ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali

Negara was like a big show that happened in Bali a long time ago. It was a very special type of show called a "theatre state" because it was like a giant play that was also how the government worked.

In Negara, the king was the main actor and he had a lot of power. He had to perform in plays all the time and he had to be really good at it. He also had to make sure the other people in the plays were doing a good job too.

Everyone in Negara used the plays to communicate with each other. They didn't really talk to each other in normal ways. So if someone wanted to say something to the king, they would write a play about it and then the king would watch it and understand what they were trying to say. It was kind of like a secret code but with plays instead of words.

All the plays were really fancy and had a lot of costumes and music. They were so much fun to watch! But they were also important because they helped everyone understand what was happening in the government.

Negara was really different from the way things work now, but it was a really interesting way to run a country.