Interview with Asian-Canadian Professor and Writer, Dr. Julie Mehta

I am delighted to present an interview I conducted with, the wise and intelligent, . My interview consists of personal questions relating to Asian-Canadian identity, but she goes beyond those questions providing both a transnational and a professional background. Her interview includes detailed and insightful personal experiences.

Dr. Julie Mehta is a writer, an author, and a former professor at the University of Toronto. She was also my professor and, I have to admit, she was a brilliant, thought-provoking, and inspiring lecturer. She openly engages her students in debate, and she gets to know each and every one of them.


When and why did you choose to come to Canada?

Well, to cut the long story short, you know I've been in Cambodia, Singapore, and Thailand for about fifteen years and I was a literary reviewer. Then, one day, I went to Cambodia and found an Indian architectural team redoing the temples which were coming up the Angkor Wat, which was a national heritage site. And in that research, which went on for twelve years, I wrote a book called The Dance of Life, which was on bringing Cambodian culture back to life after the genocide which was in from '75 to '79. I was quite astonished as to how a culture had been completely obliterated. All the notations about dance, the musical tradition, the literature was all burned down. It was only with the help of Vietnam, Vietnamese support, that the Khmer Rouge, that created the genocide regime were done away with.

And then, with this book, my partner Harish, who is also a political and economic correspondent,  wrote with me a biography of the prime minister of Cambodia. It took ten years to write those two books. But we were invited to a huge promotion in America and Canada and once we came to the universities in Canada and America we realized how much students, who are from Asia, were so invested in finding their roots. So, there was a lot of dialogue and discussion and we decided maybe, after so many years, we should bring what we want to share to Canada. And we chose Canada because we felt very much at home here, we love the people, we love the culture, we love the fact that there was some sort of multi-culture here that America didn't quite have in the same way because you have to be American first. Here it's different, people more or less have the same equal rights to an identity of  their own.

So, when we came to Canada the obvious choice was that we'd like to teach in universities so we came back and did our doctoral work, we did our dissertations and we just loved the life, we love academic life.  

Did you face any culture shock when you came?

Singapore and Bangkok are cosmopolitan. They are heavily influenced by the West. English is not a language that is unknown to us because we all come from that British education, heritage, so really there was no culture shock. We felt completely at home and it was really like going to a bigger Singapore.



       

Goodbying, Belonging, and Beginning

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
- Helen Keller

Change can be scary, when you feel unprepared for the future. I've always questioned myself - why do I keep making the same mistakes? What will happen to me in the next couple of years? Where do I belong? After high school, I was eager to start school with an open mind and a willing heart. I wanted to make new friends, study something I loved, and develop a romantic relationship. I was lucky and I worked hard to get jobs and make friends. I contemplated my majors (and minor at the time) over the last two years. It was more difficult for me to pursue something romantic because of my more reserved and shy nature. But I did find people that I was interested in at the time.

I had to say a lot of goodbyes to every day, every mistake, every failure, and everything I couldn't change. I often felt like I didn't belong anywhere at times: not with my friends, not with my College, not with my club groups, not with my church, not with my family. And it was an isolating experience, to feel like no one understands or cares. But self-acceptance is an every day process. I am not perfect. I make mistakes. I just have to pick myself back up and carry on. Every day is a new beginning.