A Passionate View on All Things Bali

The expatriate community in Bali is a world unto itself. Recently an Australian expatriate attempted to pay for purchases at a Kuta supermarket with candy. This isnt quite as crazy as it sounds. There is a widely accepted practice in Indonesia that substitutes for small change the ‘gift’ of candy. Well this Aussie simply tried to turn the tables and give them the same ‘coin of the realm’ they had been giving him.

He had stockpiled a collection of individually wrapped confectionary from months of spending at the supermarket and included not only this stockpile but a head of broccoli, three cans of beer, a chocolate bar, and a pack of condoms as well, in payment for his recent purchase.

Putu, in checkout lane 3, demanded cash but the man, a civil engineer by the name of Stuart Longhorn, having accumulated his candy over months of purchases as part of the store’s policy in giving candy as change, saw ‘no reason’ he shouldnt be able to use the candy to pay for goods as it was accepted practice for them to pay him using that ‘currency’. Needless to say the store has no plans to discontinue its candy-change policy.

From The Bali Times by way of Nomad4Ever.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about Kasi, this site, and her initial comment was something like, “You know your posts are heavy with information but light on feelings and personal experience…”

My first response was simply, “Well I have never been to Bali… but simply been fascinated by its culture and music, and that area of the world… I don’t have the sort of personal experience you would like to hear…”

She actually made a further comment, before I was able to reply to her opening, along the lines of, “…I’d love to hear stories about when you were at such and such a beach, and the water was crystal clear and shallow for what seemed to be miles, so you waded out a ways and discovered the most amazing transparent little shrimpies, and spent a blissful half hour watching their little see through hearts pump colorless blood through their little see-through selves, then later when you were walking the beach in the moonlight after a glorious dinner of steak and lobster, you saw little specks of purple light in the waves, and on further investigation discovered your little transparent shrimpies were glowing purple in the moonlight.”

I finally said, after talking a little more about my fascination with the area, “… really it’s like a long distance relationship.” That comment to her, off the cuff so to speak, arrested my attention.

My relationship with my wife Michelle began like that, a long distance relationship over the internet and by email. Such relationships are fraught with uncertainty, not to mention fantasy as the above comment by my friend demonstrates, and often seem doomed almost from the beginning. They typically don’t last, require constant sustenance, and often seem too easy to let go.

Sometimes they move beyond that stage, into a different place. My love for Michelle, and her feelings for me, carried us past the usual boundaries. When and where we crossed that line would be harder to put into words.

My long distance relationship with Bali has waxed and waned but never disappeared. Some of the original fascination with the area, the people, the culture, and the music have survived. I think my feelings about Bali relate to my comment on the Home page that its “… something harder to associate with words or concepts, something that partakes in part of a nostalgic glimpse of our true state of being, this is what has captured my heart. So much so that the dream of living there one day has never quite let go of my soul.”

My answer to my friends comment would be that it is a simple thing like love; I cant quite let go of my feeling for Bali! Still I have a longer answer, a little bit more to the point.

There is a scene in Harvey, the movie starring Jimmy Stewart as Edwin P. Dowd about a pooka that has taken the guise of an invisible 6’8” rabbit and befriended him, a conversation, between Dr. Chumley and Edwin, about stopping clocks:

Edwin: Well, Harvey can look at your clock…and stop it. And you can go anywhere you like with anyone you like…and stay as long as you like. And when you get back, not one minute will have ticked by…

The Doctor: I’ve been spending my life among flyspecks…while miracles have been leaning on lampposts at Fifth and Fairfax… Tell me, Mr. Dowd,will he do this for you?

Edwin: Oh, he’d be willing at any time. But so far I haven’t been able to think of anyplace I’d rather be. I always have a wonderful time wherever I am, whomever I’m with. I’m having a fine time right here with you, Doctor.

The Doctor: Oh. Oh, l…I know where I’d go.

Edwin: Where?

The Doctor: I’d go to Akron. Akron! Oh, yes.

Edwin is an unusual character. The movie is really about his wisdom in the midst of the chaos of the ordinary world, of what we take as our society. Bali is that to me, a refuge yes, but more than that, its a link to my deepest soul.

Recently three specimens of the pygmy tarsier, a nocturnal creature the size of a small mouse, with an uncanny resemblance to the Furby electronic toy and having the appearance of a big-eyed gremlin, were trapped and tracked on Mount Rorekatimbo in Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi on an expedition to the region by Texas A&M University.

  

 

Pygmy tarsiers, among the rarest of the tarsier species in Asia and the Pacific, had been written off by some primatologists as extinct. They are less than 4 inches in length and most of that is tail, weigh less than 2 ounces, and, unlike Furbys, their vocalizations are few and far between. Before this re-discovery by Texas A&M only three specimens had ever been collected.

Just last December two mammals, probably new to science, were found in a virtual lost world uncovered in Papua, Indonesia in 2005, but a follow-up visit in 2007 to the Foja Mountains were the occasion for the discovery of two new mammals: a Cercartetus pygmy possum, one of the world’s smallest marsupials, and a Mallomys giant rat. The giant rat is some 5 times the size of a city rat, in other words the size of a medium sized cat, and would often visit the scientist’s camp, seeming to have no fear of humans.

Mammalogist Martua Sinaga holding a 1.4 kg Mammolys rat, courtesy Conservation International.

 

 

 

 

Bruce Beehler, of Conservation International, and leader of the expedition, made the statement: “It’s comforting to know that there is a place on earth so isolated that it remains the absolute realm of wild nature. We were pleased to see that this little piece of Eden remains as pristine and enchanting as it was when we first visited.”

 

Cercartetus pygmy possum courtesy Conservation International.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Balinese names are both a simple and complex affair. The names Wayan and Made are very common. The following lists the Balinese conventions adhered to for names as determined by birth order:

The 5^th born begins the cycle over again. Names also depend on caste. The castes are Brahmana, Ksatria, Wesia, Sudra. Something like 95% of the Balinese people belong to the Sudra class. To indicate the Sudra class for instance the name is prefixed with an ‘I’ for males and ‘Ni’ for females.

Here is a humorous comment on Balinese names from Why Go Bali: “I remember calling my friend Putu at the restaurant and chatting with someone for a couple of minutes, both agreeing it was nice to meet each other…..before realising it was a different Putu. I’m thinking of handing out # cards to any more Made’s I meet….we’re up to about 5 right now and when someone says ‘Made called for you’ I really don’t know who they’re talking about.

The advantage to this system is that if you forget someone’s name you have a shot at guessing it.”

This is but the tip of the iceberg but indicates the multiplicity of certain names in Bali. Not only are birth order and caste relevant, there are ‘teknonyms’ indicating descent, and also clans and kinship ‘dadias’. A more complete description of names and naming in Bali will follow as we explore the culture of Bali in more detail. You can find more information here.

Most of Bali’s archaeological sites have been marred by graffiti; there are drawings and names etched into some of its most precious ruins.

A recent exhibit, this past September, in Denpasar highlighted not simply the problem of vandalism but the lack of attention archaeology receives in Bali. The archaeological displays were set up in the basement of the Faculty of Letters, in Sanglah, Denpasar.

The exhibit featured artifacts from the various periods of Bali’s and Indonesia’s past. Represented were pieces from the prehistoric to the classical, including the Islamic and colonial periods.

There are lost treasures, undoubtedly stolen at one time, that included a Buddha statue from the Goa Gajah archaeological site in Gianyar and a prehistoric Kenong stone, later found in an artshop in Kuta. The internet has made it much easier for perpetrators to sell artifacts anywhere in the world.

A handwritten Koran from the 17th century was found preserved in the Bugis village in Serangan island; an important artifact from the Islamic period. Also on display were Suwarna, gold coins from the ancient Mataram kingdom in the 9th century. They are believed to be among the archipelago’s earliest monetary units.

Further details of the presentation can be found in the Jakarta Post .

There is an immense amount of information on the web about Bali. And an even larger amount on related topics, such as, for example, gamelan orchestras, or the Legong, a Balinese dance. A great many of the websites on Bali have to do with travel and tourist information. The island is legendary of course as a tourist locale.

Kasi, this site, among its other explorations, will explore the mass of information on the web and bring a little bit of order into the search for information on Bali, its culture, history, art, what vistas it offers the traveler, or tourist, as well as incidental information, current events, etc. These sites, together with a bit of detail re what they are really about will eventually be drawn together in one place here on Kasi.

One theme of Kasi’s posts will be looking into some of these sites out there and seeing what they are really about. Let’s take a look at a couple of them now. If we were to do a search on either Google or Yahoo for ‘Bali’ what would we see?

The top three include the following: the Wikipedia article pops up, The Best of Bali, and Bali Guide.

Here is the introduction from Wikipedia:

“Bali is an Indonesian island located at 8°25′23″S 115°14′55″E / -8.42306, 115.24861 Coordinates: 8°25′23″S 115°14′55″E / -8.42306, 115.24861, the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. It is one of the country’s 33 provinces with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island.

With a population recorded as 3,151,000 in 2005, the island is home to the vast majority of Indonesia’s small Hindu minority. 93.18% of Bali’s population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, while most of the remainder follow Islam. It is also the largest tourist destination in the country and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking and music.”

The article, like many Wikipedia articles, is wide ranging and covers History, Geography, Ecology, Administration, Economy, Demographics, Religion, Language, Culture, and includes a gallery of images as well. It is chock full of information in the manner Wikipedia offers but it can be difficult to wade through. The scholar in us will warm to this site.

What about ‘The Best of Bali’? Here is their summary statement:

“The Best of Bali lists only links to web sites providing interesting, important and up-to-date information on the island of Bali in Indonesia. As this site is up-dated frequently, you are invited to visit often and bookmark this page.”

‘The Best of Bali’- bali.com- is aimed at the tourist. There are some good articles, many links to the baliguide.com site, and information about more than one aspect of Bali, but still it is geared toward the tourist.

And ‘Bali Guide’- baliguide.com? Here is their introduction:

“This BALI GUIDE is maintained and updated regularly by foreign residents living in Bali, usually once a week – sometimes more often. You’re invited to visit frequently and to bookmark this page.

You’ll find on this site current information on the island of Bali in Indonesia and down-to-earth advice, sometimes biased by personal experiences but never influenced by commercial considerations. (The server space is provided by Balivillas.com/Bali.com Ltd as a free service to all visitors to Bali.)”

That’s an interesting introduction! We have the word of insiders… but again this site is designed for the tourist. It has plentiful information but it is again mainly looking for the tourist in all of us.

Kasi will continue this exploration of Bali on the web in many posts to come and will eventually offer a directory of sorts for the Bali afficionado.

Settling on a name for this site was an interesting detour into the byways of Indonesia. I don’t speak Malay, or Balinese, and trying to find something in words that expressed my feeling for this place was an exploration. A friend of mine suggested ‘terima bali’ as a translation of gratitude; and ‘thank-you Bali’ seemed to hold the right mixture of veneration and desire. Really it seemed perfect to me.

Of course the Indonesian version of thank-you is not terima but terima kasih. The parts of this phrase speak to a lifestyle different from our own here in the West. Terima kasih is indeed no ordinary phrase. I ran across a short article in the Jakarta Post that spoke about its origins.

The article points out the phrase reflects the law of gratitude. “We do not, or did not, need a movie like The Secret to tell us to “be grateful” for all we receive from the universe.”

Terima Kasih describes a meditation. The healers from bygone days would imagine their patient’s pain, drawing it into themselves, receiving it, or ‘terima’, simply receiving.

Part of a cycle, the second part of this meditation would be to send out their energy of well-being, ‘kasih’, translated as giving. Kasih is also the word for love and the Indonesian version of our thank-you is something akin to ‘accepting love’.

And so, as a gesture of respect and love for this island and its primeval splendor, I came to the simple phrase ‘kasi bali’, a kind of cross between my gratitude for its existence and love of its splendor.

It was India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, on a visit to the island back in 1951 as an official guest, that first used the expression ‘the morning of the world’ to describe Bali. Still in the midst of volcanic upheavals, just as the entire archipelago has been since its creation, the island’s lush vegetation seems to remind us of the lost Garden of Eden. The island has also been called ‘the island of the gods’ as well as ‘Shangri-la’.[geo_mashup_map] [geo_mashup_list_located_posts]

Bali is one of over 17,000 islands comprising Indonesia and the Malay Archipelago. Indonesia is the home to over 222 million people and Bali itself over 3 million. Bali is a small but exquisite province of the Republic of Indonesia. Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country and the largest country, in terms of population, where the majority of its inhabitants are Muslim. However, Balinese religion, unlike the rest of Indonesia, has for the most part remained true to the Hindu-Buddhist traditions that dominated this area before the arrival of Islam.

The official language is Bahasa Indonesia but English of course is used extensively, especially in commerce. There are Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists, in addition to Muslims. The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta, located on the island of Java. The capital city of Bali province is Denpasar.