By the time I unpack my bags it's still early afternoon, so I decide to take myself for a walk, get reoriented to this town I haven't seen in two years. And then I'll try to figure out how to start finding my medicine man. I imagine this will be a difficult task, might take days or even weeks. I'm not sure where to start with my search, so I stop at the front desk on my way out and ask Mario if he can help me.

我打开行李时还早，正午刚过，于是决定去散散步，重新熟悉两年不见的小镇，而后我得想办法找到我的药师。我猜想这是一项艰巨的任务，或许得花上几天，甚至几个礼拜。我不确定从何开始找寻，于是出门之前到前台问马里奥能否帮忙我。

Mario is one of the guys who work at this hotel. I already made friends with him when I checked in, largely on account of his name. Not too long ago I was traveling in a country where many men were named Mario, but not one of them was a small, muscular, energetic Balinese fellow wearing a silk sarong and a flower behind his ear. So I had to ask, "Is your name really Mario? That doesn't sound very Indonesian."

马里奥是旅社工作人员之一。我登记住宿时已和他交上朋友，大半因为他的名字。不久前，我才在一个有很多男人名叫马里奥的国家旅行，却没有哪个是矮小、健壮、精力充沛的巴厘岛小伙子，穿条沙龙丝裙，耳后插朵花。因此我必须问他：“你真叫马里奥吗？听起来不太像印尼名字。”

"Not my real name," he said. "My real name is Nyoman."

“不是我的真名，”他说，“我的真名叫老三。”

Ah—I should have known. I should have known that I would have a 25 percent chance of guessing Mario's real name. In Bali, if I may digress, there are only four names that the majority of the population give to their children, regardless of whether the baby is a boy or a girl. The names are Wayan (pronounced "Why-Ann"), Made ("mah-DAY"), Nyoman and Ketut. Translated, these names mean simply First, Second, Third and Fourth, and they connote birth order. If you have a fifth child, you start the name cycle all over again, so that the fifth child is really known as something like: "Wayan to the Second Power." And so forth. If you have twins, you name them in the order they came out. Because there are basically only four names in Bali (higher-caste elites have their own selection of names) it's totally possible (indeed, quite common) that two Wayans would marry each other. And then their firstborn would be named, of course: Wayan.

啊，我早该知道。我早该知道我有四分之一的几率猜中马里奥的真名。容我暂时离题——在巴厘岛，大部分人给孩子取的名字只有四个，且无分男女。这四个名字是“Wayan”“Made”“Nyoman”和“Ketut”。这些名字只是老大、老二、老三、老四的意思，意味出生顺序。倘若生第五个孩子，便重头开始名字的循环，因此第五个孩子的实际名字大致是：“二次老大”。依此类推。若是双胞胎，则依他们的出世次序命名。巴厘岛基本上只有四个名字（上层精英人士有自己挑选的名字），因此两个“Wayan”大有可能结为夫妻（事实上也很常见）。他们的头一个孩子自然也取名为“Wayan”。

This gives a slight indication of how important family is in Bali, and how important your placement in that family is. You would think this system could become complicated, but some-how the Balinese work it out. Understandably and necessarily, nicknaming is popular. For in-stance, one of the most successful businesswomen in Ubud is a lady named Wayan who has a busy restaurant called Café Wayan, and so she is known as "Wayan Café"—meaning, "The Wayan who owns Café Wayan." Somebody else might be known as "Fat Made," or "NyomanRental-Car" or "Stupid-Ketut-Who-Burned-Down-His-Uncle's-House." My new Balinese friend Mario got around the problem by simply naming himself Mario.

这暗示家庭在巴厘岛的重要性，以及家族中成员定位的重要性。你可能认为这套系统会趋于复杂，但巴厘人却处理得很好。可以理解（而且有其必要）的是，大家流行取绰号。比方说，乌布有个成功女事业家名叫“Wayan”，她经营一家繁忙的餐厅，叫“老大咖啡馆”（CafeWayan），因此她被称为“咖啡馆老大”——意即“经营老大咖啡馆的老大”。有的人可能称为“肥老二”或“租车老三”或“烧掉伯父家的蠢老四”。我的巴厘新朋友马里奥简单称呼自己为马里奥，因此躲过这问题。