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AI: So, I want to try and understand this. So as a child, then, are you saying that you perhaps were equating the poverty of India with just being undesirable? And that as a child, you didn't want to be affiliated with something that was so poor and undesirable?

PJ: Yeah. I mean, it's not that different from the way people think about India now. It's just dirty, uneducated, I mean, all of the stereotypes. But I didn't have, I was still young, and I didn't have the presence of thought or mind or kind of reflection to be able to make my own decisions about it. And so I think I instinctively just sort of said, "Oh, I don't want any part of that. I want this," which is it what I've seen as being abundance and desirable and clean and all of these things. Which in some ways, goes to some of the work I did in India, where there was a -- we'll talk about this later, maybe -- but a focus group that was done with youth in the villages, where they were shown two pictures, and one was of an Indian model and one was of a Western model. And they had to associate, kind of free associate with those two. And it was really interesting because they free associated all good things with the Western model and all bad things with the Indian model. And, and tradition was considered bad. So in other words, somebody would say like traditional medicine versus modern medicine. And so traditional was considered bad. And I think a lot of that came through television, and kind of the beaming across of American culture. Which, in a way, is exactly what we had in Indonesia, except we didn't have television. We just had it acting itself out.

AI: Well, in kind of a related question, I wanted to ask about how much you were learning about India or your Indian heritage at this time, that here you're in Jakarta, and you're at this international school with a lot of Western influence. So while you were growing up, I was wondering if you had much of a sense of Indian history, or if your parents shared some of that?

PJ: Not really. I mean, my mother is a, is very into history and my father not at all. And I think, actually, part of my rejection of India also, in some odd way, came from my father, too. My father very much -- never said it this way, but he always wanted what was better for us, and that usually what was better was not Indian. You know, he wanted us to go to the International School. There was an Indian school there that a lot of kids went to. He did not want us to be there. And so I wonder how much of it also -- now, they've gone back to India, and he's very happy there, but he still grumbles about it a lot. [Laughs] But I think that... I've lost your question now, that got me talking about that...

AI: Well, I'd originally asked about how much you had known about India, or how much you had learned about it.

PJ: Oh, right. That's right. So my grandfather was also very interested. So I did get some pieces of it, but it really wasn't until the eighth -- you know how when you have kids, you tell them things that you think they should know, but unless they really want to know it -- [laughs] -- or they're in a stage where they can take it in, it just goes sort of right over their heads. So I think my mother tried. But it really wasn't until, I think it was eighth grade, the summer of eighth grade, and I went back. And we went on this trip, and we went to the Taj Mahal, and we went to Delhi and we went to Gandhi's tomb and we went, I mean, we went to all of these places where I suddenly started realizing, "Oh my gosh, this is incredible. Look at, just incredible history." And in fact, far from being backward, when you look at Moghul cities, for example, ancient cities, they had sewer systems long before... and ones that worked for centuries, not just for five years or ten years. [Laughs] And so the intricacy of the cities combined with kind of, India is so rich, and I've, it took me a while to get to recognizing it, but there's so much in terms of history, art, culture, music, clothing, food, color, that I think I was just amazed, and it felt like discovering it in a way. Because most of the time we would just go and hang out at my grandmother's place, or we didn't really go out very much, and my family was very protective of us that way. So that, I think that was really the first time, and then I started to get more and more interested as time went on. But then through the next ten years or so, had these moments where I would, again, kind of push it away and try to fit in, and then... it just took me really until -- I'm embarrassed to say -- until I went back to India, to be able to just sort of come to terms with it and say, "This is amazing," and, "This is as much a part of my culture." And yes, there's some really horrible things in India, too, as there are everywhere. And it took me a while to be able to get there, though.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.