What’s in a Name

It was Ceylon when I was growing up. It is now Sri Lanka or, officially and informatively, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The Romans called it Serendivis, the Persians Serendip (from which serendipity) the Ancient Greek geographers, Taprobana. Marco Polo writes of it in 1250 as Ceilan. The Portuguese who discovered it by accident called it Ceilão, the French Seilan, Ceylan, then the Dutch Zeilan to Seelan and Seyon and the British, Ceylon. The islander name was Lanka from the Sanskrit Lankadeepa – resplendent island. Sri, means honourable as in honourable sir. The tea still tastes the same and the tea is still Ceylon.

My First Visit

I first came to Sri Lanka in 1968 not long after I had been ordained a priest. While here I went with a group of young Sri Lankan Christians by train from Colombo to Bandarawela in the mountains. I’d only just arrived and was very tired so I had a sleep on some newspapers on the floor of the carriage under the seat. I gathered later the locals were surprised at a European, well, a New Zealander, doing this, but they were not displeased. Without realising it I was following local custom. I simply needed to lie down to sleep and it was the obvious place to do it. There was a possibility I would work here but I found the food so spicy with chilli that even the outside of my mouth burned. In those days I thought that I must not work in a country where I couldn’t eat the food of the people, where my hosts would have to prepare something ‘special’, so that never eventuated. I don’t have any difficulty with the food now so I guess my taste buds must have become more educated.

Public Holidays

In 1968 I seem to remember Sri Lanka had an eight day week, a Buddhist week, which was introduced to appeal to the Sinhalese, largely Buddhist, majority. That played havoc with international trade as the rest of the world (except Burma, I think) had a seven day week and so work days and weekends didn’t coincide. When that was dropped a number of Buddhist public holidays were introduced, Poya Days at full moon once a month and Buddhist Wesak Day. There are public holidays for other religions like the Hindu Festival of Lights, Deepavali and Thai Pongal Day celebrated chiefly by Sri Lankan Tamils. There are the Muslim Festivals of Id-Ul-Fitr and Idul Adha, the Christian Holy Days of Good Friday and Christmas Day and there’s Labour Day on May 1st which is almost a religious festival. Add in Independence Day, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and perhaps some I’ve left out and the result is that Sri Lanka has the greatest number of public holidays of any country in the world. Incidentally, on many of them including Poya Days and this coming Friday which is Independence Day alcohol may not be bought or sold.

Biased News

The only news in English on the television in the hotels I’ve stayed in has been on Moscow Today. There’s been Al Jazeera in Arabic and the news in Mandarin I guess from China. Of course there’s local news in Sinhala and, I think, in Tamil. I assumed the Moscow based news would be biased. It was certainly interesting to hear the Moscow report of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the American Military Prison at Guantanamo Bay. But then I realised the anniversary was probably not even mentioned on the BBC or CNN or any of the other news channels with which I am more familiar so where is the bias? The editors decide what is the news. Whichever way you look at it there is a bias, or censorship.

Guest List

The guests at the Galle Face Hotel, over the years, include actors and film stars, Vivien Leigh, Lawrence Olivier, Noel Coward, Alec Guinness and Ursula Andress, Sting and Scarlett Johansson, and writers including George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov and Mark Twain. It couldn’t be a Sri Lankan Hotel unless a cricketer had stayed here – Sir Donald Bradman in 1938. Yuri Gagarin stayed at the GFH. And many politicians and Heads of State from Princess Eugenie, Empress of France, the young Emperor Hirohito of Japan in 1921, Tito of Yugoslavia, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Richard Nixon, Kurt Waldheim, Edward Heath, and, in 1958 Che Guevara.

Prince Philip

I was shown around the museum at the Galle Face Hotel. In glass cases there is some of the cutlery, China and glass that, no doubt, my Grandmother would have used when she stayed here in the early 1900s. And there’s a car in the museum. It’s a 1935 model Standard Nine car which was bought by Prince Philip who was a 19-year-old midshipman serving in Ceylon at the time. It was wartime and it was the first car he ever owned. It is said that the asking price was 12 Pounds Sterling but that after much bargaining he bought it at Rs.450 which was equal to seven weeks’ of his Navy pay in 1940.

Sir Donald Bradman

From my garden in Kennington, South London, I can hear the sound from the home ground of the Surrey County Cricket Club, the Oval, and can tell from it whether someone has hit a six or been bowled out. The Oval was the first ground in England to host international Test cricket in September 1880. Had I been around I would certainly have heard the noise in 1930 for Australia’s 701 and as Don Bradman (244) and Bill Ponsford (266) put on 451 for the second wicket, and in 1948 for Bradman’s farewell duck. Even I, who loathed cricket at school, chiefly, I suspect, because it was compulsory, love the description of the Australian Cricket Team’s visit to Ceylon in 1938 which you can google at thuppahis.com/2020/12/11/don-bradmen-and-his-men-in-ceylon-1948/

At the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo there is, on duty in the dining room on the terrace, an elderly man in immaculate khaki uniform and cap, ex army I would guess. He carries a catapult. A Y shaped hand made catapult. I had one as a child as did my elder brothers. Some dictionaries give slingshot as a synonym. Others make a clear distinction and suggest that a catapult is a very large contraption such as that which launches aeroplanes off ships’ decks while a slingshot is hand held. My younger son tells me it’s a slingshot so, though I never called it that in the past, slingshot it is.

At my hotel in Negombo there is also an attendant with a slingshot. I gather there’s another at the hotel down the road. The problem is the crows. They are aggressive and are after food. There are great nets around the open air dining rooms to keep them out but the crows are clever. They walk in through the gaps in the nets that are there so that I, and other guests, can get in and out.

Yesterday at breakfast a crow came into the dining room, hopped onto a table, took two packets of sugar in its beak and flew out. When I asked a waiter how the crow managed to open the packet to eat the sugar he looked at me with tolerant understanding of my ignorance and said, “They eat the packet and the sugar.”

The crows also line the edge of the swimming pool and watch me taking my morning exercise. A group of about fifteen of them gather outside the dining room walking about on the sand seemingly having an early morning conference. The man with the slingshot can’t be everywhere at once.

My brothers and I went out with our slingshots to try to hit tin cans off fence posts. We gathered up small stones and spent hours in competition with each other. I was the necessary loser. I had poor sight and wore glasses from when I was six or seven so perhaps that was the reason.

Here in Sri Lanka as I watched the attendants with their slingshots I came to realise that while they make the right gestures they never actually let fly a stone. When I asked why I was told, “The crows don’t know there’s no stone. I pretend and the crows fly away. If there was a stone I might hit a guest.”

Well! Stone the crows!

Of ‘Stone the Crows’ I discover from ‘Phrase Finder’:
‘There have been a few attempts to explain the origin of this odd phrase. I’ve found mid-20th century references from England that describe it as an Americanism and American newspaper articles that call it ‘an old English phrase’. The dates of those are more or less right but not the locations – the phrase appears to have originated in Australia. Most of the early citations in print come from down under. It has a sort of Australian twang to it and is in common with several other similar phrases, all with the same meaning: ‘starve the bardies’ [bardies are grubs], ‘stiffen the crows’, ‘spare the crow’. Crows were unwelcome guests at sheep farms as, given the chance, they will kill and eat newborn lambs, so the association with annoyance isn’t hard to see. The link in meaning to surprise isn’t obvious, but then there’s no particular reason to expect to find one. Stoning crows was a commonplace enough activity and calling it up into a phrase could have been done for no reason other than that the person who coined it just liked the sound of it. There are other expressions of surprise or annoyance like, ‘I’ll go to the foot of our stairs’, ‘strike me pink’, ‘I’ll be a monkey’s uncle’, or, ‘if that don’t take the rag off the bush’. None of these have any sensible literal meaning and stone the crows is another to add to that list.’

Bannisters, hand rails and steps have never really been my thing though bannisters do have a particularly affectionate place in my memory from sliding down the bannister at home as a child. It was a beautiful bannister with a good curve half way down. We weren’t meant to slide down the bannister but we did. And I must have had some awareness of steps, ramps and rails from the alterations we did to the entrance at St Luke’s in Christchurch when I was there. We installed a ramp to make it easier for people in wheelchairs. But it’s only this week I’ve really noticed hand rails, or rather the lack of them.

My booking was for a five star hotel in Negombo, Sri Lanka. On the website it looked wonderful, with a huge curvey swimming pool that made the kidney shaped pools of the 60s look like a comma on a sheet of A4. I was a bit concerned when I arrived because the only entrance from the street seemed to be at first floor level with a drive up a sort of mound and then a long flight of steps. I couldn’t get to the handrail of the steps because of airport style scanners on either side. I’m not all that good at steps and stairs without a handrail these days. The path from the street up the side of the mound was steep and didn’t have a handrail.

The room was lovely with a stunning view. ‘Welcome’ was spelled out in tiny flowers and leaves on the bedspread and there was a towelling elephant on the bed – towelling origami. When I did an explore I discovered that there were steps into the swimming pool but no rail anywhere. There was no pool ladder. I would be able to get in but it would be very tricky getting out. I gradually realised this hotel was not going to work for me. The staff were very good about it. Having just checked in I checked out.

I’ve found another hotel also five stars, the Jetwing Beach. It’s not as new as the first but there are two swimming pools and one of them has pool ladders at the side. I’ve just had a swim in the one with steps only. No rail. It’s 4ft deep so I’m never out of my depth and it’s 45 meters long so eight lengths morning and evening is very good exercise. And after my eight lengths, every time, there’s been a friendly pool attendant with a towel and a helping hand to steady me as I clamber out.

Of course I’m noticing handrails and the rest because now I need them. I wonder what I’m not noticing that other people need.

PS Apart from that the chef at the Jetwing Beach cooks egg hoppers to perfection. Well, my perfection.

Over the long side of the thirty meter swimming pool at the Galle Face Hotel, about one and a half storeys up, there is a long balcony. It juts out about a meter over the pool and is probably two meters short of the pool at either end. I imagine each room on the first floor has its own share of the balcony with a table, chairs, sun loungers and all that sort of thing, as well as a wonderful view of the ocean to the west and, at about 6.00pm, of the setting sun.

This balcony has enabled me to learn to swim backstroke. The balcony and two Sri Lankan’s who I began to get to know as they swim at the same time of day as I do – about 5.00pm. I also have an early morning swim before breakfast but that isn’t relevant here. I noticed that the Sri Lankan couple, they are married and about my age, only swim backstroke and on the balcony side of the pool.

From nodding, ‘Good afternoon’, we began to talk. We’ve talked about many things since and have had tea together on the terrace but what was important early on was that the husband mentioned, in passing, that they swim under the balcony because that enables them to swim backstroke in a straight line. The edge of the balcony is a guide. And as well as that because the balcony finishes before the end of the pool you know when to stop before you hit your head.

It’s brilliant! I’ve never been able to swim backstroke because I’ve always ended up bumping into people as I go diagonally, with no sense of direction, across the pool. The balcony keeps me on the straight, if not narrow, way. I’m not sure if I’m doing the right arm or leg movements but I’m on my back, facing skywards or balconywards, legs kicking, arms flailing, ploughing my way through the water. That must be backstroke.

Coincidentally or not as the case may be, I discovered, over tea, that in the 1980s the woman I met had, with a friend, founded Nest, a charity for women who had been held, for life, in a psychiatric institution here in Sri Lanka. Nest was founded to enable these women to live and be cared for in the community. In 1980 with Barbara Hall, who died last year, I founded the St Luke’s Centre as a club for people who had been discharged into the community from ‘Sunnyside’ the major psychiatric institution in Christchurch, New Zealand.

My swimming friend and I had more in common than swimming backstroke.

To find out more about Nest and St Luke’s Centre go to www.nestsrilanka.com.lk and www.stlukescentre.org.nz

Nothing to do with hopping or with people who hop. The ‘worldtravelfamily’ website tells me that: ‘Standard hoppers are typical Sri Lankan bowl-shaped or funnel-shaped pancakes. String hoppers are nests of noodle-like steamed batter. They’re almost like rice noodles, to eat with curries and chutneys in place of rice. Hoppers can be filled, you’ll see egg hoppers, vegetable hoppers and sweet hoppers.’

I was introduced to hoppers, egg hoppers especially, on my first visit to Sri Lanka in 1968 and I loved them. They have been part of my breakfast experience here in Sri Lanka ever since. And that experience has been added to this week.

On Monday, my first morning at the Galle Face Hotel, at the breakfast buffet, down the very far end, past fresh fruit, wonderful papaya, bananas, passion fruit, melon and pineapple; continental sausages and cheese; bread for toast and various jams and marmalade; all sorts of curries; baked beans, bacon, potatoes and mushrooms; past the chef who made omelettes and who fried eggs to order, then there at last was the stall and chef for hoppers. Monday’s chef was elderly, small and spoke little English. I asked if I might watch and he smiled in agreement.

A hopper frying pan, if that’s what it’s called, is like a semi-spherical metal bowl with a handle. I don’t see how it could be used with an electric or induction hob. Charcoal or gas, I would have thought. Here it’s gas. The pan is wiped clean with a smidgen of oil then heated. My day one chef held the pan near his face to check the temperature. Then in went a small ladle of batter which was swirled around to make the thinnest of shells, an egg dropped in the centre, the yolk broken and it too swirled around. The pan is then covered. When he judged it to be perfectly cooked the chef placed it on the plate I proffered. He then popped another crispy pale brown hopper on top of the egg hopper and was obviously pleased when I took some chilli paste as an accompaniment. We were both pleased. He pleased that I was pleased. I pleased by his skill and obvious enjoyment of the task and at the prospect of eating my first Sri Lankan breakfast of the visit.

On Tuesday as I came in to breakfast I nodded good morning to an older Sri Lankan couple at the next table. The husband and I had exchanged pleasantries at the pool the previous afternoon. They were obviously regulars at the hotel and the staff treated them with particular deference and respect. There was a different chef at the hopper stall and he suggested I go back to my table and that he would send my egg hopper when it was ready. This egg hopper was not up to Monday’s standard. The yolk wasn’t broken but that’s the same as some liking their fried eggs ‘sunny side up’ and others not. The shell of this egg hopper was not crispy, “Not good,” I thought, but who am I to judge?

And then I noticed what was happening at the next table. An egg hopper was brought, barely tasted, and rejected. There was a brief conversation with the waiter. After a while a second egg hopper was brought and even I could tell it wouldn’t do. The shell instead of being an even palest of pale browns was blotchy white, dark and light brown. It was rejected on sight. A third attempt was also rejected, not with anger but with a sigh of disappointment. My neighbour and I acknowledged our mutual sadness with a look.

Wednesday morning there was yet another chef at the hopper stall and while I was there a young Sri Lankan woman came up beside me with, already on her plate, some string hoppers and accompaniments that I hadn’t noticed. I asked about them and she said, “You should try them.” And she explained that as well as the chilli paste there was caramelised onion mixture, not spicy, and a coconut sambal. She also told me where I’d find the string hoppers and added, “I always take everything!” So, of course, I took everything. Wednesday’s hoppers were better than Tuesday’s hoppers but not as good as Monday’s hoppers. Even so there was no need for lunch.

Thursday, another day, another breakfast, another chef who suggested I take one of the egg hoppers already made. I declined on the grounds that I wanted the yolk broken not whole. This was not altogether true as what I really wanted was a hopper freshly made. To be fair this chef was trying, at the same time as making my hopper, to instruct a trainee in the art of omelette making. My egg hopper had almost the look of a lotus flower around the edge, pretty maybe, but not the way for a hopper. And there was a puddle of batter at the bottom. Oh dear.

Today’s hopper, it’s Friday, was not too bad. Not up to Monday’s standard but not too bad. I didn’t recognise the chef from earlier in the week but he certainly was not Monday’s chef.

I know that small matters occupy small minds but surely it is clear to all that hopper making is not a small matter.