About

I strive to illustrate and preserve cultural DNA in this work of creative non-fiction and labor of love and challenge you to discover your own cultural DNA.

As soon as I could walk, I explored the unknown, as all children do. Only my wandering took me further afield. With a dog or two by my side, a delicate silver bell (that I have to this day) dangling from my neck, I explored the woods and hills around our Pennsylvania farm, searching for giants and grasshoppers, whales in the creek, bears in the caves. I wandered to the farms of Polish, Hungarian, Italian, and Croatian farmers nearby whose welcomes were warm but languages unknown and intriguing.

It is with that same spirit, minus the dogs and the silver bell, that I trusted my unscientific instincts, walked under the Cheoh Thau Kong arch, and followed the path to the jetties and stilt houses by the sea where I was welcomed in the eight tones of the Hokkien language and knew I was home. One year became two, just try learning an 8 tone language, then 2 became 5 as I settled into a vibrant household and community, an amphibious home, half on land, half above the sea, with an extended family, a shop on the porch for food, drink and games, a communal meeting place for the neighborhood.

Diane de Terra, mother, anthropologist, interpreter, linguist, and entrepreneur explores cultures that survive over time and space. Aware of the global trend of urbanization that annihilates villages, she illustrates the visible and invisible culture of people whose villages are gone but whose intangible culture is not gone.

Diane conducted long term fieldwork in Cheoh Thau Kong, a Hokkien Chinese water village on Penang Island, Malaysia. Over the past 40 years, she has returned to conduct research and to visit her friends and family. She has also conducted anthropological and language research for the Center for Advanced Study of Language, the National Foreign Language Center (University of Maryland) and was dean of the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language Education, at Middlebury Institute of International Studies. The international development consulting firm that she founded has worked in more than 60 countries. A medical qigong therapist (MMQ), she thrives on a daily practice of taiji and the healing arts.

A graduate of Barnard College, London School of Economics, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (PhD., Social Anthropology, Chinese in Southeast Asia), and Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Translation and Interpretation, Geneva and an East West Center, University of Hawaii doctoral fellow and professional associate.

From this unique perspective, Diane relates art to everyday life to reveal cultural DNA. In Scrolls of Culture, a film time capsule, and its 8 multimedia e-books, she presents her evidence and invites you to continue the exploration.

Her intention is not only to pay tribute to the people of Cheoh Thau Kong and Penang but also to provide you with a model for exploring your own cultural DNA that transcends time and space.

During those years in Cheoh Thau Kong, I conducted more than a thousand interviews in Mandarin, Hokkien, and Bahasa Malaysia, collected hundreds of stories, photographs, and later filmed numerous stories, meetings, celebrations, rituals, operas and scenes of daily life. This was all made possible with help from local friends, family, and residents.

This work of creative non-fiction and my life have been enriched by those I call ‘we’: photographers, journalists, economists, social scientists, Cheoh Thau Kong and Penang residents, and my son, all of whom I have the privilege to call friends and family. My thanks for their dedication.

I now turn to you for your support so that we may create Scrolls of Culture.