Bali, Oklahoma, and the Sweet Scent of Cows

(First published in Bali Advertiser, August 17, 2005)

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
- Rodgers and Hammerstein

A few columns ago I wrote about people screwing up their faces when I tell them I lived in Singapore for nine years. They react the same way when they learn I’m from Oklahoma. It’s like they are examining me for clinging remnants of manure. Is it behind his ears? On the flip-flops that have replaced boots in concession to tropical climate? It must be somewhere on his person or attire, they seem to think. They assume I choose to live overseas to escape my birthplace, that I grew up with the desire to get out fast and forever.

Well, no. I was born in Oklahoma, and I’m proud of it. It’s where my people are buried; where my mother’s father worked his first job making leather harnesses for mule-drawn plow teams; where my father’s father traveled the state as a hardware company sales rep during the 1930s; where great aunts and great uncles farmed, horse traded, and carpentered to give their children a chance at something other than muscle labor and survival by country boy wits.

But I’m not writing just to defend pride of home and family. Most people have a place to which they are connected, even if only tenuously. New Yorkers and San Franciscans love their old city neighborhoods. Chicagoans love the windy city and the Cubs. Even residents of Cincinnati and Detroit must love something about their hometowns. People tend to love what they know, what is familiar. A woman I knew in Singapore was ecstatic at the opening of a Taco Bell outlet there. It reminded her of her favorite lunch place when she was in high school in California. I couldn’t understand her being nostalgic for a cookie-cutter fast food joint, but then she didn’t understand my love of truck stop diners and chicken-fried steaks the size of a plate.

I do understand the dislike of Singapore as the quintessential modern nanny state, where the citizens, it is thought, are only concerned with getting a Visa Gold Card, a white Mercedes, and the latest, smallest hand phone. I am perplexed, though, by people who’ve chosen the Bali expatriate lifestyle reacting to Oklahoma and Middle America with smirks and snide remarks. It’s as if agrarian society can be valued only when it is Asian and exotic, as if traditional culture is important only when the musical scale is dissonant to Western ears. Why should the pageantry of a temple procession be any more valued than the pageantry of small town rodeo? Or participation in the young people’s association of the village banjar be anymore important than membership in the Future Farmer’s of America?

Except for no ocean, lower rainfall, and a surplus of guns, a lot of America’s Midwest is similar to Bali. Oklahomans and others in American ‘fly-over’ country still have parades down Main Street. Most everyone goes to church on holy days. Everyone knows if it’s rained enough for the wheat and if the price of cattle is up or down. People help out family and friends; they try to maintain culture and tradition against encroachment by the modern world; they have a fondness for cows.

When people talk about the “wonderful world” of Balinese tradition and ceremony, I wonder if they recognize that same kind of beauty in the faded traditions and ceremony of their own home place. Maybe they feel that the village sense of connectedness and place has been lost in their own cultures, that their own places moved past redemption many Wal-marts, Starbucks, and mega-malls ago. Maybe this sense of loss is what sparks a desire in some people to protect and preserve Bali. It’s a laudable desire, although I’m not sure if efforts to “preserve” a culture at any point of its development can be anything but misguided. Culture doesn’t so much fade as it just becomes something new based on whatever preceded.

Several years ago in Oklahoma I went to a small town rodeo and was shocked when it was announced that the Girls’ Palomino Club was to do a precision horse riding routine to a Michael Jackson song. It just didn’t seem right. Jacko, even in one of his less whacko incarnations, didn’t seem to fit the atmosphere of bull riders, bronco busters, and barrel racers. But as the small town girls went through their riding routine, I could sense their pride at having found a way to connect what they knew to the larger national culture. Maybe they also thought they were being a bit scandalous and daring. It was Oklahoma, so they probably were.

Sitting in the stands, I tried to hide my enjoyment of the incongruity of it all. On reflection since then, I’ve realized that girls who can make horses moonwalk to “Beat It” don’t need much help from me. Now, when I visit my wife’s village, I see in the young people the same restless country kids I knew in Oklahoma. I can almost pick out who will be seduced by bright lights and big city and who will stay on the farm. I’d like to tell them all to stay within sight of paddy fields and the scent range of cows, but it wouldn’t do anymore good than telling Oklahoma teens never to leave Strang or Bowlegs. Country folk, anyway, in Bali, Oklahoma, or anywhere else, are capable of finding their own way. They don’t need help so much as they need to be respected and valued -- on both isle and prairie.

Copyright © 2005 Lee Roy LeRoi