Field Work

Here comes to our main purpose of this field trip- to see how people in this multilingualism, Sri Lanka, use their languages.

In Sri Lanka, there are 3 main languages: Tamil, Sinhala and English. We don't know whether there is diglossic situation with Tamil or Sinhala as low variety and English as high variety. Because we can see that some TV programs and broadcast are in Tamil or Sinhala. So, facing these 3 languages, how do they use the language? This is our aims to find it out.

We have conducted some interviews to collect data. Frankly to say, they are not interviews, they are just chatting. Because we have used a very informal, but of course sincere and serious attitudes' to perform the 'interviews'. We don't want them to feel uncomfortable. The people who were interviewed were mainly shopkeepers and hotel receptions. They are so nice that they also teach us some sinhala. haha~

Before going to this trip, what I expect is their English standard is not so good. However, this is not the case even in the countryside. Maybe their education level are higher so that they can have the capacity to do some journey services jobs. Anyway, most of them know how to speak and understand English even though their pronunciation may not be as accurate as native speakers. Moreover, they know some other foreign languages such as German and Japanese. They learn them for occupational purposes. From the political and historical perspectives, Sri Lanka language is separated into two parties: Tamil and Sinhala. They may know both of them but just speak either Tamil or Sinhala according to their hometowns. Chatting with friends and families, singing songs, going to churches, they would use Tamil or Sinhala for all these functions. 

Bentota

Going to the Bentota Beach was the hightlight of the trip. I remembered when we knew we would go beaching, we were all very excited and started to look forward to it.

Bentota is one of the tourist spot in Sri Lanka. Bentota is the most famous golden beach in Sri Lanka. It has not been a bit exaggerated.
 
Wow! What a marvelous beach! This was the first reaction we all had when we first went there. This is the beach where we looked forward for few months. The sky is blue, the water is clear and the sand is fine.
We have stayed there for two days only. We did feel that it was far less than enough. We enjoyed the two days very much. We were just like vacationing that two days.





These were our footprints. We hope we will have the chance to leave our footprints there again. Not only we have left our footprints in Sri Lanka, but also Sri Lanka has left some marks on us.

Kandy

Kandy, the hill capital of Sri Lanka, is famous for its cultural and historical heritage. We were very lucky to have the chance to experience one of the most important festivals in Sri Lanka as well as in Buddhist commpunity - Vesak Poya in the The Temple of the Tooth. Literally Poya means "full moon" in Sinhala. 


Vesak poya in May signify the The birth, enlightenment and the passing away of Buddha. To celebrate the big day, people start gather in the temple in early morning to meditate. At night, everyone was waiting in the temple for the parade of the Tooth relic of Buddha. A royal male elephant carried the reliquary of the sacred tooth and led the parade. (But actually the relic itself had not been brought out during the festival since 1990. A casket was honored as its representative.) Fire dancers followed the elephant and juggled. The event was religious and entertaining at the same time. Standing inside the crowd we felt like art of the community. It was really cool to immerse into the cultural activity of the people to observe the religious side of Sri Lanka.   

Kandy remains as an important religious centre of the Sinhalese and a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists. It is the second-largest city of the island and the capital of Central Province of modern Sri Lanka. Its geographic location has made it a major transportation hub in the island. 


In fact, Kandy is really special in the sense that on one hand it gives us a feeling of peacefulness and on the other it is undoubtedly an amazingly prosperous city. 

    

  

  

On our way to Bentota, we actually stopped for some time at a tea factory to bought the famous Sri Lanka tea; and had an elephant ride. 

Dambulla Sigiriya Polonnaruwa Minneriya

Wow! One of the unforgettable memories is climbing up Sigiriya Rock Fortress!

Sigiriya is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the 5th century "Fortress in the Sky". It is also known as Lion Rock because of the huge lion that used to stand at the entrance to the Palace on the summit of the 600-foot high rock. 

Personally, I love hiking. But it is more difficult to climb than I have expected. The rock is so steep and the weather is so windy on that day. What we climbed up is by walking infinite upstairs!

 On our way, there are also some caves for viewing wall paintings.

As we can see, Sri Lanka is really a religion-oriented nation. In fact, no matter we are climbing up the rock or just have a meal in a restaurant, these artistic paintings, statues are everywhere.

Finally, we arrived the peak!

Besides Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa is another UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was in fact the capital of Sri Lanka from 11th to 13th centuries. The weather was REALLY fine when we visited these historical sites so when we walked around the place we almost got burnt by the sun :P

But as we walked and at the same time listening to the explanation and stories told by our tour guide, Mr Danna, we imagined the scenes of ancient times and some breath taking pictures were floating in our mind...

Apart from cultural sites, Minneriya National Park was another impressive spot. Due to seasonal factors, we were not really able to see many different wild animals but we met a shy wild elephant during our trip in the national park. The guiding staff told us that it was a male young elephant and it actually hide at the bush to observe us when it first saw us. Then later when it got used to our presence, it came out again. Awwwwwww it was so cute!

In our last day of staying in Dambulla, we visited the Dambulla Cave Temples. It is a vast isolated rock mass 500 feet high and a mile around the base. We were much fascinated by the architecture styles and skills performed by ancient people and the implications behind them. For example, the ceiling is covered with frescoes which depict great events in the life of the Buddha and landmarks in the history of the Sinhalese people.