Bali Belly » Life in Bali / Life in Mars

Nyepi or Happy New Year|Shut Up!

lazy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:37:43 +0000

This year, Nyepi falls on March 7th according to our Balinese calendar (March 8th according to Microsoft Outlook… I guess that calendar sharing thing still has a few glitches).

Just in case you’re not familiar with the holiday, here’s what you need to know.

Pronunciation

Nyuh-pee.

Consequence

Sorry, the island is closed today (March 7th, 2008).

Please try again tomorrow.

Background on the Nyepi Holiday

The whole Nyepi thing can be a little confusing (I’m still confused about it after all this time) and while there’s plenty of information online, it can, at times seem a little contradictory — here is a little of what you might find:

It’s a Lunar Holiday or it’s the Saka/Caka/Sashi New Year:

There are 3 calendars commonly used in Bali: Gregorian (European calendary, 365 or 366 days, 12 months, 52 weeks and a few glaring errors); Pawukon (a Bali-only calendar, 210 days, 10 weeks running concurrently) and the Saka, Caka or Sashi calendar which is a 420 day long lunar calendar (first day of every month follows a full moon).

In Bali, Nyepi falls on the first day of the Caka New Year and, this year, that means March 7th will be Saka New Year’s day, 1930.

Nyepi is a Solar Holiday (or the Spring Equinox):

This is probably the most confusing thing for me… I mean:

If Nyepi is a lunar holiday, how can it be a solar holiday?
How can Nyepi be a celebration of the Spring Equinox if we only have two seasons here; wet & dry?
Isn’t the whole concept of Spring Equinox a pagan thing?

I don’t have answers for these questions… but no-one I know thinks of Nyepi as a Spring anything.

Nyepi is the Hindu/Dharma New Year:

The Saka calendar is a (Bali) Hindu calendar and thus yes, Nyepi is a Hindu New Year Celebration.

Fun for all the family:

Nyepi is fascinating to me and one or two other people because it’s a day of silence.

Let me clarify that:

As far as I know (going by what I’ve been told and what I’ve experienced), Nyepi will begin at dawn (6:00 AM) March 7th and go until dawn March 8th, the following day.

During that time, we’re not supposed to the following things:

Amati Geni: No fire/light (= no electrical appliances or engines or lighting cigarettes)
Amati Karya: No working (= no cooking or anything)
Amati Lelunganan: No travelling (=not allowed out)
Amati Lelanguan: No eating (Fasting)

I’ve read that in Bali, only Balinese must observe Nyepi but visitors (ex-pats, non-Balinese Indonesians, non-Hindu Balinese and tourists) also observe Nyepi out of respect.

This is not entirely true — or has never been true for me: the day is in fact enforced (if I can use that word) by the local communities; if you’re here, you have no choice but to observe. Your options are to stay at whichever hotels have purchased limited exceptions for themselves or to go to Lombok or any other island.

To help keep people on the straight and narrow, members of the community participate in policing the local villages as Pecalang — basically, guys walking around with flashlights shouting at you if they see you watching tv or whatever. If you go away for the weekend and forget to switch off any automatic lighting, you’ll find the bulbs carefully removed or, more amusing, smashed by the time you return.

A Wonderful Tradition & a Jolly Good Idea:

I’ve read on a few sites that Nyepi is an old, established tradition of Balinese Hindus — as far as I know, that’s not so: the observance of silence and the 4 Amatis outlined above were put in place relatively recently by people high up in the Bali government or administration.

I wish I knew who and when but, so sorry, I don’t.

I’m guessing, however, it only goes back to the 1980s or 70s — if anyone knows for sure, don’t be afraid to enlighten me.

Anyhoo, there’s a lot of talk around the web of what a great, awesome, spiritual, lovely, heartwarming, unique, brilliant, eco-friendly type of day it is.

Can’t say I agree wholeheartedly.

Here’s my take on it:

Personally, I enjoy Nyepi. It’s great to have an excuse to not answer the phone. Or go shopping. Or do anything much. For example, I won’t be cutting the grass on Nyepi. Excellent. Or driving down to the shop. Or walking to the shop. Brilliant.

I will sit out in the garden and listen to the cows, dogs, geese and so on.

I will light fires (I smoke).

I will make coffee (otherwise, no waking up).

The Air Conditioning will be running.

The TV will be on

There will be a few lights on this evening (hopefully where no-one from the neighbourhood will catch on)..

What I don’t like about Nyepi is that there’s no choice.

Everything shuts. There are small groups of local security patrolling the area and knocking on doors and shouting at people if they have a light on or whatever.

If Bali had set aside a day where you could, if you wanted, sit inside (or outside) and contemplate your navel; a time when shops had to close (no commerce) but not major infrastructure establishments like Hospitals, Fire Stations, Police and so on… I think I’d be all for it.

As it is, I shall join most Balinese by celebrating the day quietly — a nod to the authorities in terms of covered windows, low lights, volume down on the tv but inside I”ll be enjoying re-runs of the Premier League; having a nice hot meal and doing some webwork.

Ah, tricks learnt during a dictatorship that continue to pay dividends long after Ozymandius is gone and his mighty works turned to dust.

Sean

Some Links for you:

Bali Nyepi Info

Nyepi – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/24/opinion/edhogue.php

Indian Hindu Info:

http://www.bjp.org/today/may_0103/may_2_p_19.htm

Monday Morning

lazy — Mon, 15 May 2006 02:06:04 +0000

Monday morning at Indonesia Export and we’re still working on getting one of the offices painted right… still looks less than perfect to me.

The weekend was a breeze — hot and sunny. Didn’t do much except to sit around and wait for Mount Merapi to blow its top.

Got a call on Sunday evening — a friend of Athina’s heard a large bang and thought maybe there’d been another terrorist attack so we spent a few hours checking online and watching the news but as far as we can tell, nothing much happened. Most likely a neighbor overdosing on Spermamax.

33 days to go and I’ll be married… so excited about it.

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Bali, Pornography & Public Morality

lazy — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 01:55:37 +0000

I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about the proposed new pornography laws in Indonesia and, yes, I find a great deal of it disquieting.

At the office, this topic has featured in five or six different lunchtime conversations and everyone does have an opinion.

Last week, we went as far as to get ourselves a copy of the bill and I had it translated. Interesting reading to say the least.

But why the broohaha? It’s a law. Indonesia doesn’t enforce them anyway. Pornography’s against the law (meaning the hardcore stuff) but you can get it pretty much anywhere.

Dildoes & vibrators are against the law but if I remember one recent news article correctly, you can buy them and inflatable sex dolls online at a Jakarta website.

Prostitution and drugs are against the law but if you go out to a nightclub and don’t get offered sex for money and a bunch of drugs, it’s a weird night.

So why worry about yet another new law that won’t be enforced?

I guess to one extent, the threat to Bali would be tourism… not that g-string wearing exotic dancers have anything to do with it — the new law proposes a dress code that excludes stuff like bikinis (belly buttons, etc.) from places not designated for sports.

I guess in Bali that would require all the beaches be sports grounds and everyone be forced to carry a surfboard (or at least a tennis ball) into the waves… hmmmn. I wonder what the cops and coast guards will wear? Baywatch it won’t be.

One comment at lunch was that the law was unfair.

But, at the risk of sounding pompous and pretentious (moi?), when was “The Law” ever fair? Representational, possibly. Shaped by public opinion possibly but that doesn’t mean fair.

In fact, on those two points alone, you already know that the law would have a built-in tendency to marginalise. What’s fair for the majority, will most likely be bloody inconvenient for certain minorities. And as for those who argue that the law by definition is impartial… pah!

So, we’re in a Moslem country and the new laws represent that culture. Sounds alright to me.

Anyway, you could easily argue that tourism and Islam are a conflict right from the get-go. I won’t argue that… but just about anyone else could.

Certainly, if you are the type of person who believes in Heaven (of whichever stripe) and you’re hellbent (heheh) on getting there, swanning around half-naked on the beach in Bali seems incompatible with that aim.

All of that said (and I know, I know: I’ve already said too much), I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I believe the law is anything like a good idea but my reasons might be a little different.

Firstly, I think Indonesia, so far, has done a grand job transitioning from dictatorship to democracy. Compared with other large dictatorships (China & USSR spring to mind), in my opinion, I’ve seen relatively little of the fragmentation, ethnic / religious strife and chaos or bloodshed. No, it hasn’t been perfect and hassle-free but what is?

Generally speaking however, from where I’m sitting, the transition has been friendly, peaceful and somewhat elegant. Surprisingly so.

That said, there’s still plenty of work for a new government to do so given what I see in terms of the economic, legal, medical and educational infrastructures… belly buttons and kissing in public seem very, very far down the list.

In other words, I would say the implementation of new laws to control public morality is a distraction from the main body (pun intended… natch) of work that the government would pursue in the best interests of the people.
Then, I also think at these time in Indonesian history, it’s maybe not the best time to focus on new laws, maybe the country might be better served shoring up, pruning and improving the existing legal infrastructure to more effectively enforce the laws we already have.

In other words, there’s plenty of work to be done at the courts and law enforcement centres ahead of making new laws. And that’s just as true about organisation and logistics as it is true about corruption and nepotism

Perhaps, most of all, I’m not a fan of any government at any time, taking steps to control the morals of the citizens… I just don’t see it as part of the government mandate. I also find it to be counter-productive. I prefer governments that walk softly with big sticks; that don’t talk, talk, talk; that take care of the people’s business effectively and efficiently.

Admittedly, it would be a government that I’ve yet to see. As wonderful an organisation as a news media outlet with a lead story of “No News Today… so gone fishing… please check back later.”

Well, that’s enough from me on this topic… I’ll sign off to contemplate my navel… in the privacy of my own home of course.

Sean

Going to Jail in Bali — doesn’t seem like such a bad thing really…

lazy — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 07:27:01 +0000

Ok, you can pretty much ignore the title but an interesting thing…
Yesterday, over lunch with the chaps of Indonesia Export, going over the weekend activities, it turned out that Antonia went to mass at Kerobokan jail (most recently featured worldwide with stories on the Bali Nine, Schappelle Corby and all the other distinguished Australian ambassadors of goodwill currently serving time or getting shot on Bali).

Of all the places I’ve never thought of going to mass, not going to mass at the local jail would have to be in the top ten (convoluted, I know).

So I was quite interested to see photos of Bali jail — no politics in it, just one of those places in Bali that you don’t get to see very often (unless watching drug dealers sobbing) and not as dark or awful as you might have imagined.

Everybody looks pretty relaxed and well fed.

One guy’s wearing a gold watch (ahem).

Having said that, Heppy (one of the chaps) also used to visit the jail quite frequently with the priests to say mass… (used to be an altar boy).

According to Hep, the cells at Kerobokan jail are really quite dismal and crappy. Of course, in Bali, in Jail, you’d be more worried about getting buggered than anything else but there you go.

Anyway, I figured someone out there might be interested so, enjoy.

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Is there life on Mars (is there life in Peckham)

lazy — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 08:47:23 +0000

If I remember correctly, that was Alexei Sayle and “Ullo John, got a new motor?” And who said the Brits weren’t funny?