My paternal grandmother was a woman of considerable character. She crossed Canada in her teens, fell in love with a handsome entrepreneur in Vancouver and brought up three children during the Depression. In the childhood summers I spent with my grandparents on their little farm, she never seemed to rest. She cooked delicious old-fashioned food on a big wood-burning stove, bullied the chickens into laying more eggs and kept an eye on her many grandchildren while making jam and mending socks.
Hazel was a born gardener. Nothing she planted ever failed to thrive and in the summer her front garden was a chaotic jungle of flowers and herbs. She always had a big pot of begonias which was put out on the long south-facing porch in the spring and brought in before the frost. My parents moved into a new house when I was four. There was a wooden divider between the living and dining room and along the top was a row of Hazel’s begonias in pots. Even my mother, whose fingers were far from green, was not able to quench their hardy survivorship. Decades passed, we grew up, Hazel left us and the begonias kept growing.
When we daughters moved out, we each took a begonia cutting with us. They were easy plants for starting gardeners, tolerating neglect and remorseful over-watering. This variety had serrated leaves which were dark red underneath and dark green with silver spots on top. The potted begonias went with us from apartment to apartment, house to house. When I moved to Singapore 20 years ago, I brought a few inches of withered begonia stem with me. It sprouted and grew. Hazel’s begonia loved the tropics, perhaps having a deep cellular memory that this was where it all began for begonias. But the hydrangea cutting I brought from our old house didn’t make it.
Like plants, people transplant to the tropics with varying degrees of success. Some adapt quickly, putting down deep roots and tolerating the heat, the wet and the cultural bafflements with ease. Others struggle to be comfortable, seeking a balance in this demanding new environment that is by no means automatically acquired.
I was once asked to speak to a class at an International School about adjusting to life in Asia. I declined, because I don’t think it is a skill that can be learned. Like the cellular memory of a begonia cutting, I believe we are born with the potential to thrive in different climates and cultures. If we don’t have that, no amount of wishing or training will make it so.
Perhaps there is whole set of genes the medical community has yet to discover. There must be an Adventure Gene. Some kids spend their young years reading exciting travel books and planning incredible journeys, and others would rather not stray far from the house. Are these instincts hard-wired? It begs the question of whether the expatriate (expat) is born or made. I’ve known expats born in Asia or Africa who loved their birth country and never wanted to be anywhere else. Yet their siblings dashed for the West and the white picket fence as soon as they could, and never looked back. Those of us who settle happily and permanently in foreign countries are not necessarily from families with old colonial or sea-faring traditions; most of us are first-generation expats. And when I ask my staff if they’d like to fly with me to Lombok or Java some day, Wayan Manis lights up with excitement. Nyoman hates the idea. He has a dominant White Picket Fence Gene.
The Tropical Gene is even more mysterious. So many of my western friends here share my inappropriate freckled Celtic skin, yet we love the heat. What on earth are we doing here? What drew us from frosty northern climes to this steamy environment and why do most of us eschew air conditioning? The Tropical Gene must have an Artic option. I’ve known many Asians who claim that their best memories are from winters in Ottawa or Oslo. An elegant Thai lady described eating bangers and mash in an English pub during a snowstorm as one of the highlights of her life. Go figure.
Then there’s the Cultural Challenge Gene. Most people in most places are most comfortable among their own kind. They like the familiarity of language, cuisine, culture, religion. The maverick few can’t wait to hurtle themselves into another cultural context, the stranger the better. Many marry locally and dig in for life. Is it the Gene that causes this behaviour, or are they reincarnations of their Balinese neighbour’s great-great-great Aunt Ketut? The Balinese seldom carry the Cultural Challenge Gene.
Oh, and the Wildlife Gene. I’m not the only person on this island with an affection for reptiles and big crunchy bugs. When I spot a green pit viper in my garden these days, I have a list of three guys who want to know immediately. (Now that Bali’s Green Pit Viper has been declared a distinct species, they all have to have one.) No Balinese on this list yet, just crazy expats.
No wonder the immigration departments of so many Asian countries don’t know what to do with us. They think we’re foreigners. We feel that we are home. It’s confusing for all of us.
When I moved to Bali 10 years ago I brought another sprig of Hazel’s begonia. It languished in a pot for years before I had the wit to tuck it into a corner of the garden. Now it’s thriving in the dense green shade, its roots deep in the rich Balinese soil. Like mine.
Dragons in the Bath, a collection of Ibu Kat’s stories, is available in Bali from Dijon in Kuta, Ganesha Books at Biku in Seminyak and Ganesha Books and selected shops in Ubud. It can be ordered nationally and internationally through www.dragonsinthebath.com <http://www.dragonsinthebath.com>
