Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Roald Dahl’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” features a child-loathing baroness who imprisons all of Vulgaria’s children in her castle’s dungeon. I remember watching that film for the first time at age 8 and thinking how could anyone hate children? That’s like hating puppies or kittens or smiley faces. Only the most wretched human being in the (albeit, fictional) world could hate children.

My world, until landing in Bali, has been largely devoid of children. Not one child lived in my135-unit apartment building in San Francisco; in fact, I don’t recall seeing any children in the entire Buena Vista neighborhood. I taught children’s yoga at the French School for a while, a job I loved despite contracting every communicable disease possible, including chicken pox. Those little germ-balls made me sick, literally, but my affection never waned.

In Bali, my affection began to wane. Balinese children–specifically, Balinese boys–are incredibly LOUD. They don’t speak, they shout. They’re always dinging bells, pounding drums, kicking balls, running in flip-flops that slap the concrete emphatically, screaming, screaming, screaming, from about 7 a.m. until long after I’ve gone to bed for the night. Balinese girls, on the other hand, are perfect, just like their adult counterparts. Loud Balinese boys grow into even louder Balinese men.

In the waiting room for my flight from Singapore to Bali, a two-year old boy was literally running amuck, screaming, tossing toys, careening off of piqued travelers. His Balinese family laughed approvingly, snapped photos, plied him with candy. I watched the reaction of other travelers to that child. Suffice it to say, I was not, by far, the most irritated person in the waiting room that day. The Balinese are really big on spirits and protecting themselves from negative energies, including the evil eye. Their obliviousness to the mass reaction to their child baffled me.

My generation in the U.S., spawn of the spawn of European immigrants, grew up with a phrase: Children should be seen and not heard. Now, I realize that phrase today would constitute child abuse. I do not advocate abusing or silencing children. I know that noisy children don’t disturb all Westerners. Some are more irked by the constantly crowing roosters (it’s a fallacy that roosters crow only in the morning). Roosters don’t bother me. Neither do barking dogs unless the dogs sound as if they’re in pain. So, why (Balinese boy) children? I’m wondering–and this is the least P.C. thing I’ve ever written–if it’s because I know they grow into Balinese men.

I’m wary of men to begin with, but while traveling wariness often waxes into disdain. I like American men and Canadians, South and Central Americans, Europeans, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Scotsmen, Irishmen, non-Arab Africans, Israelis, guys who hold doors open for women, help us stuff our carry-ons into the overheads, wave at us to cross the street in front of their vehicle. Balinese men would sooner run us over. And I can’t help but wonder: Is this because they are taught, as children, that they can do anything they want and women (girls) don’t matter?

Right now, it’s 8 p.m. The little boys in the family compound across the alley, a stone’s throw from my apartment’s only windows, are watching television (the TV is outside) and shrieking. Ten feet away the big boys are smoking cigarettes, shouting at each other, revving their motorbikes (motorbikes, not motorcycles). The women are no where to be seen–they’re too busy cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, ironing, preparing all the little offerings to the gods and demons, and doing every other task that actually matters.

I will say one thing for these Balinese men I’ve come to dislike–they are non-violent and non-threatening. Bali is safe for women travelers. And that fact alone counters all the noise those idiots outside my window are making right now.