Lesson: There Is Satisfaction in Being Different

Quote of the day:

"Variety is the first principle of life. What makes us formed beings? Differentiation. Perfect balance will be destruction."
- Swami Vivekananda


In Bali, on the last night before we left our tour guide for our "home-stay" (which turned out to not really be a home-stay at all) we had a huge feast to celebrate our time together and say goodbye to our guide and our hosts at the Oka Wati Hotel. After the dinner we were told that we would be going to "The Frog Dance", the Balian version of The Frog Prince story, and then we would go to a temple ceremony. To enter the temple we had to wear a traditional Balinese outfit. The women's outfits were comprised mostly of: A sarong with the flap falling in the front middle portion of the legs, a sash tied in a specific way on the left hip (of course mine was tied to the right, woops!), an elastic corset and a bra and lace blouse.

The temple blouses in Bali are unique. They are a derivative of the Dutch era when the women of Bali still walked around topless. The Dutch noticed that because of the topless women, more Europeans were traveling to the island. To diminish the scandalous publicity of their newly acquired island, the Dutch passed a law saying that the women had to wear at least a bra and a lace top covering themselves. Today, this lace top and bra look is reserved primarily for going to the temple and women mostly wear opaque tops during the daytime. It was definitely strange for me, as a Westerner, to walk around in public only wearing my bra and a see-through top! Luckily it was nightime.

On my return from Bali I have been trying to emulate the balance that I felt there and the balance that I perceived in the daily lives of the Balian people. However, this quote today reminded me that to be a little off-balance is O.K.

When I was wearing my temple outfit in Bali I did it because it was fun to try on a different look and to pretend for a moment that I was someone of a different culture. However, by the end of the night I was more than happy to take the outfit off. Most of the night I wished that I were in my own cloths. Dressing in someone else's garb reminded me strongly that I am not of their culture. A white person in traditional Balian dress is respected because the Balinese know that he/she is trying to be conscious of their traditions and temple rules, but it also is humorous to them. After all, Americans in general,white people in particular, blatantly do not fit in. I felt more comfortable within the Balian culture when I could embrace who I was, dress how I dress and embrace my own cultural background while still respecting and learning about people and things different than myself. I believe that the beauty is in our differences and our ability to communicate and accept one another while acknowledging these differences. I have no intention to hide who I am or where I come from.

I think it is this concept that caused me to take a picture of a stray soccer ball in a bed of flowers. They do not belong together and yet their colors and shapes create a strange harmony that is beautiful because it accents the differences.