08-10-13 My First Performamce on Saraswati Day

DAY7 8.10

Today is a pretty packed day, as usual. 

After waking at 6 o’clock, all the kids who were going to perform with me together had already started to put their makeup on. In Balinese dancing, they use exaggerative makeup on performers including men. I wore everything a Balinese dancer would wear: a huge head piece decorated with flowers, many layers of wrappings, and a ribbon to dance with. 

Cadek only taught me dancing for two days. In the performance, I must have been really clumsy but I enjoyed this experience a lot. I even earned 10,000 Rupiah (about 1$) from the host! This a unique chance one would never get unless they live with a dancers family like Pak Catra and Bu Desak. It also shows the hospitality of Balinese – no other culture in the world that I know of would invite foreigners or non-believers to become one part of their religious ceremony. 

In the afternoon we set out to their city house in Denpasar. Because today is Saraswati Day, the day to celebrate the Goddess of knowledge, students all had to go to their own school temple to pray, and people gather in temples to make offerings. When we arrived at the temple in Denpasar with pak, the scene surprised us – the entire square was filled with people in their traditional clothing waiting to enter the temple to make offerings and pray and it was around 9 o’clock at night. Pak said there were even way more people during the earlier part of the day. Instead of waiting with the crowd, we drove to a small temple in Bali Art University which Pak Catra is a teacher. Only a few people were there and the quietness reminded me the time when I was up on the mountain in Batukau temple. I heard nothing but some dogs barking. Pak taught me 5 steps of praying and I prayed with him. The shrine was filled with offerings from daytime. No priest was present and pak sprayed me with holy water and offered me rice. In Bali Hinduism, believers could also lead prayers like the priests. Sometimes stray dogs would eat the rice and flowers they put in the offerings; and after people pray they believe that the Gods take the “essence” of the food they put in the offerings. after the ceremony, , people would share the food together… everything is natural. 

Finished with the prayer, we went to visit ibu Ibu Desak's shadow puppet show. Around 11 o’clock and before going back home, we stopped at Pasar Badung to see what the market is like in midnight. Lights were blazing on the streets and trucks kept coming in, loading and unloading. It looked even busier than daytime. Owners stayed at their own shops, looking exhausted. Pak said a new day of selling starts at around 2 or 3 in the morning, when the trucks finish sending in fresh seafood. The only time some owners get to sleep is short breaks during the day. I saw some people simply slept on a wood board near the street. People say there is nothing called “sleep” in Bali, one is because of the never-ending ceremony, I guess also because of the struggle to make a living.

We went home, exhausted and fell into sleep quickly. I felt lucky to have a soft bed and a sweet dream.

Echo's traditional eye makeup 

screenshot of the video of Echo dancing 

after performance

desak putting on makeup 

in the market

Echo's favorite 

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

man gus waiting backstage 

man gus in his costume

man gus ready to go on stage

man gus dancing!

in pasar badung with pak (1)

in pasar badung with pak(2)

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portraits of the market

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08-07-13 Beach Ceremony

DAY 4 8.7Ceremonies happen everywhere every moment in Bali. This one we went to in the morning was a continuation of the family ceremony we attended yesterday.  It took place in a few temples first and then the Seseh beach for a Nganyut ceremony for more purification rituals for the soul to continue the journey.  Everyone has a role to play in the ceremony. Women decorated with fruits and flowers on their heads led the people, while men playing gamelan music followed behind. Each compound has a family temple, and you can see many temples for different uses as well by just walking down the streets. Every single one of them is has a stone carved gate, though some might be aged, none of them was done without elaborate design. Arriving at the beach, women and children gathered together, gamelan musicians kept playing and priests blessed the offerings and the people with holy water Just like the family ceremony we went yesterday, many different things were going on concurrently. Referring to what Ms. VanGelder told me I started to develop the impression of the hospitality of Balinese. She said Bali has the most welcoming and tolerating practice of religion above all, now for instance, even if we were just strangers walking pass by, Balinese would warmly invite us into their ceremony and offer us food as long as we were dressed appropriately in pakian adat(traditional dress).

priest

praying

details 

getting back from beach ceremony

08-06-13 Cremation and Teeth Filing Ceremony

DAY 3 8.6

We attended a family  cremation ceremony here in the village of Mengwitani this morning. Cremation is a huge ceremony that lasts for 10 days in different locations. The one we saw , the Mamuker, was on the second day  with rituals to purify the soul of the deceased person.  Pak Catra, the father of our Balinese family, danced for this ceremony and invited us. We were lucky to see that the teeth filing ceremony , a rite of passage before marriage. Balinese people prepare as a community for many days before these ceremonies which are very elaborate and full of beautiful details. What amazed me is that after every ceremony, Balinese burn or throw away most of the offerings. even though the offerings require time and money, it is the process of making them that has sacred value. Also, dancers like Pak Catra who are very accomplished and well known, still perform for household ceremonies. Unlike western arts, which are mostly for the elite, in Bali can be priceless and for everyone.

girls dressed up waiting get their teeth filed 

back of the head decoration  

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pak catra dancing 

girls waiting to get their teeth filed

pak dancing 

08-05-13 First Day: Dancing and Shadow Puppet Show

First day in Bali started by waking up with the sounds of roosters, which are running and flying along the roads in Mengwitani. My Balinese family lives in a traditional but modernized compound. Ibu Desak and Pak Catra are the parents and they have 3 children, Adi, Dwi and Komang Agus. They are a family of dancers singers and gamelan musicians.

After breakfast, I met the niece of our Balinese family, Kadek,  and learned some basic Balinese dance moves. She has been dancing since childhood and speaks enough English to communicate. In the fall, Kadek will be off to college, majoring in an extinct and ancient Indonesian language, kawi. It was surprising for me when I first arrived, seeing how well Balinese keep their culture intact while tourists keep flooding in, and after talking to Kadek, I felt strong sense of obligation to carry on the rituals and traditions that were passed off from her parents. She was simply so proud of their daily ceremonies and prayers and felt natural to do the way her parents did. 

Nothing was planned in the afternoon. But lunch took place at 2 PM because Balinese also don’t have any schedule for meals either. Then I took a walk around the village, Mengwitani. It was as cool as spring. T-shirt or a light jacket would be nice. Few local people speak English; that is one of the things I regret the most about – didn’t really learn some basic Indonesian before the trip. Because local residents were so not used to tourists or foreigners in the village, people in the neighborhood would turn around and look at me with a smile; young people on motorcycles often stop and ask me I need a ride or where was my destination (at least I guesses so); elementary school students, all in uniforms and girls putting their hair into two ponytails, were most excited to see me – they yelled “hello” “what’s your name” or “how are you doing” from afar, and laughed at my babbling of English when I replied. Everyone was amazed at a foreign face but they were all so friend

ly and hospitable. I am truly enjoying my stay at this village so far. It’s a well modernized place but definitely traditional and not overly “westernized”.

At night we followed Ibu Desak to her performance as a singer for shadow puppet Play. We had the chance to sit backstage by her invitation. All the puppets for the show were exquisitely designed and overly decorated. They stand for characters in Hindu story , the Ramayana.  If I simply stayed with the crowd, I would not see how colorful all the puppets were. Even though in the play people only watch their shadows, every single one of them was nicely painted. When I left the backstage, what I saw on the square also surprised me. There was no limitation of age, gender, education or origin, so many people gathered for such a simply performance. Balinese are very engaged into this kind of community gathering . The play has their full attention and they laugh at all of the Dalang's ((puppeteer's) many jokes.

After we got back it was almost 1 AM. We were all exhausted and fell asleep quickly. Every moment in the future is unpredictable, just like I can’t imagine shortly after I wake up next morning, I will be attending a huge family cremation ceremony called mamukur and a tooth filing ceremony for young  people. This a rite of passage ceremony before people can marry. This  land is so fascinating!

learning dancing with kadek

Some Balinese children asked me for photos when I was walking pass

night market

huge crowd watching shadow puppet show

08-04-13 Arrival

When I landed at Denpasar airport on Aug 4, the very first thing came up on my mind was – Bali is so different. Not only the architecture of airport showed a strong example of Balinese art, I smelled it too – frangipani trees were blooming and spreading aroma everywhere. I knew from my first impression that there is going to be so much to learn, and it did so far. Nothing is obscure or theoretical. The art is exhibited in residential compounds; their religious belief is disseminated through day to day ceremonies that celebrate all aspects of life. lessons of their conceptions of the world are taught over dinner table... Balinese practice their philosophy by living their Hindu traditions from morning until night.

Trip begins on August 3rd

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