Come of Age in Bali

When I hear about a coming of age ritual, I naturally imagine a 13-year-old memorizing a Torah portion in preparation for his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah. After all, that is when I made the transition from boyhood to manhood. I still wasn’t ready to drive, join the army, vote, drink or smoke, but in the Jewish tradition, I was ready to lead a Shabbat service. But in all seriousness, more important than becoming a certified “man” or being considered an adult, having my Bar Mitzvah connected me to my family and to my greater Jewish community. I am the eighth of ten first cousins, the seven older cousins had already had their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, and the two younger were still waiting their turn. We happen to be spaced about one-year apart spanning a decade; therefore, our yearly family reunion during the 1990’s revolved around this coming of age ceremony. And from that experience, I can appreciate a coming of age ritual regardless of what the ritual may specifically consist of.

My Bali expert, Fred Eiseman (writer of Bali: Sekala and Niskala), describes this coming of age ritual as a Tooth Filing. A time when an individual moves away from being “kasar” or coarse, and moves closer to being “alus” or refined. Eiseman puts it best in his book when he writes, “Balinese Hinduism can be very highly symbolic, and the one characteristic that epitomizes uncivilized, uncouth, coarse disposition is protruding canine teeth.” And like a Bar Mitzvah in the Jewish tradition, tooth filing has become an all-out event in the Bali Hindu tradition. Extended family, friends and community members celebrate this event together. The ceremony is called matatah. I will probably not opt to have a matata, but I did want to draw its possible similarities to events more familiar to me.

Under The Sea

me underwater
Me and my scuba gear off the coast of Tulamben, Bali

Darling it’s better, down where it’s wetter. Take it from me. Up on the shore they work all day. Out in the sun they slave away. While we devotin’ full time to floatin’ under the sea. Down here all the fish is happy, as off through the waves they roll. We got no troubles, life is the bubbles under the sea. Since life is sweet here, we got the beat here, naturally. We got the spirit. You got to hear it under the sea. The newt play the flute, the carp play the harp, the paice play the bass, and they soundin’ sharp. The bass play the brass, the chub play the tub, the fluke is the duke of soul. The ray he can play, the lings on the strings, the trout rockin’ out. The blackfish she sings the smelt and the sprat, they know where it’s at an’ oh that blowfish blow. Each little snail here know how to wail here. That’s why it’s hotter under the water. Ya we in luck here down in the muck here under the sea!

Sebastian’s version is quite accurate, but how would I describe being under the sea? It would be easier to stay in the abstract and describe it as unreal, as a sense of freedom, and as both calming and exhilarating. When the most prevalent sound is that coming from my own breath, my visibility only reaches about 15m, and I am completely weightless, it is both an empowering and frightening experience.

underwater fish
We found Nemo!

It is my first day diving. At 9am, I’m greeted by my dive instructor, Wayan, whose streaks of long gray hair immediately make me feel more confident. I am soon fitted with gear, which is no small task with Scuba after accounting for the suit, the booties, belt, flippers, mask, snorkel, buoyancy control device (BCD), regulator, pressure gauge, and a tank of air. Although SCUBA is short for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, I am not sure what part of this list accounts for said apparatus or if its the whole outfit. The humidity and warmth of the Balinese air makes this fitting a bit sweaty, which only heightens the anticipation of submerging into water. We learn what attaches where, twists how, and is needed when, and then we climb into the pool relieving us of the weight of the “apparatus.” After some scuba practice, we file out of the pool careful not to fall backwards as we remember what’s on our backs, we then have a quick snack, and its off to the sea.

We grab our fins and masks, and let people half our size and twice our age carry the tank and BCD’s down. Some of the women balance the tanks on their heads, sometimes with no hands and then walk down a less than even path. Quite humbling. After waddling out over small rocks into the water, we check all the equipment one more time, and start to deflate our BCD’s. Initially, I start to hyperventilate because it is unnatural to breathe underwater, but I force myself to take long breaths and eventually calm down. I look around, realize I am in fact breathing fine, and begin to follow the instructor around a ship wreck of a sunken US ship, the USAT Liberty. The coral formations on almost every available ship surface and the life swimming through it completely distract me from the fact that I’m 15m underwater and breathing out of a tank. Fish come up to my mask and almost seem to run into me.  That said, I did learn that objects may appear closer than they are because of light refraction through the water, the plastic, and then the air inside the mask.

USAT Liberty
Everything is OK in front of the USAT Liberty

Later in the dive, the guide makes his hand flat and places it perpendicularly in the middle of his forward. During most of our training, Wayan performs an action and we repeat, but I am unsure what I am supposed to do at this point. He repeats the forehead chop motion and then points off into the distance. At the end of a line created by extending his pointing finger, I see a shark. Again, this is frightening and calming all at once. No one including the shark is in any rush; however, we do turn around at this point and head back in the opposite direction. The forehead chop is not a chop, and instead it is a shark fin. Good to know.

Other than for running out of air, I feel I could stay underwater indefinitely, and when this dive concludes, I am excited and ready for the next one after lunch.

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur has a recognizable skyline with its bridge-connected twin towers and its telecommunications tower. Although I wandered to this part of town so that I could take a few too many photos of these famous landmarks and so that I could walk through nightlife-heavy streets, I stayed near Chinatown, where the price of hostels decreased and the activity on the streets increased. I stayed in Palmmers Guest House, where the hosts were very accommodating and the rooms had A/C, both important criteria when picking a place to stay. My bed, unfortunately, suffered from Wobbly Table Syndrome (WTS). WTS occurs when only two or three legs of a four-legged table can touch the ground at the same time either because of a manufacturing error in the table or because the ground is uneven. My bed having WTS meant that each time I rolled over, the bed would rock and make a substantial noise on the ground below. And if that hadn’t woken me up, a little after 4am one night, the rain came on so strong the the metal awning just below my room window sounded like a hundred people were dancing on it. Most times, I love listening to the rain while warm and dry in bed; however, this particular time, I knew I would be having to find my way to the airport that morning. Spending time in airports and on planes with wet clothes, although bearable, was something I wanted to avoid. Luckily, when I ventured out the hostel, the rain was only a small drizzle and I dried quickly.

Petronas Towers
The Petronas Towers, the tallest buildings in the world between 1998 and 2004

These types of rain storms demonstrate how Kuala Lumpur is such a green and lush city. Any space unoccupied by a building or by road was full of tropical vegetation. The lookout point at the top of the Kuala Lumpur Tower highlighted the greenness of the city through not only the city’s several parks, but also through the greenery that existed interspersed in every nook and cranny.

kuala lumpur
Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers
Kuala Lumpur Tower
Kuala Lumpur Tower

My last quick comment about Kuala Lumpur is that everyone was friendly and helpful except for the taxi drivers, many of whom refused to use the meter and forced me to haggle. That said, I tried to avoid them as much as possible and use the monorail system instead, and if I did have to take one, I would not get in unless they agreed to go by the meter. Luckily, unlike China, almost everyone spoke English, so communication was much easier even if that meant using it to negotiate prices with taxi drivers..