Ketut Soki, Balinese Young Artist master

As I mentioned in a previous post, some people I met in California were here in Bali for the first time, and I suggested they hire my old and dear friend Wayan Subawa as a guide for a day. I tagged along, and suggested to Wayan that before we went on our way, we drop by the artist village of Penestanan. I had noticed one of the women seemed to be drawn to the Young Artist style of painting.

Wayan said we must go to Ketut Soki's. Well, Ketut Soki is quite famous and is internationally exhibited. He was at the very forefront of the Young Artist movement, one of the first two young boys who studied with Ari Smit in the 1960’s. (Check him out on wikipedia.com or just google him.) I had more of a no-name, much cheaper artist in mind, as I did not think any of us could afford the works of this master. But what the heck, I figured, let's go see Soki. Always fun to meet a celebrity.

Soki, now in his late 60's, greeted us himself as we came into the compound and led us to the room that houses his paintings - the few that aren't in museums, expensive galleries or on their way to far-flung parts of the world. He was charming and friendly with a ready smile. He spoke little English, but with my very little Bahasa Indonesia (plus Wayan) we were able to communicate.

After my companions spent a lot of time looking, I pointed out a medium-sized painting Soki said he favored. It represented scenes from the market, rice fields, ceremonies, barong, lots going on. Yet it was cohesive and very well done. I was considering buying it myself, though I’m usually more of a fan of the Batuan style of painting. We took so long that I was feeling a little guilty, because I thought we were wasting the great master’s time.

Then, suddenly, one of my friends started crying. She was moved by the sense of community represented in the paintings and the affability and graciousness of Soki himself. This surprised us all, and especially her. Wayan asked Soki if anyone had ever cried in his studio before, and he said many times. Once an American man cried in his studio from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.!

When we finally asked for prices, Soki named a fraction of what his stuff goes for in the galleries. I almost fell over, because they were quite affordable. I told the women they were being given very good prices by a well-known artist and should buy one. The woman who was so moved bought the one I had my eye on (I figured I’d give her first dibs as I could come back) and also a second marketplace scene.

You can see from my recent posts that I have become a bit jaded regarding Bali. But meeting this man went miles toward renewing my faith. Before we left, he and his charming daughter also showed us around the compound, full of orchids and positive energy. I liked the daughter quite a bit, and Wayan told me later she also paints. Lovely people, and I hope to see them both again.



I’ve posted a photo of Soki here (as well as one of a tree in his family compound). He was smiling the entire time we were with him, but put on a stern, professional face for photos. When I return, perhaps I can capture his smile.

The devil in 10 cent beads

I met a couple women at a travel book reading in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live; they were friends of a friend. When we found our trips to Bali would intersect, we decided to get together. It was their first time to Bali, and I wanted them to really “see” it.

Because Bali’s economy revolves around tourists (and also handicraft exports), it is quite possible to go to Bali and never see it, only seeing the false, sometimes overly soft and sometimes overly harsh world created for tourists. It’s not difficult to find Bali underneath the tourist trappings. Back in the villages, away from the tourist towns and the tourist traps, it’s still Bali. But you do have to make a bit of an effort.

I met up with my acquaintances in Lovina where I was visiting some friends I had not seen in years. They had spent a week in Ubud taking batik and cooking classes for tourists and learning to tie sarongs. They had gone on bird walks and generally seemed to have made good use of their time. I introduced them to some of my friends, took them to dinner at a local friend’s house in a nearby village and suggested quiet, nature destinations. Back in Ubud later, I arranged an introduction to a famous painter, took them to temple in an out-of-the-way village where another friend taught them how to pray, and went along with them when my friend Wayan Subawa (who I had recommended as a guide) drove them through the villages where they saw wedding preparations and visited some ancient ruins. In return, they let me come along on some of the jaunts you really have to make the first time you are in Bali, but probably don’t want to do again. I wasn’t all that busy, so I thought, what the hell.

That is how I recently found myself at GitGit to see the waterfalls once again, GitGit, that enclave of women waving sarongs at you and children of tender years running after you in hordes, frantically pushing junk necklaces in your face and chanting the prices in a deeply disturbing, monotone – many too young to understand what they are saying. The mothers train their children from toddlers to run up the hills and through the jungle to cut tourists off at the pass so they can not get by without fighting their way through outstretched hands filled with cheap beads. GitGit is always like this, even at the so-called “quiet” waterfall. (There are three different waterfalls at three different locations in GitGit.) The mothers themselves stand at their vendor stalls on the upper path of the long way down to the waterfalls, demanding outrageous prices for other junk, and when you keep walking, of course those prices suddenly drop to 1/20 of the original price quoted. Hey, I’m all for bargaining, but don’t insult me.

Cut to Denpasar. Yesterday I went to the lavish opening parade of the huge, internationally famous, annual Bali Arts Festival. I’d gone to performances there before, but never the opening parade, so when my friend Ketut A. asked me to go with her, of course I went. I’ve known Ketut for years, and had not seen her for a few weeks, not since I brought her a letter from her sister in the States. We decided to go in style by car rather than motorbike, so my buddy Wayan Subawa drove us down. He always goes every year to the parade anyway, so we made it a party.


The Bali Arts Festival is probably the biggest yearly event in Bali. Dancing and musical troupes from all over Indonesia and even the world perform there. In addition, there are exhibitions of painting, wood carving, cooking, clothing and every kind of art. In other words, it is a very big deal. It attracts a primarily local crowd. The westerners you see there are mostly expats (trust me, you can tell) with the occasional tourist who is usually an arts connoisseur.

There were thousands of Balinese lined around the huge, beautiful green square in Denpasar to watch the parade of dancers, musicians and floats go by. Picture the Macy’s Day Parade, Bali style. Vendors walk through the crowds selling drinks, peanuts, lumpia and even pizza. Other vendors grill babi (pork) sate along the sidelines. After about an hour there, shuffling for a place to best see and photograph the parade, something struck me. Not one person had run over to me shoving any trinkets, drinks, sarongs or anything else in my face because I am “tamu.” (Literally, “tamu” means “guest”, but it often really means anyone from outside Bali with what might locally be considered big bucks.) In Denpasar, at the biggest event in Bali, I was just one of the crowd.


And that is the difference between visiting a tourist trap and visiting anyplace or anything at all away from the traps. I remember the same thing in Jamaica. In Negril, being the target of annoying beach boys trying to pick up “rich” white women, and in Mandeville, being treated like a human being, because Mandeville is a working city, not a tourist destination.

Heavy influxes of tourists who are substantially richer than the local population always mean a devastating corruption of the culture. The result? The mothers at GitGit shamelessly teaching even four-year-olds to run after tourists and shove necklaces at them even when they are told “No” repeatedly, even when it is said in Indonesian or Balinese. Poverty, you say? Most of those people own land, luxurious vegetable gardens and rice fields. These are not desperate people, yet they exploit four-year-olds for the price of a 10 cent necklace. What life lessons are these children learning? Of course, I can't speak for the Balinese, but many I know are also truly horrified by this.

There’s a lesson in this someplace, but I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.

Bali beauty regimen

Upon returning to Bali after three years, I'm aware I've put on weight and I'm definitely feeling older. I was a bit concerned about this, because they pull no punches in Bali. They'll tell you to your face you're more "gemuk" (fatter) than you were last time they saw you. But, as it turns out, no worries! It is the general and unanimous (and, of course, unasked for) consensus here, from the mountains of Ubud to the beaches of Lovina, that I look "younger and more beautiful" than I did before. Why you may ask? What is my beauty secret? Well, it turns out that my "skin is whiter" (no tan 'cause I just got off the plane) and I no longer have "those dark spots." (Heck, I always thought my freckles were cute.) This should not have surprised me, I suppose, given the fact that every other ad on TV here is for skin whitening cream, and they go so far as to artificially lighten the film in most TV shows and all commercials so the actresses look paler than Casper. It's always a stark contrast when the news comes on showing people with normal, healthy Indonesian skin tones.

This preoccupation is not because Indonesians want to look like white people or due to vestiges of colonialism. On the contrary. I'm not sure about the rest of Indonesia, but I'm pretty sure the Balinese are completely convinced they are the most beautiful people in the world. (They have a good argument.) The roots of this pale skin obsession are older than colonialism, harking back to the distinction between royalty and the priestly classes and, well, just about everybody else. The bottom line is that lighter skin still equates with wealth here. Field workers and laborers who tan in the sun tend to be browner than Indonesians of means who loll about inside all day. Indonesia is extremely class-conscious, and in Bali, you can throw caste-awareness on top of that. There must be this same fascination with light skin in Japan, because I see 99% of the Japanese female tourists here wearing god-awful ugly sun hats that look like something my grandfather went fishing in. (Yes, yes, yes, I know it's good to protect oneself from harmful rays of the sun, but have you seen those hats?!)

Needless to say, I don't agree politically or aesthetically with this attitude. To me, the artificially washed-out skin tones shown on Indonesian TV commercials appear somewhat ghoulish. But no one much cares about my opinions here, so I've put away the bronzer and slapped on the SPF 50. Still, my freckles accumulate in the Bali sun despite all precautions. Secretly, I continue to admire them.

An old flame in Bali

I saw an old flame this week. I hesitated to stay in that section of Lovina, because I didn’t know if I wanted to run into him. But as I was moving to a different bungalow (one where the water actually worked) at the small family-run establishment where I usually stay. I heard him call to me, lounging on the porch of the bungalow next door, hidden by the lush foliage.

“Do I know you?” I said. Often people know who I am in Bali, though I don’t know them. Not that I’m that interesting – it’s just people in the village generally know everything going on.

“I don’t know, do you?” he said.

Smart ass answer. Could only be one person. Was he on that porch by chance? No, he would have heard I was here. I called his name as a question as I stepped away from the greenery in order to see him. He had cut his hair.

“I knew your voice,” he said.

I thought running into him would be awkward, but instead it was good to see an old friend. “I heard you got married.” I said.

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“Oh, we know everything in America,” I joked. He knew the lines of communication, who had told me.

“Any children?”

“A boy, two and a half,” he said.

I was glad for him. He had been having a lot of bitter family issues in the compound where his volatile older brother dominated. So when he married, he moved to a rented house with his new wife. He had met her at the Kalukbukbuk Hotel where she started working. I remember I used to call him there, and his friend would run down the beach to find him to take my call, years ago.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“Four years. A long time,” he said.

Yes, he was right. It was three years since I had been to Bali, but four since I saw him. It was about six years ago I met him, about the same time I met ‘Tut. It could have gone either way, but due to a miscommunication, a misunderstanding, a chance of fate, I left him in Padang Bai, the eastern beach town where ferries leave for Lombok. He returned to Lovina. And I returned to ‘Tut. As I face him in the bright sun, it all washes over me. Fleetingly I wonder if I had made the wrong choice. But it is only wistfulness at the creak of a door swinging shut.

“Can I still talk to you?” he asks.

“Of course,” I smile. “I want to meet your son.”

Grown up in Bali

It had been four years since I’d seen Putuh. Then, even after recently having her second baby, vestiges of girlishness remained. I’d known her a few years before that when she visited her Balinese brother and Irish sister-in-law in San Francisco for a year, helping them after their first child was born. Now I look at her face, and see small worried lines around her mouth. She is a woman now, not the girl I first met. She talks about the same thing she discussed when I last saw her, four years before. They have trouble with their mechanics shop in northern Bali because they don’t have the money to buy proper inventory for a full-service operation. I hand her the envelope and the baby clothes sent by her sister-in-law in America as she rocks her third baby, who has begun to fuss.

Bali changes

It was so beautiful when I first started coming to Bali… the long-haired boys in their sarongs, casually slipping flowers behind their ears, smiles flashing. Now, it seems most of the guys in Bali have cut their hair and traded their flowers for Harley t-shirts.

As I drive my motorbike through the villages after a few years away, I suddenly notice almost no one is wearing a sarong. In Denpasar or Singaraja or even Ubud, of course, younger people had never walked down the streets in sarongs except for ceremonies in the years I have been going to Bali. But back in the villages, I used to see a mix, some wearing Western clothing, but certainly a lot of people comfortable wearing beautiful batik sarongs as they went about their days. Women carrying water on their heads as they swayed down the street, men working in the fields, and grandmothers cooing to babies. Today only the very old women seem to wear sarongs outside of ceremonies; everyone else has adopted ugly synthetic K-Mart clothing.

It is so changed.