Hoisin Sauce (1959); Porter house (1842); Shrimp Chips (1940)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/11/03 2:22:02 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM
writes:

> I will be leaving for Sri Lanka on Tuesday afternoon.  This is about my
85th
> country, most in the past five years.  If my United Airlines flight doesn't
> crash or I don't die in the island's 20-year civil war, I'll be back in New
> York City on February 26th

The "Tamil Tigers", which is the group the started the civil war, consists of
speakers of Tamil, which is a Dravidian language.  The Tamil Tigers are mad
at the Singhalese, who speak an Indo-European (Sanskrit-derivative) language.
 Therefore avoid speaking any IE language on Sri Lanka and you'll be safe
from the Tamil Tigers.  Unfortunately this precludes English.  However there
is a fourth language spoken in Sri Lanka, so you'll be safe in the civil war
if you restrict yourself to speaking Arabic.