Bali, Indonesia – At daybreak, as the primary shards of sunshine dance over the rice fields within the seaside village of Seseh on Bali’s west coast, Putu and her husband Made, who like many Indonesians go by one title solely, spend an hour reciting prayers and distributing small palm leaf baskets containing choices to make sure the well being of the approaching harvest.
Later within the day, their 11-year-old daughter will attend a category for “sanghyang dedari”, a sacred trance dance for ladies that’s designed to counteract detrimental supernatural forces.
Meanwhile, her two older brothers will hone their expertise on picket xylophones and hand drums as a part of a conventional “gamelan” orchestra in preparation for a ceremony celebrating the completion of a brand new Hindu temple, one among greater than 10,000 on the island.
In the approaching weeks, Made and his kids will assist their neighbours create large “ogoh-ogoh” dolls, representations of evil mythological creatures usual from wooden, bamboo, paper and styrofoam, that will probably be paraded by the streets and set alight the night time earlier than Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu new yr.
Taking place this yr on March 11, Nyepi, or the “day of silence”, will see each gentle on the island turned off, transport come to a halt and the airport shut. Everyone, Balinese or not, will keep at dwelling to present evil spirits the impression there may be nothing to be discovered on the island.
“Every day I lay offerings, attend a ceremony or go to a temple,” Putu advised Al Jazeera. “I do this because I am Hindu, because I believe. My children do the same and when they have children, they will do the same also.”
The Balinese anomaly
Putu’s hopes for the longer term are shared with the overwhelming majority of Balinese, an island the place a hybrid Hindu-Buddhist faith based mostly on ancestor worship and animism courting again to the primary century has survived and even thrived within the face of mass tourism.
By 1930, vacationer numbers reached a number of hundred per yr. Last yr, 5.2 million foreigners together with 9.4 million home holidaymakers visited Bali, in line with authorities information, and the island is growing at breakneck pace to cater to the demand.
The detrimental results of such super progress are illustrated within the murals of Balinese artist Slinat, who marries the enduring images of Balinese dancers with modern emblems like fuel masks and greenback payments.
“These old photos were the first images used to promote tourism in Bali and convey that it is an exotic place. They kick-started tourism in Bali,” Slinat advised Al Jazeera. “But then we had too much tourism and it ruined the exoticness of Bali. So I created this parody to express how much things have changed here since those photos were taken.”
Nevertheless, Balinese conventional tradition and faith have remained resilient within the face of the vacationer onslaught, which is one thing of an anomaly in contrast with different vacationer sizzling spots all over the world.
“When local people entertain tourists, they adapt [to] tourists’ needs, attitudes and values and ultimately start to follow them. By following tourists’ lifestyle, young people bring changes in the material goods,” was the discovering of a examine on the affect of tourism on tradition that was revealed in 2016 within the Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Sports.
The examine mentioned the Pokhara-Ghandruk group in Nepal was a textbook instance, the place “the traditional fashion, behaviour and lifestyle of young Gurungs have been severely affected by tourism … [who] disobey their elders’ Kinship titles”. It mentioned Indonesia was an exception – a rustic the place “to attract distant tourists, children nurture local customs to create a strong and authentic base of cultural components without disrupting ancestors’ values”.
A lecturer in conventional structure at Warmadewa University in Bali, I Nyoman Gede Maha Putra explains the roots of that method.
“Colonial government policies dating back to the 1930s that promote how the Balinese should be Balinese, including school curriculums, production of traditional foods and beverages and unsparing investments in religious buildings have played a key role in preserving culture and religion on the so-called Island of the Gods,” he mentioned, including that development codes formalised within the Nineteen Seventies that required no new constructing to be no taller than a coconut tree had helped keep “a sense of the place” on the island.
“Soon, all our young people will start making ogoh-ogoh paper statues for Nyepi. No one will be left out. They will enjoy the process, they will enjoy the parades, and feel proud when the tourists see what they’ve made. And our daily ceremonies will continue because we believe very strongly that our ancestors’ ghosts live around us and our ceremonies are the only way we can communicate with them,” Maha Putra mentioned.
A facade
Others say it’s the adaptability of Balinese tradition that has made it resilient.
“Balinese culture is not static,” I Ketut Putra Erawan, a lecturer in political science at Bali’s Udayana University, advised Al Jazeera. “Time and time again it has shown it has the power to reinvent itself through the problems and opportunities we face; things like tourism, social media, individualism, capitalism and mass culture. It finds new ways to make itself relevant to young people in new times.”
But these new shapes and expressions should not as stable as these of the previous, he cautions.
“Today we are flooded with so much information and misinformation, and what that tends to do is promote the skin of the culture, the outside element of the culture, things like consumerism and fashion, but not the core of the culture,” Erawan mentioned. “Many people prioritise the wrong things in their cultural expressions. They are much more interested in dressing like Balinese and telling everyone on social media they are Balinese instead of obtaining the high level of knowledge needed to understand our complex culture and religion.”
Rio Helmi, an Indonesian photographer whose work focuses on the interplay between Indigenous peoples and their surroundings, agrees.
He fears time is working towards Balinese tradition.
“As to the strength of the culture, I think there is some truth to that,” he advised Al Jazeera. “But a lot of it is about identity rather than involvement in the deeper side of the culture and its values. What I am seeing now feels more like form over function. People always repeat the phrase ‘tri hita karana’ – maintaining a good relationship between man and God, man and nature, man and the environment – but often it feels like a slogan, a bandage to cover up bad things like people building on sacred land. We have to be careful about making generalisations as there are still many people who live traditionally. But the power of money is everywhere.”
Today, multi-storey resorts and condominiums many occasions taller than coconut bushes are popping up throughout the island’s conventional rice fields. However the largest show of the disparity between kind and performance, Helmi says, will probably be on show throughout the ogah-ogah procession in Ubud, the religious coronary heart of Bali that has expanded from a sleepy cultural village right into a bustling vacationer hotspot, the place there will probably be loudspeakers, memento distributors and bandstands.
“It will be a real show put on for tourists, whereas in the villages the events will be about introspection, the sense of the year coming to an end and chasing the demons out. It is their moment, their culture. It is not a show,” Helmi mentioned.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/17/old-ways-survive-in-bali-despite-mass-tourism-but-for-how-long?traffic_source=rss
