October 4, 2024 • 55 mins
🌍 Embark on a Global Journey with Phyllis "Phiphi" Kaplan
Join us for a captivating episode as we dive into the extraordinary life of Phyllis "Phiphi" Kaplan, an explorer at heart and a citizen of the world. Raised in the vibrant streets of New York City and the serene landscapes of Long Island, Phiphi's insatiable curiosity has led her across the globe—from the artistic enclaves of Ecuador to the breathtaking beauty of the Galapagos Islands. Through her work with Ziba Designs, Phiphi masterfully blends fine art with commercial design, all while advocating for slow travel and deep cultural immersion. 🌱✨
In this episode, we explore:
✈️ The Power of Slow Travel: How immersing yourself in local cultures can transform your global perspective.
🧵 Ziba Designs: The fusion of fine art and textiles—creating beauty with a purpose.
🌾 Bali’s Spiritual and Agricultural Heritage: The vital role of upachada ceremonies and honoring the rice goddess Dewi Sri.
🍚 Sawah Bali Project: A groundbreaking initiative promoting organic rice farming with indigenous grains to support local farmers.
🌿 Sustainable Solutions: How Bali’s traditional farmers are adapting to modern pressures from tourism.
As we journey through Bali, we reflect on the balance between progress and tradition, and why valuing process over results can lead to deeper fulfillment. Phiphi’s inspiring perspective invites us to embrace gratitude and curiosity, discovering lesser-known wonders with open hearts and minds.
🎧 Tune in for an enriching conversation that spans cultures, continents, and generations. It's a reminder to stay curious, stay engaged, and celebrate the beauty of the world around us.
https://www.sawahbali.org/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Audra (00:00):
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me
again this week.
This week I have one of themost fascinating women I have
ever met, and that is sayingsomething because I have met so
many remarkable women in thelast four years that I have been
doing this show.
This week we are speaking toPhyllis Fifi Kaplan.
(00:23):
You will hear me refer to heras Fifi from now on.
She is a citizen of the world.
She has traveled all over andhas been exposed to cultures
that most of us have never seenCosm, the Omen of a Small Island
Overrun by Globalization,neocolonialism and White
(00:48):
Entitlement.
An NGO Tale.
She was the trustee of theVermont chapter of the Nature
Conservancy and she is thefounder of the NGO Sawa Bali.
She has also appeared on NPR,cnn and UNESCO, and so many more
.
It is my pleasure and my honorto introduce to you Fifi Kaplan.
(01:08):
Fifi, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Phiphi (01:14):
Audra, it is a pleasure to be here to speak with you,
that we have the technology tospeak 15,000 miles away and
neither of us are in the dark.
Audra (01:28):
We're not in the dark.
Yes, as we speak, I am sittinghere in Queen Creek, arizona,
and you are in Bali.
I mean that is remarkable.
Phiphi (01:39):
It is remarkable.
Audra (01:42):
So in my introduction I alluded that you are a citizen
of the world and you've traveledall over, but that is not where
you started.
Tell us a little bit of whereyou the right place New York.
Phiphi (02:08):
And therefore, and being a female at that time and
having the set of parents I hadjust had, opportunity written
each day, I was privilegedenough to obviously being white,
all of those things andeducated the world really was my
(02:33):
oyster.
And it was a smaller world thenalso.
But I was lucky enough to bebrought up in the big world of
the Big Apple and both LongIsland and New York, so I had
all the cultural attributes thatNew York City could provide.
(02:56):
I had lessons at theMetropolitan Museum as well as
the Brooklyn Museum, art lessons, and we just spent a lot of
time in New York.
But I was brought up also inLong Island, which at that time
was very verdant and not asdeveloped as it is now.
(03:17):
So next door house was a bigwoods and you know, I also felt
very, very much at ease and lostin a world.
When I was in nature, and myfriends were like that also, we
did as much as we can walking inthe woods, walking to the beach
(03:39):
, bicycling, all those things.
That pretty nice childhood.
Audra (03:46):
You'd also mentioned to me, when we first met, that your
father was an adventurer, thathe believed that education
wasn't just in four walls or inbooks and that if there was an
opportunity, that he didn'thesitate, but to pull you out of
school and go on a trip, on aglobal trip, and take you
(04:08):
somewhere, to educate you toanother, another country,
another culture and learnsomething new it's very, very
true.
Phiphi (04:18):
My father, uh, probably you had these aspirations of not
only being an adventurer, butsince he had an engineering
background, he would have lovedto like be there building the
Panama Canal or doing a bridge,you know all of these things.
He was a very curious person.
(04:40):
That's the other thing.
I was very lucky.
Both my parents were incrediblycurious about the world around
them.
So, yes, at the age of 13, hetook me and my mother to Ecuador
and, of course, we went to theGalapagos Islands.
But the more astounding partthat I remember, of course, but
(05:01):
the more astounding part that Iremember, of course, is going
through the Amazon jungle withour, you know, we just had our
private guide.
That's how you did it back then.
This was, as I said, 69, 70.
And we found a village, a verysmall village, found a village,
(05:31):
a very small village, but whatthis village had was a princess,
a young woman who was.
I'm not quite sure what herrole was, except that she really
was kind of idolized andprobably had the capacity to
guide her people.
(05:52):
And so, when I was shown intoher grass hut, my father, mother
and I they had never seen anywhite people before.
And this is Ecuador.
Before oil had been, there wasoil exploration.
Therefore, you're reallytalking about the tribes that
(06:18):
were very isolated, and SouthAmerica is known for that.
Many, many different kinds ofindigenous tribes and people.
Therefore, we had experiencesthat are not impossible to have
nowadays.
But you know, the world is flatnow.
(06:40):
The world is flat now.
It's not that difficult totravel.
But if you take the time and gobeyond and go below the tourist
trail, you can find some prettywonderful, unique things, and
(07:09):
in Bali, here also.
But you really need to go offthe beaten trail and you need to
do slow travel.
That's the other thing I hearabout.
You know, I have friends thatare from New York who go to
Europe for a weekend.
I'm like for Paris for theweekend.
I'm like what you know to me.
You don't have a chance toreally be here now.
Audra (07:51):
So I really believe in slow travel.
That definitely gave you abigger exposure to the world at
large, that it was much biggerthan New York City, but your
career was in textiles.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour career and then how that
launched you into your passion.
Phiphi (08:06):
Okay, so I went to school in Vermont.
I went to Bennington Collegeand I was an artist.
That school is very, very wellknown for arts and literature.
It's a very small school and Icame back to New York afterward
and immediately started acompany named Ziba Designs.
(08:32):
And it took off and why it tookoff.
It was a textile and wallcovering company wallpaper.
It started that way I was doingdesigns.
That was a marriage of fine artand textile art and commercial
(08:53):
art and it had never been doneand that's why I believe it was
so successful.
My first line was a line ofhand-painted fabrics on silks,
raw silks, cottons, linens, allkinds of materials and it was
(09:16):
very exclusive because it wasonly sold through architects and
interior designers.
In New York City and allthroughout the country there are
these showrooms that only anarchitect or an interior
designer can bring theirclientele and it was a very,
very successful business.
(09:38):
By 22, I was living a very, veryhigh life in New York in the
late 70s and all the 80s and itwas wonderful.
But at some period I was livingthere during the AIDS crisis
(09:58):
and I was taking care of a lotof friends and watching them die
a very ignoble death.
I really felt that my innerpriorities, that I was meant,
that the life that I had livedwas deeper, had to be deeper
(10:22):
than just having this verysuccessful business making a lot
of money and really onlyselling to the 1% or 2% of the
world.
And that really came in focus,obviously, when I moved.
(10:42):
I had a home in Vermont,because Vermont, of course, is
not a wealthy state.
There's a lot of poverty there,especially when I was there, as
I said, in the 70s and 80s, andthat you know, the first thing
(11:02):
I did was go work for Meals onWheels and really got to
understand, not just, you know,going to Bennington College, but
to understand the community.
And these were veryimpoverished people and often
what was great is that I was theonly person they might see for
every week, because Vermont's avery it doesn't have a large
(11:26):
population and people live veryisolated.
But what happened in Vermont?
It coalesced for me about asense of place, and a sense of
place was something very deep.
You know what makes a sense ofplace, as we all are aware of
(11:52):
now in America, we're all livingon borrowed land and where I
was living in Vermont was partof a lot of Cree Indian land.
But I started to get very, veryheavily involved in what a
sense of place is and at thattime, you know, people in New
(12:17):
York wanted second homes and atthat point they were all going
out to the Hamptons and Montauketc.
And you know the traffic waslegendary.
So people started to look forVermont, because Vermont was
only four or five hours away andtherefore people started to
(12:44):
look at the huge tracts of landand at that point also, farmers
were having a very difficulttime being able to keep their
land because of the high taxesand they were still growing.
Basically, vermont is a dairystate.
(13:04):
My work with the Vermont NatureConservancy as well as the
Vermont Land Trust was reallyfocused on the fact that farmers
in Vermont could not make anymoney just through milk.
It was a price-controlledcommodity.
(13:24):
Therefore, there were twothings that happened at that
time.
We had to have economicdevelopment.
The first thing they had to dofor economic development was
they had to go organic.
Organic, as you know, requiresor, at the market, gets a much
(13:49):
higher price.
Okay, it's in a differentcategory than trying to compete
with all the other milks, etc.
The other thing wasdiversification.
Well, we all know milk makes alot of things.
Everybody knows Ben and Jerry'sice cream, but you know yogurts
(14:12):
.
And then they started gettinginto the cheeses, which you know
commands a huge.
We all know that cheese is likegold.
We all we want the prices wepay.
And the Vermonters started todiversify and specialize in
Vermont cheeses, which were andstill are extraordinary, and
(14:38):
this created such a huge market,first of all, being only four
or five hours away from New YorkCity.
They started out at the bigfarmer's market in Union Square
in the center of New Yorkactually downtown New York,
actually downtown New York andthen, obviously, distribution
got broader and wider, and thisis what made Vermont what it is.
(15:05):
It already had cachet.
Everyone knows certain.
When you think of Vermont, youthink of clean and wide open
spaces and beautiful mountainsand fresh air, etc.
And that's all very true.
So this gave an incentive forthe farmers not to have to sell
(15:26):
their land to a New Yorker whowanted to put a McMansion on it.
This is a very, very important,important aspect, and what
happened at that point was thatthey started to conserve their
land.
What would happen is theVermont Land Trust, for example,
(15:50):
would purchase theirdevelopment rights so that the
farmer would get an influx of alot of money to be able to start
up the business a value-addedproduct and then also their
taxes got lowered and this iswhat stopped those McMansions.
(16:14):
Of course, through zoning.
This all goes through zoning,disallowing there to be
development on this primeagricultural land.
What's very important aboutthis is that once you joined
this program, your land wasconserved forever.
(16:38):
That doesn't mean that a farmercouldn't sell the land, it just
always had to be in some kindof agriculture.
It could never go into anyother land usage.
And this is basically the sameprogram that I used when I came
to Bali.
The same program that I usedwhen I came to Bali and after a
(17:00):
number of years, after theUNESCO designation, was about
rice paddies and its waterdelivery system, which is called
Subak.
So it's Sawa and Subak, andthese are not just land, these
are not just literal things,they're also in the realm of
cultural and religious.
Both Sawa land rice paddies andSubac, which is the water
(17:28):
delivery system, also has areligious component to it.
Audra (17:33):
So I'm going to stop you for there just a moment,
because I think that's reallyimportant what you just said.
I'm going to explain it too.
This work that you did inVermont with the conservation of
the land for the Vermontfarmers sparked something in you
(17:55):
.
It ignited this passion that ifI can do this here, I can do it
everywhere.
I can do this wherever.
So I think it's so fascinating,which is why I think that you
are such a fascinating humanbeing that you took this passion
(18:20):
and you chose Bali, thisamazing, remarkable, magical
land.
The way that you describe it tome it sounds like a place that
I have never been to, that I nowI have this desire to go to
because of the way that youdescribe it.
(18:41):
Like I said it just it soundsmagical, like it's like there's
no other place like this onEarth.
Phiphi (18:50):
Well, that is true, that is very true, and there, really
isn't.
Audra (18:56):
So I'd like you to tell that story, because I just think
it's such an amazing.
I think it's an amazing journeythat Vermont made this spark to
Bali, which I'm sure it wasn'ta direct line, but it got you
there.
So that's where I want you totake us.
(19:19):
Next is the story of Bali andits people and its art, because
at the heart of it, you are anartist.
Phiphi (19:29):
Yeah, and I'm a great appreciator here.
May I just talk a little bitmore about the farming aspect of
it?
Absolutely Okay.
What I wanted to say about theextraordinary confluence of
(19:52):
Vermont and Bali is that thereare so many overlaps.
It's astounding.
First of all, vermont only hassmall landowners.
We don't have big agribusiness,except for even the milk is not
even that.
And the same in Bali, everyoneis small landholders, the
(20:17):
farmers.
So there were many overlaps.
Also, the fact that both Baliand Vermont have this cachet in
the New York City farmers marketin Union Square, which was
tremendous for their value addedproducts and tourism, brings a
(21:06):
lot of people here wantingorganic food, organic rice, all
kinds of elevated products, andthey're also willing to pay
premium prices for these things.
As a Balinese, people spend very, very, very, very little money
on their food.
What they do spend money on istheir upachada, which is, as I
began to say, began to talkabout, the farmers in Bali.
(21:31):
Upachada are ceremonies.
Bali is the only island thathas Balinese Hinduism in this
huge archipelago of Indonesia,which is a sea of Islam, and one
of the things about BalineseHinduism is it also contains
(21:52):
animism, which means it giveslife to everything inert.
Everything becomes sacred orcertainly animated these farmers
not only.
As I was saying, the waterdelivery system called Subac
(22:14):
also has this extraordinaryreligious component to it.
There are upachata ceremoniesat every aspect.
As the rice, when you plant rice, it's like one's own life, when
the fertility of it and that's,by the way, the goddess of
(22:35):
fertility for rice is calledDewi Sri.
That's our rice goddess.
And the important thing toremember is that, even though
Java produces a lot of rice,they don't have soup back and
(23:00):
Bali has one of the most highestproductions of rice.
They can only assume, becauseof these upacara, these
ceremonies I know it's rice isgrowing a different ceremony
(23:39):
that this makes it moreproductive.
That's all I'm going to tellyou.
You can think what you want.
But getting back to Salabali,our pilot project was called
Seeing is Believing and all Ican tell you is, if you come
here and you see theproductivity of the rice, maybe
(24:03):
you will, maybe you will acceptit.
Audra (24:08):
Tell me a little bit more about that.
Tell me what does the ceremonylook like?
Can you tell us about theceremony, Sure?
Phiphi (24:17):
sure.
Well, as I said, there'sanimism also, so there are
effigies made out of bamboo andcolored paper and all kinds of
things banana leaves, all kindsof things that make an effigy of
Dewi Sri, kinds of things thatmake an effigy of Dewi Sri and
(24:46):
Dewi Sri is placed on this.
It's called a bedugul, which isa shrine.
Every farmer where the Subakwater enters their plot of land
as a bedugul, it denotes theirownership.
Therefore, at the top of wherethe bedugul is, this is where
many of the upachada for ricehappens at different stages of
(25:11):
the rice growing.
For example, at the end stage,when you are collecting the rice
, you only collect the best riceand that is always immediately
where the water is coming infrom the Subac water and the
(25:32):
fattest kernels, all the youknow, the heaviest kernels, and
you make an offering to Dewi Sriin that bed of gold.
Every farmer does it a farmer'swife, by the way.
The farmer's wives are integralin rice farming and every kind
of farming.
They do everything together andit's hard work.
(25:56):
I've done it many, many times.
You're talking about going intowet paddy and falling down.
You're not falling.
Well, I fell down a lot, butthat has to do with the tall
berms.
I've fallen off the berms,you're sunk down into almost to
your knees and there are eelsand everything else slithering
(26:16):
around you Eels, eels and allkinds of things you know.
And you are then bending overand putting these five little
sheaves called gaba the rice,bright, bright green and
planting them in a grid, a veryspecific grid.
(26:39):
And it's hard work.
The hot sun is, you know, is onyou and it's, you know, it's
always hot in Bali and it's very, very hard work.
But I did it many times.
I did it many times with theSawa Bali team.
We would also have businessescome out and have a group day of
(27:06):
bonding with the organization,all kinds of things.
It's bloody hard work.
So is harvesting.
After you harvest, you neveragain think about when that
grain of rice you're making riceat home and now a couple of
grains fall down on the floor.
You never allow that happen.
You pick those grains up.
(27:27):
It's very hard work.
How we change the farmers, wedid the same model we used in
Vermont changed the farmers.
Audra (27:40):
We did the same model we used in Vermont.
So this is all indigenous toBali.
So these are natural grains ofrice to Bali.
There is no chemicals, there'sno pesticides, there's none of
that.
Well, all of that is there.
Phiphi (27:54):
That that's the thing.
Sawabali had our pilot project.
We had our pilot project go.
As I said, first we had to uh,we had to make sure we had to
filter the water coming downfrom the subac because it all
had chemicals in it.
Then we had to make sure thepatty itself had not had biomass
(28:20):
added.
So a lot of cow manure okay,got it.
And then they grew anindigenous rice called mankop,
which is a brown rice, much,much more healthy cognitively,
everything else, and you onlyneeded a small portion, which is
(28:43):
a very important aspect.
You know, 25, 30 years agoeveryone walked and everyone did
labor.
Now it's not like they're taxidrivers, they're sitting.
If you're going to eat thatwhite rice, diabetes is really
(29:05):
so.
So a big part of Indonesia andIndia and rice nations, rice
growing nations that havemodernity.
Modernity means you're not inthat rice paddy all day, you're
doing another job, and forBalinese it is in the tourism
business, which a lot translatessitting in a car and driving
(29:30):
people around.
We grew a different rice around.
We grew a different rice, hadit milled, so we keep all of its
nutrition and because it was avalue-added product and it was
organic, it was 300% markup fromwhat the farmers could usually
sell their seed, their rice thatcame out of a laboratory and
(29:56):
had all these inputs ofchemicals, etc.
So this is the project we did.
The problem is that themono-economy of tourism needs
the exact same finite resourcesthat farming does.
(30:17):
It needs land and it needswater.
Guess which one is winning out,since Bali has only one economy
, no diversification, and thisis the problem.
People are selling all theirland, but they're not only
selling their land.
(30:37):
As one, my very dear friendPakangir, who is a very close
farmer I collaborated with himfor years and is a friend he
said to me years and years agoselling your land is like
selling your mother.
Audra (30:59):
Oh, what happens if they win?
What happens if the farmerssell out that they win and the
only thing that's left istourism?
What?
Phiphi (31:12):
happens to it?
Well, there is only tourism.
What's left is tourism.
What happens to it?
Well, there is only tourism.
But the point is is that, with,bali has lost a lot of its
magic, and I'll tell you why.
First of all, the traffic hereyou can wait almost an hour just
(31:35):
to go a mile it's.
And then there has beeninvestors who either have
laundered money from, likeJakarta dirty money, corrupt
money or just investors, andthey just there is a lot of
corruption in Indonesia and theypay off and they get to do
(31:56):
whatever they want.
The buildings are all supposedto be Balinese style.
Well, they're not.
You know, that's the thingabout Bali.
The arts are so strong here andeverything has a reason.
It's not as if it's just theBalinese style.
What is built has to do withwho is building it, the scale of
(32:17):
the person.
By the way, every building hasa shrine for praying and needs
to have the chinong, theofferings.
It doesn't matter if it's ahotel or it's a gas station.
There's always a place to praythere, and that happens every
(32:39):
day.
The Balinese practice theirreligion by making things.
So every day, a chenang, anoffering, and this is just not a
willy-nilly offering.
My family, each color has to goin a very specific you know,
(33:04):
you do.
You know one color first.
Another color In the middle isthis called pandan leaf, which I
love, and this is the offeringsthat are made.
And, as you can see, this ismade out of bamboo and this is
what is done every single day,not only here in this offering
(33:33):
in my house, because I am partof the family temple here, but I
also have a yoga shala downthere that is also blessed, and
this happens every day.
And when there's big holidays,which there were, the offerings
are far more ornate, festoonedwith all kinds of fruit, flowers
(33:58):
, etc.
Bali does have a lot of magic,and the way I find my magic is
by living with a family.
I live in a family compoundwith probably about 20 people,
but my very close family isDedik and his wife, who was here
(34:20):
doing their offerings, andDedique was not only a dear
friend, but he was a member ofSawabali and also he's a very,
very well-known conductor.
He is a conductor of thegamelan, which is the Balinese
orchestra.
So what makes it so wonderfulis I get to hear Gamelan
(34:44):
practice of the variousorchestras that he does every
day, except for Wednesday.
I feel very, very lucky becauseI love the Balinese music which
, by the way, is on a pentamicscale, five notes, as opposed to
ours which has seven.
So the sound itself is very,very different.
(35:07):
Besides, the instruments aretotally different.
Audra (35:11):
Yes, we need to preserve all of this, so we need to
preserve this culture so itdoesn't get lost.
So it doesn't get lost because,as I said in the beginning, the
(35:39):
way that you describe this,when you and I first met, when I
said tell me about you and Iknow I keep using this word is
that it just had this magicquality to it and I thought,
well, I need to book a ticket toBali because I and I never,
ever, had this, this desire orinkling to go.
But the way that you haddescribed it was so special that
(36:02):
I thought I need to go and seethis before it disappears.
Phiphi (36:07):
Well, thank you for that .
And it's all very, very truewhat you say.
I have been transformed cominghere.
Not only are the people themost welcoming people, they have
so much humor and they are veryas a society, they are a
(36:31):
collective society.
They are rice-growing.
They have welcomed me and youknow, I live in a traditional
village outside of Ubud.
So, going to Upachara which, bythe way, is tomorrow, or is it
today?
Oh, it's today at 4 o'clock.
(36:55):
Excuse me, I just realized it'stoday at 4 o'clock which will
be in a temple, one of thetemples, the large, gorgeous
temples, festooned with artistry, the carving of the wood, the
carving of the statues, everyplacement of the deities and the
(37:21):
shrines.
I always notice something new.
And then, of course, everywoman brings their offerings,
which is a huge basket of thingsfruits and cakes and flowers
and everything.
They walk with it on their head.
I can't do it like that.
(37:43):
I need to use at least one hand.
When I go to temple.
It, just as soon as I enter theChandi doors, it reminds me why
I'm here.
Audra (37:59):
And how long have you been in Bali?
Phiphi (38:09):
Well, I first came in 2009, 9, 10.
And so I did come back for afew years during the pandemic to
America.
I had a gorgeous place on LakeChamplain in Burlington, but I
think of myself as being herefor 15 years because all the
time that I was in Burlingtonfor a few years and I came back
(38:30):
during the pandemic, I was intouch with all of my friends
here who were suffering terriblybecause their mono-economy.
They did not have any income.
Audra (38:41):
No, there was no.
If all there is is tourism,there was no one there.
Phiphi (38:47):
And once again, when there was an opportunity to
diversify, as soon as tourismopened up again, they just went
right back to it.
And the extraordinary aspect ofthis is that tourism is almost
100 years old.
It was decided not by theBaladins, but by the Dutch
(39:13):
government in Jakarta, thenknown.
The Dutch were the colonizersof Indonesia for many, four or
five hundred years okay,starting with the spice trade
(39:33):
and they decided, becauseeveryone went to Bali because of
the culture, it was all aboutthe culture, the music, the
dance, the puppet, thewayankulit, which is the shadow
puppets.
It was all about the artistry.
It was decided that Bali shouldjust become this island for
(39:57):
tourism.
I mean, this is what washappening for tourism.
I mean, this is what washappening After World War.
I, you know the world, peoplewere searching for paradise and
back then, in a lot of ways,that's how the moniker was
created Valley is a Paradise andyou can find it.
(40:18):
But you've got to look realhard now Between the traffic,
the pollution, the noise ofconstruction every place on the
island and there's no politicalwill.
And this is the reason whySawabale and the work we tried
(40:43):
to do was.
We are in a stage calledlate-stage capitalism, where
everyone is trying to squeezeout as much money as possible
and therefore it was verydifficult for us to sell our
product, even though everyonewas interested in it, because
(41:04):
they loved the stories of thisrice that hadn't been found in
hundreds of years and it wasrefound.
It was very difficult for us tosell the rice, not like it was
easy to sell the value-addedproducts in New York, etc.
This is a cutthroat island inthat way.
Audra (41:26):
For those of us listening, can we support?
I mean, believe me, there's alot of us that really like rice.
Can we access this?
It's?
Phiphi (41:40):
interesting you say this .
I had markets that wanted it inSingapore, which, of course, is
very, very, very close.
You're not allowed to exportrice.
Trying to get our brown,organic rice, indigenous rice,
(42:16):
and the bureaucracy, theorganization that went through
Bulog, it never, it never.
They just classic Indonesianway.
They just put it at the bottomof the pile and we never got
authorization.
But there is no funding andright now, because we have
disbanded, I don't even have anoperational team, we don't have
operations, it's impossible towrite grants, etc.
(42:37):
I have moved on.
I'm just way too old to do thisnow.
If but we have often talkedabout this if there were funding
available and we're not talkingabout big money, we're talking
about, you know, a couplehundred $200,000.
To go to a SUBAC and give allthe workshops sustained
(43:05):
technical assistance.
That's what we did differently.
We did sustained technicalassistance, which is what you
need to do, to do changemanagement.
You can't just do workshopsonce and expect people to change
their systems.
So right now it's not happening.
(43:27):
I mean, farmers will grow fortheir own homes and their
families, because it's healthier, but I have to say we'll have
to see how many young people gointo farming unless they take
(43:48):
their technology with them andthey can do it if it were to be
done correctly.
There's still a lot of kidsgoing to a university to learn
about agriculture.
It's the outliers who do it.
A lot of kids going to auniversity to learn about
agriculture it's the outlierswho do it, but it's not a
(44:09):
wholesale.
There are some farmers that doit here, but it's not wholesale.
That's the sad part.
But I think, something I reallywould like to emphasize.
I think something I reallywould like to emphasize Sawa
Bali on paper or for its abilityto scale up we eventually had
(44:32):
20 farmers is a failure, is afailure, but I think that
failing I hope everyoneunderstands that failure is part
of life and the takeaways thatyou get from failure are not
(44:56):
just humbling but reallyimportant lessons, but really
(45:21):
important lessons, reallyimportant lessons.
I knew what we were facing whenI began Sawabali and I was just
really out of my mind to do this, to go up against the tourism
industry.
There was no way, and I canalso say there were probably
things.
I mean, I know In my book I gointo this there are reckonings
of things that I did not do well, that I did not do well and
(45:45):
people who could have becomeallies, I ended up alienated.
So I think it's important whenyou look at things like this and
it takes a lot of time and ittakes a lot of time and it takes
(46:21):
a lot of will to really lookinside, understand your own
failures, curiosity Don't let itdampen your curiosity and don't
let it dampen your ardency oryour advocacy or whatever
activism that you're passionateabout.
Don't let that stop you.
Audra (46:43):
You know, I think that's one of the things that I
admired the most about you isthat you knew what you were up
against.
You absolutely were well awarewhat you were up against and you
did it anyway.
You did it because you knewthat it needed to be done.
You knew that it wouldn'taccomplish everything that you
(47:05):
wanted it to, but you knew thatyou had to try and it was better
than doing nothing.
Well, thank you foracknowledging that, yeah, it's
(47:28):
just, sometimes we get caught upin the end result than the
actual the doing.
A very good friend of mine, asa matter of fact, when I started
this and I said to her you're anut, because I am a type A
personality and I am trainedtrained to focus on the goal and
(47:54):
the end result and, quitefrankly, so was she, and quite
frankly so was she.
So, Tina, I have shouted out toyou before on this very
statement and I'm shouting outto you again because she said
this and she's so smart, and shesaid the goal is not the point,
the journey is.
And I didn't understand whatshe said at that point, but I've
(48:18):
been doing this for four yearsnow and now I understand.
Phiphi (48:23):
Well, you're getting to be more process-oriented, and
process is huge.
My entire life is about process.
Process always takes a lot, lotlonger, but I enjoy the process
.
I enjoy the process.
The other thing I want to talkabout is that the reason I did
(48:49):
this was something to do withhaving a moral economy.
This isn't a perfect society.
It really is not society.
It really is not.
But the reason I live here isnot only when things are going
(49:11):
wrong or not going well.
Laughter is a huge part here.
I'm not taking things tooserious.
The other thing is that theBalinese carry their religion
inside of them.
Their countenance and justbeing with them is light and
loving and open and endearing,and it's really a very humane
(49:39):
society, really a very humanesociety.
And they have I'll leave thisone saying for your listeners to
ponder A very big credo here inBali and actually very much,
(50:04):
very, very much prevalent here,and that's what humanity is.
I mean, that's the humanenessthat I love here.
Thank you for being interestedand curious.
Audra (50:20):
Thank you for being interested and curious.
I've been so fascinated, and Ihave a feeling that a lot of my
audience will be too.
If they wanted to learn more,where would you direct them?
Phiphi (50:34):
That's a really good question.
First of all, they can go onour website sawabaliorg
S-A-W-A-H-B-A-L-I dot org.
Is that what it is?
No, just dot org, sorry.
They can go there.
They can look at our Facebookpage, but I would say the
(50:57):
website has really got a lot ofpictorial interest.
I mean, it's right thereshowing you how the water is
used.
I thank you for your interest.
Look at our website.
If you're interested to comingto Bali, please do your homework
(51:20):
before coming here and don'tjust look at the touristy things
to do and consider.
Consider, because where youwill learn the most and have the
most fun is living simply witha family.
Yes, you will have your ownbedroom.
You may have a lot of placesnow have their own bathroom for
(51:45):
tamu, for foreigners, and whenyou do that, they will include
you in everything and you willhave a lot of fun and you will
probably enjoy the food.
The food is just fantastic here.
If you like it spicy, evenbetter, enjoy the food.
The food is just fantastic here.
Audra (52:06):
If you like it spicy, even better.
I always like it spicy.
Spicy is where it's at.
Phiphi (52:10):
Well, you have an open invite when you're ready.
I have a whole guest suite Iwill take you up on that.
Audra (52:17):
Why not?
Why not?
It has been a delight to get toknow you.
(52:44):
I have so enjoyed getting toknow Bali.
Why not, why not?
No idea about that makes meintrigued and want me to go read
more into.
So getting to know you, gettingto know about more information,
and it's made me, it's made mecurious about things that I need
to research.
So it's really it inspired meto do further research on things
that I thought I knew, that Iprobably don't we always learn
(53:05):
each day?
Phiphi (53:06):
Be open to that.
Audra (53:08):
Fifi, thank you so much for being here, thank you for
your openness, thank you foryour education and, most
importantly, thank you forsharing your time with us.
I so appreciate you very much.
Phiphi (53:20):
Ditto, thank you for being a very professional
interviewer as well as a warmone, and, as I said, you have an
invite here.
When you come here, I will takeyou up on that All right.
Audra (53:42):
Thank you so much, and I want to thank all of you for
listening and we'll see youagain next time.
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me
again this week.
This week I have one of themost fascinating women I have
ever met, and that is sayingsomething because I have met so
many remarkable women in thelast four years that I have been
doing this show.
This week we are speaking toPhyllis Fifi Kaplan.
(00:23):
You will hear me refer to heras Fifi from now on.
She is a citizen of the world.
She has traveled all over andhas been exposed to cultures
that most of us have never seenCosm, the Omen of a Small Island
Overrun by Globalization,neocolonialism and White
(00:48):
Entitlement.
An NGO Tale.
She was the trustee of theVermont chapter of the Nature
Conservancy and she is thefounder of the NGO Sawa Bali.
She has also appeared on NPR,cnn and UNESCO, and so many more
.
It is my pleasure and my honorto introduce to you Fifi Kaplan.
(01:08):
Fifi, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Phiphi (01:14):
Audra, it is a pleasure to be here to speak with you,
that we have the technology tospeak 15,000 miles away and
neither of us are in the dark.
Audra (01:28):
We're not in the dark.
Yes, as we speak, I am sittinghere in Queen Creek, arizona,
and you are in Bali.
I mean that is remarkable.
Phiphi (01:39):
It is remarkable.
Audra (01:42):
So in my introduction I alluded that you are a citizen
of the world and you've traveledall over, but that is not where
you started.
Tell us a little bit of whereyou the right place New York.
Phiphi (02:08):
And therefore, and being a female at that time and
having the set of parents I hadjust had, opportunity written
each day, I was privilegedenough to obviously being white,
all of those things andeducated the world really was my
(02:33):
oyster.
And it was a smaller world thenalso.
But I was lucky enough to bebrought up in the big world of
the Big Apple and both LongIsland and New York, so I had
all the cultural attributes thatNew York City could provide.
(02:56):
I had lessons at theMetropolitan Museum as well as
the Brooklyn Museum, art lessons, and we just spent a lot of
time in New York.
But I was brought up also inLong Island, which at that time
was very verdant and not asdeveloped as it is now.
(03:17):
So next door house was a bigwoods and you know, I also felt
very, very much at ease and lostin a world.
When I was in nature, and myfriends were like that also, we
did as much as we can walking inthe woods, walking to the beach
(03:39):
, bicycling, all those things.
That pretty nice childhood.
Audra (03:46):
You'd also mentioned to me, when we first met, that your
father was an adventurer, thathe believed that education
wasn't just in four walls or inbooks and that if there was an
opportunity, that he didn'thesitate, but to pull you out of
school and go on a trip, on aglobal trip, and take you
(04:08):
somewhere, to educate you toanother, another country,
another culture and learnsomething new it's very, very
true.
Phiphi (04:18):
My father, uh, probably you had these aspirations of not
only being an adventurer, butsince he had an engineering
background, he would have lovedto like be there building the
Panama Canal or doing a bridge,you know all of these things.
He was a very curious person.
(04:40):
That's the other thing.
I was very lucky.
Both my parents were incrediblycurious about the world around
them.
So, yes, at the age of 13, hetook me and my mother to Ecuador
and, of course, we went to theGalapagos Islands.
But the more astounding partthat I remember, of course, but
(05:01):
the more astounding part that Iremember, of course, is going
through the Amazon jungle withour, you know, we just had our
private guide.
That's how you did it back then.
This was, as I said, 69, 70.
And we found a village, a verysmall village, found a village,
(05:31):
a very small village, but whatthis village had was a princess,
a young woman who was.
I'm not quite sure what herrole was, except that she really
was kind of idolized andprobably had the capacity to
guide her people.
(05:52):
And so, when I was shown intoher grass hut, my father, mother
and I they had never seen anywhite people before.
And this is Ecuador.
Before oil had been, there wasoil exploration.
Therefore, you're reallytalking about the tribes that
(06:18):
were very isolated, and SouthAmerica is known for that.
Many, many different kinds ofindigenous tribes and people.
Therefore, we had experiencesthat are not impossible to have
nowadays.
But you know, the world is flatnow.
(06:40):
The world is flat now.
It's not that difficult totravel.
But if you take the time and gobeyond and go below the tourist
trail, you can find some prettywonderful, unique things, and
(07:09):
in Bali, here also.
But you really need to go offthe beaten trail and you need to
do slow travel.
That's the other thing I hearabout.
You know, I have friends thatare from New York who go to
Europe for a weekend.
I'm like for Paris for theweekend.
I'm like what you know to me.
You don't have a chance toreally be here now.
Audra (07:51):
So I really believe in slow travel.
That definitely gave you abigger exposure to the world at
large, that it was much biggerthan New York City, but your
career was in textiles.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour career and then how that
launched you into your passion.
Phiphi (08:06):
Okay, so I went to school in Vermont.
I went to Bennington Collegeand I was an artist.
That school is very, very wellknown for arts and literature.
It's a very small school and Icame back to New York afterward
and immediately started acompany named Ziba Designs.
(08:32):
And it took off and why it tookoff.
It was a textile and wallcovering company wallpaper.
It started that way I was doingdesigns.
That was a marriage of fine artand textile art and commercial
(08:53):
art and it had never been doneand that's why I believe it was
so successful.
My first line was a line ofhand-painted fabrics on silks,
raw silks, cottons, linens, allkinds of materials and it was
(09:16):
very exclusive because it wasonly sold through architects and
interior designers.
In New York City and allthroughout the country there are
these showrooms that only anarchitect or an interior
designer can bring theirclientele and it was a very,
very successful business.
(09:38):
By 22, I was living a very, veryhigh life in New York in the
late 70s and all the 80s and itwas wonderful.
But at some period I was livingthere during the AIDS crisis
(09:58):
and I was taking care of a lotof friends and watching them die
a very ignoble death.
I really felt that my innerpriorities, that I was meant,
that the life that I had livedwas deeper, had to be deeper
(10:22):
than just having this verysuccessful business making a lot
of money and really onlyselling to the 1% or 2% of the
world.
And that really came in focus,obviously, when I moved.
(10:42):
I had a home in Vermont,because Vermont, of course, is
not a wealthy state.
There's a lot of poverty there,especially when I was there, as
I said, in the 70s and 80s, andthat you know, the first thing
(11:02):
I did was go work for Meals onWheels and really got to
understand, not just, you know,going to Bennington College, but
to understand the community.
And these were veryimpoverished people and often
what was great is that I was theonly person they might see for
every week, because Vermont's avery it doesn't have a large
(11:26):
population and people live veryisolated.
But what happened in Vermont?
It coalesced for me about asense of place, and a sense of
place was something very deep.
You know what makes a sense ofplace, as we all are aware of
(11:52):
now in America, we're all livingon borrowed land and where I
was living in Vermont was partof a lot of Cree Indian land.
But I started to get very, veryheavily involved in what a
sense of place is and at thattime, you know, people in New
(12:17):
York wanted second homes and atthat point they were all going
out to the Hamptons and Montauketc.
And you know the traffic waslegendary.
So people started to look forVermont, because Vermont was
only four or five hours away andtherefore people started to
(12:44):
look at the huge tracts of landand at that point also, farmers
were having a very difficulttime being able to keep their
land because of the high taxesand they were still growing.
Basically, vermont is a dairystate.
(13:04):
My work with the Vermont NatureConservancy as well as the
Vermont Land Trust was reallyfocused on the fact that farmers
in Vermont could not make anymoney just through milk.
It was a price-controlledcommodity.
(13:24):
Therefore, there were twothings that happened at that
time.
We had to have economicdevelopment.
The first thing they had to dofor economic development was
they had to go organic.
Organic, as you know, requiresor, at the market, gets a much
(13:49):
higher price.
Okay, it's in a differentcategory than trying to compete
with all the other milks, etc.
The other thing wasdiversification.
Well, we all know milk makes alot of things.
Everybody knows Ben and Jerry'sice cream, but you know yogurts
(14:12):
.
And then they started gettinginto the cheeses, which you know
commands a huge.
We all know that cheese is likegold.
We all we want the prices wepay.
And the Vermonters started todiversify and specialize in
Vermont cheeses, which were andstill are extraordinary, and
(14:38):
this created such a huge market,first of all, being only four
or five hours away from New YorkCity.
They started out at the bigfarmer's market in Union Square
in the center of New Yorkactually downtown New York,
actually downtown New York andthen, obviously, distribution
got broader and wider, and thisis what made Vermont what it is.
(15:05):
It already had cachet.
Everyone knows certain.
When you think of Vermont, youthink of clean and wide open
spaces and beautiful mountainsand fresh air, etc.
And that's all very true.
So this gave an incentive forthe farmers not to have to sell
(15:26):
their land to a New Yorker whowanted to put a McMansion on it.
This is a very, very important,important aspect, and what
happened at that point was thatthey started to conserve their
land.
What would happen is theVermont Land Trust, for example,
(15:50):
would purchase theirdevelopment rights so that the
farmer would get an influx of alot of money to be able to start
up the business a value-addedproduct and then also their
taxes got lowered and this iswhat stopped those McMansions.
(16:14):
Of course, through zoning.
This all goes through zoning,disallowing there to be
development on this primeagricultural land.
What's very important aboutthis is that once you joined
this program, your land wasconserved forever.
(16:38):
That doesn't mean that a farmercouldn't sell the land, it just
always had to be in some kindof agriculture.
It could never go into anyother land usage.
And this is basically the sameprogram that I used when I came
to Bali.
The same program that I usedwhen I came to Bali and after a
(17:00):
number of years, after theUNESCO designation, was about
rice paddies and its waterdelivery system, which is called
Subak.
So it's Sawa and Subak, andthese are not just land, these
are not just literal things,they're also in the realm of
cultural and religious.
Both Sawa land rice paddies andSubac, which is the water
(17:28):
delivery system, also has areligious component to it.
Audra (17:33):
So I'm going to stop you for there just a moment,
because I think that's reallyimportant what you just said.
I'm going to explain it too.
This work that you did inVermont with the conservation of
the land for the Vermontfarmers sparked something in you
(17:55):
.
It ignited this passion that ifI can do this here, I can do it
everywhere.
I can do this wherever.
So I think it's so fascinating,which is why I think that you
are such a fascinating humanbeing that you took this passion
(18:20):
and you chose Bali, thisamazing, remarkable, magical
land.
The way that you describe it tome it sounds like a place that
I have never been to, that I nowI have this desire to go to
because of the way that youdescribe it.
(18:41):
Like I said it just it soundsmagical, like it's like there's
no other place like this onEarth.
Phiphi (18:50):
Well, that is true, that is very true, and there, really
isn't.
Audra (18:56):
So I'd like you to tell that story, because I just think
it's such an amazing.
I think it's an amazing journeythat Vermont made this spark to
Bali, which I'm sure it wasn'ta direct line, but it got you
there.
So that's where I want you totake us.
(19:19):
Next is the story of Bali andits people and its art, because
at the heart of it, you are anartist.
Phiphi (19:29):
Yeah, and I'm a great appreciator here.
May I just talk a little bitmore about the farming aspect of
it?
Absolutely Okay.
What I wanted to say about theextraordinary confluence of
(19:52):
Vermont and Bali is that thereare so many overlaps.
It's astounding.
First of all, vermont only hassmall landowners.
We don't have big agribusiness,except for even the milk is not
even that.
And the same in Bali, everyoneis small landholders, the
(20:17):
farmers.
So there were many overlaps.
Also, the fact that both Baliand Vermont have this cachet in
the New York City farmers marketin Union Square, which was
tremendous for their value addedproducts and tourism, brings a
(21:06):
lot of people here wantingorganic food, organic rice, all
kinds of elevated products, andthey're also willing to pay
premium prices for these things.
As a Balinese, people spend very, very, very, very little money
on their food.
What they do spend money on istheir upachada, which is, as I
began to say, began to talkabout, the farmers in Bali.
(21:31):
Upachada are ceremonies.
Bali is the only island thathas Balinese Hinduism in this
huge archipelago of Indonesia,which is a sea of Islam, and one
of the things about BalineseHinduism is it also contains
(21:52):
animism, which means it giveslife to everything inert.
Everything becomes sacred orcertainly animated these farmers
not only.
As I was saying, the waterdelivery system called Subac
(22:14):
also has this extraordinaryreligious component to it.
There are upachata ceremoniesat every aspect.
As the rice, when you plant rice, it's like one's own life, when
the fertility of it and that's,by the way, the goddess of
(22:35):
fertility for rice is calledDewi Sri.
That's our rice goddess.
And the important thing toremember is that, even though
Java produces a lot of rice,they don't have soup back and
(23:00):
Bali has one of the most highestproductions of rice.
They can only assume, becauseof these upacara, these
ceremonies I know it's rice isgrowing a different ceremony
(23:39):
that this makes it moreproductive.
That's all I'm going to tellyou.
You can think what you want.
But getting back to Salabali,our pilot project was called
Seeing is Believing and all Ican tell you is, if you come
here and you see theproductivity of the rice, maybe
(24:03):
you will, maybe you will acceptit.
Audra (24:08):
Tell me a little bit more about that.
Tell me what does the ceremonylook like?
Can you tell us about theceremony, Sure?
Phiphi (24:17):
sure.
Well, as I said, there'sanimism also, so there are
effigies made out of bamboo andcolored paper and all kinds of
things banana leaves, all kindsof things that make an effigy of
Dewi Sri, kinds of things thatmake an effigy of Dewi Sri and
(24:46):
Dewi Sri is placed on this.
It's called a bedugul, which isa shrine.
Every farmer where the Subakwater enters their plot of land
as a bedugul, it denotes theirownership.
Therefore, at the top of wherethe bedugul is, this is where
many of the upachada for ricehappens at different stages of
(25:11):
the rice growing.
For example, at the end stage,when you are collecting the rice
, you only collect the best riceand that is always immediately
where the water is coming infrom the Subac water and the
(25:32):
fattest kernels, all the youknow, the heaviest kernels, and
you make an offering to Dewi Sriin that bed of gold.
Every farmer does it a farmer'swife, by the way.
The farmer's wives are integralin rice farming and every kind
of farming.
They do everything together andit's hard work.
(25:56):
I've done it many, many times.
You're talking about going intowet paddy and falling down.
You're not falling.
Well, I fell down a lot, butthat has to do with the tall
berms.
I've fallen off the berms,you're sunk down into almost to
your knees and there are eelsand everything else slithering
(26:16):
around you Eels, eels and allkinds of things you know.
And you are then bending overand putting these five little
sheaves called gaba the rice,bright, bright green and
planting them in a grid, a veryspecific grid.
(26:39):
And it's hard work.
The hot sun is, you know, is onyou and it's, you know, it's
always hot in Bali and it's very, very hard work.
But I did it many times.
I did it many times with theSawa Bali team.
We would also have businessescome out and have a group day of
(27:06):
bonding with the organization,all kinds of things.
It's bloody hard work.
So is harvesting.
After you harvest, you neveragain think about when that
grain of rice you're making riceat home and now a couple of
grains fall down on the floor.
You never allow that happen.
You pick those grains up.
(27:27):
It's very hard work.
How we change the farmers, wedid the same model we used in
Vermont changed the farmers.
Audra (27:40):
We did the same model we used in Vermont.
So this is all indigenous toBali.
So these are natural grains ofrice to Bali.
There is no chemicals, there'sno pesticides, there's none of
that.
Well, all of that is there.
Phiphi (27:54):
That that's the thing.
Sawabali had our pilot project.
We had our pilot project go.
As I said, first we had to uh,we had to make sure we had to
filter the water coming downfrom the subac because it all
had chemicals in it.
Then we had to make sure thepatty itself had not had biomass
(28:20):
added.
So a lot of cow manure okay,got it.
And then they grew anindigenous rice called mankop,
which is a brown rice, much,much more healthy cognitively,
everything else, and you onlyneeded a small portion, which is
(28:43):
a very important aspect.
You know, 25, 30 years agoeveryone walked and everyone did
labor.
Now it's not like they're taxidrivers, they're sitting.
If you're going to eat thatwhite rice, diabetes is really
(29:05):
so.
So a big part of Indonesia andIndia and rice nations, rice
growing nations that havemodernity.
Modernity means you're not inthat rice paddy all day, you're
doing another job, and forBalinese it is in the tourism
business, which a lot translatessitting in a car and driving
(29:30):
people around.
We grew a different rice around.
We grew a different rice, hadit milled, so we keep all of its
nutrition and because it was avalue-added product and it was
organic, it was 300% markup fromwhat the farmers could usually
sell their seed, their rice thatcame out of a laboratory and
(29:56):
had all these inputs ofchemicals, etc.
So this is the project we did.
The problem is that themono-economy of tourism needs
the exact same finite resourcesthat farming does.
(30:17):
It needs land and it needswater.
Guess which one is winning out,since Bali has only one economy
, no diversification, and thisis the problem.
People are selling all theirland, but they're not only
selling their land.
(30:37):
As one, my very dear friendPakangir, who is a very close
farmer I collaborated with himfor years and is a friend he
said to me years and years agoselling your land is like
selling your mother.
Audra (30:59):
Oh, what happens if they win?
What happens if the farmerssell out that they win and the
only thing that's left istourism?
What?
Phiphi (31:12):
happens to it?
Well, there is only tourism.
What's left is tourism.
What happens to it?
Well, there is only tourism.
But the point is is that, with,bali has lost a lot of its
magic, and I'll tell you why.
First of all, the traffic hereyou can wait almost an hour just
(31:35):
to go a mile it's.
And then there has beeninvestors who either have
laundered money from, likeJakarta dirty money, corrupt
money or just investors, andthey just there is a lot of
corruption in Indonesia and theypay off and they get to do
(31:56):
whatever they want.
The buildings are all supposedto be Balinese style.
Well, they're not.
You know, that's the thingabout Bali.
The arts are so strong here andeverything has a reason.
It's not as if it's just theBalinese style.
What is built has to do withwho is building it, the scale of
(32:17):
the person.
By the way, every building hasa shrine for praying and needs
to have the chinong, theofferings.
It doesn't matter if it's ahotel or it's a gas station.
There's always a place to praythere, and that happens every
(32:39):
day.
The Balinese practice theirreligion by making things.
So every day, a chenang, anoffering, and this is just not a
willy-nilly offering.
My family, each color has to goin a very specific you know,
(33:04):
you do.
You know one color first.
Another color In the middle isthis called pandan leaf, which I
love, and this is the offeringsthat are made.
And, as you can see, this ismade out of bamboo and this is
what is done every single day,not only here in this offering
(33:33):
in my house, because I am partof the family temple here, but I
also have a yoga shala downthere that is also blessed, and
this happens every day.
And when there's big holidays,which there were, the offerings
are far more ornate, festoonedwith all kinds of fruit, flowers
(33:58):
, etc.
Bali does have a lot of magic,and the way I find my magic is
by living with a family.
I live in a family compoundwith probably about 20 people,
but my very close family isDedik and his wife, who was here
(34:20):
doing their offerings, andDedique was not only a dear
friend, but he was a member ofSawabali and also he's a very,
very well-known conductor.
He is a conductor of thegamelan, which is the Balinese
orchestra.
So what makes it so wonderfulis I get to hear Gamelan
(34:44):
practice of the variousorchestras that he does every
day, except for Wednesday.
I feel very, very lucky becauseI love the Balinese music which
, by the way, is on a pentamicscale, five notes, as opposed to
ours which has seven.
So the sound itself is very,very different.
(35:07):
Besides, the instruments aretotally different.
Audra (35:11):
Yes, we need to preserve all of this, so we need to
preserve this culture so itdoesn't get lost.
So it doesn't get lost because,as I said in the beginning, the
(35:39):
way that you describe this,when you and I first met, when I
said tell me about you and Iknow I keep using this word is
that it just had this magicquality to it and I thought,
well, I need to book a ticket toBali because I and I never,
ever, had this, this desire orinkling to go.
But the way that you haddescribed it was so special that
(36:02):
I thought I need to go and seethis before it disappears.
Phiphi (36:07):
Well, thank you for that .
And it's all very, very truewhat you say.
I have been transformed cominghere.
Not only are the people themost welcoming people, they have
so much humor and they are veryas a society, they are a
(36:31):
collective society.
They are rice-growing.
They have welcomed me and youknow, I live in a traditional
village outside of Ubud.
So, going to Upachara which, bythe way, is tomorrow, or is it
today?
Oh, it's today at 4 o'clock.
(36:55):
Excuse me, I just realized it'stoday at 4 o'clock which will
be in a temple, one of thetemples, the large, gorgeous
temples, festooned with artistry, the carving of the wood, the
carving of the statues, everyplacement of the deities and the
(37:21):
shrines.
I always notice something new.
And then, of course, everywoman brings their offerings,
which is a huge basket of thingsfruits and cakes and flowers
and everything.
They walk with it on their head.
I can't do it like that.
(37:43):
I need to use at least one hand.
When I go to temple.
It, just as soon as I enter theChandi doors, it reminds me why
I'm here.
Audra (37:59):
And how long have you been in Bali?
Phiphi (38:09):
Well, I first came in 2009, 9, 10.
And so I did come back for afew years during the pandemic to
America.
I had a gorgeous place on LakeChamplain in Burlington, but I
think of myself as being herefor 15 years because all the
time that I was in Burlingtonfor a few years and I came back
(38:30):
during the pandemic, I was intouch with all of my friends
here who were suffering terriblybecause their mono-economy.
They did not have any income.
Audra (38:41):
No, there was no.
If all there is is tourism,there was no one there.
Phiphi (38:47):
And once again, when there was an opportunity to
diversify, as soon as tourismopened up again, they just went
right back to it.
And the extraordinary aspect ofthis is that tourism is almost
100 years old.
It was decided not by theBaladins, but by the Dutch
(39:13):
government in Jakarta, thenknown.
The Dutch were the colonizersof Indonesia for many, four or
five hundred years okay,starting with the spice trade
(39:33):
and they decided, becauseeveryone went to Bali because of
the culture, it was all aboutthe culture, the music, the
dance, the puppet, thewayankulit, which is the shadow
puppets.
It was all about the artistry.
It was decided that Bali shouldjust become this island for
(39:57):
tourism.
I mean, this is what washappening for tourism.
I mean, this is what washappening After World War.
I, you know the world, peoplewere searching for paradise and
back then, in a lot of ways,that's how the moniker was
created Valley is a Paradise andyou can find it.
(40:18):
But you've got to look realhard now Between the traffic,
the pollution, the noise ofconstruction every place on the
island and there's no politicalwill.
And this is the reason whySawabale and the work we tried
(40:43):
to do was.
We are in a stage calledlate-stage capitalism, where
everyone is trying to squeezeout as much money as possible
and therefore it was verydifficult for us to sell our
product, even though everyonewas interested in it, because
(41:04):
they loved the stories of thisrice that hadn't been found in
hundreds of years and it wasrefound.
It was very difficult for us tosell the rice, not like it was
easy to sell the value-addedproducts in New York, etc.
This is a cutthroat island inthat way.
Audra (41:26):
For those of us listening, can we support?
I mean, believe me, there's alot of us that really like rice.
Can we access this?
It's?
Phiphi (41:40):
interesting you say this .
I had markets that wanted it inSingapore, which, of course, is
very, very, very close.
You're not allowed to exportrice.
Trying to get our brown,organic rice, indigenous rice,
(42:16):
and the bureaucracy, theorganization that went through
Bulog, it never, it never.
They just classic Indonesianway.
They just put it at the bottomof the pile and we never got
authorization.
But there is no funding andright now, because we have
disbanded, I don't even have anoperational team, we don't have
operations, it's impossible towrite grants, etc.
(42:37):
I have moved on.
I'm just way too old to do thisnow.
If but we have often talkedabout this if there were funding
available and we're not talkingabout big money, we're talking
about, you know, a couplehundred $200,000.
To go to a SUBAC and give allthe workshops sustained
(43:05):
technical assistance.
That's what we did differently.
We did sustained technicalassistance, which is what you
need to do, to do changemanagement.
You can't just do workshopsonce and expect people to change
their systems.
So right now it's not happening.
(43:27):
I mean, farmers will grow fortheir own homes and their
families, because it's healthier, but I have to say we'll have
to see how many young people gointo farming unless they take
(43:48):
their technology with them andthey can do it if it were to be
done correctly.
There's still a lot of kidsgoing to a university to learn
about agriculture.
It's the outliers who do it.
A lot of kids going to auniversity to learn about
agriculture it's the outlierswho do it, but it's not a
(44:09):
wholesale.
There are some farmers that doit here, but it's not wholesale.
That's the sad part.
But I think, something I reallywould like to emphasize.
I think something I reallywould like to emphasize Sawa
Bali on paper or for its abilityto scale up we eventually had
(44:32):
20 farmers is a failure, is afailure, but I think that
failing I hope everyoneunderstands that failure is part
of life and the takeaways thatyou get from failure are not
(44:56):
just humbling but reallyimportant lessons, but really
(45:21):
important lessons, reallyimportant lessons.
I knew what we were facing whenI began Sawabali and I was just
really out of my mind to do this, to go up against the tourism
industry.
There was no way, and I canalso say there were probably
things.
I mean, I know In my book I gointo this there are reckonings
of things that I did not do well, that I did not do well and
(45:45):
people who could have becomeallies, I ended up alienated.
So I think it's important whenyou look at things like this and
it takes a lot of time and ittakes a lot of time and it takes
(46:21):
a lot of will to really lookinside, understand your own
failures, curiosity Don't let itdampen your curiosity and don't
let it dampen your ardency oryour advocacy or whatever
activism that you're passionateabout.
Don't let that stop you.
Audra (46:43):
You know, I think that's one of the things that I
admired the most about you isthat you knew what you were up
against.
You absolutely were well awarewhat you were up against and you
did it anyway.
You did it because you knewthat it needed to be done.
You knew that it wouldn'taccomplish everything that you
(47:05):
wanted it to, but you knew thatyou had to try and it was better
than doing nothing.
Well, thank you foracknowledging that, yeah, it's
(47:28):
just, sometimes we get caught upin the end result than the
actual the doing.
A very good friend of mine, asa matter of fact, when I started
this and I said to her you're anut, because I am a type A
personality and I am trainedtrained to focus on the goal and
(47:54):
the end result and, quitefrankly, so was she, and quite
frankly so was she.
So, Tina, I have shouted out toyou before on this very
statement and I'm shouting outto you again because she said
this and she's so smart, and shesaid the goal is not the point,
the journey is.
And I didn't understand whatshe said at that point, but I've
(48:18):
been doing this for four yearsnow and now I understand.
Phiphi (48:23):
Well, you're getting to be more process-oriented, and
process is huge.
My entire life is about process.
Process always takes a lot, lotlonger, but I enjoy the process
.
I enjoy the process.
The other thing I want to talkabout is that the reason I did
(48:49):
this was something to do withhaving a moral economy.
This isn't a perfect society.
It really is not society.
It really is not.
But the reason I live here isnot only when things are going
(49:11):
wrong or not going well.
Laughter is a huge part here.
I'm not taking things tooserious.
The other thing is that theBalinese carry their religion
inside of them.
Their countenance and justbeing with them is light and
loving and open and endearing,and it's really a very humane
(49:39):
society, really a very humanesociety.
And they have I'll leave thisone saying for your listeners to
ponder A very big credo here inBali and actually very much,
(50:04):
very, very much prevalent here,and that's what humanity is.
I mean, that's the humanenessthat I love here.
Thank you for being interestedand curious.
Audra (50:20):
Thank you for being interested and curious.
I've been so fascinated, and Ihave a feeling that a lot of my
audience will be too.
If they wanted to learn more,where would you direct them?
Phiphi (50:34):
That's a really good question.
First of all, they can go onour website sawabaliorg
S-A-W-A-H-B-A-L-I dot org.
Is that what it is?
No, just dot org, sorry.
They can go there.
They can look at our Facebookpage, but I would say the
(50:57):
website has really got a lot ofpictorial interest.
I mean, it's right thereshowing you how the water is
used.
I thank you for your interest.
Look at our website.
If you're interested to comingto Bali, please do your homework
(51:20):
before coming here and don'tjust look at the touristy things
to do and consider.
Consider, because where youwill learn the most and have the
most fun is living simply witha family.
Yes, you will have your ownbedroom.
You may have a lot of placesnow have their own bathroom for
(51:45):
tamu, for foreigners, and whenyou do that, they will include
you in everything and you willhave a lot of fun and you will
probably enjoy the food.
The food is just fantastic here.
If you like it spicy, evenbetter, enjoy the food.
The food is just fantastic here.
Audra (52:06):
If you like it spicy, even better.
I always like it spicy.
Spicy is where it's at.
Phiphi (52:10):
Well, you have an open invite when you're ready.
I have a whole guest suite Iwill take you up on that.
Audra (52:17):
Why not?
Why not?
It has been a delight to get toknow you.
(52:44):
I have so enjoyed getting toknow Bali.
Why not, why not?
No idea about that makes meintrigued and want me to go read
more into.
So getting to know you, gettingto know about more information,
and it's made me, it's made mecurious about things that I need
to research.
So it's really it inspired meto do further research on things
that I thought I knew, that Iprobably don't we always learn
(53:05):
each day?
Phiphi (53:06):
Be open to that.
Audra (53:08):
Fifi, thank you so much for being here, thank you for
your openness, thank you foryour education and, most
importantly, thank you forsharing your time with us.
I so appreciate you very much.
Phiphi (53:20):
Ditto, thank you for being a very professional
interviewer as well as a warmone, and, as I said, you have an
invite here.
When you come here, I will takeyou up on that All right.
Audra (53:42):
Thank you so much, and I want to thank all of you for
listening and we'll see youagain next time.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!