interview 3

Hannah Motschke
Eng 191 Sec 21





Interview 3
Yasas Ratnayake
Sri Lanka
11/4/09














Hannah Motschke
Eng 191 Sec 21
Interview 3
Country Report

Sri Lanka is an island located in the Indian Ocean southeast of India. It is a densely populated area, about half the size of Alabama with a population of approximately 21 million people. Sinhala is the official language in Sri Lanka and Tamil is the national language. According to the CIA Word Factbook, “English is commonly used in government and is spoken competently by about 10% of the population.” 1 The geographical make up of Sri Lanka is mostly flat. However, there are mountains in the South-central interior.
The government in Sri Lanka is democratic-socialist. They have a president with many similar responsibilities as the President of the United States; although, Sri Lanka’s President serves a term of six years rather than four. The current president of the country is Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka has a two party system as well. The two political parties are the United National Party and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.2
Multiple religions are practiced in Sri Lanka. Buddhism is the most common comprising 70% of the population. Other religions in the country include Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Wikipedia states that “Sri Lanka has the longest continuous history of Buddhism of any predominately Buddhist nation.” 2
There are cultural divisions and discrimination in the country that affect the Sri Lankan people and their political system. The two disputing groups are the Tamils and the Sinhalese. “From independence, the Tamil minority has been uneasy with the country's unitary form of government and apprehensive that the Sinhalese majority would abuse Tamil rights.”3 This crisis has caused discrepancies throughout the country and they are still currently working to create equality and peace.
Education is a very high priority in Sri Lanka. There are three different levels of schooling. Primary school is for children ages 5-11, junior secondary school is from ages 11-15, and from ages 16-17 the students attend senior secondary school. At the end of junior secondary school, an Ordinary Level Examination is taken. A couple of years later, after senior secondary school, an Advanced Level Examination is taken to determine if a student qualifies to attend a university. In Sri Lanka, school is very competitive and it can be very stressful for the children. As found by the editors of Sri Lanka: A Country Study, “The literate population has grown correspondingly, and by the mid 1980s over 90 percent of the population was officially literate (87 percent for those above ten years of age), with near universal literacy among the younger population. This is by far the most impressive progress in South Asia and places Sri Lanka close to the leaders in education among developing nations.”4


Resources
1 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ce.html (11/4/09)
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka (11/4/09)
3 http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5249.htm (11/4/09)
4 http://countrystudies.us/sri-lanka/46.htm (11/4/09)




Interview Transcript
H: Hannah (Interviewer)
Y: Yasas (Interviewee)
H: So what country are you from?
Y: I’m from Sri Lanka.
H: Sri Lanka
Y: Yeah. Do you know where Sri Lanka is?
H: It’s by India right?
Y: Yeah, it is just below India.
H: Is it a small country or is it big?
Y: Yup, it’s a very small country. We have a population of about maximum I guess 19 million people. It is pretty diverse as well. But it is a small country. If I am correct it is the 53rd most populated nation.
H: So there are a lot of people in a small area?
Y: You could say the population is pretty dense, but a part from that, we are not as crowded, the population wouldn’t be as high as say for example as Singapore which is extremely dense. I guess we could still be considered a small country.
H: Ok, how would you say the lifestyle differs from there to here?
Y: Oh there is a huge difference. Sri Lankans are extremely conservative especially because we are a Buddhist country, predominately Buddhist but I mean the political and social systems are such you know it basically fosters conservative thought. Only I guess the more liberal people live on the West which is basically the financial capital of Sri Lanka. It is Colombo, where I’m from. Pretty much everyone has very strong family values and very strong religious ties so thought in general and opinions I guess are more towards the conservative side. So I mean, coming here is very different. There is a lot of cross culture interaction which is not very prevalent in Sri Lanka. It is very diverse. You get Buddhists, I am a Buddhists as well, and you get Tamils which are mainly Hindus. There are also Tamils that are Muslims and Christians as well and I think there are Tusus in Sri Lanka so that’s about it. There is very little cross cultural interaction and all these cultures tend to like interact with themselves most of the time. I mean there is business interaction but apart from that…
H: They seclude themselves with their culture.
Y: Yeah, on a personal level very little cross cultural interaction happens. I’d say there is a much higher amount of cultural interaction in the financial capital like Colombo, but beyond that it tends to decrease. Yeah, and like I said, people are very conservative and very traditional especially when you take things like marriage. Family values play a big part in marriage and I’d say once again, interreligous/intercultural marriage is very rare and so basically it is extremely conservative.
H: Are there arranged marriages? Where your family tells you who you should marry?
Y: Yes, there are arranged marriages for the most part, but like now I’d say rate of arranged marriages has decreased thankfully. Maybe I guess from technology and Western thought coming in more to the country, but there are a considerable number of arranged marriages. Family values tend to play a big part. If the parents don’t like whoever you are seeing or whoever you are quoting, chances are it is going to be very tough to get their consent and get into marriage.
H: So family is a very import part of your life?
Y: Yes, family is very important. One striking difference I see is between my country and America is that children tend to stay with their parents until they get married.
H: Oh really living at home?
Y: Yeah, pretty much. It is very rare that children move out of the house hold. Children will stick with their parents, say they don’t marry until they are 30, chances are they will stay with their parents until their thirty. I mean there is a humongous difference considering the American perspective when children are considered to be independent.
H: Yeah like 18.
Y: Yeah and they leave, but that’s not the case.
H: In your family does your extended family live with you like you grandparents and that kind of stuff or is it just immediate family?
Y: No, but still extended family is a big part as well for most families in Sri Lanka. It doesn’t necessarily, I mean, it’s really close. All family members get together for example my mother, and her sister’s family, all the people they are married to and her sister’s husband and their family. All together, in the end, they end up making bonds and stuff so it goes beyond the nuclear family and extends to the extended family and all of these people come together to make a sort of community. It is especially interesting when you take the Muslim perspective. For example, Muslims have very close family ties and their families run in huge networks. Chances are one Muslim is related to another in some way. There are very close family bonds.
H: I’m going to switch topics a little bit. How is schooling in Sri Lanka?
Y: Back there. It is very different.
H: Do kids start with preschool and kindergarten?
Y: Yes. Sri Lanka has one of the highest literacy rates in all of Asia.
H: Really?
Y: Yeah. I think if I am correct it is about 92-93% literacy which is higher than India.
H: That is awesome.
Y: It is higher than India. A lot people especially in the western areas like Colombo speak a lot of English. That influence probably comes from the fact that we were a British colony until 1948. There is a British education system in Sri Lanka. Personally I prefer the American system which explains why I am here. There is much more freedom to select your curriculum. I don’t know whether you appreciate it as much, but back at home things are very different. It is extremely hard. Education is, I mean, everyone education. It is free education. There are private schools maybe some people may opt to send there children there. I went to a public school. I went to a school called Royal College which is like the oldest school in Sri Lanka, oldest public school. It is an all male school. For the most part schools are separated by gender.
H: Ok.
Y: Especially in Colombo I’d say, mostly in Colombo. The big or reputed schools are separated by gender. There are hardly any reputed schools that are mixed. Most of these schools are in Colombo, but there are a couple of schools in Kandy. Kandy is called the hill capital of Sri Lanka, but everyone gets a solid education I’d say. Lots of people go into different avenues of service. But still the education system is very traditional and you get very limited choice in what you learn. For example, we don’t have a high school system.
H: Really?
Y: There is primary school which is grades one to five and then there is secondary school. We don’t call it a high school, we call it a college. It is pretty much the same in England so we call it a college. I went to Royal College. Typically, a student would go from grade one to thirteen. There are thirteen years of schooling. In these years grades one to five is primary education. At grade five there is a nation wide scholarship exam where everyone sits for this exam and the children who get the highest marks get free scholarships to basically the best schools depending on how good your marks are.
H: Oh wow. And this is in fifth grade?
Y: In fifth grade.
H: So kids are like ten or eleven when they take it?
Y: Yeah, I’d say nine.
H: Nine? Wow.
Y: It’s competitive. Children are chosen to go to the best schools basically. Mostly the kids who end up having the best marks come to Royal College. We have a student population of about 8,000 students. Yeah, so it is big and lots of people from around the country get to come. So I‘d say educational opportunities, more than other countries, are more flexible than other countries. It gives children a lot more opportunities than other countries, but still there are lots in drawbacks in the system. From grade six to eleven you go through this phase. You learn up to eight subjects there is very little choice. Then again, you have six core subjects you are suppose to learn. If I am correct there is math, there is the first language Sinhalese. It depends on which medium of instruction you study. There are three different mediums of instruction that the educational system offers in Sri Lanka they are Sinhalese, Tamil and English. So you can choose.
H: Which one you want to study.
Y: What your primary language of instruction is going to be. You have that choice. At least in most schools like Colombo you do, but as you travel outside the commercial capital you usually only get one choice because the people that go into the teaching profession there are not as skilled as the country might want them to be.
H: So kids aren’t forced to learn… You don’t have to learn English?
Y: You don’t have to learn English, but English plans a big big part in determining your social standing I should say because people are very judgmental about your use of English. I mean, social classes are clearly divided by the use of English.
H: And how well you can…
Y: Yes, that plans a big role in what your social standing would be.
H: When did you learn English?
Y: I started learning English from the day I was born I guess. I mean, like, my mother taught me to read and stuff while I was learning my primary language.
H: Your English is very very good. So I was like…
Y: There are lots of people who speak English. There are people that speak much better than I do. I mean, Sri Lankans I guess have a much higher rate of English literacy than many other countries in the South Asian south continent. A Sri Lankan born person has also won the Buca prize in 1992 for this book called The English Patient. There was a movie made. So, I mean, there is a lot of usage of English and English determines what your social standing is. So anyways, getting back to education, at grade eleven students will sit for this thing called a nation wide examination called the Ordinary Level Examination. They will be tested on the six core subjects plus two subjects they have to take, but they have some degree of choice. For example you are required to take esthetic subject, an esthetic subject in which you could choose art or music or something like that. I think there are more choices now than when I was in school. You also need to take a technical subject. A technical subject would be commerce. Commerce for example is studies in accounting or electronics or something like that. So those are the two subjects you have some sort of choice over. You sit for this exam and depending on what your result is, and it is very competitive, very hard this exam is. It is much tougher than any other examination that goes around in the South Asian sub continent. People who manage to pass this exam will go on to do advanced levels which is grades twelve and thirteen. In grades twelve and thirteen there are the most toughest examinations in the world.
H: Wow.
Y: It’s basically, at the end of your two years of study, you’ll be assessed one time. It is a cumulative test of everything you have learned and you won’t get any sort of assistance ones so ever.
H: Oh my goodness.
Y: You have no choice in using calculators. You can not use calculators even if you have doing physics, or calculus or trig or whatever. There is nothing.
H: I couldn’t imagine.
Y: They say, I haven’t seen any data that says it, but they say that the Sri Lankan advanced level examination is probably the second toughest in the world after Japan.
H: Oh my goodness.
Y: I don’t know, but that itself strictly limits students because you get very little choice in what you get to study. For example, I chose to study in the commerce stream. Then again English is necessary. English is required.
H: For the test.
Y: Plus three subjects which you have little next to no choice. So I took business studies, economics and accounting/accounting and finance, along with English. So four subjects there, but you get other streams which the other streams are math. You get more choice in math. For example, you can do physics, you need to do chemistry. Chemistry is required for people who study advanced levels of math. Sorry, people you study math for their advanced levels, and biology which is the other stream of study. Biology is another stream of study and there are two. There is chemistry; there is biology and a couple of other subjects which I am not exactly too sure about. People who sit for this advanced level of examination, depending on how you do in your examination you’re chosen to go to Sri Lankan universities. In public universities everything is paid for, but they are extremely competitive. People who usually do get selected into a university are really really really smart. I mean, if by any chance they did decide to apply to a U.S. university I’d say they would manage to get into the best engineering program or Stanford, all these top schools where smartness is a prerequisite. People who get into the engineering field have to do math and it’s probably much much tougher than AP classes that you guys take and they don’t use calculators. In order to get an “A” for that, which determines their eligibility into a university, is an extremely tough task. You have to sacrifice your social life I’d say for about two, two and a half years. You’re just going to be…
H: It sounds like everything is school related.
Y: Yes, everything is school related mostly. But then again, not everyone is expected to do really well in the advanced levels. There is a huge market for foreign education so lots of people end up going to places like Australia and India and the United States and the U.K. Most people who are fluent and could be considered elite in the Sri Lankan society manage to go to the U.K. There is also a London A level system which is separate from the local A level system. Most of the people who have the money to pay for it, end up doing it.
H: Is that part of the reason for you coming to St. John’s was to have a different education system so you didn’t have to go through all that.
Y: Yes that was one of the main reasons. I was never enthused by the prospect of going to a Sri Lankan university because I knew that your field of study would be extremely limited. You would have no have no chose ones so ever.
H: You can’t really choose.
Y: It’s just that your professors will come and teach you what you should right in your paper and nothing beyond that. I have friends who go to Sri Lankan universities who are way smarter I’d say. Hands down I’d just say way smarter and way more skilled especially in academia. Those guys unfortunately don’t learn as much as the people do here.
H: Really?
Y: Yeah, because I have a friend who goes to Penn State and he is studying engineering I think, electronic engineering, and I have a friend back at home who I think was 25th in the whole island. He managed to rank 25th in the mathematic stream. He is extremely smart so this guy, he doesn’t learn half the things people learn here. The guy that goes to Penn State isn’t half as knowledgeable as that guy from Sri Lanka was. There is a huge disparity, but then again these people do mange to come back into the system and serve the system. Currently it works out pretty well for the country so I don’t think there will be any sort of reform soon. People are pretty happy with what they have. You’ve got like really comfortable places like this to come to in the states and a U.S. education system like to really understand how many choices you can get. From a very young age, students are conditioned to be something. Like for example, a parent might want his son to be an engineer and an engineer alone. Yeah, if by any chance he wants to do art in his advanced levels, that is a big “no, no.” There are specific roles that are approved by society. For example, people who want to be doctors will get more recognition, but still it is very hard to manage to get into the medical school of Sri Lanka because no matter what sort of intention you have you will not be able to that unless you get very good advanced level results. So it is very complex.
H: Wow. That sounds very intense. So do you think you are going to go back after graduating here?
Y: Yeah, hopefully. One of the main things I hope to accomplish maybe as along term goal would be to change the whole education system of Sri Lanka. At least contribute to changing the whole education system in Sri Lanka and maybe open them up to different avenues and teach them poetry or teach them some sociology or whatever. Open them into avenues that are not just math, math, math and math without calculators.
H: Math and science. That is so hard.
Y: Yeah, so I mean, people because of this education system, they rarely venture out of their own comfort zones. So that also adds to the conservative nature of the country. It is a perpetuating cycle. Everything is coming together to contribute to this conservative way or some traditional standing of culture.
H: Are you pursing the math stuff here? Like are you majoring in math? Or did you decide to do something different?
Y: No, I’m planning on majoring in international relations and sociology. Hopefully double majoring.
H: That’s cool. So that is something that would be totally different than what you could have done…
Y: Yeah, totally different. I wouldn’t have had the chance to do that back in Sri Lanka. Not in a Sri Lankan university. Maybe I would have had the chance to do sociology, but not international relations. Even if I did get a degree in sociology back in Sri Lanka, there would be a very minute chance that I could actually make a substantial living for myself because, I don’t know, very little people do sociology back in Sri Lanka or subjects like that.
H: It is not very common.
Y: Yeah, it is not common. People who go to universities are mostly either management or accounting or engineering or medical. That’s basically the sphere of Sri Lankan education. You can just summarize it within those three fields, yeah.
H: Well, thank you. I for sure got a lot of information.
L: Alright.


























Hannah Motschke
Eng 191 Sec 21
Interview 3

Interview Report

For the final interview, I felt less preparation was necessary. I already had prepared the set of potential questions and the objectives in which I had used for the previous two interviews. I looked over my questions to make sure I remembered them. I also tried to think of a couple of new questions I could ask such as: “Is family an important aspect of the culture in Sri Lanka?”, “Is it common for people to live with extended family members such as grandparents, aunts and uncles?” I felt comfortable with my abilities of expanding on questions and creating a feeling of a natural conversation. My interviewee and I kept in contact through email, and we arranged to meet at Sexton Commons which is the student union building at St. John’s. We decided it would be a agreeable meeting place because there are many comfortable and quiet areas in the building. Again, for this interview, I arranged to use a friend’s computer which has audio recording capabilities. I borrowed it for the previous two interviews and it worked well. Previously, I did not experience any technical glitches while recording; therefore I opted to use it one more time.
As I stated in the first two reports, all three of my interviews were arranged with the help of a friend who attends St. John’s University. He knows many international students at the university and, very generously, he gave me their email addresses. I emailed Yasas, the third interviewee, and introduced myself. I told him that I am a senior at St. Cloud State University, and for a Global Communications English class I am required to perform three interviews with international students. I explained that the interview would last around 30 minutes and we would address topics like the culture, education system and family life of his country. Gratefully, he responded and agreed to do the interview with me. We emailed back and forth about available meeting times until we found a date and time that worked in both of our schedules. The day before the scheduled interview, I sent an email to Yasas confirming our appointment.
We scheduled the interview for Wed., November 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Sexton Commons. I went to Sexton early and found a quiet area in the corner of the Fireside Lounge to conduct the interview. There were two sofa chairs and a table. I set the chairs up so they were facing each other, and I placed the computer on the table in between the chairs so it was accessibly available to record. I then did a sound check to make sure the recorder was working. When Yasas arrived, I shook his hand and introduced myself. I thanked him for coming and told him I greatly appreciated his willingness to meet with me. I asked him if it would be alright with him if I recorded the interview. I explained that for the project we are required to transcribe the content of the interview; therefore, it is necessary to have the audio recording. I ensured him that my professor would be the only person permitted to listen to it. He said it was fine. After the introduction, I proceeded with the interview by asking him the first question. Yasas was very thorough in every response. The dialogue between us flowed much like a natural conversation.
The third interviewee, Yasas, is a 21 year old male from Sri Lanka. He is from the city of Colombo which is located on the west coast of the island. It is a very large city and as stated by Yasas, is known as the “financial capital” of the country. Yasas’s family is still currently living in Sri Lanka. He was familiarized with English from the day he was born as both of his parents speak English fluently. He came to the U.S. to attend St. John’s University. He did not support the strictness of the education system in Sri Lanka; therefore, he wanted more freedom in his educational choices and decided to come to the U.S. for his higher level studies. Yasas is an international relations and sociology major. After he graduates, he hopes to return back to Sri Lanka to find a job and raise a family. He also has a future goal of promoting change of the Sri Lankan educational system by providing children with opportunities to study a variety of subjects instead of the only focus being math. Yasas is a very intelligent, determined individual with high hopes of achieving his goal.
As I stated previously, this interview was much less stressful for me. I had completed the same process two times before and was confident in my abilities of conducting an interview. I had my set of potential questions available and was well prepared. Through email conversations, Yasas seemed to be a sociable and relaxed person. When I met him, my preconceived notions were confirmed. His friendly personality made it an easy task for me to converse with him. During the interview, I found that Yasas did most of the talking. I would ask him a question, and he would answer it thoroughly and then expand upon it. The information he presented was very intriguing. I tried my best not to interrupt his explanations; although, a couple of times I did interject to clarify some of the information. Throughout the interview, I was able to ask him all the questions I had intended to ask. On the topic of his country, Yasas’s was very knowledgeable and was eager to share the information which made the whole interview process nearly effortless.
The portion of the interview that moved me most was when Yasas was speaking about the national examinations that the students of Sri Lanka are required to take. He mentioned they are some of the hardest tests in the world regarding math and science skills, yet the students are not permitted to use a calculator. He also stated that students have to forfeit almost all of their social life in an effort to study for the tests and succeed school. During this section of the interview, I was taken back by the information and nearly speechless. The only comments I could produce were “Wow!” and “Oh my goodness.” Overall, my third interview was successful. I obtained a lot of information about a country I knew nothing about previous to the interview. It was an enjoyable experience, and inclusively the experience has provided me with more confidence to step out of my comfort zone and meet new people, particularly international students.