On Being Queer Abroad

There's not much (read: nothing) by way of LGBT community here as far as I can tell, so I hadn't given this topic much thought before today. I've been emailing with one of my friends (hi, Jack) about it lately, though, so I thought I'd throw some thoughts out there (how's that for alliteration) for consideration.

Being in Bali has, in some ways, been a little bit like being back in the closet. During orientation, I asked a bit about Balinese responses to queerness¹ and Pak Tom explained that people here don't have any particular problems with it, but the older generation is completely unfamiliar with it. So, as a result, I didn't tell my host family that I have a girlfriend or that I consider myself queer. Bahasa Indonesia facilitates that, since there aren't any gender pronouns. When someone asks me if I "sudah punya pacar," they're technically asking if I already have a significant other, since "pacar" is gender neutral. I can say yes, and since there's only one pronoun that encompasses both he and she, I can have an entire conversation without divulging her gender (sorry, J). (There are slang terms for girlfriend and boyfriend, "cewek" and "cowok," respectively, but it's easy to answer "sudah punya cowok" with "ya, saya sudah punya pacar di Amerika," yes, I already have a significant other in America.) So I'm in an odd in-between: I'm not quite in the closet, but nor am I particularly out.

But that raises the question of why I'm not out to them. Part of it, I think, is language: I'm not sure how to explain LGBT issues in Indonesian, and if I were to declare myself queer to my host family I'd probably need to explain it. I am out to the other students on my program, the program directors, and the language teachers (both of whom are Balinese), without much issue. (There's been a little bit of homophobia on the part of one of the students, but I won't go into that.) Interestingly, I've had no problem with the language staff; I've actually had a couple of conversations with Mirah, one of my teachers, about it because she wanted to know more. So if I haven't felt judged or ostracized by them, why my hesitancy toward telling my family?

Part of it, I think, was that I was afraid of making them uncomfortable with me before they got to know me, which is a fallacy I've fallen into in the past and that I think a lot of LGBT people find themselves worrying about. Because we queer folk are made to think that there's something wrong with us, there's a tendency to assume that everyone will automatically feel that way. So I assumed my host family would be somehow offended, and held back. (At this point, it feels like coming out would be a little bit odd, since I've only got roughly another week with them. But maybe I'm still just making excuses. Who knows?)

At the same time, I do question Pak Tom's assertion that people are completely unfamiliar with queerness. A month or so ago, I was watching a game show on TV with my ibu, and while I'm not sure what exactly was going on, I do know that two of the contestants were drag queens. (I don't think they were transgendered, but that's my own ignorance showing through.) My ibu didn't seem particularly offended; if anything she was amused. (In fact, she described them as "aneh," weird, but conceded that the particularly fabulous one was "cantik," beautiful, when I called them both that.) When I asked her about them, she said that crossdressing is fairly common in Java (the show was presumably from Jakarta) but that "they didn't have them in Bali." That's probably true; most queer people in Bali either move to Kuta, the big beach & nightclub city, or to Jakarta, or they stay closeted and eventually get married to someone of the opposite sex, since children are so important here. Still, it highlighted to me the fact that, at least in terms of crossdressing and transgenderism (transgenderness? someone correct me please?), there's a bit of a "not in my backyard" mentality. There's certainly no sense that a crossdresser would be in any danger here, just that he or she wouldn't be particularly accepted.

I'm not sure exactly what to make of all of this. A large part of me does wish that I'd come out earlier so that I could have talked with my ibu about it, but I'm also not sure what I could have said, since my Indonesian vocabulary doesn't extend very far into the realm of love and relationships. Still, it's important to lay a groundwork. I wish I were a little more familiar with queer rights and visibility here, but I suppose there's no better time to start than now.


¹ I know that "queer" means a lot of different things to different people, so I'll clarify. When I say queer, I'm generally referring to the entire Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender continuum. I do this for two reasons. First, I think that saying LGBT is kind of clunky and it's easier to just say queer. Second, I don't like to declare myself as bisexual because of all of the baggage that comes along with that (people's assumptions that I'm either indecisive or promiscuous, neither of which is particularly accurate) so I find that queer works as a general "not straight" label. Feel free to ask questions if that's not clear.

I Guess I'll Actually Update This Thing

Sorry for the lull between posts. I've mostly been focusing on my ISP, so there's not all that much to report from the last few weeks. There is, however, a big festival going on at Pura Samuan Tiga, not far from my host family's house (really only a few blocks). My ibu has been spending all of her free time putting together offerings for it, and this morning she went to the market around 5 in the morning (or so she told me last night; I wasn't awake to confirm her departure) to buy fruit for offerings. The volleyball field (court?) near the temple, down the street from our program center, has been converted to sort of a tent city of warungs. Since people come from all over the area for the temple festival (which goes on for something like two weeks), locals set up food stalls to make a little extra profit. Perhaps later some pictures -- I keep forgetting to take my camera with me when I go places.

What else? I did end up switching my ISP topic just before the ISP period began. Instead of researching and writing about folktales, I've been writing stories of my own. One of them is loosely based on a popular Balinese folktale/legend, the story of Jayaprana and Layonsari. I won't recount it in full here, but Jessie has described it as a combination of King David from the Old Testament and Romeo and Juliet. (Admittedly, I remember next to nothing about King David -- is he the one from David & Goliath? -- so I can't quite vouch for the accuracy of that statement. Sorry, Dad.) My second story is based on things my ibu has told me about her life growing up and with her children, and the third is about topeng and sort of about Balinese Hinduism. All in all, I've written over 50 pages of fiction this month -- so you can understand why I haven't been up to much else.

That's about it for now, but sometime in the next couple of days I'll try to get out and take some more pictures. I'd like to get take some pictures of Bedulu, so that you all might be able to get a better sense of daily life. More later!

Things I See on My Walk Home from Mas

People. Many of whom want to know my name, where I’m going (home to Bedulu), where I’m coming from (learning mask-making), and why I’m walking so far when I could just flag down a motorcycle. Others want me to get out of their way on the street, and still more just want to know how I’ll respond when they say “hello.” Others — and this is one of the smallest categories — ignore me. A few, like the guy who shook my hand and then firmly gripped my wrist, want to sell me things or give me a ride. Those people, though, are few and far between, and I generally feel remarkably safe walking alone. Most people just want to know why I, a bule (slang for white person or tourist), am walking by, such a long way from home.

Rice, although not as much as I would expect, given that agriculture is Bali’s second-largest source of income. Along my five- or six-kilometer walk, the fields are concentrated in three or four spots. Mas is in the greater Ubud area, a huge tourist destination, so most people make a living carving masks and other things. For some reason, ducks are an especially popular subject.

Temples, at least four of them. Temples are hugely important here — just three nights ago I went to a temple festival that will last for ten nights to accommodate all the people who want to attend. I should point out that the four in my tally doesn’t include each family’s personal shrine, which would bring the count up to several hundred.

Offerings. Usually small, just a canang sari (a small square palm leaf basket filled with flowers) and a stick of incense, but frequently placed, in front of almost every house or shop. Today, though, as far as I can tell, is a holy day, and the offerings stand in small spires, honoring one god or another.

Chickens. Even when they aren’t growing rice, Balinese people pretty much always have a few chickens on hand. The chickens have free range of the yard, street, and generally the neighborhood. I still am unsure of how everyone identifies their own. They’re everywhere, and sometimes this doesn’t work out so well for them: yesterday, I passed a hen in the street, lying on her back and feebly flapping her wings after being hit by a car or motorcycle. Surprisingly, though, these chickens apparently aren’t all as dumb as they look. For the most part, very little harm comes to them.

Trash. Up until fairly recently, all Balinese trash was organic, so people just chucked it in a pile and waited for it to turn into compost. The Indonesian infrastructure doesn’t seem to have kept up with the introduction of plastics, so the trash just keeps stacking up. There’s not such thing as a dump, as far as I can tell — just piles by the road. Despite the heat, they don’t smell, probably due to the masses of chickens picking them over for food. Occasionally I also see smoke, from people burning what of their trash that they can. (Sometimes this includes what wouldn’t normally be considered “burnable” and the smell of melting plastic fills the air.)

An addendum to people: naked people. For the last stretch of the back road, before I hit the main road that runs from Ubud to Gianyar, people bathe in the canal that runs alongside it. This leads to the awkward situation of me wanting to return the greetings of the kids who shout “hello” to me, but not wanting to offend anyway by invading their privacy. Mostly, I just keep my eyes down and try to wave at the right (read: clothed) people.

Dogs. Mangy-looking ones. It’s hard to tell between the strays and the pets, because there’s a different concept of pet care here. I’m not usually afraid of dogs, but I am in Bali, because rabies is endemic and I just generally don’t trust things that growl menacingly at me. Usually, they ignore me if I ignore them, but yesterday I must have looked at one mother dog wrong, because she started chasing after me. It wasn’t until I turned around and yelled “stop!” that she did, leaving me to walk on with shaking legs and a pounding heart.

Ogoh-ogoh. This year, Nyepi (sort of the Balinese New Year) will occur in mid-March. For one day, all of Bali will fall silent to trick the demons into believing the island is uninhabited. The day before Nyepi, people make as much noise as they can, and parade around giant puppets of mythical figures, demons, and deities fighting. These puppets are ogoh-ogoh. They're huge, usually significantly larger than life-size. The neighborhood boys make them, starting a month or two before Nyepi. They weave the figure out of palm leaf, then cover it with newspaper strips and styrofoam and paint it. In the afternoon until late at night, a horde of boys gathers to work on it. Yesterday, one bunch asked for a donation, so I swapped 1000 rupiah (roughly ten cents) for a chance to paint a few stripes of white across the ogoh-ogoh’s chest.

Explosions. Some of the kids building ogoh-ogoh also build makeshift canons — basically large PVC tubes with gasoline poured into them. They shoot them off randomly, starting mid-afternoon. Yesterday, one of the older kids was nice enough to order the younger ones to hold fire while I walked by. Still, once I had passed, I steeled myself for the imminent bang. I guess even in Bali, given half the chance, kids still just like to blow shit up.

So yeah -- just a few notes about everyday life here in Bali and the things I see on a regular basis. I'm still terrified of the dogs, but hopefully I'll manage to avoid getting hit by an ogoh-ogoh-cannon.

As promised, pictures of Bedugul

The view from the road into the mountains. Usually you can pick strawberries here,
but there weren't any because it's the rainy season.

Pura Ulun Danu in Bedugul. During the dry season you can walk to it,
but right now it's effectively an island.

Sylvie, Mirah (one of our language teachers) and Frances by Lake Beratan.

A Balinese fisherman by Lake Beratan.

Sanur was good, although mostly uneventful. We befriended a Javanese kid who called himself Roger Michael Steve and may or may not have been lying all the time, since his background story was pretty ridiculous. There were also a few moments of panic when we heard about the tsunami warning, but it turned out to be no big deal (although obviously not in Chile).

Now we're back in Bedulu, returning to the standard class-topeng-hang out with homestay family pattern. I figure it might be good to say a few things about everyday Balinese life, so here goes. Bear with me if I've mentioned some of these things already.

1. Music. Balinese culture is incredibly musical -- it's not uncommon to walk past people practicing gamelan on their front porch, or to hear gamelan accompanying a ceremony until late into the night. The younger people are definitely into current music, especially punk rock, the Cranberries, and Bob Marley (I think I've heard "Buffalo Soldier" about 10 times in the last hour at this internet cafe). They all listen to music on their HP (hand phones, i.e. cell phones), but it's not uncommon for them to switch back and forth between Bob Marley, the Ramones, and traditional gamelan.

2. Originally bizarre-sounding greetings, the first of which is "mau ke mana?" which basically translates to "where are you going?" At first this comes across as an unnecessarily nosy question, but it's really just like saying "what's up?" Also, it's perfectly reasonable to reply "jalan-jalan," which means "just walking around." Another weird greeting is "sudah mandi?" which my host mother asks me all the time. It means "have you already bathed?" which at first seems really rude and made me thing I always smelled terrible. Then I realized it was basically asking if you're feeling refreshed. Balinese people bathe frequently, at least twice a day, almost always with cold water, which is in fact incredibly refreshing.

3. Marriage and babies. Although Balinese young adults are getting married later these days, my host sister-in-law is only 22 and she and her husband have an 8-month-old baby. My ibu frequently asks me if I have a boyfriend in America and teases me about getting married soon. Also, if two people are married but don't have kids, the term is always "belum" (not yet) rather than "tidak" (no) - it's assumed the couple just hasn't been married very long. (This has led to interesting conversations about the marital status of family members, etc.)

4. Ritual: a huge part of everyday life, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention something about it. Offerings are put out basically whenever food is cooked, and of course at other important times. The Balinese calendar involves a 7-day week, a 5-day week, and a 3-day weeks (as well as another system I don't really understand), and when certain days of the weeks overlap, it is a particularly auspicious time and festivals may occur. Also, every 210 days, a given temple will have an odalan, or a temple birthday, which is a big festival.

That's about it for now, but I'll post more as I think of it. Let me know if there are other things I should be talking about!