Totally Authentic

Bali's economy is based on tourism, both of its natural beauties & its culture. But this is not a one-way system in which the locals serve up some unadulterated “Culture” for outsider consumption; Culture is the explicit product here, & so as in any good market, the supply is heavily determined by demand.

I first visited Ubud with E 10 years ago. In 1997 we came to pick up some painted wooden masks that he’d commissioned from a local artist, for a production of the Croatian “King Gordogon”, which he directed at Stanford. We trekked through rice paddies & down rural roads to find the mask-maker’s family compound (smiling children, pigs & chickens, walls & walls of hairy masks), everyone along the way (bathing in the ditches, doing laundry) asking us Where are you going? We’re off to see Ida Bagus, the maskmaker! Are you married? Belum, we said, again & again. Not yet.

This time, 10 years later & married, we came as tourists. I knew that the Bali bombings in 2002 had hurt the economy & so (without researching it) fully expected to find Ubud in a sorry state. I wanted to spend some dollars here. To my surprise, however, the main tourist street of Ubud is easily twice as prosperous looking as it was a decade ago. To all appearances: it’s packed & thriving. That’s good for people here, but if I’d known this in advance, I might not have returned.

What I struggle to wrap my head around is what it really means to be a cultural tourist in Ubud. On the one hand, the place is chock full of things that you can only find in Bali: temple festivals, dances, stone carvings, puppets, masks, textiles, artifacts. It’s why you go. On the other hand, none of this would be happening at all—certainly not like this, anyway—if there weren’t a demand from foreigners to produce them.

And that demand changes the product.

An example: driving down the main street, one big change in the last decade is textile dye lots. What I mean is that the COLORS of sarongs, quilts & fabrics in every shop & market, effectively painting the entire downtown, are now both darker & richer in tone, no longer primarily of the lighter Balinese palette, but more suited to western tastes. My tastes. And sure enough: I like them more now. So what exactly have I bought?

Take the kecak fire dance. Kecak [pronounced: k’chawk] dances are amazing. If you come to Bali, definitely go see a kecak. It’s good spectacle & you won’t see it anywhere else. However, the kecak dance was invented in the 1930s for tourists by the Russian-born German artist & musician Walter Spies [pronounced: Speese]. Our hotel Tjampuhan was Spies’ house, where he stayed at the behest of the Prince of Ubud (& may be responsible for the pornographic wall of monkeys over the pool). We stayed there in part because of that history. During Spies’ time there, he started an entire painting movement as well, which continues in the shops of Ubud to this day.

So: is the nearly 80 year old kecak Balinese? Is it traditional? Is it authentic? Is it Disneyland? Would you fly across the world to see it? You can only see it here.

When we go to see an “authentic” traditional dance performance at the Lotus Café the following is also true:

1—It starts not “in the evening” but at 7 PM, as advertised in ubiquitous printed programs.
2—It starts exactly on time.
3—It lasts a very watchable hour, instead of, say, going all night long, which “traditional” Balinese dance, wayang puppet performances & festivals commonly do.
4—The costumes are even brighter, more spectacular & expensive than anything you’ll see at a “real” temple festival.
5—The dancers are professionals, because they do this for a living, rather than doing this devotionally, say. Which means this is a much better show, artistically-speaking, than an “authentic” dance.
6—You can’t always, positively identify the form, because it has been heavily adapted to the tastes of tourists. The picture above? What are they, rabbits? They are too old for the Legong dance it’s advertised to be.

But all right: they’re awfully cute & I’ll pay five bucks to see them hop, & to have a pina colada, & a view of the ‘temple’ & lotus pond. None of which is “originally” Balinese. All of which I enjoy.

When E was here 11 years ago, he suited up in full Balinese ceremonial dress & went to the Besakih temple in the mountains, even though it was entirely closed to outsiders. A major temple festival was underway. He was adopted by a Brahmin family, who took him into the temple—one of the only westerners there. He was there all day, praying along side the family, watching the entire proceedings. Arguably, THAT was authentic…even though he wasn’t Hindu. It’s not like wandering through Notre Dame during services.

We toured the exterior of the same gigantic temple complex during a minor festival with a guide this time, but were not allowed inside; you cannot buy a ticket for that. You have to be a worshipper.
YOU have to be "authentic".

So where am I exactly & what am I doing here? Is it worth flying around the world to see a thing made up just for me? I guess it depends how you get your kicks. I had a very good time, but I don't know that I'd do it this way again.

Leaving the market one day, I over-heard a set of Australian tourists laughing to one another over a watch-seller’s “Rolex” pitch: “Authentic reproduction!”