Two rows in front of you, a little boy in the middle seat thinks it’s amusing to accompany the airplane’s descent with bawling. He does it for a good 15 minutes. You straighten in your seat to get a good view of the unfortunate man seating beside the boy. He doesn’t appear to be annoyed. Rather, his head is cocked straight ahead and when the plane finally descends and he gets up to get his bag (a backpack, but now you’re not sure), you see that he’s wearing glasses and has a mop of beach-blond hair. The getup lets you understand why he wasn’t exasperated with the boy, who has thankfully shut up.
The seat in front, 7C, is occupied by a ponytailed old man wearing what looks like a black kimono with little white patterns and leather sandals. He was on the opposite aisle when the flight took off and when the seatbelt sign was turned off, he swiftly moved and settled in with his family.
In 7B is a little girl who looked at you through the space between the seats when the airplane nosed its way up. She’s sitting with a woman to her left, presumably her mother, and the kimono guy on her right must be her father or perhaps grandfather – he’s old enough to be one. For some reason, you’re fascinated by this man. He looks like one of those weird Asians in Hollywood movies – the inscrutable kind, the kind that stands out in a sea of Caucasians like a fish out of water. Except this time, he’s in his element.
It’s good to be Asian in Asia, you think.
On the late afternoon flight to Denpasar from Singapore, the fourth of five flights of just one airline to Bali, you wonder which passengers are coming home and which are arriving for the first time.
The beach-blond guy, definitely a vacationer and nothing – not even ear-splitting bawling – is going to ruin his Bali trip. The kimono guy who looks like he could use a samurai sword – definitely coming home. The many Caucasians dotting the airplane, some of them tanned, you wonder which ones are vacationers and which ones are transplants.
It’s a matter of no importance, but it’s a way to pass time.
A westerner decades ago wrote that "Bali belongs to the Gods" and now it is printed on brochures. The westerner, Jane Belo, wrote books on Balinese culture and religious ceremonies, of the Balinese poise and gait even.
This culture of grace, of studied movements – you see some of these in your limited time in Bali. On your first morning in Bali, an Indonesian from Java tells you that what makes Bali so special is the culture. The Balinese know this, the westerners know this, so the locals are preserving it like grandma’s diamonds. It’s like a stage set at times, even in the marketplace where they drive a hard bargain with tourists the way vendors in Hong Kong do, this strange culture is present.
Bali, you find out later, has been on the radar of anthropologists for centuries. It’s not just a vacation island with amazing resorts. Anthropologist Margaret Mead studied the "embodied culture" of Bali, and so have other famous anthropologists fascinated by the craftsmanship of the people and the art created by their hands – complex puppetry, furniture making; the goldsmiths and the dancers.
You know from reading so many gushing travelogues that the Balinese culture is the biggest attraction of the island to outsiders, not the beaches – other islands have better ones. It’s the way of life there, the flower arrangements looking infuriatingly complex and studied, the smell of frangipani everywhere you go, of vendors offering arrangements to the gods on trays and waving a bunch of incense sticks at them after their morning trip to the temple next door.
On your last day in Bali, you wander around the marketplace of Ubud in the morning when vendors are just taking out their wares. At one stall, you buy a small bottle of frangipani oil after haggling for what seems like eternity. Finally, you settle on a price and when you hand the man your money, he holds the notes in his hand and ever so slightly touches them to your body.
What was that for? you ask.
First customer – for good luck, he says.
You think it would ve very embarrassing for you if his day turned out to be lousy.
Like any island in the world, Bali teaches a great lesson to people in a hurry. An Australian married to a Balinese and living in Bali tells you, "It’s much more relaxed here. You tend to stop and smell the roses. For me, coming from the very frenetic pace of Sydney, where I never stopped to enjoy life, Bali makes me feel different."
You heard similar expressions last year when you interviewed the islanders of Boracay for a book – how living on a tiny island has given them the world and how, in their perfect beach setting, they found that imperfections do not matter.
Diana, the Balinese transplant, tells you an amusing story. When she was fixing her house, she ordered chairs from a furniture maker. She asked when he was going to deliver the pieces and he answered tomorrow. She asked him if he was sure, didn’t he have a ceremony to go to or other things to do because she was going to wait for him. He said no, madame, tomorrow he would be there. And so she waited and waited. She hopped madly for days, getting worked up.
She had no chairs. Where were her chairs, why did he lie?
He finally showed up. Two days later.
Then she asked herself: Why was it so important to have her chairs on that day they agreed on? A CEO would say because time is important, it shows respect and consideration to others. An islander would say it’s not important at all, the chairs arrived, didn’t they?
"I was jumping up and down for no reason. I was stressing myself out and this guy wasn’t stressed at all," she says. "When I look back on it, I wonder what the big deal was."
Indonesians call it jam karet or rubber time, the same as our Filipino time. Perhaps it is more universal than we think – this island time. The hands on the clock are an abstraction to be interpreted individually. Or as one person who lived for many years in the Middle East said, time is for Allah to decide. "You want a 10 o’clock meeting? I’ll be there – if Allah permits."
Diana says, "I tell you, when I was new here I couldn’t bear it. Everything was about going with the flow. How do you know it’s going to happen? I used to complain to my husband, ‘In Australia, if you say 6 o’clock, you’re there 10 to 6.’ And you know what, outside my professional life I’m now a great practitioner of jam karet. If you say 8 o’clock and we’re there at 9 you’re lucky. It’s dreadful, but everybody does the same thing and nobody gets annoyed."
You’ve always been fascinated by the concept of time and how each culture defines it. How you can take off in one city and arrive in another city yesterday. How you completely lose one day when you’re going from west to east around the world. Where does that one day go?
On the roads of Bali, you see statues of Hindu gods tucked in corners and intersections with offerings laid out at their feet. The Hindus of Bali have different practices from that of India. Totally different. Indra, a local Balinese, tells you they have so many ceremonies it’s no wonder that a large percent of the population remains poor.
"There’s a ritual for filing one’s tooth," she says.
"As in shaping the tooth? With anesthesia?"
"No anesthesia," she says.
What strikes you and the girls traveling with you is that the gods in Bali wear clothes and have dainty parasols. Black and white checkered skirts or sarongs tied at their hips. Like gingham picnic blankets. In an unguarded moment, you wonder how you would be punished if you undressed one of their gods and put your Coke Light and sandwiches on it. Would they chase you with incense sticks or throw rotting frangipani at you? Or would they do it the Singaporean way – lock you up and throw away the key and ignore all diplomatic protests?
The checkered skirt, says Indra, is a symbol of good and evil. The eternal balancing act every man struggles with. It’s a beautiful concept. No wonder Bali is called "Island of the Gods."
Women usually create these offerings. They are made of palm leaves, flowers and food. Every ritual demands a different kind of offering, but all of them are created with attention to detail. They do this every day, several times a day.
In Ubud, one market vendor wouldn’t pay attention to you until she finished with what seemed like prayers for good business. She is waving a bunch of incense sticks and holding a small offering constructed around a banana trunk with flowers and small rice cakes. When she finishes, you begin bargaining over an oil painting of Balinese women carrying water jars on their heads. It’s a nice painting – very colorful but not very unique since there are four exact others but with different colors on the women’s clothes.
You’re exhausted after a while. Why should you put all your pride in 20,000 rupiahs, a mere 3 US dollars?
But you go at it – back and forth, back and forth.
Finally, she gives in. You feel a sense of victory.
Like with the frangipani guy, you are her first customer of the day. It’s not even 10:30 and she’s made a sale. She takes your money and with a smile, begins flapping the bank notes to your shoulders and head.
This time, you feel like you’ve brought good luck to this little store.
And received something in ret urn.