Peru Ambassador:Tradition of Strength

Name: Martha Toleno-Ocampo

Date of Brith: Aug.18,1946

Place of brith: Peru

Role model: Multiple

Martha Toledo-Ocampo arrived in Beijing just in time to celebrate Chinese New Year as the new Peruvian Ambassador to China. Toledo-Ocampo has been among the relatively few women in the Peruvian diplomatic service since graduating from the Institute of International Relations in Lima in the early 1970s, and even now is only the fourth woman from her country to reach the rank of ambassador.

When Toledo-Ocampo sat down with BTM late last month to talk about her formative influences, she joked, "It's dangerous for a woman to talk, especially as a diplomat, as women talk too much.

"I had the idea of becoming a diplomat during my last years of high school. I thought there were too many differences between countries, and that as a diplomat I could help overcome those differences and help improve relations between peoples and make them more peaceful.

"Through the years I've become like a preacher, carrying the thoughts and ideas of the Peruvian people to other peoples of the world, and bringing ideas from elsewhere back to Peru.

"It's hard to say which particular people at different stages of my life were most important. From a family point of view, I'm grateful to my mother from the bottom of my heart. My father died early, and so my mother raised me and my two elder brothers. She is a very strong woman, who worked hard and took care of us very well. She educated us to be good people, and I'm very grateful for this. In Peru women are traditionally very strong. If a crisis arises in the family, for example, it is up to the women to solve it.

"My mother is here in Beijing now--she has traveled with me since I started overseas postings in the 1980s. We came to China in 1986 when I was Minister-Counselor at the embassy for two years, and my mother liked it here very much. She especially appreciated the Chinese culture of respect for older people.

"In the diplomatic field, my leaders had a big influence, teaching me from their own experience and also teaching me things about life as well. Still, it's not down to others or to one certain person that my ideas have developed--these are my own, from out of my own head.

"It's very good to be a woman and a diplomat; thanks to the natural character of women, I probably have more patience and can accept others' ideas and views more readily.

"I admire women diplomats and ambassadors' wives most. For [the latter], it is not a choice of career; the career chooses them, but they make a solid contribution to diplomatic work."