Being an expat in Bali is a complicated affair. The term cannot simply cover every person described as an expat in Bali. “What does it even mean?” is a good starting place.
The term ‘expatriate’ traces back to the Latin ‘ex’, meaning ‘out of’, and the Greek ‘patriate’, meaning ‘native country’. Therefore, it refers to a person who is out of their native country. My family and I expatriated ourselves to Bali in March 2023, and so I’ve got a reasonable feel for expat life in Bali now.
The locals might call us ‘bulé’, meaning non-Indonesian, specifically of Caucasian, European descent. Bulé can be used in a derogatory manner but really doesn’t mean anything other than ‘non-Indonesian’, and why shouldn’t the locals have a way to describe someone who isn’t Indonesian?
What is it like to be an expatriate living in Bali? Well, it’s virtually impossible to give one viewpoint which adds up to a good definition of the experience since everyone is intricately different. We have different genetic predispositions, ambitions, and sets of life experiences in general to our lives leading up to where we are now. I am “unique, just like everybody else,” as Margaret Mead succinctly put it.
With this caveat in place and for the purpose of not procrastinating my way out of giving a point of view, here’s my point of view!
I find Bali immensely frustrating and incredibly surprising in absolutely every way. I simply “don’t get it” but I feel right at home here. I feel like I’ll never live a real life here and will always be an outsider while being made to feel like I fit in and am important in some way. Culturally, I’m a stranger in Bali and whilst I will learn a lot living here (which will infuse my life experience), I will return to the U.K. – it’s where I feel I truly belong.
Back home, it’s hard to distinguish me from most other people and generally, I am not smiled at for no reason – I’d have to go to some effort to get a reaction at all. Here in Bali, it’s hard to get to the end of the road without someone smiling at me, and yet I’ve done nothing to deserve it, which makes me feel fraudulent somehow. Or maybe it’s a cultural thing, i.e., “Where I’m from, you’ve got to earn the right to be noticed and receive a smile of approval.”
There is a culture of patience here in Bali. For example, people don’t wave their fists and shout expletives at strangers who aren’t driving to standards they approve of. In fact, they don’t seem to get angry at all.
It’s extremely frustrating sometimes on the roads here; it’s a complete free-for-all. If I had an RP for every time a driver has stopped their car dead in the middle of a narrow road, frozen like a rabbit in headlights while passers-by assist them in navigating a space big enough to get a bus through… well, I’d have quite a few RP. And yet no fists are raised, and nobody involved is an effing “see you next Tuesday.”
That’s the number one most important part of living in Bali. You must leave your temper in your patriated land because you will be absolutely alone in your twisted tantrums should you disapprove vehemently of something. There will be no chorus of approval to acidic situational reactions, and you will feel as though you belong in an asylum for letting whatever it is that’s bothering you get so out of control. I must say I very much like this about Bali.
The second most important thing is that ‘showing off’ in Bali is, again, a cultural display best left at home. In Bali, nobody will think more of you for outrageous ‘peacocking’. Again, you will feel alone and ask yourself what is so wrong with your ego that you need to show evidence of material wealth. Why would you metaphorically cover yourself in glue and roll in gold and diamond dust before leaving the house? Again, this is something I like very much about Bali.
When you strip away the culture of the life back home, you are stripped back to your core, naked in this culture and left scrabbling to reinvent yourself or simply living in a bubble that marks a clear separation between yourself and the world you find yourself living in.
Tune in here for next week’s ‘An Englishman in Bali’ series.
