Liu Jiana's residence is 200 metres from Sri Lanka Prime Minister's Private Residence.
At home, she sat still, looking out the window from time to time, worried that the march would erupt in bloodshed.
On July 9, protests broke out in Colombo, sri Lanka' capital. Large numbers of protesters took to the streets, broke through barricades and stormed the presidential residence to demand the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. On the same day, protesters broke into the private residence of Prime Minister Ranil Vikramasingha and set fire to it.
At 7 p.m. local time, Liu Jiana's 9-year-old child suddenly had a high fever of 40 degrees and showed no signs of fever, and in anxiety, she and her husband could only choose to drive to the hospital. Traffic on Galle Road has been paralyzed, and there is not a single car in sight on the road, and Liu Jiana worries that it will not be able to pass smoothly, but she does not expect the protesters to spontaneously make way for them.
After the brief victory in the occupation of the presidential palace, there was also a noticeable change in the mood that pervaded the crowd, from anger to impassion, with people singing Sinhala songs and chanting "Victory!" Victory！ (Win!) Win! ）
On July 11, President Rajapaksa said he would resign as president on July 13. According to Sri Lankan media reports, Speaker Abbevardna did not receive the president's resignation letter as scheduled. In the early hours of July 13, the president arrived in the Maldives by military plane, and the president's brother had left the country to fly to the United States. On the 13th, a new round of protests broke out, Sri Lanka declared a national emergency, and military aircraft have been circling over Colombo.
The surge of a sharp reshuffle in Sri Lankan politics resonates with the storms of the world: the terrorist attacks in Colombo on April 21, 2019, the spread of the covid-19 pandemic around the world, the depression of tourism, the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine...
Sri Lanka, a tropical island nation that enjoyed brief tranquility after several years' civil war, has once again become unstable. The political and social crisis, fuelled by the debt crisis, has also drastically affected people living in Sri Lanka. There is a shortage of oil and gas fuel supply, outside the gas station, there are always vehicles lined up for several kilometers to refuel, and it takes three or four days to queue up to add 2.8 liters of gasoline; inflation, the price of commodities in the market is soaring, 5 kilograms of Chinese rice is sold for 200 yuan a bag; major cities have regular power outages for hours or even dozens of hours a day...
The Chinese who live in Sri Lanka were also transformed by the storm. They are worried and uneasy, and they feel the undercurrent of the world shaking in the island country, and the aftermath of the waves changes their future destiny choices.
On July 13, 2022, local time, Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Vikramasingha declared a state of national emergency on the 13th, and a large number of demonstrators gathered outside the prime minister's office to protest. Figure/IC photo
At the edge of the vortex
At 9 a.m. on July 9, a large number of protesters began marching to the "Protest Village" northwest of Colombo. It was once a "demonstration point" reserved by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa next to his office building in early 2020 to show that he is a leader who is willing to listen to dissent. Now, in this open space, a "protest village" has gradually formed.
Looking down from the window on the 16th floor of the apartment, Liu Jiana, a 39-year-old international Chinese teacher, saw the crowds occupying the street on Cornhill Road on Colombo's Esplanade. People waved Sri Lankan flags, held signs large and small, chanted slogans such as "GotaGoHome" and walked to the presidential palace.
Liu Jiana lives in an apartment building less than 1 km away from the whirlpool Presidential Palace and 200 meters from the prime minister's private residence. Downstairs, the crowd of people on Gower Road was black, singing, shouting slogans and banging gongs and drums, pressing against the window. Liu Jiana could feel the anger of the people in the parade.
This emotion makes her nervous, and as a mother of two children, she is "unable to be solid inside.". On the evening of 8 July, the government announced a curfew in several areas of Colombo, and trains to the capital were halted. She had expected the march to stop, but the curfew had not stopped tens of thousands of people from appearing at the protest site.
Located in district 1 of Colombo, the Presidential Palace is a colonial-era building bordering the beach, with a history of more than 200 years, which has long been a symbol of sri Lanka's power. The Presidential Palace is surrounded by five-star hotels, opposite the Chinese-aided Harbour City. Xu Xinghe, 30, works in Harbour City. On the morning of July 9, Xu Xinghe was still working normally, and at noon he and more than 20 colleagues began to leave the company, considering safety issues, the company collectively left work early.
On the way home, Xu Xinghe saw that people had begun to gather on Gaoer Road, and many people had come from other places to take different means of transportation, and there were people blocking the road along the way. The most common are trucks that can accommodate more people. They were crowded in trucks with Sri Lankan flags on their bodies. But the locals still greet Xu Xinghe warmly, as if it were a normal day.
This is not the first time Sri Lankans have protested this year. Liu remembers the May 9 clashes in Colombo that killed five people, including a member of Parliament, and injured about 200 others. She feared that the march would also erupt in bloodshed.
On this day, most Chinese people watched the parade live at home through the Internet. Phoebe's home is near Gower Road, the only way to the presidential palace, and she and her roommate open two channels to watch together, the noise of the live news and the noise coming in from the window.
According to statistics, about 100,000 people took to the streets to protest on July 9.
Early the next morning, Xu Xinghe and his girlfriend Huang Jiewen rode bicycles to "visit" the private residence of the prime minister after the burning, leaving behind some broken glass and small stones. There are military police around the prime minister's private residence, but there is no forbidden area, and people can enter and take pictures at will.
Xu Xinghe said the houses near the prime minister's private residence were hardly affected, "even the closest ones have not been burned or destroyed." ”
In the Presidential Palace, office areas and residential areas are occupied by the people, some people swim in the garden pool, some people enter the room, lie in bed and "enjoy", "others cook in the kitchen". Military police patrolled the hall.
On July 9, 2022, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the largest demonstration in recent times broke out, and demonstrators rushed into the president's residence. Figure/IC photo
Came to Sri Lanka in the tide of the times
Colonized by great powers, torn apart by civil wars, overwhelmed by tsunamis – Sri Lanka is known as a tear in the Indian Ocean.
In 2009, Sri Lanka ended its 26-year civil war and ushered in a period of relative peace and tranquility. The country, home to eight World Heritage Sites, has also seen a boom in tourism.
"From 2015 to 2019, I witnessed the most glorious 5 years in this country." Fu Yu said. In 2015, Fu Yu, who had just graduated from university, came to Sri Lanka under the introduction of his sister. According to the annual statistics released by Chinese the World Tourism Organization, China's outbound tourist arrivals in 2015 reached 120 million, and the number of Chinese tourists visiting Sri Lanka exceeded 200,000.
In this wave, Fu Yu found the direction of his career. Majoring in English, she worked as a translator for a jeweler and helped him communicate with Chinese tourists who bought jewelry in Sri Lanka. After that, she began to contact jewelry, Sri Lanka is rich in gemstones, there is a price advantage, she traveled between China and Sri Lanka, started a jewelry business.
The sun is shining, the climate is warm, and there are both famous historical buildings and a stunning coastline, which is Fu Yu's first impression of Sri Lanka. Chongqing girls Fu Yu like the climate of Sri Lanka, unlike Chongqing, which is hot in summer and cold in winter. In the tourist city of Kandy, pay the rain to spend two years of time. Every day after work, the sunset shines brightly on the low-hanging clouds, and she rides an electric car to the beach to catch crabs with friends, knock oysters, and fish. "Sunset in Sri Lanka is the most anticipated thing every day, with the sea, everyone will return to children and truly fall in love with life here." Fu Yu said.
Rain shots of the sunset in Sri Lanka. Courtesy of respondents
Also in 2015, Shanghainese Phoebe came to Sri Lanka to explore gems.
The day after arriving, carrying a backpack, Phoebe went straight into the mine. Sri Lanka's south-central mountains are home to world-famous gem veins, and sapphires are world-famous, accounting for about 60% of the world's total colored gemstone production. Once, Sri Lanka was regarded as a treasure island and written into One Thousand and One Nights.
After the end of the Civil War, Sri Lanka's industry and commerce were revived and became the world's new gem cutting and processing center. Phoebe caught up with that gust of wind. "Others call me Yang Bold, but there is no place where I dare not go." There she met a local and later became a partner in her gem brand.
Seeing your own goods, purchasing your own, and learning gemstone expertise little by little, Photobe can even design its own styles. Partners provide local gem resources and cutting technology, and Phoebe is primarily responsible for expanding the sales market in China.
Gemstones are hard currency that can be carried around and can be monetized at any time. With the prosperity of the tourism industry, Phoebe's customers are mainly tourists, as well as Chinese counterparts who come to purchase, "no worries about no guests coming".
In January 2018, Phoebe carefully examined the quality of the gemstones and snapped the pictures. Courtesy of respondents
For Sri Lanka, 2015 was also a year of development. According to statistics, Sri Lanka received 1.8 million foreign tourists in 2015, and its income reached 2.98 billion US dollars. Due to the backward level of domestic economic development, Sri Lanka's tourism consumption mainly relies on foreign tourists.
Also in that year, Huang Jiewen came to Sri Lanka. For her, it was "poetry and distance". She quit her job at home and plans to spend the gap year here and experience life overseas. Initially, she applied for a three-month tourist visa, during which she managed to find a job and changed it to a one-year work visa.
Three years later, she joined the financial company where she is currently working as an account manager for a Chinese-funded company. Here, she balances her life and work, travels around, learns yoga, and without the crisis, it could be the ideal place for her to stay.
The locals are friendly and warm, and whenever they meet her on the street, they will smile and say hello to her. In many moments, she can achieve an inner peace. "Let's say I'm sitting on the beach, and the sea in front of me is very beautiful, the sun is shining on the seashore, it's very quiet, and then a few birds fly by, and occasionally a boat drifts slowly over a long distance, and the sense of space immediately feels very calm." These beautiful moments are her emotional connection to this tropical island, natural, relaxed, pleasurable, and she wants to stay.
In 2017, Xu Xinghe entered a state-owned enterprise through school recruitment and was assigned to Sri Lanka to take charge of overseas construction projects. Among the many overseas locations, Sri Lanka is considered "a good place" by the company.
Because of the relationship between work and business, Huang Jiewen and Xu Xinghe became acquainted, and three years ago, the two began to fall in love. They have shared many dusks and sunsets in Sri Lanka.
In 2018, after ending the Chinese teacher program in the United States, Liu Jiana moved from the United States to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has more routes to China, the voyage back to China is also half shorter than that of the United States, and she likes the climate of tropical islands, so Liu Jiana chose Colombo as the city to settle. In Liu Jiana's view, although Colombo's infrastructure is relatively backward, her and her husband's work is stable, and her children are also enrolled in international schools, which is still a beautiful country that is desirable.
Huang Jiewen's journey in Sri Lanka. Courtesy of respondents
A signal of crisis
The transition begins with the Easter bombing on April 21, 2019. A peaceful Easter holiday, blown up by sudden violence, Liu Jiana felt that the sense of stability in life began to gradually shatter.
This seems to be a starting point, and since then, all the factors of instability have increased: the epidemic has caused Sri Lanka's tourism revenue to fall to less than one-fifth of 2019 in two years, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has once again accelerated Sri Lanka's economic collapse as the borders of countries have been opened and Sri Lanka has won a recovery in tourism. More than 40% of Sri Lanka's grain imports come from Ukraine, and its energy imports are heavily dependent on Russia and Iran; In the tourism industry, 30% of inbound tourists come from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.
Liu Jiana did not expect that the Indian Ocean island country where she was located was actually in the center of the vortex that shocked the world.
About two years ago, Xu Xinghe smelled the signal of economic crisis.
Mr. Xu's Chinese-funded companies have been closely monitoring Sri Lanka's sovereign credit and debt. Two years ago, they realized that Sri Lanka's debt ratio was high. "Before, everyone actually had the impression that Sri Lanka's debt had always been high, but there was no default, and everyone felt that it was really dangerous, and luckily thought that there might be aid, or new loans."
Huang Jiewen, who works in the financial sector, also observed signals of an economic crisis last year. "If we only look at the money on its books, it has really been falling since last year."
Mr. Huang's financial firm reacted early, squeezing sri Lanka's operations early last year. All the business volume has been compressed to only 40%, and it is not easy to lend money.
Indeed, Sri Lanka's current economic crisis has a much older background.
According to media reports, after the end of the civil war in 2009, Sri Lanka focused more on providing goods to the domestic market than trying to break into the international market, so export earnings remained low, while import spending was growing and the country's foreign exchange reserves were in a hurry.
The BBC reports that Sri Lanka now imports $3 billion more a year than it exports, which is why it uses almost all of its foreign exchange. At the end of 2019, Sri Lanka had $7.6 billion in foreign exchange reserves. By March 2020, that number had fallen to $1.93 billion, with the government recently saying only $50 million remaining.
Another controversial policy was in April 2021, when foreign exchange reserves were insufficient, the Sri Lankan government tried to limit fertilizer use by banning the import of fertilizers and requiring farmers to switch to high locally priced organic fertilizers, which led to a massive reduction in crop and tea crops, and Sri Lanka lost its rice self-sufficiency. In 2021, Sri Lanka's rice production fell by about 14 percent and prices soared by about 43 percent. In the first quarter of 2022, Sri Lanka's tea production fell 15% year-on-year to its lowest level since 2009.
In addition, measures such as the government's continued borrowing and President Rajapaksa's tax cuts have made Sri Lanka's economy worse. Over the years, the Sri Lankan government has accumulated $51 billion in foreign debt.
Faced with a debt crisis, Sri Lankans interpreted it as the result of political corruption and nepotism among local families. Since March, protests and demonstrations have continued across Sri Lanka against the Rajapaksa family, Sri Lanka's political family. The marching people included people of all ages, mostly young college students and white-collar workers, and once or twice, Liu Jiana even saw her 16-year-old students in the procession.
To her surprise, many people from the upper middle and upper classes have taken to the streets under the influence of the protracted economic crisis. Among the marchers were bank workers known to Huang Jiewen and a local Sri Lankan English teacher whom Liu Jiana knew, "Even if I give my life, I will fight for justice for future generations." The English teacher said.
On July 10, 2022, Xu Xinghe and Huang Jiewen photographed protesters near the Presidential Palace. They set up tents and gathered here. Courtesy of respondents
The present moment of chaos and fragmentation
Since June, gasoline and gas have become a key issue for people's livelihood, and there is a widespread shortage of oil across the country. Outside the gas station, there are always vehicles lined up for several kilometers to refuel, and it takes three or four days to add 2.8 liters of gasoline. Phoebe has the experience of queuing, and sometimes finds that the car does not move for a long time, "it means that the gas station is empty, then drive to find a second one." "In terms of price, such as No. 95 gasoline, the market unit price is more than 500 Sri Lankan rupees (hereinafter referred to as rupees), and on the black market is 3,000 rupees (about 56.4 yuan). Two years ago, the unit price of No. 95 gasoline was more than 100 rupees, about five yuan.
Due to fuel shortages, in the past three or four months, Liu Jiana's car has not been started for a long time, in order to save fuel, she and her husband mostly rely on walking to complete daily work and life, walking to the bank, walking to the supermarket. On weekends, she used to drive her children to the beach and to the park, but now she has to cancel it.
In the past two years, Huang Jiewen has basically worked flexibly. Occasionally, when you need to go to the office, it is also difficult to get a taxi. Sri Lanka taxi software has no one to take orders, if you are lucky enough to go out to stop, the previous 400 rupees can go to the company, now it costs 2000 rupees, if the road is far, you may have to change another one in the middle, "because there is not so much oil".
Xu Xinghe's Chinese-funded enterprises have also reduced the frequency of use of shuttles, arranging as many people as possible to commute at a time. Since the drivers are locals, they bear the pressure of refueling and often go to the queue all night.
On June 17, 2022, local time, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, drivers lined up to buy gasoline. Figure/IC photo
Mobility issues are only a small part of the impact. In June, Sri Lanka's inflation rate reached 54.6%, the highest level since 1954, and the country's central bank governor said that inflation could rise to 70%. When she first arrived in Sri Lanka four years ago, Liu Jiana remembered that the exchange rate at that time was that 1 yuan could be exchanged for about 25 LKR, and now, 1 yuan can be exchanged for about 56 LKR. Liu Jiana and her husband are both teachers at international schools, and the rupee has depreciated, invisibly reducing their salaries by nearly two-thirds.
Xu Xinghe's income is US dollars, which is not greatly affected, but with the depreciation of the rupee, he can exchange more money for consumption.
But such cases are a minority. Huang Jiewen admits that her spending power has returned to a few years ago. She also has some rupees on her hands, and some of them are time deposits that cannot be converted into renminbi. "Although I work in the financial industry, I still have some hindsight and miss the time to exchange foreign exchange."
Incomes have fallen, prices have doubled several times, and with them, expenditures have increased. Every week, Liu Jiana will go to the supermarket to buy the required supplies, usually the cost of a family of four is about 6,000 to 7,000 rupees, but now it needs to spend more than 20,000 or even 30,000 rupees. Babies who used to be able to buy diapers in the hundreds of rupees now cost more than a thousand rupees. The Sri Lankan hairdresser she knew told her bitterly that he now earned 2,000 rupees (about 37 yuan) a day for a haircut, while eating for 1,500 rupees a day.
After February this year, Colombo began to experience large-scale power outages, with blackouts lasting more than 10 hours a day. Liu Jiana's apartment uses a generator to protect the lives of residents, and the electricity bill has risen from more than 20 rupees per kWh to more than 160 rupees for 1 kWh.
A can of liquefied gas rose from Rs 1,400 to Rs 2,500, and when supply outstripped demand, people lined up and often had to wait a week to buy it. And now, the price of liquefied gas on the black market has soared to more than Rs 20,000.
Fu Yu, a 29-year-old jewelry seller, lives in Baruvira, a tourist town on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, and cannot buy liquefied gas, so Fu Yu bought an induction cooker and matching kitchen utensils to cook. But in the town, Fu Yu often saw locals forced into the woodlands to find firewood, build bricks, burn rice with firewood, and pile up more and more coconut shells in neighbors' yards.
Fu Yu saw that a large number of people who relied on tourism were unemployed, some people replanted the land to ensure basic livelihood, and some people were hungry, carefully calculating the daily food consumption. "I didn't do anything, but I watched myself get poor day by day." A local friend of Fu Yu told her.
The fuel-starved lanes became empty, more and more cyclists were getting rid of, public transport was massively cancelled, and every train was packed with people. On July 5, Fu Yu went to Colombo, an hour and a half drive from Baruvira, to get a taxi, and the driver said that the road fare cost 25,000 rupees (about 500 yuan), because it was too expensive, she had to go to the train station to catch the train. When I arrived at the station, I found that due to the cancellation of the night shift, the conductor who had worked until 9 p.m. had already left work at 5 p.m. That night, Fu Yu sat helplessly outside the train station to search for a nearby hotel, and she felt that she could not imagine that in modern society, an hour and a half of the journey could be so difficult.
In the past three years, Liu Jiana has almost always taught online, and after the impact of the epidemic gradually dissipated, the school was closed due to energy shortages. As a foreigner, she can't talk about local politics in class, and can only comfort these fifteen or sixteen-year-old children, "Your generation has experienced explosions, epidemics, and current crises, and survived these tests, you are very tough and strong." ”
On June 15, 2022 local time, passengers prepare to board the train at a railway station in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Tang Lu
Changing fate in flux
Even in the recent turmoil, Fu Yu still feels that the locals are warm and friendly. On June 19, when Fu Yu was traveling because the motorcycle was out of gas, a local who was riding a motorcycle saw it and took out the oil drum in his trunk to help her fill it with oil. At the moment when oil is so precious, this small thing makes Fu Yu feel moved.
Now, Fu Yu's work has also been affected. Due to the lack of oil, the mining machines in the mining area are shut down, the mining is almost stagnant, the work of cutting stones is also reduced due to the lack of oil due to power rationing, the production of gemstones has become lower, and the market supply is insufficient. In addition, at the moment of currency depreciation, locals have also begun to hoard gemstones that will not depreciate, and the price of gemstones has also increased.
After his work and life were in trouble, Fu Yu was ready to buy a property, and his plan to take over his parents disappeared. She confessed that her psychological gap is very large, and she has decided not to settle in Sri Lanka again. As for the future, she may consider other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Myanmar.
People line up in front of a gas station in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on May 19, 2022, to buy kerosene. Image source: Xinhua News Agency
Can such a big economic crisis really be solved by changing leaders? Liu Jiana is not optimistic. She remembers her British colleagues always comforting people with one sentence, "It's going to get worse before it gets better." (It's going to get worse before it gets better.) Hitting the bottom can bounce back, so how dark and unfathomable this bottom is, she has no answer to this.
Leaving the country, finding a satisfactory job, and finding a new school for her children is not easy for Liu Jiana, who has built a stable life here. The previous month, when the international school where she worked wanted to renew her contract for another three years, she rejected the agreement and signed it for only one year. Liu Jiana said that this is the only choice she is sure of at this stage.
On the evening of July 13, Phoebe did a nucleic acid test and was ready to apply for a green code to return home, and she bought this weekend's ticket a few months ago, not knowing that the situation would be so serious in July. She had to go back to her home in Shanghai, because there was no direct flight, so she had to go to Kunming first. The air ticket cost more than 10,000 yuan, and before that, a Sri Lankan ticket to the country was about 2,000 yuan. "Every flight back home is full, sri lanka is getting worse every month than last month, and a lot of people want to go back."
She plans to return to China to learn about the domestic sapphire market and then decide how to develop. As for the partnership with local Sri Lankans, she is not going to break up the partnership. "Because you can't spend another 7 years getting to know a foreigner and building trust."
Huang Jiewen will be transferred to Nepal in August, Xu Xinghe will also be on a business trip to Thailand immediately, and they will start a foreign love affair for at least half a year.
For Huang Jiewen, in sri Lanka for seven years, there are too many warm memories.
When she first arrived in 2015, she walked alone on the street because she didn't know too many new friends, and she was in a somewhat depressed mood. She saw a café on the side of the road, walked in to buy a bigger cookie, and when she was done, the cookie salesman looked at her and said, "This is for free." (It's free.) ）
"He said because you don't look particularly happy, he said you have to be happy, oh, this doesn't need money, I was blindfolded, I said Oh my God, he must give me this cookie, I was very touched at that time." 」
In October 2021, Huang Jiewen was on vacation in southern Sri Lanka and saw her taking pictures, and a local guy smiled happily and circled around. Courtesy of respondents
Over the years, she had two dengue fevers in Colombo, and a local aunt hired by the company to cook her coconut chicken soup had been caring for her in the hospital, "and helped me comb my hair, help me massage, and at that time I felt like a mother." Makes you feel that the world is not indifferent at all. ”
She was about to leave, and she had a lot of reluctance. On the night of July 13, she flipped through the photo album, the seashore, the dunes, the forests, the meadows, the diversity of Sri Lanka, the same blue sky. She doesn't know what to do with the family's two cats, and she misses weekend excursions, hotels in the mountains and exquisite cafes.
She doesn't want to give up the rented house, the landlord is a 94-year-old grandma, grandma is a bit forgetful, every day will greet her, ask her what her name is, where she works, live here is not happy, need what help," she would repeat such questions, very cute. ”
Maybe after leaving, she will also miss these repetitive questions and answers.
(Huang Jiewen, Xu Xinghe, Fu Yu as pseudonyms)
Beijing News reporter Zhu Qinghua Yang Liu
Edited by Chen Xiaoshu Proofreader Wu Xingfa