In Reply to: THE BIG CREMATION CEREMONY posted by Barong Naga on Thursday, 8. July 2004 at 01:31 Bali Time:
... please. I wholeheartedly agree that tourists should be dressed appropriately and behave with decorum. I attended the Ubud royal family cremation which took place in May/June last year and was horrified by the behaviour of one male European (ethnically that is) tourist who filmed and filmed and filmed from up on the actual funeral bier area, that is, right next to the black bull. From memory he only moved away because of the flames!!!
On the other hand, such important funerals are very public, involve processions through one or more main roads for some distance and time, and I don't think can be compared to Mr Smith's grandfather's funeral in a suburb of Sydney attended by 20 family members and friends. Surely the appropriate analogy between a funeral of a member of the local royal family in Bali is with a funeral in our society of a leading citizen. Such funerals in our society are commonly televised live and attended by thousands of people, most of whom never met the deceased. For example, in Melbourne, I remember watching the televised funeral of Archbishop Mannix in the 1960s, and, as a non-Catholic, and non-Christian even, being fascinated by the pomp and ceremony of it all. More recently there was the Anglican cathedral funeral of a much loved radio broadcaster, Peter Evans. That funeral was attended by many thousands, and I guarantee that 95% of the attendees would never have met or spoken to him. Surely, to some extent the huge numbers who attend such funerals could be labelled as "tourists"? In London, royal funerals, have hundreds of thousands lining the routes, and in the USA the same would apply to the funerals of Presidents, surely? There would be many, many tourists at such funerals.
So, by all means emphasise the reason for the event being the death of someone and not that it's time for yet another event for tourists, but let's not get too politically correct about it all and equate tourist attending such Bali funerals with tourists gate-crashing small family affairs in Australia, or USA in Barong's case.