Monday, February 21, 2011

Expat Culture

©2011 Rudolf Helder
The expats in Bali are a mixed lot, as you can expect. I've only met a few so far, but in general they appear a bit unkempt and covered with a layer of fine dust that over time has nestled in their pores, adding a thin gray filter to their appearance that seems to foreshadow imminent decay. Fitting, as they may be destined to die in their newly adopted domicile. Distancing themselves from their country of origin is also evident from the garb they don, a mix of resort clothing, semi-transparent tropical tops, vests of various folklore, big ass harem pants, and Balinese ceremonial sarongs, with or without head dress, beads, noisy bracelets, ankle bells, nose rings, sailor tattoos, rubber tire sandals, and local companion, human or canine, in tow.

They often hang around the kind of place that caters to the less affluent traveler, the more organic-aware, where they can be found lounging home-style, dirty feet on the cushions, replying email on laptops plastered with more stickers than a steamer trunk, or spelling every article from ads for door nails to the obituaries in a several days old L'Express, Herald-Tribune, or Stuttgarter Zeitung. Time no longer matters, but stale news from the homeland does...

Many have acquired a scooter, moped, or motorbike and figure that, while not enforced, wearing a helmet buffers them against the kind of reckless driving the Balinese, and dare I say Asians as a demographic, engage in.

What strikes me most is that, save a few, most of these expats are—brace yourself—butt ugly, no really, as if cast from their country by border officials, told not to return and create their offspring elsewhere, which some have, colorful children, many of mixed heritage, growing up without other role models than a tribe of misfit aliens.
While I'm not sure how to jive this last bit of observation with my sense of compassion toward those less fortunate in the physical attractiveness department, the good part is that it makes the Balinese look so much better in comparison.

Not to appear rudimentary () in my observations I must make a distinction between the kind of expat that appears to be adrift with little or no interest in the surrounding culture and only try to stretch their funds to the max and those that have anchored themselves in Bali's society, in short the entrepreneurial kind, brains hard-wired for business, but fueled by alternative energy from organic compost, rather than a singular recipe of unadulterated greed that powers mainstream America's enterprise. They operate small businesses that cater to the green crowd, no-longer-young yoginis, the natural this and that faddists, maybe even their aforementioned apathetic, lethargic, beadie-smoking, dreadlocked, dropped-out counterparts, and seem to do well.
These expats are not content becoming part of the timeless wallpaper every popular destination plasters over locales that seem to impede improvement: bus terminals, open air chess clubs, street corners, fast food joints, video game arcades, internet cafes, and night markets, all "last gas station before the desert" kind of places. In fact, they may very well deliver the crossbreeding every society needs that's otherwise stagnant in thoughtless exploitation of its history and cultural expressions, even though "progress" will no doubt exact a hefty price.

Where in these characterizations I fit (if ever and if at all) I'm not sure just yet, but I promise you'll be the first to know.

2 comments:

Swimmer Allen said...

Ah...then things haven't changed in the last 30 year since I was on the Southeast travel trail - saw that tribe then - they are still surviving?

Allen

Rudolf Helder said...

They're hanging on, waiting for the next Bali Spirit Festival to come around http://www.balispiritfestival.com/ and have their hipsy-gypsy status validated by other yellow-mellow space cadets on the eternal love-trail.