You don’t have to stay in Bali for long to realize that the perfection, precision and efficiency we find in many European cultures is not the general mindset. A combination of the tropical heat, village lifestyle and compromised infrastructure means that things don’t always go to plan. Disappointment is a very foreign concept for Balinese and it really is a beautiful side to the personalities of the people here. Without disappointment, there is less expectation, less anguish, less comparing, less blame, less heartbreak…
The laid-back attitude of the Balinese could be summed up in one simple word: ‘kanggoang’, which can be very loosely translated as something like “accept it as it is” or “this is all I can offer”. For example, you’ve been working on something but it’s late or you’ve run out of patience, kanggoang will mean “let’s just accept that this is about as much as we can do for now”. Or say you have a guest at your place but everything’s in a mess, kanggoang (in this case, use the refined form ‘kanggiang’) would mean “I’m ashamed of what I have, but this is it”. Sometimes it has overtones from other Asian cultures. If you have done something for someone, you could use kanggoang to insist that “it is not worthy but it is all you are capable of doing”.
The frequent use of kanggoang is not to say that Balinese are not achievers or don’t strive for something, but they accept ‘how good something is going to ever get’. There are tons of examples of artistic brilliance in Bali, there are few things that are ‘machine perfect’.
Kanggoang can be bewildering for visitors but it is part of the Balinese pscyhe that, while fading due to the outside influences, is still very much alive and is what makes Bali the relaxed and tolerant society that it is today.
