Summary
Geertz begins by explaining that he and his wife arrived in Bali in 1958, planning to study the people and culture.
Having been to other parts of Indonesia before, they were surprised to discover that the Balinese people were neither welcoming nor rude to them. In fact, most of the locals completely ignored them, looking at them as if they were trees, stones, or gusts of wind.
Ten days after their arrival, there was a cockfight in the central square of the village.
Cockfighting, Geertz explained, was illegal under the Balinese Republic, seen as "primitive" by the government and in the eyes of the West. However, like other illicit behavior that continues despite illegality, the locals continued to hold cockfights in semi-secrecy.
This particular cock fight – which Geertz and his wife attended – was raided quickly by armed policemen. Geertz and his wife fled the scene along with the locals, following a man to his compound. There, the man's wife pulled out a table, table cloth, and a tea set. Without speaking, they all sat down and pretended to be enjoying tea together.
When the police arrived, the man defended Geertz and his wife immediately, explaining that they were professors who came to study the culture of the people and that they had no involvement in the cockfight.
The next day, Geertz and his wife were treated with kindness and intrigue by the Balinese locals, who poked fun at them for their panicked running but who, ultimately, were pleased to see Geertz and his wife express solidarity by running away from the authorities with everyone else.
Analysis
The beginning of Geertz's article helps establish some context for his subject of study and introduces the reader to fundamentals of Balinese culture that will become important later on. Geertz emphasizes two main points in this opening section.
The first is the surprising and disquieting apathy (or seeming apathy) with which he and his wife were treated by the Balinese locals in their village. Geertz notes that, while in other places in Indonesia, locals would flock to him and his wife with questions and intrigue, the Balinese interacted with them by not interacting at all. They were barely perceived, in Geertz's view, as human.
This is an important detail with which to begin the article, as it showcases both Geertz's own experience and unfamiliarity with Balinese culture as well as the nuances of that culture that he hopes to illuminate by the end of the piece. By beginning with a description of Balinese intentional negligence, Geertz underscores the role that cockfighting (his subject of study) will play in shifting that paradigm.
Indeed, the second point that Geertz focuses on in this section of the article is that very shift: when he and his wife change, in the eyes of the Balinese, from mere foreign intellectuals into members of the community they inhabit. When Geertz and his wife flee the cockfight along with the locals, they become a source of both amusement and respect for the people in the village. As Geertz notes, "In Bali, to be teased is to be accepted" (4).
Geertz concludes this section with the affirmation that, in joining the locals in their illegal activity and refusing to consider themselves separate in the eyes of the police, he and his wife transformed from inanimate objects to people with whom the Balinese locals would share their culture. Geertz begins his essay with this narrative in order to pique the reader's interest about cockfighting, of course, but also to develop the theme of perception versus reality – something that will appear again and again over the course of his article.
