Comments on: Evil Little Girls

By: Mama Nabi

Mama Nabi — Tue, 02 May 2006 18:38:35 +0000

My heart ached reading this post… I so wanted to give Lilia a big hug while shooing away these other girls. Here’s a kiss for Lilia…

By: Sandra

Sandra — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 14:16:56 +0000

When I was little, I was afraid of my uncle, who was born with one arm that ends just below the elbow. Though my fear was irrational, it was sincere. Of course, that fear went away as I spent more time with him, and I guess that’s the key. Most of us don’t ever get over our awkwardness around people with disabilities because we just don’t have enough experience.

By: Gaijin Mama

Gaijin Mama — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 04:34:11 +0000

The teacher apologized to me with tears in her eyes. Later, the first grade teacher and principal came to my house to reassure me that they would teach the first graders to be sensistive to the disabled. I loaned them “I Have a Sister, My Sister is Deaf.” Those kids are young, so malleable. But I know that the world may be cruel to Lilia.

By: weigook saram

weigook saram — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:33:34 +0000

Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.

I remember my Japanese students telling me how surprised they were to see the disabled-access buses in the U.S. They told me that they rarely saw people in wheelchairs on the street in Japan.

By: Lori

Lori — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:33:34 +0000

When I first started dating M., I found myself getting really riled up at all the stupid things he had to deal with on a daily basis - people not looking him in the eyes (although, in Japan, people were pretty much stumped when we were out together, since they didn’t want to talk to me - looking foreign - and didn’t want to talk to him, either), not making way so he could get by in a wheelchair, telling him how ‘brave’ he is, *touching* him (which he hates), etc. He’s long since learned a lot of coping mechanisms, but I hate that he’s had to learn them in the first place.

If it helps, my experiences with 19 year old spoiled tandai-sei in Osaka was pretty similar; if it wasn’t a disabled child they were pronouncing “kowai” over, it would be something else. That Chanel-and-Vuitton crowd really, really irritates the hell out of me. There should be a good Japanese word that means “bite me.”

By: Sandra

Sandra — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:07:52 +0000

I would be angry too. When my son was a baby, I was at the park with my friend and two big girls (8 or so, seemed big at the time) were hanging around telling my friend how cute her baby was, then they just stood and stared at my son for a while till one of them asked what was wrong with him. The other one said, “He has a harelip,” in such a disgusted voice I really wanted to give her a shove. I came an inch from telling her she was no great beauty herself. I know the only reason I held back is because I was too ashamed to be mean to a child in front of my friend.

In Korea, I rarely see disabled people, and accessibility here is extremely limited. I think awareness is very low, partly because of the culture’s emphasis on conformity. From what I’ve read, parents of disabled children feel somewhat shunned.