HMS Henning

Tag: Bali

  • Dance Tradition in Bali

    While in Bali, I saw a film produced in the 1930s by Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias, a frequent illustrator in the day for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. In the documentary, the legendary Bali dancer I Marya was pictured performing his unique, seated dance. The smallest movements of his eyes, wrists, fan, and fingertips…

  • Bali’s Bang for the Buck

    Rupiah, the Indonesian currency, look like play money, and stack up like it, too. Today, the posted exchange rate is about 9,175 rupiah to one U.S. dollar. Our last ATM withdrawals netted less, of course, and the cash machines typically allow a maximum of 1.5 million rupiah ($175) per withdrawal. Cash is king; surcharges are…

  • Breakfasts in Bali

    One of my favorite childhood Christmas memories is not related to the presents or Christmas dinner, but to the breakfasts we’d have between tearing through Santa’s stockings and opening gifts from under the tree. It was a welcome break in the action. My mother baked fresh cinnamon rolls every Christmas, and later, when our appetites…

  • Subak and rice growing in Bali

    Subak and rice growing in Bali

    A couple days ago, our cousin and host, Kasey, invited us to a Rotary Club meeting of the Ubud, Bali, chapter. The featured speaker, J. Stephen Lansing, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, is an authority on evolutionary biology and specifically on the rice terrace irrigation systems of Bali, called Subak. For over…