Passing Show Writing

Bali 2009

Bali, my winter resort, never seems to

fail me. Each year I feel the magic of

transportation, the act of moving my body

into a new body-field, whereby the pervasive

relaxed culture, living far more in the

sensual present, seeps into my pores. The

urgent media chatter of financial doom

fades away into the sounds of crickets, the

rising and falling crescendo of cicadas in

the surrounding coconut palms and frog

orchestras in the night, back there somewhere

in the wet rice fields.

The concerns of falling empire, declining

stock, drops away as I watch the ladies

thrashing the newly harvested rice in ancient

rhythmic cycles. Tension from work,

the brace against the coming winter cold in

the Pacific Northwest, dissolves in the humid

tropical warmth and my body comes back on line.

 I settle down into it, shirtless

on the porch. Fruit salad in the morning is delicious.

 It is mango season and

the papaya is sweet and juicy. All around me coconuts,

 papayas, bananas and rice grain swell daily.

 Surrounded by food, close to nature, the joys of an agrarian 

culture satisfies my soul so

much more than digits on

the online account.

Bali is a social world.

Things are done in groups;

work parties gather together

for lunch breaks in the fields,

craftsmen work together,

carving and painting crafts in

collectives, religious celebrations,

processions in the

streets, gamelan orchestras,

dancing troupes, students

walking home in their uniforms,

old men gathered together

holding their fighting

cocks in the late afternoon.... even bathing, are done 

collectively. It is rare to see

a Balinese sitting alone. As a consequence, social manners,

 greeting and acknowledgment

of others is very important. It even seems to rub off 

on westerners.

Whereas a smile and greeting to unknown westerners

 may be meet with a

puzzled look or a blank stare in Thailand, here in Bali,

 it has a high percentage of

acknowledgment! Western ex-patriots here thrive on 

social relations.

Over the past two or three years the Balinese have 

wrestled control of

their local government away from the otherwise

 dominant Javanese in Indonesia.

Their social and cultural organization is formidable

 in the electoral process.

Made, who I have known for years and from whom I rent

 a motorcycle each year,

proudly told me that the Balinese had won an exception

 in a recent islamic fundamentalist

legislation forbidding public nudity. They had reserved

 the right, on

cultural grounds, for their old women to remain in bra-less

 comfort and the pleasurable

enjoyment of bathing nude in their streams and irrigation 

ditches. Made had told me, during the same quizzing

 session, that corruption was growing and

entered virtually every level, even into the acquisition of jobs.

“I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, “ but say, a policeman job,

 at the lowest level....do you know how much it costs for that

 position? Seventy-five million rupiah.

They only earn twenty-four million a year in their basic salary.

So, three years of salary goes into getting a policeman’s job.

 They do it because they can

eventually earn it through bribes, like catching motorcyclists

 without helmets anddriving licenses.” 

This evidently applies to all government positions.

After a week or so in Bali, I had the surprise of meeting

 my brother, Marlin’s,former wife, Lorna. 

He had alerted me to the fact that Lorna and her older sister,

Margaret, would be in Bali at the same time as I. 

She recognized my voice and spotted me eating in a restaurant.

 We had an experience which illustrated the style in which a bribe

 could solve an involvement with the police. I had given

Lorna a ride on the motorcycle and had forgotten to bring an 

extra helmet. We were stopped. I was escorted up to the

 policeman’s booth and fingering the ticket book, he had looked

intently at me and asked, “Justice?”

Whereupon, I reached into my wallet and laid

two dollars worth of rupiah on the table. He

smiled, we got up and walked back to the motorcycle

and after Lorna had got on, helmet-less,

he whistled, stopping traffic and waved us good

journey, as we sped off down the road. It was

done with the most civil of good manners! 

It was fun to spend time with Lorna and her sister, Margaret. 

They had grown up in a similar background to 

mine; missionary parents. Their father and mother

 had first served in China and after China closed,

 their father had come to India where he might use his

Chinese, working with the small Chinese communities

 in India. They had also gone to schools in southern India.

 We had broad overlapping experience and our conversations

engaged memory banks that had rarely seen the river flow past.

Margaret has retired in Costa Rica and

she spent a good deal of her time sketching

as a way being present and drew the

most detailed miniature drawings with exquisite

borders along the edge, different

with each drawing. Lorna, meanwhile, was

taking a breather away from her normal

artistic work with ceramics and used her

time in Bali mainly to just relax...... but

nevertheless still pursued some new activities

like taking gamelan lessons using a

bamboo gamelan and learning to dive in

Ahmed, a village on the southern coast of

Bali. We would occasionally go out for

dinners, braving the gamut of shopkeeper’s

greetings and invitations to buy

from the stores along the way to the restaurant.

Lorna, also involved in retail, was

torn between empathy and her budget.

This winter I explored the idea of buying

some land in Bali, thinking out what

might be the best way to approach that

desire. My friend, Michael Bockelman, an

American retired in Asia, was open to doing this

 in concert. Since my use of any building

would be only for part of the year, this would

 insure a friend would be there to watch

over the building and land in my absence, 

rather than returning to a dismantled building

with familiar parts of it showing up on the neighbors

 structures. Besides, going in on it

together would lower the overall investment. We both 

got quite excited about the prospect

of owning a little bit of paradise.

 We motorcycled through the back roads along the

flank of the mountain, searching for little

enclaves that still had the untouched

civility of old Bali and possessed the

natural beauty both of us were so fond

of. The choices which appealed to both

of us were places along the terraced

rice fields that overlooked the wild gullies

worn deep by streams. Such a

place put one outside the villages where

Balinese traditionally crowd together

and overlooked these gullies which are

generally left wild. The Balinese are often

surprised that a foreigner should

want to live in isolation and especially

near these gullies where bad spirits

were known to live. Our process would

be first to identify a good piece of land

and then Made, essentially our real estate

agent, would go through the discreet

process of finding out who owned

it and begin the enquiry of whether the

owner would be open to sell. This has to

be done with great delicacy. A conversation

might begin like this....’Would you

be mad with me if I were to pose a question to you 

in regard of your property?” After re-

ceiving a reply, “No, it would not cause anger to be 

asked such a question”, could the

matter be gone into slowly and with great formality.

We tried to attract the least detection of our desire

 under the cover, when asked, by

virtually everyone we met along the path, that we

 were merely out for a pleasant stroll

through the rice fields. Coming to the same place

 more than once, would confirm, regardless

of what you said, that the rich foreigners

 were looking for land, and the word

would be out through the village network, 

and the owners of the properties informed.

You show up too many times and you are 

totally exposed while the owners dreamed the

multiples of the value of the land they might

 ask for in this feverish display of interest!

Made informed us to be very careful what we said.

The owner would want to let it be

known that he had sold the property for a fraction

 of what he received, even at the risk

of being taken a fool, to quiet the flames of envy and

 lessen the amount the local banjar

might request of him at the next fund raising.

 It soon became apparent that the sale of

property was like some giant fish hauled in and

 everyone would be taking a slice in the

feeding frenzy. Made told me that the surveyors

 would expect 100,000 rupiah each for

their placement of rocks outlining the borders 

of the property, as well as a feast provided

by the owner of the property and perhaps, 

even a few girls. Then, to expedite the legal

transfer and forestall the papers languishing 

in the governmental office, 5,000,000 rupiah

would be required to the officer in charge. 

A year at best would be required to

process this with more payments going to the lawyer 

and notary. Payments would continue

for a building permit, and signatures from of all 

neighboring owners and payments

to the head of the banjar or local village council 

 would be necessary for such a waiver to  

be signed, besides the bribe to the government 

official to do his job. A back payment for

costs incurred in creation of the road which led to 

your property and any irrigation work

to the network of canals affected would further

 escalate the costs. My mind whirled with

this growing list of costs and the thought that 

each hurdle could grow into another possible

obstacle. I begin to wonder how much

 of the fish would be left. 

Then there is the problems in the legal

 structure of the final paper one received as a

titled owner of the land. To buy property in 

Indonesia, one had to do it with an Indonesian

partner. The general cost is a modest 1% of 

the cost of the land up front and 5%

when you sell, which would include all the 

buildings and improvements you had made,

similar to the costs one might pay a real estate agent 

in the States. However, the legal

language to insure the co-signature of your

 Indonesian partner when you intended to

sell had just been struck down in court, leaving 

many foreigners wondering if they held

No. 2 paper! with the obvious uses one might have  

 with such paper. Evidently, many co

signers were just sitting on it, waiting for the 

aging foreigner to die off and then taking

possession of the property...besides the other 

strategies I begin to hear about....like

forcing a distressed sale to the co-signer for a

 fraction of the cost, after the co-signer

had put back door pressure at the emigration 

department, notorious for its corruptibility,

leaving one with land but no longer able to l

live on it. Maybe there never was a fish!

Perhaps just renting a cheap room or bungalow,

 I began to think, might be the best way to go.

As this desire began to lose its hold I resumed

 just living day to day, and Bali again

began to reveal its charm. Vast free vistas of 

terraced fields and wild gorges opened up

again, free of ownership. The normal pleasantries 

of smiling workers and good food

provided a lovely background to my lazy 

reading on the front porch and afternoon amble

through the rice fields, watching the ducks 

nuzzle the harvested rice, shake and wiggle,

preen and quack like there was no tomorrow.