Bali Expat Forum - Bali Travel Forum

Well Markit, having read through your posts here I have to say that whilst I agree with some of what you say (the stuff about older bules latching on to very young locals...living here one sees some pretty offensive sights from time to time such as the, I'd guess, 15 year old girl with a guy clearly in his sixties a few weeks back in Legian) I too find most of what you've posted here pretty offensive and totally out of order and unwarranted.

It seems this topic is not going to go away anytime soon. I am not so keen in getting involved in this very personal issue. But maybe I could share a little story relating to this (which the above posting reminded me of).

I have no doubt that there are many cases where much older men married much younger women and vice versa (mixed races or same race) and for various reasons, genuine, money, escape poverty, etc. But I think to paint all cases as morally wrong or are always motivated by something other than love is not accurately representing the reality. Also I find it patronising and offensive when people always tend to class Asian women married to foreigners as always coming from abject poverty, uneducated and simply marrying to escape their miserable living. Further, I think to automatically assume that an older western man who is seen in public with young girls/boys is up to no good is also not correct. Precaution is of course necessary due to the fact that there are cases of paedophillias in Bali.

I will share my story to illustrate why I think people should not automatically assume something is amiss in this case.

My dad’s oldest sister is married to a German man. My uncle and aunt are like my second parents. They had met here in Australia at the yacht club. They have been married now for 27 years (my aunt have been living in Oz for 36 years). They visit Bali often and as a kid I always loved it when they visit and they spent a lot of time with us kids (me, my brother and my cousins) – they took us shopping, to visit places, to the beach etc. I always loved this.

Anyway, to keep the story short, one day it was only my German uncle, me and my cousin (a girl as well) and we visited Kuta beach (not to swim) but to look around after we went shopping in Denpasar. I was maybe 13 and my cousin 15 and my uncle was in his early 60s. It was not a pleasant outing. People on Kuta beach (locals, other islanders, and foreigners) automatically assumed that me and my cousin were prostitutes and that my uncle was an evil man. People murmured insults, laughed sarcastically, mocked and looked at us with strange stares. I was so angry and upset at one point and had some exchanges with some of the guys on the beach, they laughed even lauder when I said that the tourist was really my uncle. How could people believe that my claim was true? My uncle and my cousin had to pull me away and told me to ignore those ignorant people. Since that time, I refused to go and visit Kuta beach and always conscious of what people around me are doing and saying whenever I was out with my uncle and my aunt was not there to accompany us.

I understand the difficulty of not falling into automatic negative stereotyping. So what I try to say is that it is okay to be suspicious (and maybe necessary), but be careful to assume in any circumstances. SG, your post only reminded me of my rather unpleasant experience, it is not to suggest right/wrong of the incident you just described as I don’t know it.



Thanks
Kadek

OK , this is my second post on this forum but I have been a long time watcher.
Thankyou Kadek for your insight into the ways of the Kuta locals and explains a bit of what I have percieved.
I am a 50 year old Bule and am hoping my 30 year old Indo Girlfriend will eventually decide she wants to marry me and I can then be happy in Bali. I must admit the constant stares and innuendo she gets does make her wonder if she is making the right choice, hence my agreement with your post.

As to Markit, I have watched his posts for a long time and even though I am an outsider who lives in W Australia and visits Bali often plus has still to learn the language and culture, I find him to be an opinionated and boorish person with no understanding of the true Bali.
Sorry if this upsets some people but I just needed to add my distate to his dishwasher/native/ desperate theories.

Cheers
Ken

There is an age diffrence between me and Made too, only 7 years but back when I used to be back and forth to UK and made would meet my international flight and we would overnight in Kuta before heading to Lombok - he was always making sure everyone knew I was his Wife as he hated the thought of people thinking he was a gigalo or Kuta Cowboy. So it works both ways. As we have gotten older the age difference seems less and both our skins have hardened so it doesnt seem to happen now. I'm sure there is another comment these days but I'll keep that to myself

This seems to become an interesting topic to discuss!

How about opening a new thread, wouldn't like to see this discussion labeled under the current headline ?

OK This is a very interesting topic and I for one am also maryinging an Indonesian, not Balinese though and there is an age difference a cultural difference and a religious difference. This is open to members only and to anyone who would like to tell there story or ask for help or assistance in anyway.

After reading Roy and Kadek's stories, I thought that I would post something from my lifeinthetropics blog that is along the lines discussed here.

The consequences of sexual tourism for the rest of us

Sometimes when you live in another culture, it’s not always easy to find out the simplest things. I like to think that I have a fairly good relationship with my children. I let them know that I love them and will support them in any way that I can (except for continuing to work next year). I’ve encouraged them to be open with my wife and me about anything that is going on in their life. But, several of my children are teenagers now (one’s an adult living in the States) and one is about to be and knows more than he lets on at times.

How is this related to sexual tourism? Actually fairly simply. There seems to be a trend here in Indonesia lately for sexual tourists to come up with younger and younger partners – and conversely for the Indonesians looking for business to be younger and younger and to be willing to contract out with increasingly older customers. My teenage daughters are quite attractive (please allow some parental pride) and my young son is growing up to be a very handsome boy.

Now, several stories to illustrate my point as this has become a topic around the house and with some of my friends.

The other day my wife, daughters, and some family members were returning from a wedding. They stopped by at a small grocery store that is favored by tourists and local expats because the store stocks a few Western food items, most particularly imported cheese which is not easy to come by here in the north because Balinese don’t generally eat cheese. While they were in the store, a Western man walked in (as my wife said, he was old – something like you, thanks dear) with a very young Indonesian girl (my wife guessed around our eldest daughter’s age – 16). The young lady, wearing a spaghetti strap blouse, had a prominent tattoo on her shoulder – not something that most Indonesian girls would wear. One of the shop girls (they’re quite friendly there) asked the gentleman who his friend was – he replied somewhat hesitantly, my wife. To which, one of the Balinese ladies who was shopping commented to my wife, “His contract wife, young enough to be his daughter.” My children, or so goes the story relayed to me by my wife and brother-in-law, couldn’t stop staring at the girl.

My wife was relating this story to me at breakfast, when I mentioned that the kids wouldn’t go out shopping with me anymore unless Su (my wife) accompanies us, she laughed and said, “They’re afraid of being mistaken for café girls.” And Sam? “He’s afraid that someone will think that you’re a pedophile.”

Hmm…The kids have never mentioned this to me, I said rather perplexedly. “Oh, they don’t want to talk about sex around you. You know, they’re teenage girls, it’s not something they want to discuss with their father. We don’t do that in Indonesia. You should know that.

I guess that I should. I do now anyway.

As this discussion was going on, my mind (lots of things were racing around up there at the time) zapped back to several incidents last year when I was with the girls in Lombok, another island favored by tourists, and we were out in a mall shopping for clothes. I noticed that some people in the shop were staring, but as I live in a relatively remote island most of the year, I’m used to being stared at. I related this story to my wife, and she laughed again – she finds all this somewhat humorous – and said that the girls had been asked several times by shopkeepers who I was and when they said that I was their father, they received several disbelieving looks until they heard us discussing what we were purchasing on my handphone with my wife.

So what are the consequences of the new sexual tourism? My relationship – my public relationship anyway – with my children has become such that I can’t wander around the streets with them anymore because they don’t want to develop a reputation, and they’re embarrassed to explain who I am with me there. The world is getting more complex than I sometimes like to admit – even here on our little island of Bali, some of the ugliness that the Western tourists bring with them intrudes on paradise.

Further to my earlier post, I'm very conscious of the sort of relationship that may or may not exist between those of differing ages that I may see. Indeed I was subject to a comment from a stranger a few weeks back when giving my 13 year old daughter a hug in public. I was very curt with the self righteous nosey parker who made the automatic assumption.

That said, sometimes it's glaringly obvious what is going on. My wife and I were on a flight from JKT to DPS a few weeks ago and a large, sweaty German guy was with a very young Indonesian girl, who he was pawing and she looked so unhappy.

As with the couple in Legian, which was clearly not platonic or parental, it was appalling.

We glared and made it obvious that we were offended. He ignored us, but no-one else on the aircraft seemed concerned. My wife said something to a policeman at the airport but he seemed unconcerned too.

I have no problem with consenting adults no matter the age gap (I'm 15 years older than my wife), but as a parent and a human being sex tourism offends me deeply when it concerns the exploitation of those who cannot protect themselves.
.

My wife was relating this story to me at breakfast, when I mentioned that the kids wouldn’t go out shopping with me anymore unless Su (my wife) accompanies us, she laughed and said, “They’re afraid of being mistaken for café girls.” And Sam? “He’s afraid that someone will think that you’re a pedophile.”

drbruce, that is unfortunate, actually tragic. tragic that your children have been put in a position to feel like this, because of the unscrupulous actions of the offenders. i'm fortunate enough that my kids are younger (4y.o. boy and an 18month old girl) - but after reading your post i had a sudden chill run through my body, with the thought, "what happens if when my daughter is 16 and i'm 44 she has the same experience?". you seem to have taken it well. i think i'd be full of rage.

surabaya is a little different mind you as the sex trade is in the great depression - there are sex workers but not a lot of foreigners engaging their services, so i don't know if the same perceptions might exist here.i get stared at a lot, but that's probably because i look like tom cruise no seriously, westerners get stared at a lot here just because there are so few. i've actually not seen an older western man here with a young indonesian woman - i'm sure there are and i'm sure a % of those relationships are less than sincere, but obviously in bali, it is far more common because of the number of tourists.. which of course brings with it the undesirable tourists..

i have a story that's not related to age, but really more related to judging a person's status by their skin colour..

my sister-in-law is as aussie as they come - more aussie than me as she grew up in tom price, a small mining community in remote western australia, but she is very well educated and did all her tertiary studies in perth.. my sister-in-law is however of Filipino descent and she looks (as she is) 100% filipino.. my brother and his wife lived in singapore for 3 years (they left about three years ago and moved to vancouver). they have a son the same age as my son.. we were visiting them during their last 6 months in singapore, so my nephew was about 6months old.. my wife and i were with her in takashimaya.. my son was with my in-laws in another shopping centre.. i was talking to my sister-in-law in front of a pharmacy (my wife was in the pharmacy) and my sis-in-law was holding onto the stroller with her son in it.. a singaporean lady (chinese singaporean) came along and started gawing over my nephew.. "oh he's so cute".. then it came..

"where's his mother?"

..she thought my sis-in-law was the nanny.. my sister-in-law immediately exclaimed, "i'm THE mother - do you think every filipino is a nanny??".. i then usered in and said, "yes, this is my sister-in-law and my nephew".. anyhow, the conversation quickly subsided, but my sister-in-law was quite offended..

it happens and it's unfortunate that stereotypes are still so strong - even after decades of cross border migration, people still think they can categorize a person from the colour of their skin..

ct

Tu and i have copped opinions left right and centre since the first day we got together..

In Kuta it was being called a Kuta Cowboy and a Holiday Hussy by the westerners ...

And in the village it comes in the form of black magic ...

In Australia Tu has been told to "go home spic" ....

And that's all without an age difference added in to the equation!

so we block our ears and get on with our lives ...

This is my Indonesian girlfriend's story when I was living in Singapore. She was married to an American (divorced now) and with a self-deprecating humour she said that whenever she goes out with him with make-up on - people just assume she's his w..re. So, she goes out with him without make-up! They take her as his servant. But it was funny so we had a real good laugh about that.

"go home spic"

Is Tu Mexican (or Latin American)? I've never heard of an Indonesian (or Asian in general) being called a 'spic'. Sounds like he's been harassed by some real dumb schmoes..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spic

I actually used to enjoy being teased at school when the teaser was expressing his ignorance. My father is Iranian (35yrs+ an Australian) - (my mom's 'bule' Aussie), but I was born in, and grew up in a small WA town. There was a kid who used to call me Saddam and "Scud" (as in Scud missile) - this was in the early 90's. I guess he didn't know that Iran and Iraq were at war for almost the entirety of the previous decade. Perhaps he knew, but didn't care - my name was foreign. In any case, strangely enough I used to enjoy hearing him go on and on - and I was only in grade 8..

The world is abound with idiots..

Ct

Hmm...you're half Iranian. I have a few Iranian friends I met when I was living in Seoul, S. Korea. They were all engineers and one of them is the wife who's also an engineer, busy with her work, and being a mother to a little daughter and an excellent host and cook whenever she entertains. Invited me for tea too to taste all the snacks/titbits from Iran. They're quite delicious. In fact hubby now is in Iran and always brings me the different kinds of nuts. Are you still close to your Iranian side of the family?

Very close and we grew up on Iranian food - until now, I always get people to bring sabzi to Indonesia for me from Vancouver (where there are many Iranians) - they always get interrogated by customs of course as it looks like marijuana. My wife cooks better Iranian food than I and our former Indonesian live-in maid / nanny could cook Iranian food better than anyone in my family.. My wife had taught her the basics and armed her with a classic Iranian cookbook - which this girl studied, and mastered.

Unfortunately the language was not passed down to myself or my brother. My mother lived in Tehran for 7 years after meeting my father in England and living with him there for many years. But at the time my mother was in Iran, it was a very different place and she didn't need to know Farsi - she worked for several different consulates (US included) - but just as a receptionist, oh and as an English teacher for the Iranian Airforce. Anyhow, it's beyond me how she was able to live there that long and not absorb the language - but she didn't. Also apparently speaking Farsi wasn't a requirement for teaching English to Iranians??? Anyhow, so my father's poor excuse for not teaching my brother and I Farsi is that it was too hard, given my mother didn't / doesn't speak it.

ct

This is my opinion and my opinion only. From my travels in mostly Bali and more recently to other parts of Indonenisa I find that Indonesians in general do not judge people. My experience is that it does not matter if you old, young, fat, skinny, plain looking or drop dead beautiful. They treat everyone the same.

I find most of the judging is done by tourists who have no facts as to the situation and assume the worst and then sometimes voice it. Everybody has a right to live their life as they see fit, (I do exlcude old men with young girls or young boys) as long as they are not hurting another human being.

Love is found in various forms not just in same race, same age and same attitude relationships. People can say what they want to me, I just think they are jealous however my partner does get upset. Personally I don't because it is none of their business, they do not know the cirumstances of our meeting or our history.