In Reply to: What was it about these people that posted by chickchili on Wednesday, 5. December 2007 at 20:25 Bali Time:
You can always tell who is Balinese by the "Puspa/Sajen" dish on the dashboard. "Om Santi-Santi Om" goes down well". The Eastern Islands mostly have curly hair, likely to be Christian. If you think a person is Javanese try "Wassalaam Aleikum" and if they reply "Dan Aleikum Salaam" you've got it right. Sometimes you get it wrong and the driver points to his I.D. which may be Mattius or suchlike meaning the man is Christian, in which case you give him :"Christus menang" = Christ wins, is tops etc". "Salam-Salam Christus" also works well.
Having served a sentence of 12 years as a taxi-driver on nights, when younger, I'm probably more inclined to have a chat with them, sympathising or is that empathising? with their probable difficulties.
It's good to have a posting partly hi-jacked into feminist issues and others. It brings out our need to understand our genial hosts.
Without a doubt, the Balinese ladies do a disproortionate amount of the work. They even hire out as Coolies (Kuli) on building sites; it makes Western blood boil to see ladies walking up ladders carrying 50K bags of cement while the lads lounge with their kreteks making probably lewd comments about the bobbles and wobbles of these lovely ladies.However,it is usually economic necessity, husband sick or deceased, that causes this and the ladies know what they sign up for to put rice on the table; on the bright side, they nowadays make twice the money of the average Blender-jockey or Waitress, by hiring out their muscle in this way.
In the Bar-Restaurant scenario, the man lounges behind the bar, handing out the odd beer, looking wise and waiting to bugger-up the nex "Koktel" with great style, whilst the Waitresses are doing the hard work. It might be that the lad behind the counter will emerge to take your money at the end; we watch out for this and call the Waitress back to thank her before leaving and with her back to the Cashier so that she can have the tip for herself!
The speed at which the tip disappears into the Sarung is a good magic show in itself.
Happy Balinating to all, as we sip the honey, then come home to save for another sip.
-:))