Top 10 Ways to Tell You've Been in Bali Too Long
1. You don't even notice when rats from the beautiful rice fields scamper past you while you're eating.
2. You wear a parka when the temperature gets below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. You fight to be the first to get a serving of fatty chunks of daging babi (pig meat) with little wiry hairs sticking out of it at ceremonial feasts
4. You don't think twice about sitting sideways in your best sarong on the back of a speeding motorcycle on your way to temple while balancing a fruit offering on your head and holding your toddler on your lap
5. You can't function without two pembantus (housekeepers), a gardener and a security guard
6. Even your Balinese friends start complaining that you have stretched "jam karet" (rubber time) to the limit, and could you at least try to show up in the same month as the appointment?
7. The builders finished your new house two years ago, but you won't move in, because you are still waiting for the pemangku (local priest) to choose an auspicious date for the new house blessing
8. You find yourself arguing with the pisang goreng vendor about a 100 rupiah (one cent) overcharge
9. Your sequined flip flops and your fringed sarong pass as formal wear
10. You find yourself telling your overseas customers you'll get back to them in two months to fill their orders, because you have to prepare for (pick a ceremony below, or use one of the other 200 million ceremonies in Bali):
a) a cremation (this one usually buys the most time)
b) Galungan (this is almost as good as a cremation for buying time)
c) Kuningan (okay, okay, this one really goes hand in hand with Galungan, but tardy vendors usually cite them separately to emphasize the burden of their societal commitments)
d) odalan (temple anniversary)
e) Saraswati (Count on the fact that most of your customers won't realize this one doesn't take much prep - after all, what do they know?)
f) the three-month ceremony of your child
e) the six-month ceremony of your child
g) the catch-all, general "family ceremony" option, possibly mixed with a monthly full-moon or dark-moon ceremony
posted by Work in Progress @ 11:47 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hilarious. Let me add some:
1) You nonchalantly toss your empty water bottle into the cremation pyre before leaving
2) You know how to hold a (fighting) cock.
3) You know how to hold a cock in your lap as you ride on the back of a motorcycle.
I have a few to add:
1) You know how to hold a (fighting) cock.
2) You can ride on the back of a motorbike holding the cock.
3) Though hating bloodsports at home, you place a bet on the speckled cock. And then when he wins, you eat the losing cock for supper in a curried soup.
4) An eyebrow raise is enough of a greeting.
5) You no longer need toilet paper.
Now that you mention it, Joyfish, I do remember riding sideways on the back of a motorbike in a sarong holding two prize fighting cocks we bought in Lombok, each in one of those carrier baskets. (Why on earth we had to buy these things in Lombok with all the chickens in Bali is beyond me.) I've got to say I've never actually held one not in a basket; the men are very protective of them!
I've got two more ways to tell you've been in Bali too long:
*When you not only don't need toilet paper (you're right, I shouldn't have missed that one), but you hike down to the river to bring back a bucket of water to flush the toilet, or, in the alternative, you just go to a specified place at the river and don't bother bringng back the bucket of water
* When you literally spend days motorbiking through the country side, visiting villages and drudging through rice fields to find the right pig to buy for roasting before a party/ceremony.
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