《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 80 (183):諸神之島
The revival of the dream of a fabled Eden came in the late 1960s, when the Indonesian government decided to reinvent Bali for the international tourist market as "The Island of the Gods," launching a massively successful marketing campaign. The tourists who were lured back to Bali were a fairly high-minded crowd (this was not Fort Lauderdale, after all), and their attention was guided toward the artistic and religious beauty inherent in the Balinese culture. Darker elements of history were overlooked. And have remained overlooked since.
伊甸園美夢在20世紀60年代末期復甦，當時的印尼政府決定將巴厘島重新塑造爲國際旅遊市場的"諸神之島"，遂展開大規模市場行銷，成功推銷巴厘島。被誘回巴厘島的遊客是一羣品格高尚的人（這兒畢竟不是羅德岱堡［FortLauderdale］），他們的注意力被引向巴厘島文化固有的藝術與宗教之美，沒有人注意到歷史的黑暗面。從此以後就一直如此，忽視至今。Reading about all this during my afternoons in the local library leaves me somewhat con-fused. Wait—why did I come to Bali again? To search for the balance between worldly pleas-ure and spiritual devotion, right? Is this, indeed, the right setting for such a search? Do the Balinese truly inhabit that peaceful balance, more than anyone else in the world? I mean, they look balanced, what with all the dancing and praying and feasting and beauty and smiling, but I don't know what's actually going on under there. The policemen really do wear flowers tucked behind their ears, but there's corruption all over the place in Bali, just like in the rest of Indonesia (as I found out firsthand the other day when I passed a uniformed man a few hun-dred bucks of under-the-table cash to illegally extend my visa so I could stay in Bali for four months, after all). The Balinese quite literally live off their image of being the world's most peaceful and devotional and artistically expressive people, but how much of that is intrinsic and how much of that is economically calculated? And how much can an outsider like me ever learn of the hidden stresses that might loiter behind those "shining faces"? It's the same here as anywhere else—you look at the picture too closely and all the firm lines start to melt away into an indistinct mass of blurry brushstrokes and blended pixels.
在當地圖書館閱讀幾個下午，我有些疑惑。等等——我何以再次造訪巴厘島？爲了追求世俗喜悅和靈脩操練之間的平衡，是吧？這裏可是做此種追求的適當環境？巴厘島人果真比世上其他人更呈現平靜的平衡？我是說，那些舞蹈、祈禱、宴樂、美與微笑讓他們看起來處於平衡狀態，但我不清楚在那底下真正蘊藏什麼。警察確實耳後插花，但巴厘島到處見得到貪污，就像印尼其他各地一般（有天我親自發現此事實，當時我偷偷塞了一百塊錢賄賂一名穿制服的官員，得到非法延長簽證，讓我能在巴厘島待四個月）。巴厘島人相當認真地依靠自己身爲世上最和平、最虔誠、最富藝術感的形象過活，但其中有多少部分是原有的本質，有多少部分是以經濟爲考量？像我這種外來客對於可能隱藏在這些"歡喜笑容"背後的壓力瞭解多少？這兒和其他地方都一樣——太近觀看相片時，所有堅定的線條都變成模糊一團的筆觸與光點。For now, all I can say for certain is that I love the house I have rented and that the people in Bali have been gracious to me without exception. I find their art and ceremonies to be beautiful and restorative; they seem to think so, as well. That's my empirical experience of a place that is probably far more complex than I will ever understand. But whatever the Balinese need to do in order to hold their own balance (and make a living) is entirely up to them. What I'm here to do is work on my own equilibrium, and this still feels, at least for now, like a nourishing climate in which to do that. Eat, Pray, Love
目前我只能確定，我喜愛自己租下的房子，而巴厘島民待我彬彬有禮，無一例外。他們的藝術與儀式在我看來美麗而富活力；他們似乎也這麼認爲。這是我在這地方的存在經驗，或許比我能瞭解的更爲複雜。但無論巴厘島人必須把持自己的平衡（並維持生計）到什麼程度，都操之在他們自己。我在這兒做的則是保持自己的平衡狀態，至少就目前而言，此地仍是滋養的環境所在。
