View of the length of an oruwa, Talalla South, Sri Lanka.
My first exposure to Sri Lanka, or Sri Lankan culture, long before I knew it as a country, was through Steve McCurry's now iconic photograph of stilt fishermen at work along the country's south coast. Later (in adulthood), my first internet search on where and how to find these fishermen prior to an upcoming trip returned a slew of travellers' chatroom complaints about a 'dying tradition' and 'so-called fishermen' posing as 'tourist props' for tips.
This post is not written in that vein; rather, it is one of two planned blog posts exploring—in so far as one is able to in a blog—the impacts of tourism on a local economy, the moral and political implications of phrases like 'a dying tradition', 'authentic' imagery, and, loosely and with great extrapolation, the fishery in Sri Lanka.
For today's post, I'd like to sketch a series of vignettes before a more in-depth discussion based on my personal experiences in Talalla or Talalla South, following a week-long stay in the growing village in January, 2017.
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Breakfast, Day Three: Two hotel matriarchs micro-manage a young boy setting out tea-service at our table prior to a several course, 'traditional' Sri Lankan breakfast of fresh blended fruit juice, string hoppers, sambol, roti, Sri Lankan omelette, dahl, and green fish curry. One woman, heavily pregnant in a navy and fuchsia sari, and another, in large Jackie-O inspired sunglasses, flowing top, and flip-flops, carefully rotate tea-cup handles to right-angles, rearrange placement of spoons, forks, knives, serviettes, etc., all with mildly restrained eye-rolling immediately following a pock-marked and well-meaning teenager's attempt. Our matriarchs beam radiantly as my husband and I ask for seconds of sambol and dahl to accompany our string hoppers later in the meal.
Portrait of a beach vendor
Mid-morning, Day Four: A lone beach-vendor approaches my husband and I with a grocery bag of mixed varnished and natural seashells for sale as we down the juice of freshly-sliced coconuts through black plastic straws. Having no cash (due to the coconut purchases) we request to meet late in the afternoon. During a meal of shell-on chilli, garlic, and butter prawns, I run to meet the passing man, who walks with a limp and cane, cash-in hand. He is more than pleased I've tracked him down, and smiles warmly as I take his portrait.
Early-morning, Day Six: Our now-frequented coconut vendor outlines his last night's activities. After watching several dreadlocked and tie-dye bedecked European families huddled in an evening downpour, he entreats them to take shelter on the raw-hewn plank floor of his open-air restaurant. He is bewildered that parents would travel without prearranged accommodation—all available rooms in the village were full the night before.
Sunset, Day Seven: First two, then four, then a dozen villagers set a net using an oruwa around the bay. At first tourists (myself included) watch and take the odd photo; then, at broad-grinned invitation, they join the villagers in the half-hour long and highly physical net-gathering that follows. Several French children with sun-bleached hair scrutinize the two-dozen or so fish flopping around in the net, while short-of-breath adults of varying nationalities exchange pleasantries with locals and one another.
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Fisherman hauling nets at Talalla Beach, Sri Lanka.
Talalla, as these events make clear, is a community in transition; the sort of community that chat-room naysayers would laud for its 'authenticity' in its current state, but in ten to fifteen years will fault for having been 'overdeveloped', becoming 'Westernized'. It is the sort of paradise ill-slept and bedraggled backpackers plod to to taste the idyllic, like their fictional predecessors Richard and Etienne in Alex Garland's The Beach, waxing poetic on the restaurant owner's 'righteous' generosity while ignoring his overarching concern for their and their childrens' safety. It's the sort of place with one, not numerous, beach seller(s) to elicit avoided eye-contact and near-silent muttering from sunbathers, who lacks the aggressive sales pitch and heavy-laiden coat-doubling-as-display-case of others of his kind elsewhere. The type of bay where net-fishing as a community with 'traditional' boats still occurs. The hallmarks of impending development—like a 'traditional' breakfast served amid a lush green canopy with WIFI access—would be overlooked (all be it temporarily) due to its 'genuine' (another chatroom synonym) nature.
Don't get me wrong, Talalla is a veritable paradise for all the reasons listed above: no overly tattooed bohemian was robbed of cell-phone or iPad during their one-nighter, and it was touching watching people with different mother-tongues and backgrounds bond over hard labour. But I cannot get behind a stance toward travel that would deny our business-savvy hotel operators their chance to create an inheritance for their children, or fault the hawker who spends all day beach walking for a hard-sell. At best, this attitude essentializes culture; at worst, harkens the 'noble savage' trope and denies the fruits of modernization to 'Others'. Let's unpack it in a familiar context, at least to me anyway: though I'm happy the farming community I come from still has its wooden grain elevator, I would never ask Western Canadian farmers to return to, or continue using, horse-drawn plow or scythe. It's dehumanizing to ask a group of people to remain in some simulacrum of the past to actualize one's holiday whimsy.
'Authenticity', as David Sze rightly points out, has its roots in a particular understanding of what culture is and the myth of purity tied to 'traditional' praxis. It is a static view of culture that assumes sought-after lab-like sterility, something he says years of anthropological and sociological training have made him suspicious of; 'continuity in change' and 'change in continuity' was an oft-cited phrase in my similar ethnohistorical training. What's meant by that is readily explained with our breakfast trio: one woman in 'traditional' dress accompanied by another in modern clothing laid out 'traditional' Sri Lankan foods including pol sambol (which may have Indonesian origins), string hoppers (possibly of Indian origin), with tea served in a decidedly British colonial tea-service (china, little spoons) while henpecking a teenaged boy (Sri Lanka is historically patriarchal). As Sze argues, there are no spatial or temporal boundaries around a culture—hybridity and constructions of difference have arisen from human interaction the world over. Instead, what's important in the above example, is how proud those women were to present an aspect of their culture as they define it, and how they are remolding their community's image and economy to their liking.
The blight of these discussions of 'dying tradition' and 'authenticity' is that their initiators miss out what's truly authentic right in front of them: people going about their day-to-day efforts to make a living—like running a small hotel, selling wares on a beach, or fishing.
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**NEXT UP: Meeting the Sri Lankan fishery where it currently stands through pictures.
NOTES
Good eats: Watch these intrepid ladies at work and have breakfast overlooking the beach at the Secret Bay Hotel—it is just as delicious and decadent as it sounds. Make sure to pre-order your Sri Lankan feast a day ahead: string hoppers are an overnight affair. Just down from the Hotel where the road meets the beach is perfect lunch spot: enjoy a plate of shrimp and a Lion al fresco. A short walk down the beach and you'll find our friendly coconut vendor (the name of his establishment escapes me). Treat yourself to an ice-cold coke instead if coconuts aren't your thing.
The prow of an oruwa, Talalla Beach, Sri Lanka.