Heart of Sri Lanka

Speaker:  Ms. Mary Ueda

Ms. Mary Ueda is from "the brilliant island", Sri Lanka which is in the south-east from India. Sri Lanka is famous for tea and jewls. Mary has been in Japan for 30 years. She talked earnestly about family, friends and society.

"Many people would realize how good your country is once your are outside of it. What is good about Japanese people is kindness, compassion to other people and delicate, and something bad about Japanese people is that may grownups are bad-mannered. Spoiling children and saying bad things about the old in TV shows are also not good. The parents should respect the old and children should share house chores, and they should build moral sense until they are out there in the society.

From textbooks and school supplies to electric appliances, they just throw them away so easily. This will ends up with problems with a lot of garbage. The elementary school students in Sri Lanka use their texbooks carefully and give the books to the next year students.

Of course there are some bad things about Sri Lanka, and that is a caste. People are discriminated according to their jobs, but not by the colors of the skin. The color of blood is red and this is true with anybody, but in Japan, sometimes they discriminate by the color of the skin. Do you imagine how hard it is to be discriminated and to be pointed at? Just living away from the home country is hard enough. Please talk to the people with different colored skin warmly.

I like Japan very much. There are so many good things in Japan such as people, goods, foods and buildings, but why don't they cherish them. I feel sorry for that.

I have some very important people besides my family. When my husband was away on his business, a sudden news that my son was involved in a traffic accident shocked me. I didn't know what to do but my friend couple went to the police station ahead of me and made some arrangements for the hospital. I didn't understand Japanese language at that time but they took care of me and my son as if they were my real family. They are my jewels in my life I never wish to give away."