The Trending of Kristen Gray Case and Why It is Important
In the light of that recently blown-up “Moving to Bal-illegally” thread, gotta say I am relieved.
What is the backstory? In a now-deleted Twitter thread that at first was posted on Friday (16/1), a Twitter account going by @kristentootie promoted Bali as a haven to live. What started as a heartwarming story soon took a turn for the worse when her successful life story unwittingly uncovers all kinds of violations as a foreign tourist in the pandemic era.
Long story short, she somewhat confessed that she has been living and thriving in Indonesia with her long-overdue residence permit and earning income outside of Indonesia’s tax laws. Further, she promoted her book that encourages other foreigners to skedaddle and settle in Bali by giving tips on how to find presumably illegitimate visa agents and how to visit Indonesia during COVID-19 pandemic. Two of five reasons why everyone should do this according to her: low cost of living and luxury lifestyle.
So why am I relieved? This case presumably will go undetected if no one from the so-called “bule nakal” has a bloated urge to share their illegal activities with such confidence. Yes, I believe we have more than a handful of them.
Bule nakal — which can be translated as “wanton foreigners” — is a commonly-used term by Indonesian media to name foreigners (mostly tourists) who misbehave, from being reckless in the streets to illegally taking a settlement. Bule terms that I will write below are strictly referring to bule nakal definition.
A number of news sources and my friends’ direct experience show that many of these bules have increasingly unnerving attitudes. Overstaying their visa and locals’ welcome, performing foolhardy things especially with bikes, and now with the pandemic, they blatantly and irresponsibly violate COVID-19 safety protocols. All of that while most of the local Bali people adhere to those rules.
While we can draw many social implications such as social disparity, gentrification, and even modern form of colonialism, I would like to focus this piece on the regulation and protocol designed around COVID-19 from the Indonesian government.
This should be the momentum for our government to tighten the rules regarding ‘overstayed tourists that are populating Bali right now. However, I must say that I stand at a sceptic point about this. It is still fresh in my mind that Indonesian president, intending to mend the national economy, rashly opening popular destination spots amidst the pandemic and Bali, of course, is one of them.
Many people already denounced this policy and pointed out the fact that it is awfully unfair for locals to follow the regulations while a flock of people, largely the “influencers”, can easily enter the island for leisure activities. And then we have these bules, already feeling entitled as ‘tourists’, proceed to ignore the rules.
Now thanks to that thread, not only COVID-19’s, but it is obviously apparent that they also break regulations about visiting a country and taxes. The fact that someone finally posted it to encourage others to do the same and made a book from it no less signals in one part the audacity of the lady, and the other part the fragility of our laws.
Fortunately, there are already many news portals reporting that the officials mobilise a search party for the lady and her girlfriend. Hopefully, this case resolves the government to dare slap the laws into these bules’ senses, tourist-friendly be damned.
I mean, the government’s pretext was to restore the economy. How can you restore the national economy when your tourists stay illegally and leech off by not paying any taxes, which left unattended can destroy one of your province’s economy?
So it is very interesting to see how the tourism regulations will transform following this case. Brandishing Indonesia’s tourist attractions has been one of the top priorities of its running government. Now apart from having to tread a fine line among COVID-19 restrictions, the government must also start considering to improve the stricter visiting laws imposed on the tourists. This way, economic restoration on a national scale could be achieved — and arguably more importantly — the welfare of locals could be assuredly elevated as well.
