’ve shopped a few farmer markets and bought produce on the side of the road (I can’t pass anyone selling watermelon. Have to stop.) Bugs are normal.

I imagine since it’s tropical there, and if central A/C isn’t commonplace, the bugs are probably worse than what we deal with around here.

But then you have those monkeys, birds and such to make up for it.

All we have is coyotes, rattlesnakes, fire ants and a lot of flat brown dirt. Sheesh.
.-= Scath´s last blog ..You Can’t Take Some Things Away No Matter How Hard You Try =-.

Consider me well chastised, I will immediately leave Sri Lanka with my wife since obviously, if I didn’t, you’d know and call me out on such bad behaviour again

I appreciate your prompt reply. Yes my IP address says I have replied from the UK. However what I didn’t tell you is that I am a marine engineer working for the Sri Lankan Shipping Corporation. My job is to sail and hence I live 6 months a year off-shore. But the remaining 6 months I spend with my wife and children in Sri Lanka. My wife is fully Sri Lankan; my children are completely Sri Lankan. Not half way through. They are bought up according to our countries culture and values. So may I ask you, who, while boasting to live in Sri Lanka, have a wife who belongs to a culture where men have to compromise with the fact that their women have been pre-loved? Whose offspring will belong to neither the west, nor to Sri Lanka? Whose offspring will partially belong to a culture where men and women are allowed to have pre-marital affairs with anyone like uncivilised animals? After all not more than 1% of those pre-marital affairs end up as lifelong marriages in western countries. So now tell me, just because you live in Sri Lanka, does it justify all the above facts and make you a Sri Lankan? NO. In the same token, if a Sri Lankan lives abroad, and he maintains his cultural values and ethics, isn’t he Sri Lankan. Who is the better Sri Lankan? Him or You? It’s obviously him and not you. So it’s really amusing that you, who claim to have lived in Sri Lanka throughout, are still not truly Sri Lankan.

Even though I really despised your ideas yesterday, I did not for a moment think that you’re so petty to bring up the issue of where a certain person replies from or lives in. Living in a certain country, eating there, sleeping and filling its septic tanks does not make you a patriotic citizen of that country. Where ever you live, what makes you a true Sri Lanka is the feelings, the courtesy and the love you have towards your country. What matters is the dedication you have to preserve your cultural values and hand them over to your future generations. What matters is how well you will safe guard the respect and dignity of your motherland. Do not forget, you call your country of birth “motherland” for a reason. It’s like your mother. Which true grateful son would de-repute his own mother? Which true son would not know who his mother is? In my language, one who does not know who his mother is or one who insults his mother is called an “Awajathakaya” or an “illegitimate child”. I guess the same goes for a man who is so blinded by his white wife that he cannot see what his motherland is. Your country was here for you before your wife was here for you. Don’t forget that. You, along with your wife are batting for Canada. At least she has a reason to do so because it’s her country, but what reason do you have to do so? No man, who hails from a respectable family, who has respected roots will ever bring down his country or its men in front of any one. Not even in front of his wife. Men defend their countries with their lives. Only pussies de-repute a country.

I can complain a lot about Canada too. Did you hear me complain until yesterday when I came across some white lady dissing the shit out about my country? Why can’t I blame about Canada’s weather? It’s freezing bloody cold in there during winter and damn hot in summer. That country is one extreme place which is only made for polar bears. It goes to minus 30 in the winter and with the wind chill sometimes it’s beyond even that. I am telling you, as a marine engineer I have sailed to basically every country that has a shore on it. I have seen what you will never see throughout your entire life. Keep this in mind. If I rub the world atlas on yours or your wives face, basically every country that touches your face, I have been to. So eligibility and experience wise, I know much better about different countries and cultures and thus I can do many extensive reviews about them than your wife or you could. Yet, have you heard me de-reputing Canada until now? Did you see me saying bad about Canada even it is just to show the difference between Canada and Sri Lanka? No. Why? I might not like certain cultures or countries. But I keep it to myself because I know it’s not nice to dish the crap around.

Let me also remind you another thing. Sinhalese are not settlers of this country. We are the true inhabitants of this country. Get your facts right Mr., because you’re asking for trouble here. Do you know how the word “Sinhala” is made? It’s made by the union of the two words “Sivu” and “Hela”, where “Sivu” means “Four” and “Hela” is another word for the island of “Lanka”. “Sivu” refers to the “four” original tribes of people that lived in Sri Lanka from the beginning. Namely they are the “Yakka”, “Deva”, “Naga” and “Raksha” tribes. Those four (Sivu) tribes of Lanka (Hela) made up to form the “Sinhala”. So forget your stupid idea that Sinhalese are settlers. We are not settlers here. We are the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka or Heladiva. You guys are the settlers, but I never said that you’re not welcome to settle, you are welcome. Also Sri Lanka has a much longer history than the Mahavamsa. The Mahavamsa is only one section of Sri Lanka’s history which was written by Mahanama Himi. He only wrote about the not so distant past. However our prehistoric civilisation runs even further beyond the Persian and the Egyptian civilisations. Today, it’s scientifically proven that King Ravana was a Sri Lankan king who ruled the entire civilised world during the prehistoric era of the Kashyapa Buddha. To explain this to you, I have to explain the whole concept of Kalpa and Yuga which I don’t have the time to do. However, there is proof for this. We have found stone tablets, archaeological sites, carbon dating and everything in the North, North Central, East, Central and Southern Provinces. “Mahasammata Manu” was our first ever king and both him and King Ravana belonged to the Yakka tribe. These are facts that have been proven to date. So isn’t it pathetic that, while boasting to live in our country, you still even don’t know its proper history. Doesn’t this prove that just living in the country alone does not help? Apparently, the only thing you have done is living in the country, which doesn’t help the country at all. So do you see that just living in the country doesn’t make you a true Sri Lankan at all? There are many Sri Lankans who live far away, who know these things much better than you do. After all their heart and souls are with Sri Lanka at all times and they have the spine to defend their country and to protect the reputation of its men, women and children unlike you guys who are like parasites who live to just suck up the blood from our lifeline. A parasite lives wherever they live to only feed themselves. By the way, parasites don’t go as true Sri Lankans.

Additionally, keep this in mind. Do we charge a penny for you guys to visit Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa? No. We don’t even charge foreigners. It’s free. Those are our sacred archaeological sites. Still we don’t charge you guys when we should. But I went to visit Cambridge the day before and I was basically ripped-off. From every door to door they charged an entrance fee or asked me and my friend to buy a ticket. One more thing, have you ever studied in a foreign country. If so you may have noticed how these universities charge a zillion times more from international students. For an example, at University of Toronto, the tuition fee for an Ontario student was around CAN$ 5000 per year . It is CAN $20000 for an international student who studies the same course. These rates are for engineering degrees. In Quebec, a local student pays only CAN $ 1500 per semester. How about an international student? An international student studying at McGill University in Montreal pays CAN $12000. At Cambridge University in UK its £4000 per year for a home student. But its £16000 pounds for an international student. Can you see the difference? Can you see that the values are in fact 4 or 5 times higher in general and in Quebec province in Canada it’s close to 10 times higher for an international student. After all most international students come from developing countries, how fair is it to charge such thumping amounts? So don’t you think we Sri Lankans are much generous in that way?

Finally let me remind you one thing. All the people who aided the British during our colonial era had mixed ancestry even though they called themselves Sinhalese. They were not true Sinhalese. They were mixed. Do your home work first buddy. Sinhalese never even worked for the British as in they never even helped them with day to day stuff. So what crap are you talking about us aiding the British. We are dignified nation. So we did not work for any one for money. We did not degrade our self to anyone to earn money. If we helped someone, that was with a pure heart and we just helped for humanity sake. We never expected money in return for that. Do read our history and learn these facts. Because we did not help the British in their construction works for money, they had to bring down Tamil people from India to work for them which sow the seeds for the civil war that was to occur a few years afterward. So are you trying to tell me, that a nation and its people with such qualities would bend down to a bunch of thieves or their descendents now? Hell no we won’t. We didn’t bend down that day and we won’t bend down today. Furthermore, may I remind you one last thing. With all due respect for your religion and ethnicity, I would still have to say this even though I would not want to. Our great heroes “Gongaley Goda Banda”, “Puran Appu”, “Deenis” and “Dingi Rala” were betrayed by a Muslim man. It was a Muslim man who disclosed his hiding place to the British. The man’s name was “Hadji Muhandiram”. Go search about him for yourself. Furthermore, Muslims took the side of the British during the “Wellassa Rebellion” and blocked the food and water routes to the Sinhalese soldiers. You guys did that for money. You guys betrayed us after all we let you live in our land and do your business. So you can see that even those days, you guys did not show any courtesy to the country that gave refuge to you and any respect to the people who welcomed you like their own brethren. So tell me now, who bowed down to the whites? You guys bowed down to the whites like puppets. And now you’re still bowing down to the whites and you’re bowing down to your wife. What a spineless man. We have forgiven you guys for those betrayals time and time again as we are Buddhists and it’s the nature of a Buddhist to forgive and forget. I am not telling that all Muslims are like that. I have Muslim friends who are much patriotic and better than you. However, it still seems that our hospitality, warmth and generosity have cursed us even to date in the pretext of people like you who de-repute this beautiful island nation, its culture and its inhabitants.

This is my last post as I do not have time to keep on talking. I’m sailing back in a few days. So hope all the best for you and your wife in selecting wormless carrots.

@Janith

I have nothing to talk to you. For some reason, something tells me that the name “Janith” seems to be synonymous with the name “Fahim” as far as this conversation is concerned. Of course, not everyone here is like me. Some of them are even half cocked just like Fahim said earlier. But don’t forget that half cocked can have two meanings. Both literally and metaphorically.

Regards
Supun

Laurie, I didn’t see anything in your post that was racist or demeaning. I was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when I was 10 but I remember it well. I especially remember Sri Lankans rushing up to cars containing white people crying “sudhi! sudhi” (sudhi means white). They did the same to me even though I’m brown skinned, albeit lighter brown than the average Sri Lankan.

As a brown skinned Sri Lankan expat married to a white American I can certainly relate to your adventures.
.-= Flying Saucer Jones´s last blog ..Happy Birthday, Master Builder =-.

When I’m talking worms, I’m talking in the eggplant or the cauliflower or cabbage, although I did once have a nasty nasty bag of flour with worms in it – that got tossed wholesale. Yes, we do get weevils and other bugs in the rice and flour, too, along with dals and such.

I mean, this is a tropical country. Of course there are bugs.

At the Colombo Museum, it was Rs.65 for foreigners, Rs.6 for locals. Only this time I got the local rate since Fahim argued for me. But we had to buy two tickets even though I went in alone – the other ticket for the mysterious local husband. That was back in 2004, I believe.

I expect that it’ll take a couple or three more generations to change. Younger, more educated people seem less likely to display this behavior from what I can tell.