CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY – Part 6

TRUE INDEPENDENCE, FINALLY!

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

Becoming an adult

Turning 18 gave me a good feeling. I felt that I now have legitimacy in being at the Ceylon Hotel School (CHS) as I was not underage anymore. Living in the hostel and making all decisions (good and bad) to enjoy life and career building also enhanced the feeling of being independent. My father visited me briefly at the hostel on Wednesday evenings every week to check how I was progressing. I think that he did so to mainly to please my mother who was always worried about me.

My home in Bambalapiitya Flats was just a 15-minute bus ride from the hostel, but I went home only once a week during the weekend, and stayed overnight on Sundays. I did not want to miss any of the fun at the CHS hostel. Learning from getting fired soon after being hired from my first part-time hospitality job was not good for my self-confidence. I realised that I needed to find some other work sooner rather than later. My parents were unaware about my first job, being hired or fired!

The graduates from the first three CHS batches met at the hostel one evening towards late 1971 to form a professional body. As some of them were overseas on scholarships, only around 25 of those graduates were present at that historic meeting. Ceylon Hotel School Graduates Association (CHSGA) was the first such body in Ceylon. Fifty year later, today CHSGA has over 3,000 members and most active in professional activities. Eight years after the inception, in 1979 I was elected to the executive committee of CHSGA and later during the 1985-1986 term served as its President.

Arriving at the largest hotel in Ceylon

The first four-star level internationally branded hotel in Ceylon was the Pegasus Reef Hotel managed by Trust House Forte (THF) in the UK. With 150 rooms, this was also the largest hotel in Ceylon at that time. Soon after it opened, we heard that the hotel needed a few part-time trainee waiters to work during their busy weekends. Once again, I was one of the first to grab this opportunity. Three of my batchmates from CHS and I regularly worked at the Pegasus Reef Hotel during my CHS school days since late 1971.

Usually, we finished our classes at CHS around 3:00 pm on Fridays, and took a bus to this hotel which is in between the city of Colombo and the main airport in the country. After the bus ride it was a long walk under the hot sun to reach the hotel. Therefore, on some days we paid for a two-wheeled bullock cart ride (pulled by one poor ox), from the bus stand to the hotel.

The first time we reached the hotel, we were very impressed. As four teenagers coming from middle class families with humble homes, the lobby of this hotel appeared to be the most luxurious thing we have seen at that time in our lives. We were then more impressed to see two local men who had qualified in hotel management in Europe, working as the Front Office Manager and the Food & Beverage Manager, alongside a few expatriate managers. This provided us hope for our future potential in the hotel industry. Years later I succeed one of them as the General Manager of the famous Mount Lavinia Hotel, and also provided training to the other who had joined the academia in his later career.

Working at the best hotel in Ceylon

At that time the Pegasus had a double bedroom, which could not be sold owing to some water damage after a pipe leak. Four of us were asked to stay overnight in that room every Friday and Saturday for many weekends. We also liked the food served in their staff canteen. In addition to the Rs. 4:00 (around US$ 1.00 at that time) we were paid per day, we earned some tips. During a weekend, from dinner on Fridays to lunch on Sundays, we served six meals at the main restaurant.

We made lots of additional tips by working extra hours on the hotel poolside, in between the service times for the main meals. The poolside was interesting to us as there were many female tourists in their swim suits, and occasionally even topless. We wondered how one of our batch mates always made more tips than the other three. After watching him closely, we discovered that he did so by telling foreigners lies about how poor his parents were!

By working under a charismatic head waiter, I learnt how to enhance the overall appeal of a buffet. This person, Simon Rajan, created lots of excitement among us soon after the Sunday breakfast service was over. He would shout jokingly and say “OK, guys, time to make this restaurant look like a jungle!”. He empowered us to go to the back garden, cut low branches from trees (coconut, banana and papaw) as well as mangroves on the beach to use them for buffet table decorations. He was a good motivator and knew how to get extra work done, by creating a happy working atmosphere. The kitchen brigade led by a European Executive Chef did a good job in ensuring the quality, and the presentation of food was outstanding. The service team did their part to enhance the total experience of the Sunday lunch customers. The Sunday buffet at the Pegasus was equally popular among foreigners who were hotel resident guests and locals who were non-residents of the hotel. I learnt that goo

d food, creative food presentations, exciting buffet decorations and motivated servers is a win-win formula for any buffet product. I used this concept during my life in hotels for a long time. Thank you, Mr. Simon Rajan!

VIP party

One day, the Principal announced that the Japanese Embassy in Colombo would be hosting a large group of invitees to celebrate the Japanese national day on February 11, 1972, at the Ambassador’s residence. They needed 20 CHS students to serve at this cocktail reception. I volunteered immediately. Even the prestigious hotels built by the British over a century ago, such as Galle Face Hotel, Mount Lavinia Hotel and Grand Orient Hotel (Taprobane Hotel), had older waiters who wore brass buttoned shirts, white sarongs and slippers as their uniform. Some even worked barefoot. In such an era, a group of young, English-speaking students clad in white shirts, black bow ties, white jackets, black trousers, and black shoes, appeared trendy.

Once again, we were paid only Rs. 4.00 per person for the evening. The event was a great success and the Ambassador and his guests were impressed with our professional attire and service. The bonus was that, thanks to the creative bartending by my batch mates who worked behind the bar, we came back to the hostel with four full-bottles of Japanese Suntori Whisky, creatively hidden in the uniforms. That night we had one of the biggest booze parties at the hostel, when half of my batch mates were intoxicated. Owing to the hangovers, a few of them could not wake up next morning to go to CHS. The Principal was furious.

Good bye Ceylon, welcome Sri Lanka!

May 22, in 1972 was a happy day for me. In my opinion, my country finally gaining the true independence by becoming a republic (like France or USA), needed to be celebrated with a deep sense of national pride. I was happy that around the same time that I was becoming truly independent as a young adult. Dropping the colonial English word: Ceylon, and going back to an original Sinhala name of the country as Sri Lanka was indeed a good decision. Getting rid of an old-fashioned ‘ceremonial’ reporting line for the country’s Head of State to a former colonial super power, did not make any sense to me.

Change takes a long time. Some national brands kept the colonial word ‘Ceylon’ unchanged for many decades. Good examples of this were the government owned Ceylon Hotel School, Ceylon Tourist Board, Ceylon Hotels Corporation, Ceylon Tea Board and Hotel Ceylon InterContinental. Today, after nearly half a century later, most have replaced ‘Ceylon’ with ‘Sri Lanka’. However, for brand-recognition reasons Sri Lanka still distributes one of the best teas in the world, as ‘Ceylon Tea’.