"The next morning the village was a completely different world for us. Not only were we no longer invisible, we were suddenly the center of all attention, the object of a great outpouring of warmth, interest, and most especially, amusement. Everyone in the village knew we had fled like everyone else. They asked us about it again and again (I must have told the story, small detail by small detail, fifty times by the end of the day), gently, affectionately, but quite insistently teasing us."
This part of the reading was particularly interesting to me. When Geertz and his wife first arrived in Bali they were treated as outsiders. They were ignored, and looked through as though they were invisible to everyone else. It takes time to allow the visitors to be taken into account by the rest of the natives. One day the couple went to witness a cockfight until the police arrived and broke up the fight and flee the site of the "crime." Instead of staying and telling the police they are allowed to be there, they follow the rest of the villagers. After the fact that they fled from the police just like everyone else did it gave the villagers a different perspective of them. It was interesting that one small event such as this was the reason that Geertz and his wife were accepted into their society rather than being seen as outsiders. They were automatically trusted and joked around with after they fled form the police.
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