Paradise, or Paradise Lost

The Bali Microcosm is fascinating. Here on this tiny island we have some of the world conflicts being played out. Because everyone of every world nationality has come here either to live and create a new life for themselves or to vacation in paradise. Many abandon their own culture, sometimes livelihood, sometimes past to live a seemingly more stress-free life here on the island. You have a mini- consortium of the international community all co-habitating on this alleged paradise. I can’t quite see yet if it’s paradise or paradise lost.

I was thinking about this while on the very private and gorgeous beach of Karma Kinara, a chain of Japanese owned luxury hotels, this one with an elevator that takes you down to the beach where a DJ spins music and you can buy a $20 bloody mary. The Russians next to us were screaming and carrying on, taking endless faux model shoot pics of each other, pulling down each others bathing suits, and generally inching in on our space. My friend May wondered if they weren’t on mushrooms or E. The very very newly rich Russians are a common site here in Bali, second to the wildly drunk Australians, and the burning man Americans.

Other people have told me that the crime in Bali has gone up with the descent of the new Russian money. I’m not that up on world politics, but I do know that the new Russian money has them snapping up 10 million dollar houses in Miami, and making lots of dramatic appearances in all the most expensive places. Apparently, they will outright come here and offer to pay someone cash for their successful business, and thus are snapping up places in Bali. Of course , I was told too that there was a Russian brothel an hour away that all the Japanese business men like to go to.

“The Americans are the most dramatic,” my three ex-pat friends living in Bali all agree. “Is everyone in America having a freak out about the recession?”

I don’t know? Are we? I’ve seen people freak out, I’ve heard people are pairing back, I know people have lost their shirts, and I see people completely unchanged. I see stores and restaurants closing everyday and new ones opening. I mostly hear people talking about changes that needed to happen, a catalyst for consciousness shifting.

They talk about the balloon hoax -that attention seeking man in LA created to get on reality TV, “That’s not most Americans,” I protest, but then I hesitate because I’m not sure. I’ve always thought we were the teenagers of the world, but if that’s true than these Russians next to us are like my tacky toupee wearing grandpa with false teeth.

My friend Martina tells me that her friend working at the Oberoi hotels talks of Russian women wearing their G string bikinis- backwards. What? I can’t even imagine that.

Today I hear about three new yoga studios planning to open within Seminyak with some really bad yoga politics . Transplants from America and Australia. I hear of a friend’s clothing design blatantly ripped off by a “friend “designer and marketed all over the island, without so much as an apology.

It’s very easy to make knock off’s here, all you have to do is bring a picture, or a pattern, and someone in a village can make it for you, cheap. Consequently you have all kinds of designs being ripped off, and you have lots and lots of the international ex pats vying to create the newest and coolest business, many of them have two and three, and four. Why not open a taco stand, and a clothing line, and a yoga studio- there’s a need in paradise, and you can make it cheap. And if it does well, you can probably sell it for cash to a Russian.