Population expert Hull has RI in his system<\/p>\n
Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Melbourne, Australia<\/p>\n
The place is the living room of a family home in Sydney; the time
\nan evening in the mid 1960s. The television news is beaming
\nimages of Indonesia. A reporter is standing on a leafy street of
\nJakarta, with armored personnel carriers in the background.
\nTension is in the air.<\/p>\n
But the picture is then rendered somewhat confusing at best
\nand unreal at worst, when a crowd is seen quickly forming behind
\nthe reporter, obviously trying to get into the picture.<\/p>\n
Those were the first images which entered the consciousness of
\na youngteenage high school student, who had migrated with his
\nfamily from the United States, and had never come across any
\nIndonesians. So much of what he saw and heard in those days was
\nfiltered through the commentary of Australian journalists
\ncovering the events.<\/p>\n
A great deal has happened since then in the life of Terrence
\nHull, now professor of population, health and development at
\nAustralian National University in Canberra. Those images from 40
\nyears ago have proven to have more influence in his development
\nthan how he felt about them then, \"frightening, but also
\nenticing\".<\/p>\n
Hull was introduced to international traveling in his early
\nteen years. When he was 14, his parents took him and his three
\nbrothers to live in Sydney, Australia. The move turned out to be
\nmore brief than they had expected. Four years later, immediately
\nafter Hull finished high school, the family returned to the U.S.,
\nwhere Hull went to the University of Miami.<\/p>\n
Hull had always planned to come back to Australia, so much so
\nthat he was admitted to the University of Miami as an
\ninternational student. And he also knew that he wanted to work in
\nAsia; for his master's, he went to the East West Center (EWC) in
\nHawaii in the late 1960s.<\/p>\n
The EWC was a pivotal point in his life in more ways than one.
\nIt was there that he met his partner and wife Valerie. Together
\nthey began serious work in population studies, which have
\ncontinued until today. \"The EWC also prepared us to move to
\nCanberra for Ph.D studies,\" said Hull.<\/p>\n
It was in the EWC that Hull met his first Indonesian friends,
\nand he decided to study Bahasa Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"In some ways it was an uninformed decision,\" he confessed, \"I
\nsuppose the thought of Chinese characters or tonal pronunciation
\npushed me away from the East Asian languages. At the same time
\nthe idea of Indonesia was appealing.\"<\/p>\n
The first Indonesian Hull really got to know was the language
\ntutor, Nico Winter. The learning was fun, because Winter used
\nsongs a lot. Hull still remembers Halo-Halo Bandung and
\nSarinande. He and his fellow students also had to make up stories
\nto expand their vocabulary. Naturally they often drew on their
\nown nursery rhymes, which occasionally would cause some hilarity.<\/p>\n
One popular nursery rhyme in English speaking countries is
\nThis Little Piggy Went to Market. True enough, one of the
\nstudents translated it into Indonesian: \"Babi kecil ini pergi ke
\npasar, babi kecil ini tinggal di rumah, babi kecil ini makan roti
\ndengan mentega, babi kecil ini tidak makan apa-apa...\"<\/p>\n
\"Nico was totally puzzled,\" recounted Hull. \"He had never
\nheard this child's ditty, and probably felt that all this talk of
\nbabi was not particularly respectful. However, he took it in good
\nhumor and once the full tale was told, he joined in the
\nlaughter.\"<\/p>\n
During the first year at EWC, a large group of students were
\ntrained briefly by a leading exponent of Balinese dance to
\nperform the kecak dance in the Kennedy Theater.<\/p>\n
Hull recalled that the group had some very strange-looking
\nmonkeys -- Hanuman-white, but large and gawky.<\/p>\n
\"Pak and Ibu Narendra (the leading dancers) displayed the
\ngrace and lithe movements we all know of Bali, but the chorus of
\nthe kecak was just as chaotic as a real mob of monkeys. However
\nwe all loved the experience, and I think our Balinese teacher was
\nhappy to have such willing, if awkward, pupils,\" recounted Hull.<\/p>\n
The EWC was ideal for meeting people from other countries,
\nbecause it was a mutual learning experience all round, Hawaii
\nbeing a foreign place for most of them.<\/p>\n
\"I still look back on those days as some of the happiest of my
\nlife,\" Hull reminisced.<\/p>\n
Valerie and Terrence Hull's first fieldwork was in Fiji, where
\nthey spent two periods of three months. Then they went on to
\nvillage study in Indonesia, in Maguwoharjo village, Depok, Sleman
\nin Yogyakarta.<\/p>\n
While Valerie, who had studied anthropology, and was doing a
\nthesis on the status of women, Hull, having studied
\ninstitutionalist economics, did research on the value of
\nchildren. They combined the qualitative methods of anthropology
\nwith the kind of survey research more common in sociology or
\neconomics.<\/p>\n
Hull has fond memories of the 14 months they spent in the
\nvillage. They lived with 14 student assistants and two servants;
\nit was like having a huge family with all the responsibilities
\nand fun as well.<\/p>\n
\"What was remarkable then, and would be impossible now,\" said
\nHull, \"was the fact that the household survived quite well on
\nfood and lodging purchased from the modest scholarships the
\nAustralian National University gave the two of us. Today my
\nstudents need a lot more support if they want to do much smaller
\nstudies.\"<\/p>\n
Hull believes that his research has gone a long way to shaping
\nhis values.<\/p>\n
\"When you attend funerals for small children who die of
\nhunger-related illnesses, or see people displaced from their
\nhouses by a gang of thugs with no more authority than their
\nfists, and the money some developer has put in their pockets, it
\ncannot help but change the way you see the world,\" he explained.<\/p>\n
Vis-a-vis the region, Indonesia, according to Hull, has
\nundergone a remarkable change in sexuality that is related to the
\nhistorical transformation of gender roles.<\/p>\n
\"Unfortunately most of the world does not appreciate the
\nrichness of the cultures of Southeast Asia, and as a result they
\nhave very biased views of Indonesia,\" he said. \"In the U.S. all
\ntalk of Asia is interpreted in terms of experiences of China or
\nIndia. That is a shame because Indonesia is very different from
\nboth those nations.\"<\/p>\n
His mastery of Indonesian language, and his knowledge of the
\nculture, provide him with very useful insight in his continuous
\nresearch. His sensitivity to the culture of the \"other\" helps him
\nto make inroads into further studies in the region.<\/p>\n
Hull's current research in gender and sexuality covers the
\nwhole of Southeast Asia, while his footprints are very much in
\nIndonesia. He is conducting analysis of the 2000 Indonesian
\ncensus.<\/p>\n
Asked what kind of conversation he often has about Indonesia
\noutside academia, Hull related one he recently had in Dallas,
\nTexas. He was having lunch with some people who knew little about
\nIndonesia except for the stories of bombings they saw on TV or
\nread in the New York Times. They were worried about words like
\njihad, wanting to know what the impact of the U.S. invasion of
\nIraq was in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Hull explained the situation as best he could.<\/p>\n
\"I don't know what impact that would have, but perhaps, if
\nsome day they visit Bali or Jakarta, they will have a vague
\nmemory of something I said, and recognize it in the places they
\nsee and the people they meet. That is about all we can hope for.\"<\/p>\n
Indonesia, said Hull, continues to play an important role in
\nhis family's life. He, Valerie and their son have very close
\nfriends who are Indonesians, whom they have known for decades.
\nAnd, of course, all those memories.<\/p>",
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