Growing up in Indonesia, visual artist Jayanto Tan - born as Tan Seng Lie in 1969 - had to change his name just to be allowed to attend primary school.
"I wasn’t allowed to be under the spotlight at school," Jayanto said.
When Suharto came to power in 1965 after a coup, he brought in a number of policies that discriminated against ethnically-Chinese Indonesians who had lived in the country for generations.
“I wasn’t allowed to hoist a flag. Only those from the majority could,” Jayanto recalled, adding that his appearance marked him as different.
“I was called ‘Cina’, ‘banci’,” he said, referencing derogatory terms that mean ‘Chinese’ and ‘gay’, respectively.
But having fled to Australia two decades ago, Jayanto has since sculpted his ‘true’ identity.
Listen to his full story here.
