Debunking 'Paradise'

Debunking 'Paradise'

Bali 2day: Modernity Jean Couteau, et al. Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, August 2005 238 pp

Vidhyasuri Utami, Contributor/Jakarta

White sands, lush tropical rice fields and exotic rites are the ingredients from which stems the "Paradise" image of Bali, an island once believed by its inhabitant to originate from a fish exposed to light by Ida Sanghyang Widi Wasa (God).

Bali is now the backbone of Indonesian tourism. It is indeed through the island's exotic appeal that "native" Balinese, "civilized" Westerners and others have been into contact with one another for much of the last hundred years. Their sometimes difficult encounter is the background theme of Bali 2day: Modernity, a small, yet fascinating book recently published by Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia.

Who would be better entitled to depict Balinese modernity than a bunch of cynical, yet debonair transnational writers -- foreign and Indonesian -- residing in Bali? Most of the vignettes collected in this book are from the pages of the erstwhile English section of the Bali Post, gathered by Jean Couteau, its editor and principal writer.

The other contributors are Usadhi Wiryatnaya, Benito Lopulalan, Degung Santikarma, Yuliarsa Sastrawan and "Gung Gede" Roberts, accompanied by Wayan Sadha's illustrations and caricatures.

Bali 2day exposes the quirkiness of modernity in Indonesia's Paradise Island. Its "natives" may see themselves as followers of the Religion of Water (agama Tirta), but they are still perceived, as shown in a Time advertisement criticized in the book, as "bare-breasted worshipers of the sun".

And, although they dress in Western clothes and espouse Western virtues, they often fail to understand modern rationality, becoming in the process peeping toms, Eldorado dreamers and, always, victims of ill-fated circumstances.

Yet, since it is the "quirkiness of modernity" that gives the book its tone, the so-called agents of modernity -- i.e. the tourists, foreigners, bule -- are no less weird than their "native" counterparts.

They too behave in ways prone to raise people's brows. One dreams of being cremated in Bali and another, after making a girl pregnant, refuses to visit his young wife and newborn son before hearing God's call and becoming a priest.

So, while the Balinese, and Indonesians, may appear as preys of a modernity imposed from above, their foreign guests are doubtless themselves the castaways of their own modern societies. Both identities, "local" and "foreign", inescapably bear the mark of irrationality and alienation.

What is, then, the value of modernity, the book seems to ask, if it creates estrangement instead of communication?

This book, a debunking of the myth of Bali, shows us that paradise is indeed nowhere to be found in this modern world.

Whether you are local or foreign, Bali 2day exposes many of Bali's hidden truths. To quote from Goenawan Mohamad's foreword, the book "demolishes every image one builds about Bali ... it is a cliche against cliches and a collage of unpleasing lampoons [that] make a polyvalent portrait of Bali that is necessarily unfinished".

A must for travellers to "Paradise Island", as well as thinkers and pilgrims, it gives a clear, yet stunningly different view of Bali.