SOME FINAL THOUGHTS ...

MY FAVORITE IMAGE OF THEM ALL

Before heading off to our Farewell Dinner at a the conclusion of our tour, we met with our guide Manik for a debriefing session.  He asked us what the highlight of the tour was for each of us as we looked back on our prior thirteen days.  Interestingly each of the responses was different, yet everyone acknowledged that those highlights others had were on their "favorites" lists as well.  

Among those highlights, the Indonesian people struck us all, particularly, as patient, open-hearted, content, and willing workers.  We appreciated the sense of fellow-feeling, family and community they demonstrated.  The ability to live harmoniously as Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Christian religious communities inspired us as did the ability to make use without waste (and with attention to detail) of the rich natural environment in which they live and work.  

Manik gave us insights into the impact of a multifaceted cultural and religious history on the current state of Indonesian life.  This placed everything in an appropriate long range context.  We came away as a result with a nicely developed sense of "authentic" Indonesian life, one not so easily acquired in an environment so given over to "touristic" simplification and Orientalist exoticism.

Then, on our flight(s) homeward, Lee watched a documentary film about the reconstruction of the Grand Shrine of Ise which has occurred every twenty years in Japan for well over a thousand, perhaps two thousand, years.  Now, although a heavily ritualized process, the result both keeps alive over time the arts and craft techniques required but also makes new again in the present a religious artifact initially constructed in exactly the same way using exactly the same means and materials all those centuries ago.

The reconstruction process depends heavily on the maintenance of the source of natural materials used as provided in the forest surrounding the shrine.  The documentary takes off on this, focusing on the benefits accruing from a sustained effort to preserve (and restore) natural forests and their supporting ecology in order to maintain and preserve Japan itself in the present.  

This emphasis on "living in awe amidst the mysteries of things" stands in contrast to the Indonesian view of a world sharply divided between the forces of good and evil in which humanity must strive to please the gods above while placating (and avoiding) the evil below.

In Bali the result is a ready willingness to forgive and forbear (since evil is always and inevitably present in daily life) and a necessary drive to avoid stirring up all those evil forces as much as possible.  Since both forest and ocean harbor these potentially dangerous and disruptive forces, Balinese avoided traditionally disturbing either one - and have ended up with an environment far more intact than in most of the rest of the  world.

Japan, on the other hand, sees humanity as part of a larger spiritual and material whole, assuming the need to nurture and sustain that whole in order to maintain harmony and assure survival.

The final result may well be similar but the means to that common end are radically different.  Interesting what one can learn while cooped up on an eleven hour trans-Pacific flight!