Bali is a tiny Hindu island located in the middle of the two-thousand-mile-long Indonesian archipelago that constitutes the most populous1 Muslim nation on earth. Bali is therefore a strange and wondrous2 thing; it should not even exist, yet does. The island's Hinduism was an export from India by way of Java. Indian traders brought the religion east during the fourth century AD. The Javanese kings founded a mighty3 Hindu dynasty, little of which remains4 today except the impressive temple ruins at Borobudur. In the sixteenth century, a violent Islamic uprising swept across the region and the Shiva-worshipping Hindu royalty5 escaped Java, fleeing to Bali in droves during what would be remembered as the Majapahit Exodus6. The high-class, high-caste Javanese brought with them to Bali only their royal families, their craftsmen7 and their priests--and so it is not a wild exaggeration when people say that everyone in Bali is the descendent8 of either a king, a priest or an artist, and that this is why the Balinese have such pride and brilliance9.
The Javanese colonists10 brought their Hindu caste system with them to Bali, though caste divisions were never as brutally11 enforced here as they once were in India. Still, the Balinese recognize a complex social hierarchy13 (there are five divisions of Brahmans alone) and I would have better luck personally decoding14 the human genome than trying to understand the intricate, interlocking clan15 system that still thrives here. (The writer Fred B. Eiseman's many fine essays on Balinese culture go much further into expert detail explaining these subtleties16, and it is from his research that I take most of my general information, not only here but throughout this book.) Suffice it to say for our purposes that everyone in Bali is in a clan, that everyone knows which clan he is in, and that everyone knows which clan everyone else is in. And if you get kicked out of your clan for some grave disobedience, you really might as well jump into a volcano, because, honestly, you're as good as dead.
Balinese culture is one of the most methodical systems of social and religious organization on earth, a magnificent beehive of tasks and roles and ceremonies. The Balinese are lodged17, completely held, within an elaborate lattice of customs. A combination of several factors created this network, but basically we can say that Bali is what happens when the lavish19 rituals of traditional Hinduism are superimposed over a vast rice-growing agricultural society that operates, by necessity, with elaborate communal20 cooperation. Rice terraces require an unbelievable amount of shared labor18, maintenance and engineering in order to prosper21, so each Balinese village has a banjar--a united organization of citizens who administer, through consensus22, the village's political and economic and religious and agricultural decisions. In Bali, the collective is absolutely more important than the individual, or nobody eats.
Religious ceremonies are of paramount23 importance here in Bali (an island, don't forget, with seven unpredictable volcanoes on it--you would pray, too). It has been estimated that a typical Balinese woman spends one-third of her waking hours either preparing for a ceremony, participating in a ceremony or cleaning up after a ceremony. Life here is a constant cycle of offerings and rituals. You must perform them all, in correct order and with the correct intention, or the entire universe will fall out of balance. Margaret Mead24 wrote about "the incredible busy-ness" of the Balinese, and it's true--there is rarely an idle moment in a Balinese compound. There are ceremonies here which must be performed five times a day and others that must be performed once a day, once a week, once a month, once a year, once every ten years, once every hundred years, once every thousand years. All these dates and rituals are kept organized by the priests and holy men, who consult a byzantine system of three separate calendars.
There are thirteen major rites25 of passage for every human being in Bali, each marked by a highly organized ceremony. Elaborate spiritual appeasement26 ceremonies are conducted all throughout life, in order to protect the soul from the 108 vices27 (108--there's that number again!), which include such spoilers as violence, stealing, laziness and lying. Every Balinese child passes through a momentous28 puberty ceremony in which the canine29 teeth, or "fangs30," are filed down to a flat level, for aesthetic31 improvement. The worst thing you can be in Bali is coarse and animalistic, and these fangs are considered to be reminders32 of our more brutal12 natures and therefore must go. It is dangerous in such a close-knit culture for people to be brutal. A village's entire web of cooperation could be sliced through by one person's murderous intent. Therefore the best thing you can be in Bali is alus, which means "refined," or even "prettified." Beauty is good in Bali, for men and women. Beauty is revered33. Beauty is safety. Children are taught to approach all hardship and discomfort34 with "a shining face," a giant smile.
The whole idea of Bali is a matrix, a massive and invisible grid35 of spirits, guides, paths and customs. Every Balinese knows exactly where he or she belongs, oriented within this great, intangible map. Just look at the four names of almost every Balinese citizen--First, Second, Third, Fourth--reminding them all of when they were born in the family, and where they belong. You couldn't have a clearer social mapping system if you called your kids North, South, East and West. Mario, my new Italian-Indonesian friend, told me that he is only happy when he can maintain himself--mentally and spiritually--at the intersection36 between a vertical37 line and horizontal one, in a state of perfect balance. For this, he needs to know exactly where he is located at every moment, both in his relationship to the divine and to his family here on earth. If he loses that balance, he loses his power.
It's not a ludicrous hypothesis, therefore, to say that the Balinese are the global masters of balance, the people for whom the maintenance of perfect equilibrium38 is an art, a science and a religion. For me, on a personal search for balance, I had hoped to learn much from the Balinese about holding steady in this chaotic39 world. But the more I read and see about this culture, the more I realize how far off the grid of balance I've fallen, at least from the Balinese perspective. My habit of wandering through this world oblivious40 to my physical orientation41, in addition to my decision to have stepped outside the containing network of marriage and family, makes me--for Balinese purposes--something like a ghost. I enjoy living this way, but it's a nightmare of a life by the standards of any self-respecting Balinese. If you don't know where you are or whose clan you belong to, then how can you possibly find balance?
Given all this, I'm not so sure how much of the Balinese worldview I'm going to be able to incorporate into my own worldview, since at the moment I seem to be taking a more modern and Western definition of the word equilibrium. (I'm currently translating it as meaning "equal freedom," or the equal possibility of falling in any direction at any given time, depending on . . . you know . . . how things go.) The Balinese don't wait and see "how things go." That would be terrifying. They organize how things go, in order to keep things from falling apart.
When you are walking down the road in Bali and you pass a stranger, the very first question he or she will ask you is, "Where are you going?" The second question is, "Where are you coming from?" To a Westerner, this can seem like a rather invasive inquiry42 from a perfect stranger, but they're just trying to get an orientation on you, trying to insert you into the grid for the purposes of security and comfort. If you tell them that you don't know where you're going, or that you're just wandering about randomly43, you might instigate44 a bit of distress45 in the heart of your new Balinese friend. It's far better to pick some kind of specific direction--anywhere--just so everybody feels better.
The third question a Balinese will almost certainly ask you is, "Are you married?" Again, it's a positioning and orienting inquiry. It's necessary for them to know this, to make sure that you are completely in order in your life. They really want you to say yes. It's such a relief to them when you say yes. If you're single, it's better not to say so directly. And I really recommend that you not mention your divorce at all, if you happen to have had one. It just makes the Balinese so worried. The only thing your solitude46 proves to them is your perilous47 dislocation from the grid. If you are a single woman traveling through Bali and somebody asks you, "Are you married?" the best possible answer is: "Not yet." This is a polite way of saying, "No," while indicating your optimistic intentions to get that taken care of just as soon as you can.
Even if you are eighty years old, or a lesbian, or a strident feminist48, or a nun49, or an eighty-year-old strident feminist lesbian nun who has never been married and never intends to get married, the politest possible answer is still: "Not yet."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
populous
|
|
| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
wondrous
|
|
| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
royalty
|
|
| n.皇家，皇族 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
exodus
|
|
| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
craftsmen
|
|
| n. 技工 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
descendent
|
|
| adj. 下降的, 降落的, 世袭的 n. 后代，子孙 =descendant | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
brilliance
|
|
| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
colonists
|
|
| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
brutally
|
|
| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
brutal
|
|
| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
hierarchy
|
|
| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
decoding
|
|
| n.译码，解码v.译（码），解（码）( decode的现在分词 )；分析及译解电子信号 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
clan
|
|
| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
subtleties
|
|
| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
lodged
|
|
| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
labor
|
|
| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
lavish
|
|
| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
communal
|
|
| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
prosper
|
|
| v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
consensus
|
|
| n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
paramount
|
|
| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
mead
|
|
| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
rites
|
|
| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
appeasement
|
|
| n.平息，满足 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
vices
|
|
| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
momentous
|
|
| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
canine
|
|
| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
fangs
|
|
| n.（尤指狗和狼的）长而尖的牙( fang的名词复数 )；（蛇的）毒牙；罐座 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
aesthetic
|
|
| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
reminders
|
|
| n.令人回忆起…的东西( reminder的名词复数 )；提醒…的东西；（告知该做某事的）通知单；提示信 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
revered
|
|
| v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
discomfort
|
|
| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
grid
|
|
| n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
intersection
|
|
| n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
vertical
|
|
| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
equilibrium
|
|
| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
chaotic
|
|
| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
oblivious
|
|
| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
orientation
|
|
| n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
inquiry
|
|
| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
randomly
|
|
| adv.随便地，未加计划地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
instigate
|
|
| v.教唆，怂恿，煽动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
distress
|
|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
perilous
|
|
| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
feminist
|
|
| adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
nun
|
|
| n.修女，尼姑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |