can be a culturally enamoring experience or straight awkward and annoying, and our
feelings will likely determine where we shop and how much time will be allocated.
Repeated complaints of waning tourism in Bali have ruled the front pages of local
prints. Nyoman Wardawan, head of the Tourism Agency’s marketing division, said the
provincial government has slashed the tourism promotion budget in half from Rp 2.3
billion last year to Rp 1.1 billion this year. The provincial government has “more urgent
matters,” he said, like poverty eradication, infrastructure development, and the
gubernatorial election. However, here in Bali, the most precious concern is the
preservation of the traditional market in regards to the first two matters: reducing overall
poverty and bolstering infrastructure.
Traditional markets are vital for community competence and self-sufficiency. They keep
our farms in view and close to home, stream money into the pockets of residents, and
subsequently, kick citizens off the boredom of roving the streets and places them under
the wing of their own district’s socio-economic setting. The supermarket provides
needed work for workers too but the apparent diversity-range is compromised by largescale buying practices and centralized management.
Bali is a good place for a Darwinian kind of economic observation: it’s an island and
the cultural and economic changes are rapid and significant enough for a visitor to
witness in just a few months stay. Bali’s not quite big. The island has not been able to
naturally support her population for several decades. When the Jakarta-based
government turned the island into a traveler’s paradise, the Balinese did not have a
democratic say in the shift and have since struggled, like any peoples large or small, to
be as self-sufficient as possible. Anyhow, tourism has since been an important, albeit
rather uncompromising, aspect of the Balinese economy. But although the greater part
of Bali’s economy relies on tourism, the industry composing some 80% of Bali’s income,
alas, tourism is not the island’s largest employer: agriculture still is.
Particularly and most transparently, the changes manifested from the dichotomous
spirit between tourism and agriculture are enough to puzzle any dialectician. Many
have answers to this dichotomy yet few have effective thoughts that can reconcile the
difference, that can satisfy both camps. Entrepreneurs think about market health and