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 When the Protestant minister J.F.G. Brumund visited Bali in the middle of the 19th century, he visited a rich Chinese businessman who was also a chief of the Chinese community with the title of Captain. This Captain had an ancestral altar in the center of his house, where he daily prays for his ancestors and the gods of Heaven and Earth to protect him from the evil spirits.
However Mr. Brumund was surprised to see some Balinese shrines in the garden where the wife of the Captain brought her daily offerings of flowers and bits of rice grains and a piece of coin. "Husband and wife, each their own God" he wrote in his report. ….
This phenomena can still be seen all over Bali at present. When my friend Claudine Salmon and I went on a research trip to Bali recently we visited many Chinese temples and met with some temple elders and priests and saw that they too had Balinese shrines in their homes, because they had either a Balinese mother, grandmother or wife. We have also visited several Balinese temples (called pura) all over Bali where Chinese shrines were present.
One such shrine was at the Pura Tanjung Sari near Padang Bai a coastal village where the ferries from Bali depart for Lombok island. Tanjung Sari is one three puras around Padang Bai, the others are well-known pura Silayukti, and the Pura Penataran Agung.
We would not have ventured to this place if Claudine had not received a photograph of a wooden tablet from a person, who wanted to know the meaning of the inscription. However the Chinese inscriptions in the photo were not clear and part of them were covered with red cloth. We thus set out to solve this problem, but when we reached the temple we did not see the plaque, nor was there any shrine that looked Chinese, because the usual trade mark of Chinese temples is the red color. But then we noticed that one of the shrine had a different top, a stupa, which indicated that it was a Buddhist shrine. We also noticed that there were Chinese joss-sticks, the ones with red stems, nearby. A priest told us that Tanjung Sari was a Buddhst temple before the Hindus arrived in Bali. That is why the shrine was devoted to Buddha. The Chinese started to come there after a ship got stuck in sea and could not move. The sailors saw the temple and decided to pray for their safety. Since then many sailors and traders come to pray for a good voyage or for good luck.
On another visit we had more luck, as two men came by on a motorcycle and told me to contact a shopkeeper in the village. This shopkeeper, Niek Wijaya told us that the tablet is safely stored in a place where all other treasures of the temple were. It is considered sacred and can only be seen on certain holidays. He could not tell us about the writings since he can't read Chinese and can't even speak the language, but if we want to see it, we have to come during the holiday, but no pictures were allowed to be taken.
He then took us to another shrine at the entrance of the Pura Segara, a small Balinese temple, in front of the harbor. The red shrine had four Chinese characters written on it, meaning "The grand old man of the Enormous Wind". Inside the shrine were some joss-sticks in an incense burner, some burnt-out candles an a wooden tablet saying: "Guardian of the Kongco" (Ancestor). A friend of Niek Wijaya, who had worked on boats bringing cattle to Singapore and Hongkong told me, that Padang Bai used to be a busy port where Chinese junks used to come to load cattle to be taken to other parts of Indonesia or for export to Singapore and Hongkong. The sailors would pray for good winds and bring offerings before they set sail.
To solve the problem of the writing we had to contact a certain Mr. Liu in Denpasar. We found Mr Liu in his "hut" full of packets of incense. Mr Liu told us that one day he got a dream of the four character sand a voice who asked him to write the characters on the shrine. Asked who he was, the voice answered that it was not a human being but the wind. Mr. Liu who had no idea where the shrine was went on a search until he found it. Being an ex-school teacher he was able to write it on the shrine.
Since that time Mr. Liu's business was booming. His incense is now being sold in the gift shops of 5-star hotels and exported to all parts of the world. He is now trying to raise money to build a Chinese shrine inside the Pura Tanjung Sari to give the Grand old man a better place.
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