Myra Sidharta

Myra Sidharta is an Indonesian writer, psychologist, and educator of Chinese descent. She specializes in Chinese Indonesian communities and Malay literature. In 2001, she published In Search of My Ancestral Home, which followed her journey back to her grandfather's town in China.

Biography

Sidharta was born on the Indonesian island of Belitung into a Hakka Peranakan Chinese family. Her grandfather had emigrated from Meixian, Meizhou, Guangdong, China in 1872 and married a local Hakka woman. He and Sidharta's father worked for a Dutch mining company in town, allowing them to send their children to the Dutch schools available to employees. Her grandfather was concerned that his children and grandchildren would lose touch with their Chinese heritage, so encouraged them to learn Mandarin, which Sidharta excelled at. She also spoke Hakka Chinese at home. When the Japanese invaded in 1942, she finished her education at a hogere burgerschool in Batavia. She then studied psychology at Leiden University before returning home to study Indonesian literature at the University of Indonesia. She also began teaching psychology at the University of Indonesia at that time. Sidharta, who was born Auw Jong Tjhoen Moy, and other Chinese Indonesians were forced to change their names in 1966, so she adopted the name Myra Sidharta. Around this time, she began writing for publications including Kompas and The Jakarta Post.
Sidharta speaks German, Dutch, French, Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay, Indonesian, and English, and is proficient in Cantonese and Minnan.

Sidharta met her husband, neuroscientist Priguna Sidharta, while studying in Leiden. They married on 31 January 1953 and had three children: Sylvia, Julie, and Amir. After his death, she donated his medical books to Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia.

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