Oral History in Bali

For the second week of class Dag (filmaker)and Dya (dancer) gave lectures and led discussions on the ethics and methodologies of research, in particular in relationship to ethnographic films. The class discussions are very fruitful. Just when I thought that we must exhausted a certain topic of research methodologies during our discussions, looking at the topic from a new angle or bringing in our experience in the field once again sparks more discussion. The age old questions on methods and ethics can always be re-asked with fresh insights. One of the most enjoyable experiences was perhaps the live interviews at the Barong dance. The Barong dance is watched by over two hundred tourists every day. Our team divided the tasks. One or more people were responsible for interviewing several targeted group: actors, tourist guides, Chinese-speaking tourists, English-speaking tourists, Indonesian-speaking tourists and Spanish-speaking tourists. Barong dance tells the story of the battle between good and evil but at the end neither prevailed. Personally, I was quite disappointed with the performance (if you can call it so). The artistic quality was much lower than the Ramayana Ballet that we saw in Prambanan Temple. There were many tasteless sexual acts such as touching the butt of a female dancer, poke a male actor with broom sticks from behind for an extended period of time, and hitting the genitals with tree branches..etc. everything seemed so routine. Exept in one scene two female dancers dressed in the same style of Sarong performed beautifully.

As an audience the two female dancers’ performance was the most enjoyable. But as a researcher, all that happened during the performance was of interest to me. The audience’s reaction to certain scenes, when everybody snapped their cameras, who was laughing and who was loud and my own reactions… I surveyed my surrounding trying to find people holding brochures in Chinese while jogging down a long list of questions. I was a bit nervous about the interview that I didn’t pay attention to some part of the barong dance. Most tourists would catch the shuttle buses after the dance so I had to be quick. I got rejected twice before I found a group of three women from Beijing that were willing to be interviewed. They were quite articulate and diplomatic. I didn’t even have to ask most of the questions on my list. It was interesting to see how the dance contributes to tourists’ perception of Bali. They commented that the dance was “ok”. The artistic quality of the dance was quite coarse but they like the philosophy behind the story that neither good nor evil prevails at the end. They thought the sexual elements in the dance were “unnecessary”. They believed that what was represented in the dance is a part of the local culture and also a part of their Bali experience. They added “after all, the industrial world and the agricultural world are quite different.” Interview is one of those things you just have to do it live in order to truly understand the process.

The discussions at the end of the interviews helped to put many things in perspective. The actors and musicians in the barong dance are severely underpaid. The actors have to suffer the drudgery of doing the same dance 364 days a year. Not to totally discredit the performance. It provides a space for some actors to “play”. They do it because they like performing on the stage. For some female dancers it is a chance to get out of the confine of the household and their husbands. On the stage, spot light and camera lights shine on them. Some barong dancers are perpetrators during the 1965 massacre. Barong dance is a way for them to escape and deal with the violent past that still hunts them. I was so glad to leave the Barong dance not only with the dissatisfactions as a audience.

Digging through all my experiences in America, never have I thought possible that language handicap can be a privilege. But in Bali, the island of Gods, where tourists are the Gods, such is the reality. I wondered why I did not panic as I did in America when I couldn’t produce a complete sentence to communicate what I want to say. In the warung (small restaurant) I first relied on Termana and luck to order my food. When Termana was not there I often hoped that the waitress would just take the order and bring the food to me without asking me “makan di sini? (eat here)” or “minum apa? (what do you want to drink)” and other details which I neither understood nor knew how to reply. When I faced such questions I either stare at the waitress with the “I don’t know what you’re saying look” or repeat the order with awkward pronunciation. I struggled but I never panicked or even worried much. It was not just because I’m relax in general. I realized that being a “tourist” from foreign countries (English-speaking is a plus) in Bali automatically put you in a higher rank. Besides skin color, language handicap happens to be the best indicator of whether you’ll be seen as a tourist.

Tourists got better customer services in general. So far I have heard quite a few stories of non-foreign looking people discriminated in restaurants, bars and clubs. Many clubs in Kuta, the tourists can get in for free while the locals have to pay. If a local goes in with a tourist he/she can then get in for free. The logic being that the local people can’t afford to buy drinks and the tourist can afford to buy one for the local. In few clubs the locals get in for free and the tourists have to pay. But they are the exceptions. An Indonesian friend shared with me some of his experiences in a mall in Kuta. A guard approached him and asked him what he wants to buy as soon as he walked in. The situation is kinda like you’re automatically judged guilty as soon as you enter the court room. Previous experience taught this friend of mine that his answer to the guard couldn’t be just “just looking”. Usually he would say he wants to buy some expensive brand name. One time, the guard “accompanied” him to the brand name store. Out of dignity and defense my friend bought the cheapest item from the selection, deodorant. It still costs 7 meals worth of delicious fried noodle.

I arrived in Bali on Thursday night. I’m enjoying my weekend off before the classes on social science research methodology officailly begins tomorrow. from the short intros I pieced together of our lecturers for the next four weeks, it seems like I’ll be in high company. They are among the foremost intellectuals in Indonesia. The first week would be on oral history. John Roosa will be the instructor. He wrote about the political violence in 1965 in bali. I already got my thick package of readings for the next week. It would be a good change from all the cultural activities I experienced for the pass two and a half weeks.

Intellactual discussions so far had been mostly informal. In 1965 Park Community, the place I’m living right now and the NGO I’ll be doing research for the last four weeks of my internship, much discussion happens sporadically and informally. It is intended to be informal. Reasons being, one it encourages people to talk more openly; two, they want to get away from the discourse formality of the government. But there are some planned discussions such as the one on friday about the history of 1965 massacre. 1965 park is located right at the familiy compund of our in-country coordinator Termana. After dinner community members of 65 gather on the compound green. At the center of the green is a gravel-paved square that says “Taman 65″. 1965 park is dedicated to provide a space for all to have discussions on social issues. Discussions can range from the endangered snakes in Bali to women in Indonesian society to the 1965 massacre in Bali. They make an effort to involve the ibu (mothers) in the family compund in the dsicussion of Bali’s violent past, against the dominant ideology in Indonesia that only men can talk in public.

Few rectangle mats around the “Taman 65″ square provide seats for over 15 people. Many memebers are artists or musician or both. every night discusssion is accompanied by guitars and songs range from Nirvana, Beatles, to RadioHead. Cigarret and Arak (a local liquor) seem to be as essential as the music. The birth of “Taman 65″ is closely tied to “nongkoron”, a Balinese slang means having nothing to do and talking casually. The people in Taman seems to savor the art of “nongkoron”. In American eyes nongkoron might seems extremely unproductive but for the people in Taman 65 it is a way people feel comfortable discussing the most sensitive issues. Music and nongkoron can easily last 4 hours.

Taman is invited by a NGO to select two representatives for a youth alternative media summer camp in Jogya. Hati (Termana’s youngest brother) and Gina was slected and Taman hosted a meeting last night before their departure. Termana informed me that they would speak in Indonesian. I stayed nevertheless.I wanted to practice my listening. I managed to understand that they were rehearsing how to reprent the image, missions of Taman during the camp. I jogged down words I heard but didn’t understand. People stayed and started talking casually. Sansan, a student in Culture and Religion program in sanata Dharma taught me all the words I wrote down and patiently explained to me the correct usage despite some difficulty with spoken english. for the next four hours I listened and talked. we talked about what would never be mentioned in the tourist guide or in many books about Balinese and Indonesian culture. In Taman 65 I’ve getting the dark side of bali. I heard the unequal treatment of cheap Javanese laborers in Bali; the burden of Balinese to maintain colonial legacy of “culture tourism”; the overt discrimmation against again the local Balinese, unjust privileging of the tourists. But my nongkoron buddies seem optimistic. Bali is beautiful, no doubts. But I’m still looking for the beauty.

It’s been a week since my last post. I have been emersing in the culture of jogya. In the morning, I went to Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) class from 8am to 12:30 pm. I have 7 different language Guru-Guru (teachers; to make plural in Indonesian just repeat the noun once). They are exceptionally patient. Everyday we ask our guru a whole bunch of new vocabularies and questions about the logic or the illogic of Indonesian. They would spell the word one by one and explain the grammar piece by piece. They made the class atmosphere enjoyable. Learning a new langauge requires not affraid of sounding like a fool. We, the students had no problem laughing at our silly pronounciations. The struggle to communicate with only few words and broken grammar produced many playful moments. I found that with a positive attitude the seemingly plain sentences we managed to speak in Indonesian become flavorful. Alison visited us and joined the language class for few days. We were betting on whether Alison would be a good student. She was definitely a good class citizen, but except when she was absent for few mornings.

 The first two weeks in Joyga were packed with activities, not all of them planned. We explored the cultural life of Jogya, or just being tourists according to some locals. In local people’s perception, there seems to a blurry line between the foriegners and the tourists. I would like to think that I’m not a tourist. Indeed, I do much more than a tourist but sometimes I couldn’t help doing some touristy stuff. In famous tourist attractions in Indonesia, you would find “tourist hunters”. They are often local people seeking out tourists to take pictures with them. For them part of their tour is to see the tourists. Termana told me that tourist hunters would framed the pictures and put them in a prominent place in the house. They would brag to those who don;t have pictures with the tourist.

I thought tourist hunters usually seek out white westerners. This was confirmed by my observation that David and Madeleine were quite popular with the hunters. David was hunted down by a tourist at a shop in Malioboro, a famous shopping district in Jogya. Now David would live i history. well at least in the family temple of the tourist who took the picture with him. We as a group was hunted down by a family of tourist hunters at the ruin of Water Temple. We shall too live in their family history!

The trip to Borobudor added new perspective to this phenomenon of tourist hunting. Borobudor is the largest buddhist monument in the world as claimed by the tour guide. ironically, the population in the area is mostly muslim  the number of buddhist is close to zero. We arrived at the temple around 7:20am. our plan to watch the sunrise failed. the sun was already burning hot. The tenple was flooded by elemnetary and junior high age tourist hunters. Mos of them were armed with a camera or camera phone. The ”white westerners” in our group quickly attracted a circles of young hunters. But unexpectedly munites later I was hunted down. “mister, picture..” “mister, mister, satu lagi.. (one more)” I enjoyed their presence. I found it hard to refuse them because they are kids and they were super adorable, and also because of my vanity for spotlight. But at some point I had to say “I need to go… satu lagi..” Eventually I lost count of how many people asked me to be in pictures.

After the picture taking i felt a sense of disorientation. “Was I white to those younf tourist hunters?” Then I started to make some connections. The images in commercials, Tv and other media popped into my mind. Most of them are fair-skin “white” Chinese. chinese  is the ultimate example of “whiteness” that is fervently sought for by “people” in indonesia. But pardoxically, chinese are also hated. They were once prohibited from taking many kinds of job. Business was the best choice for many, resulting in chinese domination in business. They also become the scapegaot for corrupt officuals to milk some extra incomes. chinese occuppies a interesting niche in indonesia. In many ways, they are the Jews and the Whites in Indonesia.

Hello! I’m LinKai Jiang. I’m blogging for the internship group in Indonesia. I’ll spend two weeks in Jogya for langauge classes then eight weeks in romantically famed “Island of Gods”–Bali. I’m travelling with Medeleine, David and Claire to Jogya. After spending over 30 hours in a plane my head suffered from bulging pain. I took my first Tylenol pill ever in 18 years. Unfortunately for me and Claire there were no tickets for us from Bali to Joyga we had to spend a night in Bali. I carried my worsened headache and spent a night at Termana’s house in Bali-our in-country coodinator. We were enthusiastically welcomed. Termana’s family made the stay very pleasant. I melted down on my bed right after a cold shower. My impression of Balinese windows is that they’re not meant for isolation, at least audio wise. The motorcycles in the bustling streets and gamelan pratices accompanied my dreams and wakefulness throughout the night. I woke up at 2am refreshed and decided to read few pages of Stud Terkel.

Now, we’re in Sanata Dharma University, lodging in the faculty houses. The campus beauty, no doubt, is soothing for my headache. I’ll upload some pictures next time–until then.

CPGC intern LinKai Jiang ‘11 will spend two weeks in Jogajakarta, Java, Indonesia participating in a language and culture immerson program before heading to Bali for eight weeks. For half of LinKai’s time in Bali, he will be taking courses on human rights, social science research methodologies and ethics. The final four weeks will be dedicated to field research with 1965 Park on social history project, dialogue on past political violence and community education.