example, a very sensitive topic is erotic desire and sexuality. The excellent
work done byBoellstorff (2007)ontransvestitism (thewaria) is an example.
Since I did not personally search out waria (transvestites) I also did not
really learn anything about their way of life. It is almost impossible to
spend much time in Southeast Asia without realizing that transvestite
“third sex” males are very common. In South Sulawesi the Bugis have a
cultural tradition of transgendered minstrels and in more urban settings
they can be quite stubborn about receiving a tip before moving on. But
during my visits to Bali I remained relatively blind to the obviously very
feminine young boys who prostitute themselves to tourists from other parts
of Indonesia and from outside Indonesia. Similarly, I am not directly
focused on the ways in which women view sexuality and desire in Bali. It is
just as difficult to avoid at least some awareness of beautiful and tempting
women in Bali as it is to neglect the waria. ButJennaway (2002)has written
an insightful Feminist and Postmodernist analysis of sexual discourse. She
examines the notion of “hysteria.” She looks at tourism and “the economy
of pleasure.” By and large many of the intriguing ideas she presents in
her excellent study did not jump out at me. In an appendix she discusses
the idea of “Ethnographic Truths: Postmodernism, Ethnography and
Objectivity” (Jennaway, 2002, pp. 241244). The Postmodernist Feminist
distrust of male and masculine approaches to ethnographic fieldwork
reports is neatly summarized there in a few pages. She rejects the views of
those she calls Feminist Empiricists and reiterates the idea that every ethno-
graphy is only part of the truth, if that. There is always a degree of “subjec-
tivity.” Even the “objective” is highly subjective!
That was brought out forcefully for me when I read Geertz’s account of
witnessing an event in Bali that at first startled him even more than the
police raid on the cockfight. The style is very reminiscent of his way of tell-
ing us the story of the cockfight incident that led to the essay “Deep Play.”
But the theme is entirely different. Let me quoteGeertz (1995, pp. 6667)
extensively in order to get the flavor of his remarks:
It is dawn, four-thirty or five A.M., early in October 1957. My wife and I are living
with a Brahmana [Sanskrit: Brahman] family, traditionally declining, moderningly [sic]
coming on, in southwest Bali....We have been awakened by the awareness that our
small courtyard is packed with fifty or sixty Balinese men. They are just standing there,
motionless and silent, in ordered rows, dressed for work in the rice terraces. I get out of
bed, fearing the worst. Accusation? Protest? Physical attack? These are tense
times....But I am unable to imagine what could possibly have brought on this con-
frontation. We have been working on irrigation weirs, village markets, ice manufac-
turers, and tooth-filing rituals. Hardly the stuff of quarrel and suspicion.98 J. I. (HANS) BAKKER