Anjing is Not an Occupation

This is a direct quote from my Bahasa Indonesia teacher, the illustrious Pak Wayan (a man who eats pissan goreng, fried banana, with ketchup, and also named his dogs "Matt Lloyd" and "Lapinki." My apologies if I already mentioned that fact). Whether it's the super-rainy weather or my bizarre sense of humor, I thought that was hilarious this morning and decided to make it the title of this post. Oh, and anjing means dog. Glad we got that covered.

So I realized that I forgot to mention in that last post why the Balinese are so friendly. Or, more accurately, how, because this innate friendliness is cultural. Everywhere you go, people smile and say hi and ask where you're going, not to be creepy or anything, but just to know. They love that we're college students trying to figure out their language and smile and laugh when we can't speak it. The laughter isn't mean, it's just their way of releasing tension from a slightly tense/awkward situation. Also, it is really funny to see a bunch of whiteys stumbling around your market trying to buy cultural items for school. The sense of humor here is also wonderful- lots of sass and making fun, but entirely in a "no hard feelings way." Example: last night, my family and I were sitting around chatting, and they started making fun of my sister for not speaking English, saying that she gets zeros on all her tests and doesn't like speaking it with me for that reason. She kind of made the "I know you're making fun of me and I don't like it" face, and probably sassed back in Balinese (the language I'm not learning) and then shrugged it off completely. Of course, they make fun of me too, like when I wear the dress sarong and stuff, but it's just because I'm a tall lanky white boy.

Side note: all you single tall lanky white boys best head down to Bali. They love pasty flesh and I've had more grandmothers proposition me to marry their daughters than... well, like five grandmas, but still. Balinese girls and white guys. The hidden connection. Also, all your babies would be living examples of hybrid vigor, and the exchange rate is in our favor. Evolution and economics. Get on it.

The big reason for that digression was to explain how nice my old homestay family was about me moving out, but that's really all I need to say now. They thanked me for staying, held no grudges, and told me to come back and visit. And when I did, they gave me a big bag of rambutans (oh I will miss rambutan. It's a sweet tropical fruit, white and grape-like on the inside and red and hairy/spiky on the outside. Not found in the states).

Okay cool back to topic (or lack thereof): I saw another temple ceremony this weekend. It was the temple in Batuan's yearly ceremony (Odalan), except that apparently every five years there is a super big ceremony, and this is a really important ceremony. So that's like ceremony times three, call it four because I'm a westerner and don't know any better. So we got all decked out and headed over around four in the afternoon to check out the later part of the festivities. They had blocked off the street in front of the temple for the crowds and crowds of fancily attired worshipers, all sitting in the streets in their white and yellow (apparently it's the new fashion trend) dress outfits waiting to go in. We waited, and they finished up something inside the temple requiring gamelan in the temple, and then a bunch of priest-type dudes hurried out carrying big offerings and loaded them into cars before speeding away somewhere. Now might be a good time to mention the fact that the entire temple was lavishly decorated: big banners with dragons and other beasties on them, cloth wrapped around all the statues, huge bamboo decorative streamer-type pillars all over, and lots and lots of offerings strewn all over the ground. And this was only outside. Inside comes... now: next on the agenda was a short wait and then a parade: a bunch of women under a cloth came out of the temple, followed by people carrying offerings/shrines/artifacts (I think) and masks and things that had been blessed. This ended with the temple's two barongs, giant dragon-lion masks that danced around. After these guys, everyone else got up and sped off around the corner of the temple, following the procession. We followed, and as we were marching around I think they called us out over the loudspeaker, prompting friendly Balinese inquiry as to where we were from. We went in, were told that it wasn't time for whiteys yet (probably not, but that's what it seemed like), and then went out to watch the super-efficient team of street sweepers clean up the mess.

When it was time to go in, we had to pray first to purify ourselves. This was very complicated: we had been given a dish of offerings, and we had to do certain things in a correct order. First we were given incense, then we prayed with only the smoke. Than we took flowers of one color, prayed with them, flicked them away, then prayed with another color, and then repeated for two more big offering things with leaves, flowers and a little coin. Then we smoke-prayed again and had to do the holy water thing with the priest: get splashed on the head, drink three times (or pretend if you don't want bowel complaints), wash your head three times, then get some rice and put it on. And I probably forgot some steps there. Anyways, I don't think I messed up too badly, but concentration superseded any form of spiritual feeling I might have felt. Then we got to wander the temple. The offerings were spectacular: big shrine-like things made of fruits and sugar, all super colorful and unfortunately starting to spoil. This was especially true for the offerings that worshipers brought, including a few whole roast suckling pigs. Between day-old food and the smell from the kitchens, which I have a hard time handling sometimes, I skipped out pretty quickly. But it was really fun, like Christmas and the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and a little bit of Halloween rolled into one. Only even more fun, and traditional for a long time (I want to say thousands of years, but it might only be one. We haven't learned history yet). And they do stuff like this multiple times a month. If western religion was this fun, maybe we'd be a bit more spiritual.

Then we waited a very long time to watch some gamelan and topeng mask dancing, which was fun, but by that point I was too tired to register the fact that there were transvestites doing standup comedy after the topeng. True story. I don't think that's common, but I could be wrong. And then we went home. Moral of the story: festivals are really ornate but at the same time not very stressful, like a block party with way more setup. Balinese people apparently don't sleep either. And transvestites are really funny? I might be missing something there, but whatever.

And the post officially reaches "too long" status. I'll save my introduction to host family characters for a later date. Teaser: my brother's toddler son spends two thirds of his time pantsless. And he dances. Thanks for bearing with me this long, if you skimmed to this point you're a bad person. And I'll work on having more adventures to keep y'all entertained.