In other news

This is one of lists that has been doing the rounds for ages and of course everyone has a chuckle at some or all of it because it is sooooooooo true! Some of these things drive me mad but you gotta laugh about it, it's a part of my background/life after all ;) Things like these bind people of similar backgrounds together, I'm sure those from other ethnicity/cultures will 'get it' too! My comments in red, I've deleted some that I didn't get!

You know you are Sri Lankan when....
1. You use banana leaves instead of plates, to eat rice and curry (wow a blast from the past, haven't done this in ages, it's pretty cool)

2. Your parents mark any special occasion by boiling milk until it spills all over your stove. (I think this has some religious thingo behind it, meant to be good luck!)

16. You eat string hoppers, coconut milk and a three-course curry meal for breakfast (mmmm grumbly tummy, my folks can still do this but I can't!)

18. You have mastered the art of squatting (nuff said!)

19. You use gripe water and Panadol to solve your medical problems (for my mum it's disprin/panadol and Vicks vaporub, argh)

23. You tell your parents you got 98%, and they ask you what happened to the other two percent. (Argh, I think is true of many cultures, bluddy hell!)

24. You have a Singer sewing machine at home. (Singer!!!)

25. You call an older person you've never met before uncle or "aunty" (yo respec')

26. Your relatives alone could populate a small city (the family tree can become a spiders web if you dare)

27. EVERYONE is a family friend. (oh yes)

28. You went to a university as far away from home as possible and you still came back home to live with your parents after you finish. (hahaha)

30. You parents always say "on the light" instead of "turn the light on" (I reckon its because of ESL and the confusion with verbs)

32. You're walking out of customs with your trolley at the airport and you see all twenty-five members of your family who have come to pick you up. (It's crazy and it would make me cranky I'm sure but it's because they all care!)

33. You go back to your parents' country and people treat you like a member of the royal family (I've heard this is so true, oh the pressure the pressure!)

34. You are ALWAYS taking off and putting on your shoes wherever you go (it's only clean y'know!)

35. Your parents drink 3 cups of tea a day (and more, I love tea esp rooibos)

37. Your parents compare you to all of their friends' kids (oh gods yes, it's an endless droning lecture sometimes)

39. No one ever seems to call ahead of time to say they are coming over for a visit (drives me mad, esp when what I wanted to do was watch tv in my pjs back home)

40. Your parents worry what other people will think if you're not going to be a doctor/engineer (hehe)

41. Your parents worry what other people will think when you’re seen out in public with boys or if you’re "carrying on with someone" (oh no's !!!!! imagine the hysteria)

42. Your parents worry what other people will say about you having a girlfriend/boyfriend or better yet "an affair" (hahaha)

43. At a function or party your parents say that their leaving, but they usually take another hour saying goodbye (I sometimes used to go sit in the car cos I'd get bored of waiting by the door)

51. You drink tea after every occasion (tea soothes all pain and makes things better!)

52. You walk in to a SL party with one pair of shoes and walk out with two different shoes (oh geez, I would wear the rattiest pair of going-out-shoes to the temple because I didn't want to lose any good ones in the jumble of shoes left outside)

53. You salt and pepper your mangos, and every other fruit you eat (especially with unripe mangoes, try it with chilli too!)

55. When you tell people you’re NOT from India, and that you’re from SL, they say "ohh okay," but really, they think it’s all the same thing (yeah this happens, too often!!! I've had to find a map in my diary to point it out on some occassions)

58. When on your 18th birthday, you find out that you are pre- arranged to marry a person that you have never seen or heard-of before. (rofl)

61. Your parents smuggle tea, jaggery and every possible spice into the country when they return home from a visit to SL. At the customs office, they would check off "NO" for the question regarding "food, exotic plants, biohazardous chemicals or firearms" (refer to all the border control programs on tv, the officers tail all asian and oriental families looking for clues)

62. Your parents leave folded plastic bags from expensive stores under their mattress so that they can be reused to make ghetto presents look really expensive (I'm trying to get out of the habit of keeping bags but they're oh so useful! Mmmm ghetto presents, now that's another story)

63. Your parents aren't afraid to chase you down the street and slap you if you talk back...(oh no you didn't...)

64. You cover TV/VCR remotes with plastic wrap to the point where you can’t even see the buttons (this virus has mutated into the next generations, I have a habit of keeping the little plastic cover on the face new phones/ipods so that the screen doesn't get scratched too quickly!)

65. You often went to school looking like a brown mime because your mom smothered your face with talcum powder (my mum loves talcum powder and thinks I look too dark when I get my foundation/powder made to match my skin, hahahha. She also insists my brother looks tired if he doesn't put some powder on after washing his face, drives him mad)

66. When you were a child, your parents randomly dressed you up for the sole purpose of taking pictures (you should see the often posed pictures of family excursions and outings, not exactly a slice of life)

67. You see middle aged SL women on the bus with frizzy hair, magenta lipstick and faces that have been liberally smothered with "Fair and Lovely" (omg Fair & Lovely, I can't believe this stuff is legal and I bet it has hospital bleach in it!!!)

71. When you visit other SL, they always serve you a plate of lemon puffs and Tang before anything else (mm lemon puffs, the first bite always brings back childhood memories and my dad is obsessed with them)

76. When every Lankan girl that you meet is the daughter of the auntie whose grandfather is the cousin of the father of your uncle who is the brother of your dad! (Like I said earlier, spider web....)

79. When your parents call Scotch tape 'sello tape' and refer to Washing Powder as Rinso (sticky tape will always be sello tape to my folks)

84. You know exactly what your parents mean when they say "I shall give you one, nicely"... (I'm imagining the guy from Goodness Gracious Me saying this in the accent, along with the requisite head wobble/bobble)

85. When your parents say you can be anything in life...but really mean you have the choice of accountant, engineer, doctor or lawyer (man how many times I've had this frustrating conversation during the school years!

86. When despite the fact that you have eaten a full three course meal prior to visiting your "auntie", refusing to eat another three course meal in the same evening may result in dire consequences (I deliberately don't eat much the days I visit family, you get plied with so much food, it's good but it's sooooo much!)

88. You get invited to dinner at an "uncles" house for 7:00pm; you get there at 8:30 and dinner is served at 11:58 pm; alcohol induced fathers start singing at 1:00 am while the mothers start making idle chit chat about the "old days in SL"...By 3:00am your "auntie" forces you to drink coffee so that you can get a good nights sleep when you get home at 6:00 AM. (Fsck this drives me bananas but you just have to shake your head and have a laugh about it, make sure you set aside your life if you go to an occassion. I used to moan so much about this that my dad would drop me off home and then go back to the party)

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Listening to: Golden Skans by Klaxons