Interview with John Clark in Vecherniy Bishkek

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Published on Wednesday, 04 January 2012 09:44

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Clark's map

 John Clark can talk for hours about his famous ancestors. His forbears were historical figures of England and France. Among them aunt of Elizabeth 1, Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne, about whom the famous Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini wrote one of his operas. Mary, was a girlfriend of Henry VIII before he married Anne. Through his mother, Mr. Clark is descended from Nichole Fuqua – the royal financial superintendent of France, who in the middle of XVII century built the luxurious castle, Vaux Le Vicomte, on the Loire, and it made Louis XIV furious and jealous. If John wanted to write a book about his genealogy, it would be a many-volumed novel. But this American with an English-Scottish-French background has chosen a different way and has come to Kyrgyzstan. 

Tea party with Yung.

-By the way, Vaux Le Vicomte became a predecessor of Versailles, - said John. - To have an excursion in it, you will need at least 5 hours. Fuke was an outstanding personality. And I say it so not because he is my ancestor (he laughs). To build his estate he had invited the best makers of his time, who had created the castle which became a work of art. When Ludovic XVI came to the house-warming party and saw all magnificence, anger burst in him.In several days according to monarch's order Fuke was arrested, the castle was confiscated, and the authors of Vaux were ordered to immediately start to build for king such castle and garden, which would overshadow everything, what was built and what will ever be built. This is how Versailles appeared. However, Clark's immediate family is not least interesting than their predecessors from the past centuries. John's father, for example, was a student of famous psychotherapist Carl Yung. Clark - senior was such his ardent fan, that he moved with his whole family to Switzerland, to be closer to his scientific idol.

-His father was a great admirer of  Carl Jung. I was 6 when he got a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, and we went to Zurich for a year – where Jung lived.. “One day Mrs. Jung invited my mother, brother, sister and me for tea. My mother was horrified when we gobbled up all the pastries on the table in a few minutes. We lived like students on my father’s grant. We didn’t starve, of course, but special delicacies were not in the budget. Therefore, suddenly seeing so such goodies, we ate them at one go.”

Many friends of the Clark family assumed that John would follow in his father’s footsteps and study psychology. but he chose other field. John has a Ph.D. in geography. He has taught at Dartmouth, UCLA, and Harvard.

- My mother, as my father, belonged to the academic elite. She studied at Columbia and the Sorbonne, and then taught French in Maine and Ohio, - John continues. -At home intellectual conversations were frequent fare. But, being such highly educated people, nevertheless my parents didn't have navigational instincts. While on trips they were frequently lost and would start grumbling at each other. “When I was eight I learned to read maps to keep us on track and to keep them from squabbling. That's why I became the geographer. I always know where I am. The first thing I do in a new city - I buy a map. Also I can boast a bit that I know what is at each kilometer post between Bishkek and Tokmok,” - Mr. Clark smiles.

Lunch with the Ambassador.

Unlike many foreigners this descendant of a disgraced royal financier knew the geographical arrangement of the Asian republics of the former USSR. He was always interested in the history and culture of the people of the USSR. At 14 John heard the opera "Prince Igor" by Borodin for the first time which made a strong impression, and read the book "The Sands of Kara-korum". The east fascinated Clark, therefore, when he turned 22, he has gone to Turkey as a Peace Corps volunteer. This experience inspired him to write his doctoral thesis about Turkish workers living in Germany. After several years of teaching he moved to university administration. At Harvard, for example, he ran the computer system for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

“I became a bureaucrat,” - John smiles. – “one day I was sitting with a friend and was complaining about how boring my job was.  My old friend with whom I had been in Turkey, said: ‘John, why don't you go to Kyrgyzstan?’ He himself had works for the Peace Corps, and had been the one that made the agreements for the Corps to enter the former Soviet republics. He had photos of Kyrgyzstan and began to show them to me. ‘But why Kyrgyzstan? - I asked. ‘It’s the place you will like the best‘, - he answered, smiling. Next morning he called me and said, that we would have lunch with the Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan, at that time Rosa Otunbaeva. At first I didn't believe it, I thought, he is kidding. Then he said: ‘Come downtown, I will introduce you’. Rosa Otunbaeva was the first Kyrgyz I had ever met. After that my interest to your country increased further, and I decided to follow my friend's advice and go to this faraway land” John continues. “I filled out a Fulbright application, got the grant and arrived in Kyrgyzstan. I worked at Osh state university in 1994-5, and taught geography there. It was a remarkable time; I was surrounded with very good people who gave me a warm reception. By the way, in Osh I learned to speak Kyrgyz. When I came back to Washington, I went back to bureaucratic work, and I was overcome by crushing boredom: "How could I have done this for so many years?!".

As the call, so the echo.

“When I was leaving Kyrgyzstan, the Embassy people wanted me to take a job to work at KAF - the Kyrgyz-American faculty which was part of KNU. Going crazy with boredom, I called IREX in DC, which was administering this job, and arrived in Kyrgyzstan a few months later. At that time there was a crisis at KAF, they were being evicted from the building which was being prepared for the Parliament. KAF managed to acquire what had been the Children's Library, and just before school started in 1996 we made the move. In the autumn of 1997 we had a visit from Hilary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton personally cut a ribbon for the official opening of AUK (nowadays AUCA), having presented me as the President of the University, and Camilla as the Provost, who oversees the faculty. I was a president in AUK until 2000, then went to Almaty where I worked at KIMEP - the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Planning”. Clark stayed in Kazakhstan for eighteen months, and then received a call from Camilla Sharshekeeva who at that time was Minister of Education, who invited him to join her team. John accepted and returned to Kyrgyzstan. He worked on what has become an historic project for education of our country – The National Test.

“I hate corruption, and this system of testing of entrants has reduced it considerably. The test has completely justified itself, and I hope, this project will continue to work successfully,” - Clark says. In 2007 he began one more large-scale project which is supervised by the charitable organization Mercy Foundation created by Chinese-Americans in Kyrgyzstan. Last year in Tokmok they opened the International University in Central Asia, giving a chance to local youth to receive quality education of international standard.

“Now I work with Camilla again,” John says. “Donors have helped us to create a good educational base for we have found the strongest teachers in Kyrgyzstan. The majority of teachers who work for us are from the American University. There are also professors from BHU and IUK. Daily we take them from Bishkek to Tokmok and back. 40 percent of our students are from Tokmok, approximately 15 percent are from Bishkek, there are children from the south, and also from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China and Russia. Two thirds of them are from needy families, they receive financial help from sponsors or IUCA.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

”What do your relatives think about your living for so many years on the other side of the Earth?”

“The longer they don’t see me, the better they love me. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder,”  Clark smiles. “I have two children and four granddaughters. My son works as a manager in a biotech company. my daughter is a nurse, and my oldest granddaughter, who is now 19, wishes to follow in the footsteps of her great-grandfather: she is interested in psychology.”

“Do you feel at home in Kyrgyzstan?”

“Yes, I feel comfortable here. When I worked at large universities in America, I helped very successful people become a little bit more successful. And here I work with people who need help to achieve anything in life. We give them the chance to receive a good education and to face the future. Certainly, not all will succeed, but those who have energy and sharp teeth, we can create a revolutionary change in their lives. We have one young man from Kazakhstan who scored very badly on the entrance exams. Few believed that he would do well. But he happened to be very hardworking, and now this student from the Kazakh back country is one of the best students at IUCA. I am happy, that I can help someone to find their place in the sun. The main thing is not to get lost on the way, and for this purpose it is necessary to trust in the possibility of a good destiny for all.”

 Article is available here.