Part XII
Size may not matter, but sometimes longer is better
by Mad Dog

It could be that as bad as the infrastructure is here—and trust me, there’s no such word in the Indonesian language—the power still doesn’t go out as often as it has been in California lately. But I suspect it’s actually because I have a nickname now.

    I know it’s hard to believe considering that during the past four years I haven’t been in any one place longer than two months, but I can rationalize this strange turn of events by saying I haven’t stayed here longer than two months at a shot either. See, tourist visas are only good for 60 days, so twice I had to leave the country to renew my visa. Not to mention my multicultural outlook on life. I spent a week in Singapore and another in Thailand. Since I didn’t want to cut it too close, I left a couple of days before my visa was up. Thus, I was never here for more than 58 consecutive days, which is less than two months, so the record sticks.

    Isn’t rationalization a wonderful thing?

    It’s hard to know why I’m staying longer. It might be because the six months have flown by and I haven’t gotten around to doing half the things I intended on doing, including diving, seeing the Museum Subak (okay, so it doesn’t have the world’s largest ball of used dental floss, it does show the history of the Balinese rice paddy irrigation system), or learning not to laugh when I’m offered yet another “special morning price for good luck” at the Ubud market.

When I was in Cuba people who had never seen me in their life would pass me on the street and call me Señor Bigote. In France it was Monsieur Moustache. When, that is, they’d talk to me at all. 

    It’s true. I’m being called Pak Kumis, which means Mister Moustache. I know, it sounds like a facial hair grooming attachment for your vacuum cleaner which will be all over TV next Christmas season right alongside Chia Pets and the Clapper, doesn’t it?

    “It grooms! It combs! It shapes even the toughest facial hair, all with one quick stroke of the patented Stash-o-matic blade. It’s perfect for thick moustaches, pencil thin moustaches, even fake Groucho moustaches, both with and without attached glasses and nose. But wait, there’s more!”

   I really can’t complain. After all, Pak Kumis is better for day-to-day use than the actual translation of my name, which in Indonesian is Anjing Gila, and in Balinese is Cicing Budoh (pronounced: chee-cheeng boo-doe). See, no one here would think of calling someone either of those names except just before they pulled out their curved rice cutting knife and pretended your genitals were plants in need of harvesting. In Bali, calling someone a cicing is fightin’ words. [For more name translations, see International Dog]

I suspect the real reason they’re calling me Pak Kumis is because it’s the punch line to an old Balinese joke they all remember from the third-grade: What’s white, has a handlebar moustache, and is dangerously close to becoming an expat?

    The nickname started here at the cottage while kidding around with Nyoman. Then it migrated to his family. One night I walked into the Jazz Café and the head waitress greeted me by calling me Pak Kumis, and I know she didn’t hear it from Nyoman’s family. The next thing I knew people I’d never seen started calling me that. First there was a guy who works at a padang restaurant. The next day a transport driver I was chatting with on the steps of Tino’s called me that. Hey, I can spot a trend when I see one.

    Maybe my photograph ran in the social column of the Ubud News and World Review without my knowing it. Or it could be it’s adorning a wanted poster at the post office. The truth is, I’d be more worried about the former than the latter, since if the police’s ability to apprehend criminals is anything like the post office’s ability to deliver mail before the recipient dies of old age, then I have many years of freedom left ahead of me. But I suspect the real reason they’re calling me Pak Kumis is because it’s the punch line to an old Balinese joke they all remember from the third-grade: What’s white, has a handlebar moustache, and is dangerously close to becoming an expat?

They used to call tourists wisatawan, or turist, but in their infinite wisdom the government decided that tourists didn’t like being called tourists because, well, it conjured up images of what they were: tourists. 

    Interestingly, they used to call tourists wisatawan, or turist, but in their infinite wisdom the government decided that tourists didn’t like being called tourists because, well, it conjured up images of what they were: tourists. Thus they started a campaign to teach Indonesians to refer to them as tamu, which of course the tourists all assume means tourist. It’s one hell of a think tank they’ve got here.

    So I’ll be hanging around for another month or so. It will give me more time to explore the island. More time to learn the language and culture. And more time to continue meeting interesting people. After all, I’ve met more people and had more of a social life here than I’ve had in years. But one thing I won’t be doing during my extension is to sit around trying to figure out why it is I’m still here. After all, the answer might be similar to what Will once told me in Hawaii when he explained that, “I live in a house full of misfits. Maybe that’s why I feel like I belong here.” For now I think I’ll stick to rationalization, thank you.

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