Groton Bali 2013: 08-08-13 A Day In Denpasar

Man gus, the 18-year-old son of our Balinese family, is a very talented dancer and has performed in many different places in the world. This morning we went to watch his competition in Denpasar. He and other 29 dancers was performing Jauk Manis dance; it’s a type of mask dance and dancers dresses up like figures from ancient literature. Balinese are always enthusiastic about dances. The audience is from newborn enfant to the elderly.

In the afternoon we visited pasar badung, the biggest market in Denpasar. Denpasar even though being the capital and most populous city of Bali island, doesn’t have a lot of tourism and is mostly for local Balinese people. This market we went to has daily supplies from offerings to vegetables and seafood. Dealers stood near the streets with their goods and trucks kept arriving with fresh produce. Afterward we went to Tiara Grocier to buy some daily supply. Different from pasar badung, it is a western-style supermarket that sells nearly everything we can find in a American supermarket.

To me, most modern Balinese still hold on to a relatively traditional way of living. Those two marketplaces might just be few blocks away from each other but really resembled how local people keep a balance between modernization and tradition in their day-to-day lives