Life's A Beach

SURF'S UP!

Travelling through Sri Lanka, we stopped for a few days in one of the many surf spots along the coast for some beach life and potentially for a spot of surfing - as this pastime was so prevalent on the south coast.

Surf culture originally became a big draw for Americans living on the west coast of the USA during the 50's. The idea of catching waves, chilling out in the sun, listening to the latest rock/pop music to play out a life free from the restraints of a conventional 9-5 job, really started to catch on as an alternative lifestyle throughout the 60's and continues still to this day as the lifestyle choice for many new adopters of this concept around the world.

Marketing Concepts
Life is made up of many different ideas which we choose to adopt, adapt or follow. How we 'choose' these ideas is determined by a number of considerations. A lot of our decisions can be pre-determined through cultural, financial, logistical factors which will impact our ability to consciously choose a path.

The Atomic Age
The 50's in America was a time of great affluence for a country which had recently become the world's new dominant power in the wake of the Second World War. Industry and commerce had boomed since the 30's Great Depression, space to live in was in abundance, the weather was mostly sunny along the Californian coast and relative living costs were very low for those sleeping on the beach or in their large second hand automobiles. Adventure travelling to discover new sunny surf spots in other less-developed parts of the world, was also an option for these well-off Americans going through a period of growth - a sweet spot for a generation of middle Americans.

Fast forward 60 years and we can see that the current economical climate for 'developed' nations, still affords many of their middle-class citizens the option of choice. Although food, living and travel expenses have increased, there's still enough money available (credit especially), to make conscious decisions for enjoying more alternative lifestyles, away from the rat race.

Globalisation And Technology
The world has now become a much smaller place. Poorer nations have started to catch up with the richer countries in terms of how they choose to live. Healthcare, education and life quality are improving, plus with access to the Internet, the options for attaining more wealth are dramatically affecting earning potential for those fortunate families who can trade goods on the open market or attract higher rates via tourism. With the Internet and satellite TV, also comes multiple streams of marketing/advertising, and communities are being hit with the same emotional & status affirming triggers that we in developed nations, have come so driven by.

Concepts Of Living
We need 'money' or a form of currency to enable us to live. Everything is built up by ideas which generate income - the idea of wearing t-shirts and shorts, the idea to travel and learn other cultures, languages and traditions - these are ideas that cost and generate money for locals and tourists alike. As I've seen first-hand here in Sri Lanka, the ideas for retaining pristine sandy beaches for sunbathing and surfing are relatively new ones. Beaches are traditionally the haunt of working fishermen, Sri Lankan's use skin whitening products and 50+ sunscreen if they haven't already covered up with clothing and parasols - and the surfboards are still the equivalent of a local person's food costs for a week to hire per day - so mainly count for yet another lucrative revenue stream from tourists who are being marketed the surf lifestyle concept.

As more and more tourists come to Sri Lanka, the country will adopt more concepts that have become successful in 'western' cultures. Coffee culture is one example already showing early signs of forming in tourist hot-spots and the capital city. One such establishment, maximising on a connection of ideas, had a split of juice/coffee bar coupled with an 'organic' and health-food shop - themselves relatively new western concepts. Raw, vegan and organic vegetable yoga retreats seem to be the buzz words heard in yoga studios these days and Sri Lanka is adopting these concepts to market more towards the lucrative tourist market. Many of the people here likely know about yoga and may even themselves practise it but socially/financially, the choices for performing yoga has not been readily available to them. The choices for eating home-grown fresh fruit and vegetables certainly are available as an option to a larger degree, yet the idea that fried and high glycemic foods are bad, obviously hasn't been sold in to the general populace yet, although gluten free products have been observed in some of the larger supermarkets, so that day will surely come.

Developing Nations
It's interesting from a tourist's point of view, to see where a country as culturally diverse as this, has optimised on it's offering to attract money from tourism but even more eye-opening to see how the affects of global communication, technology, marketing/advertising and the desires of tourists being metted out through social media channels and customer feedback portals like those on google maps and Booking.com etc. are rapidly changing the lives of those exposed to it. If one were to look at the average living costs and wage for working class and professionals today and compare it with five years ago, the increase in overall living costs has remained relatively low - as have working wages, but in five years time, without proper regulations in place to retain healthy levels, I predict the middle and upper-middle classes will see a far greater rise in wealth in relation to the working class and this will cause greater disparity between the have and have nots.

The greatest gains of all will of course be made by the banks and the wealthier foreign investors as the country markets it's many tourist attractions, including it's growing number of surf-rich beaches.

The key for tourists, travelling around this richly diverse country, I believe, is to let go of the 'concepts' we've grown used to in our own countries and to embrace the culture, freedoms, natural beauty and genuine friendliness expressed by the local restaurants and home stays, to fully realise & appreciate ourselves what we have largely lost touch with in what we incorrectly term 'more developed westernised nations'.