Learning to live with the Balinese

Living in Bali has its pluses and minuses. For me its mostly good although I sometimes whine about minor irritations. Talking to other expats in Bali I get a wildly different picture of the locals. Some people come to Bali and are captivated by the whole atmosphere of th island, people and culture. Others come for the sun and party scene and see the locals as servants.

Some long term expats I’ve talked to actually don’t like the Balinese, which is unfortunate. They cite, ignorance, lack of desire and deviousness as reasons they don’t get along. My friend Jay once said that if you are not in Bali for the people, you will ultimately be disappointed because you can’t get away from them. I think that is true and it reminds me of a book I read, featuring the life of Captain Cook. He was a great navigator, but died a violent death in Hawaii. His fatal flaw was that see saw the world through his own set of glasses and could not tolerate what he perceived to be injustice. Cook liked the Maori’s in New Zealand. He said they were straightforward, warlike and aggressive, but never cheated. One time they attack and ate 6 of his men and he passed it off by saying words to the effect of ‘Oh well, they are an honorable warlike people and this is a part of their culture’. Cook could forgive that. The mercurial Tahitians on the other hand drove him nuts, by smiling and then stealing.

When Cook’s ship arrived in the western Pacific, they were in need of supplies. The locals encouraged them to take all they wanted, fruit, cattle, water etc, but could not understand why Cook would not share everything no his ship with them. A Pacific Ocean culture’s set of values, colliding with a Protestant European’s.

Relating this to Bali, I remember Miguel Covarrubias writing in 1939 that Bali had an almost ideal form of socialism, where everyone was taken care of and nobody left out of the community. Yes we’re in the 21st Century and most people are familiar with the ‘this is mine, that is yours’ mentality, but I think in many cases there is still an underlying feeling that the wealthy should contribute more and that is why us westerners often feel like we are being attacked from all angles.