Bali – A Tourist’s Paradise Island

By Jay Hettiarachchy, Nov. 2012

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali

Indonesia is an archipelago nation, made up of approximately 18,000 islands with just over 6,000 inhabited.

Bali is a province of Indonesia. It is one of Indonesia's 33 provinces with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island. It covers a few small neighboring islands as well as the isle of Bali. As seen above the island of Bali in the ocean resembles a fish swimming in the deep blue sea.

The island of Bali has a population of approximately 3.8 million; its land area is 5,632 km. approximately 90 % of its population follows Balinese Hinduism and the remainder of the population follows Islam, Christianity and Buddhism.

Bali is also the largest tourist destination in Indonesia and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. A tourist haven for decades, Bali has seen a further surge in tourist numbers in recent years. Most tourists who come to Bali are Chinese, Japanese, Australians and Europeans. This is mainly because tourists could still enjoy the unpolluted beaches and live in reasonably good hotel rooms available at reasonably low rates throughout the year at the ever increasing number of luxury hotels constructed in Bali by foreign investors. Body massages are a lucrative and growing business in Bali.

Currency in Bali is Rupiahs. The exchange rate at the time the author visited Bali Island was $1 = 9600 Rupiahs. A reasonably good hotel room costs approximately I million Rupiah (about $100 U.S. dollars). A cheese Burger costs around 45,000 Rupiahs. If your U.S dollar bank notes are old (issued before 2002, or are worn out by usage) you will receive lower exchange rates. If you exchange your foreign currency in Bali, make sure that you got the correct amount in local currency; do not allow the money changer to count the money again. This is when the converted money that you get falls short of the money that you counted correctly earlier. Remember, tourism is the most lucrative industry in Bali. After you convert your money at a roadside money exchange they promise to give better exchange rates for foreign currency than the banks, they make sure that they talk you into buying their merchandise including massage service that they sell at competitive prices. But always remember that you get what you pay for.

The most famous mode of transportation in Bali appears to be mopeds unlike in most other Asia countries where three wheelers inundate the roads. I found that three-wheelers are prohibited in Bali. I wish most other Asian countries follow that example.

Massaging tourists is a growing business in Bali. Most hotels have massaging SPAs and massage parlors. A massage costs around 400,000 Rupiahs and lasts for about 90 minutes. Along the roadside you will see most massaging girls who will politely encourage you for a body massage. The massaging girls talk their way through with the poor English vocabulary they have acquired over the years. They are not bashful at all to artfully lead you into a massage unless you know how to ignore them and walk away from them. They are on the roadside soliciting for massages from anyone who happens to be walking on the road from 9:00 am to late at nights.

The wealthy local Balinese people too who could afford a body massage employ private massagers mostly females who visit them in their hotel rooms or in their homes regularly. Massaging appears to be a traditional custom very much a part of the Balinese culture, like yoga more or less connected with the healing of the body and mind. Now it is being used as money making opportunity mainly offered in the luxury hotels to satisfy the needs of the tourist population.

Although the known origins of Balinese population could be traced back to as far back in history as 2000 B.C, today’s Balinese culture with a caste system very much similar to that of India, shows the predominance of Indian culture in Bali after the 1^st century A.D.

Following are some of the observations of the author about the Balinese people and their culture during his short stay in Kuta in Bali. Virtually thousands of hotels have been built in Bali and there are 161 listed in the Kuta Sea beach itself.  The Centro Mall/Discovery Mall facing the sea beach is one place where tourists gather in large numbers to bathe in the sea and walk on the clear sand. Boating, surfing and most other activities take place along the sea beach that spans miles and miles studded by beach hotels. 

The Centro shopping mall has a large number of shops carrying local Balinese apparel including Batiks, local hand crafts made out of wood, sea shells, metals and all kinds of Balinese souvenirs. Tourists spend lots of time shopping and collecting various Balinese hand crafts that they would want to take home. This is a common sight in the evenings – tourists gather in large numbers on the steps of Centro mall leading down to the sea beach and relax enjoying the scene of the sunset spanning the horizon. The sunset hour gives a glorious view of the sunset on sea water as seen in the photos given below.















Some hotels that border the sea beach have dining areas overlooking the sea beach (mostly a few yards away from the sea) where the guests could enjoy alcoholic drinks and all sorts of sea food preparations served right beside the sea beach.









Sea food is served in beach hotels in the evening right on the beach. The food is as good as it looks.



While in Whiz Hotel in Kuta Bali the author had a chance to read the ideas and opinions expressed by local writers in popular magazines that are circulated in Bali hotels. Apparently, the very same tourist industry that enhances the Balinese economy is hurting it as well. Nevertheless, Balinese people are unable to do anything about it either. The booming hotel industry is not only taking away the land available for farming from the farmers but also making the available land unsuitable for agricultural purposes by excessive usage of ground water; the excessive usage of ground water by thousands of hotels has resulted in salty water of the sea getting into the underground water table thereby affecting the crops grown in the coastal area. The farmers are therefore giving up farming for labor work to make a living.

The majority of Balinese people are illiterate. They speak Balinese and one or more Indonesian languages. Only the people working in hotels and are in hotel management have a working knowledge of English to carry on the business activities with the tourist customers. Apparently most hotels are owned by foreign investors. The system works well because the few who are educated (mostly foreign business investors) could keep the illiterate, uneducated, and poor local people under their control. Most local Balinese people are god fearing Hindus and observe their religion very faithfully. The clever, shrewd and cunning educated business entrepreneurs take advantage of the illiterate poor and faithful people.

So long as the majority of the people are illiterate, poor and are gullible, the business entrepreneurs could manage and control them well. The rich minority gets richer by exploiting the poor people's labor. All the housekeeping, labor intensive jobs and the menial work is done by the poor local people who are competing to work for a pittance and part time. They are all given uniforms that they wear for work. They are trained to do the menial work and nothing else. They are only good at the labor work or housekeeping jobs or cooking and waiting on the hotel customers who are mostly holidaying tourists from China, Japan, Australia, European countries and the U.S. The people working at the receptionist desks have a working knowledge of English just enough to communicate with the foreign guests. The security staff also is capable of communicating in English.

Agriculture

Although tourism produces the GDP's largest output, agricultural sector of Bali economy is still the island’s biggest employer, most notably rice cultivation. Crops grown in smaller amounts include fruit, vegetables, Coffee and other cash crops.  

Interestingly, the traditional system of rice cultivation keeps the balance between the family, the community, animals and the environment all working in harmony. The photos given below clearly provide visual evidence of the harmonizing effect the agricultural system has on the people, animal, and the environment. Obviously, the farmers need to depend on bulls, cows, and buffaloes to plough these fields. They have to depend on one another to keep the water flowing to their fields thereby depending on one another for the irrigation system to work effectively.

Arabica Coffee is another famous product of Bali. Many coffee farmers in Kintamani are members of a traditional farming system called Subak Abian, which is based on the Hindu philosophy of "Tri Hita Karana”. According to this philosophy, the three causes of happiness are good relations with God, other people and the environment. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali).

Given below are photos of a typical coffee production facility in Bali:

Bali is also famous for its artisans who produce a vast array of handicrafts, including batik and ikat cloth and clothing, wooden carvings, stone carvings, painted art and silverware. Notably, individual villages typically adopt a single product, such as wind chimes or wooden furniture. While the production of stone images of Hindu gods is done by craftsmen in certain villages other villages specialize in wood work, pottery or metal work. As one travels along the roads, the landscape changes from one craft to another almost indicating that the villages are organized according to castes that specialize in certain crafts, similar to a feudal system at work in which the social mobility is not permitted by the social system.

Religion and religious beliefs of the Balinese People:

When Islam surpassed Hinduism in Java (16th century), Bali became the home of the Hindus. Unlike in most other islands of Indonesia where Muslims are the majority, about 93.18% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, formed as a combination of existing local beliefs and Hindu influences from mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. With an estimated 20,000 puras (temples) and shrines, Bali is known as the "Island of a Thousand Puras", or "Island of the Gods.”

Balinese Hinduism is an amalgam in which gods and demigods are worshipped together with Buddhist heroes, the spirits of ancestors, indigenous agricultural deities and sacred places. Religion as it is practiced in Bali is a composite belief system that embraces not only theology, philosophy, and mythology, but ancestor worship, animism and magic. It pervades nearly every aspect of traditional life. Caste is observed, though less strictly than in India. This influence strengthened the belief that the gods and goddesses are present in all things. Every element of nature, therefore, possesses its own power, which reflects the power of the gods. A rock, tree, dagger, or woven cloth is a potential home for spirits whose energy can be directed for good or evil. Balinese Hinduism is deeply interwoven with art and ritual. Ritualizing states of self-control are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, who for this reason have become famous for their graceful and decorous behavior. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali)

Given below are a few photographs of Balinese Hindu Temples and images of the gods worshiped by the Balinese people.

Krishna







Garuda, the vehicle of God Krishna





Monkey appears to be an animal considered sacred by Balinese. This association could very well be a connection of Ramayana mythology in the belief system of Balinese people.









Arts and crafts

Although not sophisticated or educated, Balinese people have a rich heritage of arts and crafts depicting a relaxed and peaceful life style that most Balinese people seem to enjoy. Although undermining their agricultural economy, the booming tourist industry seems to be keeping the average Balinese economically contented. At least a couple of Balinese people told me that they did not want to settle down in the U.S even though they had the opportunity to do so because they wanted to be with their family and enjoy Bali lifestyle.

The Balinese dancers reminded me of Hawaiian dancers to a certain extent. One difference was that the Balinese dancers typically wore headgear and masks unlike the Hawaiian dancers.

We had the opportunity of visiting a collector of Balinese arts and crafts who has his own museum of artifacts. Given below are the photos of some of the paintings and crafts of these arts enthusiasts collection.

Our Visit to the monkey Forest and some of my concluding thoughts on my visit to Bali (dvipa) as the Indians called it long ago when the Island was colonized by the Indian immigrants.

If humans evolved from the apes, there are yet some things that humans have to learn from the apes, mostly caring for each other and each other’s physical needs. Massaging industry in Bali seems to be very much a part of such trait that Balinese people have inherited from their ancestors.









The monkeys that we saw in Monkey Forest were very family oriented monkeys. They cared for their young ones and cared for their elders. They were not scared at all of the people around them. They were very friendly and wanted to play with the visitors. They welcomed us to the monkey forest as if we were their long lost buddies:















After visiting Bali and the monkey forest, the author is more convinced than ever that primitive man is the best man.

Eating with the mind – the key to a healthy family life.

Jayadeva Hettiarachchy·Thursday, March 15, 2018

Humans have an evolving relationship with food. This relationship demonstrates our cultural heritage. Unlike other animals, humans are selective about their food; they relish their food with their minds as much as their mouths, as they eat. Various cultures have historically developed their cultural attachments to food that is unique to those cultures. Unlike other omnivores, humans have their food cravings and aversions and a compulsive need to label food as good or bad, or hot or cold (as in many Asian cultures). As we all know Asian countries offer a wide variety of foods and food preparations. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Thai foods are different from North Indian, Pakistani, South Indian, and South Asian foods and food preparations. Middle Eastern countries have their own food types and food preparations. Similarly, there is a wide variety of food types and food preparations in European countries. People of United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Portugal have their own food habits, culinary preparations, and specialties. Eastern European countries, mainly Norway, Sweden and Denmark have their own food preparations. North and South Americas, Canada, and the famous tourist Islands surrounding Americas have their own unique local food as well as exotic foods that satisfy the palates of tourists. Russia, Australia and New Zealand have their own indigenous and cultural food affiliations as most other countries and cultures. Similarly, the type of food eaten and food preparations widely differ in different parts of Africa, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Yemen. In summary, all the countries that make up the world (195 -249 of them) have their own cultures, cultural heritages as well as unique food eating and food preparation methods.

Although communication among the people living in different countries of the world has improved after the advent of the Internet, the world is still the same good old world where people belonging to different countries, races, and cultures, speaking many different languages continue to live together , and at the same time apart preserving their own social, economic and cultural identities. Food eating habits of different people, the main focus of this paper, significantly contributes to their different cultural identity. Given below is an attempt to understand the way how food impacts our relationships in the “global village:”

It all happens from the time of birth of children into the world. One common thread that connects all humans, both men and women of the world to food begins at the very beginning of life. Humans like most other mammals possessed with mammary glands functional in females, feed their offspring with milk produced in their own body. This may perhaps explain as to why little children similar to baby animals have a strong attachment to and dependency on their mothers during their formative years of life. In some cultures, human babies are breastfed by their mothers until they are five to six years old whereas in the western world where baby food is a lucrative industry, some mothers breastfeed their babies only for about six to twelve months. The child psychologists believe that weaning babies from breast milk early make them more independent, especially when it comes to toilet training of young children. However, people belonging to different cultures have different customs and ideas regarding the type of food that breast feeding-mothers should eat. Some cultures, especially in Asia, have strict social customs and rules that mothers should follow regarding the type of food they should eat and avoid eating during the period in which they breastfeed their children.

In countries where food is scarce (this is a problem with most countries in the world), food plays a major role in family relations. Historically when humans were hunters, men did the hunting and women did the cooking of the food brought home by the men who protected them from all sorts of dangers. This is still the case to this day in some societies of the world where women and men have different roles to play in family and social life. In these societies, women were home makers, and the family members shared the food however little food they had. Most of the time the children went hungry in such families, and they did not have a variety of food to choose from. Most children growing up under such hardships lived a very hard life, and not every child was lucky enough to live long and grow up under such hardships and survive. But those who survived such hardships in life, just like those who did survive the great depression in the western world developed a totally different outlook towards life. Food seems to have had a strong binding on these people’s family life. They learned to conserve the very little food they had that they shared with every member of the family. Together they prayed holding their hands and blessed their food before they consumed it. Foods were not consumed alone and in isolation as some people choose to do in the present time. It was customary for all family members to gather and have their meals together. They also avoided eating and snacking in between. This is because food was rare and precious, and no one growing in such societies and cultures wasted any food.

Although food was scarce in these societies and cultures, visiting family members and guests were not only treated with respect but with home cooked meals. Rejecting the meals offered by the host was considered not only an insult but a rejection of the host/s who offered the meal. People belonging to certain cultures tend to take such acts very personally. Therefore, people who grew up in such societies and cultures make a careful decision who they want to have meals with and who they want to avoid having meals with. In countries like United States of America where people of different races and ethnicities are supposed to merge and melt together, people hardly realize that certain cultural traits die hard at least in the minds of immigrating families who are supposed to merge together in a happy melting pot.

Culinary preferences tell us a good deal about human culture. The ancestors of most immigrants to the United States traveled from Europe, Africa, and Asia brought their favorite plants, foods and culinary practices along with them. Ethnic food markets where various tropical and subtropical plants and foods are available attract not only the ethnic communities living in the surrounding areas but also others who are willing to pay a higher price for healthy food. Most cities in the U.S. have Hispanic, Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese communities living together recreating their traditional cultures in their new settlements. The traditional food that they are used to eating and their culinary practices seem to deeply bind the members of these communities together even after they had lived away from their original native lands for generations. The same is true of the German, Finnish and Norwegian people who populated the northwestern parts of the United States. They love to prepare and eat Lutefisk even to this day.

One important reason for these ethnic communities to continue to use the same food is the health value that they attribute to the food that they eat. Another reason is the taste that they are used to that has a way of satisfying not only their palates but their minds as they eat the type of food that they ate during the time when they grew up in their native lands. Most people who grew up in the east and Middle Eastern countries relish eating spicy foods. They take as much time to prepare their food as much as they take to enjoy eating the food with family friends or whomever they choose to eat their food with. Many of their recipes contain a variety of different spices. Asian countries are well known from the earliest historical times for producing various spices that attracted early merchants who used silk routes for international trade. Later during the16th century Portuguese merchants went in search of spices and Christians in the Orient. The Dutch, British, and French invaders followed suit and build empires colonizing these spice producing countries during the 17th- 19th centuries. Ayurvedic medicine that focused on prevention of diseases emphasized the importance of plant material and food as medicine. To this day some of the herbal medicines of the orient are sold in the western world.

There is a remarkable contrast however of food production, culinary practices, and food consumption in the developed world. These practices and food habits are one of the factors that seem to contribute to weakening of the family ties of the people who live in the developed fast moving world where fast food and restaurants have successfully replaced home cooking. In many homes of the developed world today there is no such thing as food preparation. It is a matter of heating up frozen food taken out of a freezer and microwaving it. Most adults do it and most children do it. In many homes family members do not get together or wait for all family members to gather to have meals together. Many of them including the children eat on the run in a hurry. Fast food restaurants are open on seven days and 24 hours. Food plays no role in family life at all. Most children or adults for that matter do not have any idea how to cook a traditional meal from scratch. Children have their lunch at school and working parents have their lunch in cafeterias and restaurants.

Although some fast food restaurants are concerned about the health issues related to the food that they sell, the responsibility of health relating to food is passed to the consumer. If consumers want to eat supersized version of meals or drinks, it is their responsibility and they cannot sue the restaurant owner for their own behavior. Sadly, some of the food containing fat sold in these fast food and other restaurants is tasty, and some of the drinks are addictive. What many people do not realize however is that fast food industry and restaurants have effectively competed with families and family oriented life style and won the race by taking away food and food preparation from the family that was a very strong thread that used to bind family members together.

References:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-04/ajob-thf041514.php http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674055728 http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13790-4/food-is-culture