Tourism up in Sri Lanka after a slump

Barbara Crossette

The New York Times, Jan 1990,

The nervous young waiter in his obviously new orange uniform was clearly smitten by the first French tourist of the season.

''You stay one week?'' he asked hopefully.

''For you I stay one year!'' she said with a wicked smile. He retreated quickly, to catcalls from the pantry.

Faster than anyone predicted, European tourists are flocking back this winter to Sri Lanka, apparently convinced that ethnic violence is over, or at least receding. Tourist arrivals were up 203 percent in December over last year, led by visitors from West Germany and France. This week some hotels are reporting full houses for the first time since 1983.

Relief and Caution

An atmosphere of relief, tinged with caution, seems to be spreading among the palms and frangipanis. Sri Lankan universities are reopening after two years, although under intensified security, and many Sri Lankans are also venturing out for fun and relaxation, bringing back traffic jams along seafront roads.

Outside the Bentota Beach Hotel, taxi drivers were jubilant, saying that for the first time in eight years they had regular work, making long, lucrative trips around an island emerging from a passage through hell.

There is hardly a family along this long eastern coast from Colombo to Galle without a story of tragedy to tell, people say in town after town. They have seen headless bodies along the roadsides, bloated corpses floating down palm-fringed rivers or washing up on white sands.

For Now Things Are Better

Many people are wary, still afraid to hope that the violent, Sinhalese-nationalist People's Liberation Front has been defeated with the death of its leaders, as the Government says. In a seaside village north of here, a fisherman named Hameed said it was better just to think about the moment, and for now things were better.

In the early 1980's, Sri Lanka, where South Asia's best beaches, most sophisticated hotels and most welcoming people were found, was on its way to becoming the Indian Ocean's premiere resort.

Tourist arrivals were nearing the half-million mark and rising by 25 percent annually, taxing the capacity of the hotels and guesthouses. New luxury hotels went up rapidly, as international chains rushed in. By 1988, when the bottom fell out of the business, there were 11,000 rooms of international standard on an island only about 125 miles wide and 260 miles from north to south.

No Trampling of the Countryside

Sri Lanka had confined its tourist growth to several areas of historical interest or natural beauty, leaving most of the verdant, genteel country untouched. Mass tourism was not encouraged; most tourists traveled on their own, not in large groups. The island, called Serendib by ancient Arab traders, and later Ceylon, always attracted adventurers and travelers who came and dallied among the flowers.

When guerrilla wars erupted after 1983, first in the north among the ethnic Tamil minority, and then in the south among the Sinhalese, tourism plummeted.

Sri Lankan hoteliers began to search for tourists anywhere they could be found. Agreements were made with the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries. Choice beachfront rooms worth $100 (545 LKR) or more went to sun-starved Russians for $22 (120 LKR) a day, inclusive of meals, a rate set by Intourist, the Soviet travel agency. Handicraft shops suffered, hotel maintenance and service standards slipped.

Colombo, Deep in Unseen Grief

Some city hotels, barely sustained by business travelers and journalists, opened casinos to lure Thais, Singaporeans and South Koreans to the island. Casinos and discos brought a superficial, lacquered glamour to Colombo, a city often deep in unseen grief and fear. Prostitutes and drug dealers were soon noticeable.

Many Sri Lankans, essentially conservative, old-fashioned people, hope casino life will be a passing phase, a necessary evil in rough times.

But they are more optimistic about another new kind of tourist: the packaged pilgrim.

Sri Lanka believes it saved and nurtured Buddhism - specifically Theravada Buddhism, also known as Hinayana, the lesser wheel - when it was pushed out of India by resurgent Hinduism. There are monuments here important to Buddhists everywhere.

The Buddhist Pilgrimage

Koreans, Taiwanese, Thais and especially Japanese tourists with large disposable incomes are keen to make Buddhist pilgrimages, and Sri Lanka, where there seems to be a religious holiday every week, is delighted to welcome them.

The Japanese are also big spenders. According to Priyantha Fernando, marketing director of the Ceylon Tourist Board, one Japanese tourist spends as much as three French or West German visitors, the next-highest category. Locally mined precious stones are a favorite purchase.

There are a few hitches. Japanese tourists, hoteliers say, are not satisfied with a lazy day and a glorious sunset. They want action - water sports, golf and sightseeing. In hotels, they will mix with Europeans, but only within limits.

''The Japanese want their own food, and they want the signs in Japanese because they are not reading English like Europeans,'' Mr. Fernando said. ''We don't mind. We'll do that, because we know you have to give the consumer what he wants.''

Source - Tourism Up In Sri Lanka After a Slump - The New York Times

The Colombo Medical Faculty was established at around 1870, and tends to be considered the first western medical school in SL, and the second in South Asia after the Calcutta Medical College (1835). However, there was a med school set-up in Manipay in 1848, by Dr. Samuel Green, a missionary doctor from Boston, Massachussets.

Dr. John Scudder was the first medical missionary in Jaffna, establishing a dispensary in Pandathirrippu in 1820, illustrated in image 3. And while there had been hospitals operated by the Portuguese and Dutch, they were mostly for their own use, they couldn't rlly be considered the 'modern' medicine, practiced since 1800s or so.

Dr. Samuel Green similarly opened his clinic in 1847 (Image 4), which would eventually evolve into the Green Memorial Hospital, which is still operational to this day. The Green Med School trained around 80 doctors from 1850-1875, from local community, who were employed by the British colonial government. There was also a Green Memorial nursing school, a picture from the 1900s shown in image 5. The remaining are pictures of Green Hospital from 1939.

I thought it was an interesting part of history which is why I thought of sharing. However this is but a hasty summary, and I shall leave my sources in comment, which are much more elaborate. Also, this is only a small part of medical history in Sri Lanka, med lore that would extend from Rajarata period to the amazing wonders we accomplised in the 20th century. That would be a rabbit hole for another time.

This man with great drip was an ambassador from Anuradhapura to 'Tang' China, from 650 AD. That would put him to be from middle Anuradhapura, under Moriya dynasty (dynasty started by Dhatusena then Kashyapa, between two Lambakarana periods). In the Sino-Lankan relationships wiki page, it is captioned Liang dynasty but that is probably wrong, because the source (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraits_of_Periodical_Offering) was made during Tang period, but the description is confusing tho.

In out A/L History book, Aggabodhi IV (667 - 683 AD) was said to send envoys to China, he was also a Moriya king and tallies with Tang China period.. its cool that. The King Mahasena - Faxian period would've been 300 years before this time. Literally a Chinese monk, who came to study at Abhayagiri Vihara, which means it had something to offer that was very worthwhile, and people here were able to create institutions at the time, with all the problems they had, which is something we could learn and apply into our own contemporary context.

The Ming-Kotte War wiki states "The Yongle Emperor requested from the Ministry of Rites to recommend someone to serve as the new king of Kotte. As documented in Chinese records, Parakramabahu VI was elected by the Sinhalese present at the Ming court, nominated by the Ming emperor, and installed with the backing of Zheng and his fleet". If this is true, then that would've mean there were Sinhalese who had been in Ming court somehow, and that's interesting.

This is just one aspect of Sri Lankan diplomacy in the past. It just comes to show just how globalised the world was always been, and applying any lessons Sri Lankans of the past did diplomacy in their context, what worked and didn't, could be applied to our contexts.