THE PRACTICAL

THE PHILOSOPHICAL

Two Faces: Rwa Bhineda

The great anthropologist Clifford Geertz noted a generation ago that Bali was a well-studied place, mainly for being Bali (And this is before Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Prey, Love, which one should really read before coming.) Bali, one of the main islands of Indonesia, is what comes to mind when you think of a tropical paradise: beaches, mountains, lush forests, lovely people, and unique culture. That is true but it is not the whole story. There is a lot to dislike in Bali. The only place where it is safe to wear open-toed shoes is the beach. It is filthy. The sidewalks are in disrepair and too narrow. Litter is everywhere. The traffic is awful. To walk the street in Ubud is to be asked again and again what you need as though you were incapable of seeking it without being asked. “Do you need a tax?” from a man with a sign that says “Taxi: but with never a taxi in sight. (You will see at least a dozen touts soliciting taxis every day.) “Do you want massage?” This is always asked by a member of a small group of diminutive barefoot masseurs lounging on the sidewalk. I imagine the one who speaks to me is simply the first to look up from her phone. I have found it better to just ignore the inquiry but I often wonder where this massage is meant to take place. Ubud is full of Circle K’s, money changers, gelato shops, restaurants, and shoe stores. There are spas too, but these never have anyone outside solicitating. Now all this may not sound so bad but you will experience this in a recurring cycle that is shorter than the street on which you are trying to walk. Other places (Arusha, Tanzania) are far worse and no one is rude or crude but it is annoying especially if you enjoy being with your own thoughts during a downtown stroll.

There are other things that I don’t like which the Balinese, I have to admit, can’t help. It rains. A lot. There are too many middle-aged Western male ex-pats of suspicious hygiene around as well. (I will say that I’ve not seen any one of them engaged in an assignation with a local much younger local woman or boy, so the ick factor isn’t as high as in, say, Bangkok). There are also a lot of Russians here. They trigger mixed feelings. I want to know if they are dissenters who left Russia in order to not be forced to participate in war crimes. Or are they privileged upholders of Putin’s regime concentrated here in Bali for a holiday because other nations are not allowing them in? Ubud is a hippy-kinda place so I give the Russian speakers the benefit of the doubt. (In my yoga class today of about 20, three were from Russia and one was Ukrainian. I meet two young Ukrainian men on New Year’s Eve. They were high school students. For more on the mixing of Russians and Ukrainians in Bali see The New York Times piece.)

The good news is that I also found that the whole of Bali is greater than the sum of these parts. The people are lovely, speak English, and know how to handle throngs of tourists with the right amount of friendliness and disinterest. My local yoga studio was great. The food is good. And the place is cheap. Dirt-cheap.

Geertz, whom I mentioned above, along with Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love, came to Bali for professional reasons. He, to study Balinese culture as an anthropologist. (Gilbert for a magazine story and then to find her destiny.) Geertz’s topic was cock-fighting but his subject was the Balinese psyche and its institutions of status. I think the first few pages of his study — click here — may be among the best things you can read about Bali. Geertz was not the first anthropologist to visit Bali. Margaret Mead made a famous visit in 1936 and produced a short documentary on a trance dance (that you can view here) as well as a photographic analysis of the Balinese character, which is also available online.

Balinese culture is very appealing and the Westerners who started to visit in larger and larger numbers starting in the 1920s had writers such as W. Somerset Maugham and artists such as Walter Spies and Miguel Covarrubias, who co-wrote The Island of Bali. Y ou can see an excerpt of a related documentary here.

I marvel at how it has endured despite all the attention given to tourism. One thing I love is the daily ceremony outside nearly every door (canang sari. Balinese never used the word “ritual” to me, always “ceremony” which I felt ended up undercutting the importance of these acts). Flowers are offered on hand-made palm straw trays to thank the gods (if placed high) or if on the ground to appease the spirits. Patience is practiced as an art form here. There are no raised voices, no angry toots of the horn. People want to be helpful. So I remained for 30 days. I guess I should not have underestimated the appeal of a tropical island in January where a nice hotel can be found for less than $15.00 a day.

Galungan Day

January 4, 2023.
One reason I am glad to have stayed is Galungan Day, a sort of Balinese New Year. Except that it falls every 210 days on the complex Balinese calendar. Luckily it fell on January 4, 2023, about the mid-point of my stay. The day celebrates the victory of good over evil, of dharma over adharma. If you were paying attention you might say, Wait a minute. Isn’t balance the goal? Yes, that is true. However, Galungan specifically commemorates the victory of the Hindu God Indra over an anti-Hindu earthly king. YOu can visit the spot on Bali where King NNNN poisoned and forces of Indra and where Indra created a spring to cure his forces. (EMPUL?)
This is also the day when the spirits of dead ancestors return to earth. They remained until Kuningan, January 10th. High bamboo poles (penjors) greet them with offerings At this time, exorcisms occur in homes and along the street. Children travel in the costume of the beast Barong enacting these exorcisms, playing the gamelan and other instruments, and collecting donations. Barong is an avatar of one of the supreme Hindu gods, sort of a bull mixed with a panther. He is the enemy of Rangda, Queen of the Witches. and eater of children (who is not part of the profession but who can be seen in front of any one of the thousands of Hindu temples on the island. (If you are seeing some stereotypical gender roles here, Rangda is the old Javanese word for “widow.”
This cycle will repeat again on August 2, 2023 and 210 days after that.

For more on Galungan, click here.
To learn more about Balinese Hinduism, click here.

Kuningan Day

January 14, 2023.
With two sarongs and a headband borrowed from Raj, of Muka House, I somewhat tentatively trodded off early this morning to find a temple for the celebration of Kuningan, the day that the ancestors return to the spirit world.

Ubud has three main temples. Every village has a temple or pura (“walled city” in Sanskrit). Most date from the 13th century when Hinduism was first introduced during the Majapahit Empire. And tiny cities Balinese temples are. They are large with different zones of holiness, eleborate gates, towers, and various pavilions, along with shrines of the gods themselves. They are open affairs, making it easier for the gods and spirits to come and go, as they do.

(Click here for a great source on temple architecture and its theology or visit some Ubod area temples at this site.)

After being greeted and thus reassured that I was not going to be a bother at the temple, I found a place on a platform and sat. The crowd gathered slowly, and casually. Every male was in a white shirt except for me. Soon some chanting started, perhaps signaled by the ringing of a bell. After a bit, with everyone sitting on the ground, a call-and-response chant started. Then everyone started to pray, holding a single flower that was then placed in the hair of women or in the men’s udang, or headband. Everyone came with a basket of flowers, tiny bouquets wrapped in palm leaves (Kwangen). These were taken in hands held in prayer at the forehead. This happened three times, led by a priest (unseen by me) chanting in a guttural tone. Then water was poured into the palms three times. Then I was offered rice for Bija. First, I pressed the rice into my forehand, then onto my neck, following others. The rest went to the tops of heads, was eaten, and brushed to the ground. The rice on the forehead was to give wisdom, on the neck was for happiness, and swallowing it would lead to prosperity.
The ritual was short, simple, informal, and well-attended.
The congregation was diverse. It included old women and men, seemingly not in couples.; young children; a group of teenage boys (I rarely saw girls) who seemed to compete for the best positions (although there was really no focal point.) A mid-aged priest dressed in white was assisted by a beautiful woman whom I guessed was his wife. (She passed by me several times while blessing others with holy water but never glanced at me.) Soon, however, t priest asked, “Do you want?” And I said yes, and he instructed me in the ritual. Several other men spoke with me and one helped me redo my sarong before all this started. I was wearing two, as one does. However, I had placed the gold one on first but this was wrong: it needed to be showing. An old man with missing teeth and dirty fingernails pointed this out to me. (And I do mean pointed; we did not share a language.) At first, I thought I had angered him and I can’t say for sure that I hadn’t. Nevertheless, I followed him to one of the outer courtyards. That is when I realized that the long white cloth that Raj left me was a belt and I needed this belt. He needed me to have this belt but it was on the bed in my hotel room. So I stood there in my underwear as he tried to fasten my two sarongs without the benefit of a belt. Finally, with that accomplished, he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. Finally, I was ready to thank the spirits for coming and to wish them a happy return. Balance had been achieved. Then my temple mentor reached for a tree, picked a red flower from it, and placed it in my udeng.