That said, I must be honest here and relay that it takes me only three afternoons of research in the local library to realize that all my original ideas about Balinese paradise were a bit misguided. I'd been telling people since I first visited Bali two years ago that this small island was the world's only true utopia, a place that has known only peace and harmony and balance for all time. A perfect Eden with no history of violence or bloodshed ever. I'm not sure where I got this grand idea, but I endorsed2 it with full confidence.
"Even the policemen wear flowers in their hair," I would say, as if that proved it.
In reality, though, it turns out Bali has had exactly as bloody3 and violent and oppressive a history as anywhere else on earth where human beings have ever lived. When the Javanese kings first immigrated4 here in the sixteenth century, they essentially5 established a feudal6 colony, with a strict caste system which--like all self-respecting caste systems--tended not to trouble itself with consideration for those at the bottom. The economy of early Bali was fueled by a lucrative7 slave trade (which not only preceded European participation8 in the international slave traffic by several centuries, but also outlived Europe's trafficking of human lives for a good long while). Internally, the island was constantly at war as rival kings staged attacks (complete with mass rape9 and murder) on their neighbors. Until the late nineteenth century, the Balinese had a reputation amongst traders and sailors for being vicious fighters. (The word amok, as in "running amok," is a Balinese word, describing a battle technique of suddenly going insanely wild against one's enemies in suicidal and bloody hand-to-hand combat; the Europeans were frankly10 terrified by this practice.) With a well-disciplined army of 30,000, the Balinese defeated their Dutch invaders11 in 1848, again in 1849 and once more, for good measure, in 1850. They collapsed12 under Dutch rule only when the rival kings of Bali broke ranks and betrayed each other in bids for power, aligning13 with the enemy for the promise of good business deals later. So to gauze this island's history today in a dream of paradise is a bit insulting to reality; it's not like these people have spent the last millennium14 just sitting around smiling and singing happy songs.
But in the 1920s and 1930s, when an elite15 class of Western travelers discovered Bali, all this bloodiness16 was ignored as the newcomers agreed that this was truly "The Island of the Gods," where "everyone is an artist" and where humanity lives in an unspoiled state of bliss17. It's been a lingering idea, this dream; most visitors to Bali (myself on my first trip included) still endorse1 it. "I was furious at God that I was not born Balinese," said the German photographer George Krauser after visiting Bali in the 1930s. Lured18 by reports of otherworldly beauty and serenity19, some really A-list tourists started visiting the island--artists like Walter Spies, writers like Noel Coward, dancers like Claire Holt, actors like Charlie Chaplin, scholars like Margaret Mead20 (who, despite all the naked breasts, wisely called Balinese civilization on what it truly was, a society as prim21 as Victorian England: "Not an ounce of free libido22 in the whole culture.")
The party ended in the 1940s when the world went to war. The Japanese invaded Indonesia, and the blissful expatriates in their Balinese gardens with their pretty houseboys were forced to flee. In the struggle for Indonesian independence which followed the war, Bali became just as divided and violent as the rest of the archipelago, and by the 1950s (reports a study called Bali: Paradise Invented) if a Westerner dared visit Bali at all, he might have been wise to sleep with a gun under his pillow. In the 1960s, the struggle for power turned all of Indonesia into a battlefield between Nationalists and Communists. After a coup23 attempt in Jakarta in 1965, Nationalist soldiers were sent to Bali with the names of every suspected Communist on the island. Over the course of about a week, aided by the local police and village authorities at every step, the Nationalist forces steadily24 murdered their way through every township. Something like 100,000 corpses25 choked the beautiful rivers of Bali when the killing26 spree was over.
The revival27 of the dream of a fabled28 Eden came in the late 1960s, when the Indonesian government decided29 to reinvent Bali for the international tourist market as "The Island of the Gods," launching a massively successful marketing30 campaign. The tourists who were lured back to Bali were a fairly high-minded crowd (this was not Fort Lauderdale, after all), and their attention was guided toward the artistic31 and religious beauty inherent in the Balinese culture. Darker elements of history were overlooked. And have remained overlooked since.
Reading about all this during my afternoons in the local library leaves me somewhat confused. Wait--why did I come to Bali again? To search for the balance between worldly pleasure and spiritual devotion, right? Is this, indeed, the right setting for such a search? Do the Balinese truly inhabit that peaceful balance, more than anyone else in the world? I mean, they look balanced, what with all the dancing and praying and feasting and beauty and smiling, but I don't know what's actually going on under there. The policemen really do wear flowers tucked behind their ears, but there's corruption32 all over the place in Bali, just like in the rest of Indonesia (as I found out firsthand the other day when I passed a uniformed man a few hundred bucks33 of under-the-table cash to illegally extend my visa so I could stay in Bali for four months, after all). The Balinese quite literally34 live off their image of being the world's most peaceful and devotional and artistically35 expressive36 people, but how much of that is intrinsic and how much of that is economically calculated? And how much can an outsider like me ever learn of the hidden stresses that might loiter behind those "shining faces"? It's the same here as anywhere else--you look at the picture too closely and all the firm lines start to melt away into an indistinct mass of blurry37 brushstrokes and blended pixels.
For now, all I can say for certain is that I love the house I have rented and that the people in Bali have been gracious to me without exception. I find their art and ceremonies to be beautiful and restorative; they seem to think so, as well. That's my empirical experience of a place that is probably far more complex than I will ever understand. But whatever the Balinese need to do in order to hold their own balance (and make a living) is entirely38 up to them. What I'm here to do is work on my own equilibrium39, and this still feels, at least for now, like a nourishing climate in which to do that.
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1
endorse
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| vt.(支票、汇票等)背书，背署；批注；同意 | |
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endorsed
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| vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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3
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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immigrated
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| v.移入( immigrate的过去式和过去分词 )；移民 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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7
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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participation
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| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
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rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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12
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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aligning
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| n. (直线)对准 动词align的现在分词形式 | |
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14
millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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15
elite
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| n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的 | |
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16
bloodiness
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| n.血染；血污；残忍；野蛮 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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18
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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22
libido
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| n.本能的冲动 | |
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23
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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24
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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27
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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fabled
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| adj.寓言中的，虚构的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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32
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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33
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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34
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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artistically
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| adv.艺术性地 | |
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36
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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37
blurry
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| adj.模糊的；污脏的，污斑的 | |
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38
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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39
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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