Musings from Bali

Just got back to Singapore and did the night shift at grandmas wake so feeling a bit zonked.

But here's a copy paste of stuff I wrote on our last evening in Bali on MS word and didnt have internet connectino to update:

6 Jan 2010
Senu Pension, Umekuta village, Bali 6pm to 9pm

Sweat

I think we perspired more in the last 5 days than we ever did in 2009. But that’s most forgivable because we were in Europe for most of it. What’s scary is that when working full time in Singapore, I actually remember avoiding perspiring for almost all of the year as well (2006 perhaps). I slept in air con, took the air con cab/bus to work. (very little walking in the open air in between), ate at an air con food court for lunch, drank at an air con pub at night (some times open air, but by evening time its cool already), then dinner at home in air con or cool fan and the whole thing repeat. What about exercise? Yes only if I visited the gym perhaps. But our gyms are blasted with so much air con, you don’t sweat for very long and very much.

Living in an air conditioned world divides us further from the natural world. As if buildings and roads isn’t enough. We don’t even want to breathe the fresh air. Oh but Singapore is so hot everyone says. Yes it is, we’re bang on the equator. But what I really think makes Singapore unbearably hot is that most of the time, we’re surrounded by too much concrete, too much traffic and too many people. I can’t speak for all Singaporeans (there are a lot of Singaporeans who still don’t use air con at home and do lotsa outdoor activities like my own mother). But for me, and I speak for many ‘office workers’ like me who work in the city, it’s truly horrible being in the heat in Singapore.

This time in Bali, we decided to rent a little cottage in a rice farming village near Ubud, we are surrounded by so much and I really mean, so so so much green it feels amazing. Rice padis, coconut trees etc. I still feel the heat, (and am enjoying the company of creepy crawlies of all sorts), but being surrounded by nature cools me down. The sun will set eventually, the breeze will come if you wait and the rain will give away to coolness. There’s a balance that’s already programmed in nature evolved over millions of years. Yeah, we know how hot it can be, especially at midday, so don’t go walking in the sun at midday! We know there are mozzies around, so cover up and wear loose cool clothes and grow natural mosquito repellants! There’s a natural and easy solution to most inconvenience we experience in nature. The short cut is using air conditioning that sucks up so much energy we rape from mother earth just to pretend we’re in Europe for a while.

Benefits of an air-con less world

- Tons of energy saved from NOT producing aircon units, shipping them around the world and power to run them.
- Sunshine and being tanned is healthy and native people need not worry about skin cancer because of years of evolution and adaptation
- Fresh air (applicable only if you are in an area with fresh air outside!)
- Air con air is not fresh, it is recycled and therefore gross!
- One gets disconnected from the ‘outside world’ and becomes dependant on feeling cool artificially. Lose innate ability to cool oneself down
- Not perspiring means the body doesn’t release toxins it wants to.

Advantages of air con in a tropical humid place.
- Keep ‘comfortable’ and cool, so one can forget what an ugly atrocity of a city they live in.
- Clothes won’t stick to you.
- Body odor under control
- Ability go without shower for longer periods of time
- Keep mosquitoes and creepy crawlies out.

I live now with my in laws in a new-built little condo apartment on upper east coast road. And its obvious that whoever designed the house took no consideration whatsoever in ventilation of air. It doesn’t take a building expert to tell that the place is an oven. There is absolutely no air flowing through the apartment in all rooms and the concrete walls the & glass doors boil in the midday heat.

Right this very moment, we’re experiencing a powercut here in the cottage. Powercuts are common in Bali and its especially intense now as the sun is setting fast, natural light is fading and we don’t have the whirl of the fan or the noise of the tv distracting us from the sounds of nature. A cow is mooing ever so longingly for something im not sure what. Perhaps she’s bulling. We heard the cute ‘cukoo’ of the gecko I think Henny told us about. She says they are worth millions of dollars apparently! Coz the Balinese believe they are very spiritual or something. Now the dogs are going off, I hear a motor bike and even voices of men, perhaps 100 or even 200m away. And then there’s the orchestra of frogs, crickets and other insects singing away. This is the song of nature and how ironic that one can buy a CD of the ‘sounds of nature’ to distress and fall asleep when there are so many rural parts of the world one can experience this already. If we were in this exact spot, but sitting indoors in aircon, we would never be able to experience all this.

Wise words from Made, our Balinese herb walk guide cum herb grower, he said these all within our 3 hour tour and I recall all these by memory:

* Balinese believe that sky is man and earth is woman. When it rains, sky and earth meet like a man and a woman. But when you pave the road and put concrete down, you divide the two.
* The 3 tier philosophy – Good from human to human, human to environment, human to god.
* Most rice farmers are also artists. One reason is to supplement their income as rice farming will not make you a very wealthy man. And also they are just artists at heart. They gain inspiration from nature. All nature inspires Balinese art. Like the fluttering leaves of the coconut tree, it is mimicked in the traditional Balinese dance. Destroy nature, and inspiration will be destroyed.
* Trees that are taller than human are sacred and should not be cut down. Big temples usually have a very large tree that will protect and give shade and protection to the people and the gods/shrine.
* Ducks are nature’s cleaners, organic pesticides for farmers. Balinese believe that when you eat an animal, you take on a little bit of their characteristics. And to eat a duck is to take on wisdom and intelligence, because they work so well, eating all the insects and being an overall good animal.
* All Balinese make sure their heads face north when they sleep, as they pray to the 3 big lakes in the north that provide their land with irrigation for rice, and thus, for life. When they pray, they face north. A charming evidence of how the western concepts of geography has not touched these people - for people living in the north, they still say they face ‘north’ when they pray, when technically speaking they are facing polar south. That’s because their lakes are the centre of their world, it is their ‘north’. Not what westerners tell them north is.
* If you have human on one side and nature on the other, and you live your life always in the middle somewhere, you will be a happy and good person.
* Frangipanis – We asked Made what he thought of the Frangipanis getting this rust disease all over the island. Apparently, it’s a problem. But Made said that its happening because there are frangipanis everywhere when there used to be grown only in temples. He said when there’s too much of one thing, disease will come and take them away. Hinting again, that this is nature’s way of preserving balance in the world. It was an Avartar Jake Sully moment there, feeling like the ignorant child, focusing about only one small problem I see before me, not acknowledging the bigger balance in our world, and how we all need that balance to survive.
* Everyone has their choice. Everyone chooses their path, you cannot chose it for them.
* There is never 100% good in anything. In everything and everyone, there’s a good part and there’s a bad part. And therein lies the struggle in life, to try to have good triumph over bad.
* Life is 90% your own work and decisions, 10% destiny.

Earth's KY

Tasha, the lady we're gonig to stay with and help her build her cob buildings (mud & straw) is this real cool chick originally from New york but has been ‘stuck’ in bali and decided to just live in the land with her daughter and mother. It’s so cool. She says that taking all that oil from the earth is like taking the KY from mother nature. All this stored energy on earth was perhaps put here for a reason. We discovered it and now can do amazing things our ancestors never dreamed of.

Hunger

I’ve notice a different experience of hunger when in Singapore and when not. When wwoofing, the hunger is real. Its not funny, doesn’t kid. My body screams for energy replacement and it better get it. Of course, great wholesome organic fresh food is just delightful to the body and the continuous exchange of energy is harmonious and balanced. Not to mention shiok. But coming back to Singapore where I miss so much of our Singaporean food, the experience is kindda disappointing. Yes I do get hungry, but it’s the weak, pathetic kind of hunger. Definitely guilt has a part to play in there somewhere. Eating all that unhealthy food and not burning it at all anywhere is horrible! Sleeping in aircon then coming out to eat, then sitting in aircon car driving somewhere, then eating… all totally undeserved and fake. And now here in Bali, with all the sweating and walking in the blazing sun… the hunger I feel here is wicked. And eating the street Balinese food, perhaps despite being not super healthy and a tad too spicy, is probably fresh and if its good for the locals, its good enough for me. The portions are small too, so I haven’t yet felt the horrible guilt bulge of binging on too much too rich. All the waste and toxins released through the pores of my skin almost brings me closer to my peasant ancestors who probably toiled the farms for centuries in southern china. I’ve always attributed my love for rice (and my scary appetite for huge portions of it) to my assumed peasantry roots. My whole family is the same. We friggin love our rice and it feeds our soul.

Why should I care?

The challenge I face is not listing the ways we human kind are killing the earth. A lot of people already know plastic bags are bad, using too much energy is bad, driving car is bad. The challenge for me is when as I am explaining and listing all these things to people, I am returned with either a fading attention, or a ‘so what?’ kind of response in one way or another. A ‘I’ll be dead by then’ attitude or a ‘there are so many causes out there right now, save dafur, aids, Cambodia etc, why should I care about the environment and my so called evil corporations?’

I need to approach the world cautiously when explaining this whole new me. How shall I explain it? I need to declutter the messaging:

Being with nature, getting closer to my food, my environment gives me balance and gives me pleasure. I am jaded by the modern city world.

It’s absence of reminders of our place on earth, which is to live in balance with the rest of our related extended family (nature)


Its constant hum of consumerism – urging on to work harder and harder so we can buy more more more. It’s emptying me of my soul and physically exhausting me. Children? I shudder to bring up my children in this world, so I want to seek out a better one for them a more balanced one.


I am not against modernization and technology. Yes I am using a computer that was put together by an underpaid factory girl in China and owned by a giant Japanese tech brand. But I’m using it to good use, will not throw it away just coz I want an upgrade and that already sets a new balance to everything if everyone does the same.

Farming and permaculture is one way we are exploring this more stainable, back to basics lifestyle we want to pursue. Growing our own food is one step to a) reduce carbon footprint on the planet as we don’t need to get it shipped and flown. B) You don’t support the unecessary giant food growers, packagers, processors. C) You don’t support chemical industry that destroy the land in huge acres and acres. D) There’s just something in feeling the dirt between your fingers, seeing your plant grow and bear fruit that is so healing and rewarding. E) Health, you know exactly what you put into it and no or little processing involved.