JAIC Sri Lanka - The Foreign Friendly Bar Man

 Good Morning All,

Beautiful day in this "Paradise" Island. 

Boy did I have an experience today. :-)

JAIC Hilton, a self proclaimed 'luxury" serviced apartment complex located in the middle of "downtown Colombo", if you can call it that, cause the country is essentially one big downtown heh. There is no planning as such. If you see this place, its a wonder how anyone would consider this place luxury.

I happened to role up into a Bar. And was served by this guy ...

            

What a treat, this man.

I ended up heading to the bar counter on a Wednesday afternoon, I finished another fabulously successful meeting online, got a sale, rather large one, and decided I was going to indulge in a large brew and fish and chips.

Moment I entered all was well, till I got to the bar top and the people behind it were bit confused. Like, " err what are you doing here". Im dressed in a white shirt, blue tie, blue pants, black hush puppies, CK belt and a Tag watch. NOW, i know Sri Lankans don't know anything when it comes fashion, they think they do and all the knowledge they have is only in the last decade because after the war all these international channels showed up on tv and suddenly with a bit of the internet Sri Lankans are experts at everything. Thats why when they meet you they mostly say "What are you wearing men ?" in fact your probably wearing something they can't spell, pronounce, never heard of and CANT afford.

So back to the racist bar man. From the get go, he wasn't friendly. Me smiling and saying good afternoon, didn't have an effect, seems like he expected me to speak in that awful language, which I barely do and in fact don't lol.

He took my order down and you can feel the tension on the counter top. You can really feel it. I had my food had my drink and thought, HEY why don't I just be nice and chat with him. I asked him how much the private meeting room for next to the bar.....here we go ... "it is 10 thousand for 1 hour." IT WAS NOT 10k an hour. He's trying to show this place is a bit upscale for even me. How do I know its not 10k an hour, because I called in the next day and asked, the manager said its free, you will need to order food and drinks to use the room.

Now back again to the racist bar man. While i felt the tension, behind me approach what I could honestly say were either Americans or a mix of Americans and Australians. 3 of them in fact. AND BOY DID OUR BAR MAN GO TO WORK.

Immediately his english just improved, clear spoken and he REACHED his hands out and shook each guys hand. Guess where I was, NEXT to the three men. I mean if thats not a surreal insult of racial bias towards me I don't know what is. Our brilliant bar man decided to proceed with his fluent (locally fluent) English. Asking how their day was, (hey bar man my day was good too), I actually thought of reaching my hand out and having him shake it (DAMN IT I SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT), that would have been hilarious. But of course, I felt horrible.

I mean here I am, being nice, being me, not a single aggressive tone and this has who just can't seem to decipher in his mind that I too am a guest. Just be nice no matter what colour.

I asked for the bill immediately and when I received it and paid it, I wrote on the receipt "You should be ashamed of yourself, treating people like this..." And point blank wrote the word Racist on it. Put it back in the folder.

Walked out.

Ps : how did I get this picture during covid you ask?, well I visited the JACI bar pre-covid in 2019 I came back when the curfews were lifted and foreign travel can take place to a certain extent, just to make and example of this bastard.

Thanks Sri Lanka, and Sri Lankans for another divided vacation experience. The bar mans name is Ashan. If your white, he's awesome to you.