Walter Spies

Anything and everything about gay life anywhere in the world, especially Asia, other than Thailand.
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fountainhall

Re: Walter Spies

Post by fountainhall »

What a fascinating story - only part of which I knew. Thank you for posting it.

In 1981 I made my first visit to Bali. I had a long three-week vacation from my job in Hong Kong which I was splitting equally between Bali and Tokyo. I had booked three nights at the Oberoi Hotel near Kuta which I believe is still there. But it was Ubud that I really wanted to visit and so I had then booked a week at the Tjampuhan Hotel just outside Ubud - across the bridge and up a slight incline on the right. I quickly became so captivated by Ubud that I cancelled the Japan part of the trip and spent the rest of that vacation in Ubud.

The Tjampuhan Hotel had no electricity, accommodation was in simple huts dotted on the hillside, showers were buckets which we filled with water and quickly hoisted above our heads before the water all ran out – but it did have a lovely Hollywood-style pool. Breakfast was fresh coffee, fruit and delicious banana filled-pancakes left on an hibiscus-blossom covered tray outside our door. Down the hill on the right over the bridge and clinging to the hillside was Murni’s Warung, a lovely restaurant where my memories of fruits doused in fresh yoghurt and local honey remain with me to this day.

More fascinating for someone from the repressed morality of the west, around 5:00 pm young men would come in from the fields and the rice paddies, completely disrobe and shower or bathe wherever fresh water could be found. Several came to the water tap by our pool; others to the stream down the hill. The sight of those beautiful utterly shameless naked brown bodies was so new and unusual for me – and I fear I became a bit of a voyeur. As with so many experiences as a newcomer to Asia, I felt as though I had stepped through a looking glass into a totally different world.

I remember many walks through the rice paddies hearing the faint sound of gamelin orchestras rehearsing almost everywhere. So entranced was I by life in that part of the island I was to return 9 more times, making two visits each year and becoming quite a well known figure in Ubud!

I had been aware before that first visit that Ubud was a centre of many painters, most Balinese and most trained by a number of European and American artists who had lived there. Over the years I bought several, including one from an artist whom I watched create the painting over several days. Just down from the Tjampuhan on the right before the bridge lived a fascinating eccentric character, an artist named Antonio Blanco. Well into his 70s, I think, he had a big studio in his house, the walls covered in paintings mostly of naked young ladies. Of Spanish/American descent, he also had a bevy of bare-breasted young ladies flitting in and out almost constantly. But no young men, alas!

I believe Blanco was to be the last of the group of western painters who were to make their homes and spend their lives in Bali. After his death, his home was turned into a Museum which now houses many of his works.

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I mention the Tjampuhan Hotel for one reason - the main part of the hotel as you turn off the road was the actual house in which Walter Spies lived for several years. The pool allegedly was constructed for the heiress Barbara Hutton who had said she could only visit if she could relax in a pool similar to the one in her home. For whatever reason, she had fallen madly in love with Spies and took him to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. But despite the pool, she never made it to Bali. No doubt she realised that Spies’ romantic interests lay elsewhere and she hightailed it off to Persia. I am told the pool has now been converted into a lily pond.

Spies’ influence on Bali was not merely confined to painting and music. He loved Balinese dance. One of the most spectacular and famous now is the kecak where a hundred men sit in a circle chanting “chak, chak-a-chak-a-chak-a-chak” whilst scenes from the Ramayana are acted out.

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Spies actually choreographed this dance as he needed something more dramatic than the traditional dancing for a film he was making about Bali.

Sadly none of my photographs from those visits have lasted, presumably having been printed on inferior paper. I adored my visits, on only one of which I had a long tryst with a young Balinese. 20 years after my last visit, my boyfriend of that time was desperate to visit the island. Reluctantly I agreed, for I was well aware that the island would have been almost totally transformed as a result of mass tourism. Sadly I was right. In 2005 I found most of the charm had gone from Ubud. But then isn't that how we all feel when we return to a place which has fascinated us decades earlier?
neddy3

Re: Walter Spies

Post by neddy3 »

Thanks PeterUK. A great read.
thewayhelooks
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Re: Walter Spies

Post by thewayhelooks »

Walter's story is also included in the book Imagining Gay Paradise by Gary L Atkins, which also includes the stories of the CEO of fridae.com, Stuart Koe, the founder of Babylon in Bangkok, Khun Toc, and the editor of Bangkok World newspaper, Darrell Berrigan, who was murdered in October 1965.
fountainhall

Re: Walter Spies

Post by fountainhall »

Hope I can find that book. Funny to hear fridae mentioned again. I used to enjoy being a member. A groundbreaking site when Stuart Koe established it in 2000, it allegedly had around 500,000 members mostly from the Chinese diaspora and was a really great site for making hookups around the region before the apps took over. Stuart Koe left the site 4 years ago when it was taken over by a commercial firm that seems to be running it into the ground.

PS: I see the "Imaging Gay Paradise" is available on amazon in the USA in a paperback edition as well as on kindle. It gets excellent readers' reviews. Here's an excerpt from one -
Who would have thought that the life stories of a German painter, a Thai king, a Bankok relator, and a Singapore IT developer could be collected into such an epic portrait of gay life? By selecting moments, Atkins weaves a tale which is not just very readable, but gives a sense of the progress of gay identity as it has progressed outside of America. "Imagining a Gay Paradise" is the theme, and it works. I would like to say more, but I don't want to be a spoiler. I found it hard to put down.
thewayhelooks
Posts: 320
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 4:40 pm
Been thanked: 58 times

Re: Walter Spies

Post by thewayhelooks »

I gave up on fridae a few years ago. Just had a look at the site and the design is like something for five years olds. All that is missing is pink unicorns. I used to enjoy sgboy back in the day but abandoned it not long after it became Trevvy. Which sounds like the name of a five year old.

Hope you can get the book.
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