Some Thoughts on Racial/Ethnic Hatred Sparked by Expatriates in Japan

Why do some American expatriates in Japan hate the Japanese so much?

If you're not familiar with this hate... it's some of the most virulent hatred I've ever seen in my life. I've witnessed some of it personally, as a bystander, and indirectly heard of much more.

This isn't all expatriates, of course. For example, my mother was an expatriate for a period of time, and she certainly wasn't like that. She has a lot of critical things to say about Japanese culture, but in a balanced way, in much the same proportion as she would criticize any other culture, including her own.

The most vocal expatriates are young white men on stints teaching English, and it's this group that also has the most evil reputation. But other expatriates types also exhibit this hatred sometimes.

Honestly, people like this are one reason I've never seriously considered going to Japan for any length of time longer than a couple weeks. A long time ago, when I was having a rocky time in college, my parents pressured me psychologically into applying for the JET program. I sabotaged my own application so that I could tell them honestly that I was denied. As someone who is not fluent in Japanese, and doesn't really belong to any community in Japan, I knew I would have to be in close contact with this type of expatriate, and I could not stomach the thought of that.

This hatred seems especially disturbing to me because I understand where it comes from. I've been treated badly by Japanese. The first time I was aware of race, and being racially different, was in Japanese kindergarten. In general, Japanese are not particularly friendly to me. To Japanese, I don't look Japanese, I don't dress Japanese, I don't even walk like a Japanese, and in Tokyo, I'm treated with distant politeness or ignored as if I don't exist. My own father sometimes casually insults my identity and accuses me of not being Japanese enough.

As a result, I often don't like Japanese. I enjoy having casual conversations with Japanese tourists in other countries about stuff like food, but I don't purposefully seek them out or go looking for deeper friendships with them. There are some exceptions, like my roommate in Mexico that I felt very close to. He was considering immigrating permanently to Mexico, and had different ideas about identity than the vast majority of Japanese.

But I don't hate Japanese. Based on my personal history I have some hang-ups and neuroticisms about Japanese that I wish I didn't have, but I do, so I compensate in practical ways. Otherwise, I just think of Japanese as human beings... flawed, complicated human beings, like all other groups of human beings.

I'm not going to provide lists and examples of bad expat behavior. You're either familiar with it or you're not, and if you're not, then you're lucky. But here's the basic arc:

Stage 1: I love Japan. Japan is so cool. It's so different over here. I can't wait to meet some samurai and geisha. I'm fulfilling my lifelong dream. This is going to be awesome.
Stage 2: Japan isn't what I thought, but it's still really cool. All these Japanese girls are having sex with me just because I'm an American. Sometimes I get the feeling people are looking down on me. Oh well, if I just smile a lot and speak Japanese better, I'm sure they'll accept me.
Stage 3: Culture shock, aching loneliness and deep depression
Stage 4: Retreating and retrenching in a safe womb-like environment with other expats
Stage 5: F%#@ these racist, xenophobic Japanese. Japanese women are manipulative stuck-up $%!@s. I wish we'd bombed ALL of Japan. I'm rude to them all the time now so I can get back at them for treating me like they do. And I can't wait to get home.
Stage 6: Now that I'm home, the bad memories of Japan are fading a bit, thank goodness. I have returned a much wiser person. I know all the weak spots of the Japanese now. In fact, I'm an expert on Asian culture. I explained this to an Asian-American once but they violently disagreed with me. Oh well, they're not a real Asian anyway.
(Alternate Stage: Stay in Japan, let hatred die down to a bilious rumbling with occasional explosions.  Post regularly on f*ckedgaijin.com).

Sexuality and misogyny and the legacy of imperialism are big parts of all of this. Imagine the expat arc as a dysfunctional romance, with Japan as the woman, and you could encapsulate most of those stages in the immortal words of Marion Barry: "Bitch set me up!"

The sex/imperialism is also an angle that's been covered by theorists quite extensively. I'd like to approach the issue from another angle, a more comparative and personal one, based on my experiences with born citizens and immigrants as well as expatriates.

Have I ever encountered the same level of hatred toward Americans? No, but I came close, once in Mexico, and once in the U.S.

When I was in Mexico, I met a lot of people who criticized the U.S. I largely agreed with the criticisms, and they were stated in a fair way. In fact, Mexican leftists who had problems with U.S. politics were always MORE charitable than U.S. leftists. They would often talk about aspects of the U.S. that they admired, such as our history of relatively fair elections. I never saw this criticism spill over into hate, though.

I also met a lot of Mexicans who were treated very badly in the U.S. and still didn't develop hatred. For example, I met a taxi driver in Guadalajara who told me that he risked his life to cross the desert to find work in Dallas, but the people there were so racist and unfriendly, it took him only three weeks to decide to go right back to Guadalajara. Maybe they're nicer in other parts of the U.S., he noted optimistically, though he had no further plans to ever leave Mexico again. Another Mexican I met spent six years in prison in Florida for a crime he claimed he didn't commit, and he still had a lot of good things to say about the U.S.

And I don't think that people leashed any hatred simply because they didn't want to offend me, an American tourist. If I was white, I might think that. But Mexicans often find it hard to believe I'm an American, even after I state it quite clearly. I don't "look American". It's a reaction I encounter frequently anywhere outside the U.S., and I've developed a pretty thick skin about it.

Anyway, one night while I was traveling in Mexico by myself, I ended up in a crowded taxicab going to a nightclub. Since we had to go a long way on a dirt road, and most of my fellow taxi goers had already had a few drinks, the conversation was heated and lively. There were a couple Mexicans and an Austrian tourist. The Austrian tourist, on hearing I was American, launched into a diatribe against American cultural imperialism. We made crappy movies, and crappy music, and crappy food, our American crap was drowning out everyone else's culture, all our entertainment was vulgar, and so on.

I got angry. I was prepared to hear this sort of thing from a Mexican, but not from an Austrian. Most Europeans have enough money and power to consume their own crap if they want; they happen to CHOOSE to consume ours. I tried to argue back, but he kept interrupting me. So I dropped the bomb. "Well what's your native way of having fun on the weekend in Austria? Burning Jews?" The Mexicans all gasped. The Austrian visibly wilted, and said in a small voice, "that was a long time ago". The conversation shifted. We'd put on a good show for the Mexicans, though: they looked like they were really enjoying the argument from the sidelines.

To this day I feel a little bad for cutting down the Austrian like that. But only a little.

Although I said I was prepared to hear this kind of diatribe from a Mexican, I never did. My overall impression was that Mexicans were rather light on the criticism when it came to the U.S. For every thing they hated, they knew something that they loved. Sadness, disappointment, anxiety, yes; hatred, no.

When I lived in Miami, I worked in a series of restaurants and bars. There was an informal but very powerful racial/ethnic hierarchy pretty much everywhere I worked in the service industry. White Anglos, upper-class Cuban-Americans and diverse upper-class immigrants/expatriates (usually European) were at the top. They were the owners and managers. The middle was composed of more Cuban-Americans and Anglos. Halfway between the middle and bottom were native African-Americans and whiter-looking Latinos. On the very bottom, recently arrived Carribean black people (Haitian, Jamaican) and other Latinos (such as Central Americans). Your place in the hierarchy was determined by 1) money 2) degree of whiteness 3) degree of blackness 4) kind of English spoken 5) kind of Spanish spoken 6) citizenship and documentation status. Since Miami is such a diverse and chaotic environment, new arrivals often weren't quite sure where they fit in the hierarchy. I know I was never sure, myself.

One day, I was outside my restaurant having a smoke break with the Jamaican janitor/busser. We struck up a conversation that quickly took a disturbing turn. She started on a rant about how the American black people were all thieves, liars, drug abusers, could not be trusted, made her people look bad, and so on. I just told her I didn't think that was a fair thing to say, but I didn't want to get in an argument with her. I felt sorry for her because she was facing a horrendous level of racism from the manager, a white Frenchman who was racist against everyone who worked there, but picked on her the most.

I wondered later, why did she hate African-Americans so much? Why not hate white people or white Europeans? After all, the manager truly was an evil worm of a person (full story of his evilness here).

One reason is that it's not very common to hate upwards. It's more common to fear the people who have power over you. If you can't separate from those people (people with separatist ideologies can hate in any direction), you have to learn how to get along with them.  And you don't have the energy to spare for hate.

When I was dealing with racist abuse in school in the U.S., I felt the same way. I didn't have time to hate the people who abused me. All my emotional energy was wrapped up in trying to answer two questions: "Why are they doing this to me?" and "How can I make them stop?" In order to try and stop the abuse I had to think like my abusers, I had to put myself in their shoes, I had to imagine how they saw me, I had to imagine how they would react if I did certain things as opposed to doing other things.

I could not afford to hate them.

I think it's much more common to hate downwards. And a subset of hating downwards is hating sideways. My Jamaican coworker was financially on a lower level of the hierarchy than African-Americans, but she also realized she was on a higher level when it came to stereotypes of morality and culture. That is, she observed that there were more negative sentiments against African-Americans than there were against Jamaicans. So hating African-Americans was a way to claim a higher position in the hierarchy, a way to claim that no, she was not on the same level or lower, she was really on a higher level.

Whenever someone is insecure about their position in a hierarchy, a way to stabilize your position is 1) find someone who is on the same level or slightly lower 2) hate them.

I think this works in the area of class, as well. Often, the people who say they hate the poor the most are the people who have escaped poverty, or who are lower-middle-class and almost in poverty. Really rich people rarely hate the poor. They can ignore them and/or exploit them without going through the bother of hating them.

An expatriate in Japan, once they hit the culture shock stage, becomes incredibly confused about their place in the hierarchy. This confusion is compounded by the fact that they don't even understand, on a visceral level, that the hierarchy even exists. The ideal of egalitarianism is very strong in the U.S. When that egalitarianism actually works, I love it. It's what makes my country great. But it's an ideal, not a reality. If you believe it's already a reality, you become blind to the existence of totally real hierarchies lying underneath the mask of egalitarianism.

People from countries with more formalized race, caste and/or class systems have more experience, more cynicism and more ability to notice parallel structures in foreign countries. They'll have a more practical attitude. "OK, I've landed. Where am I? Near the bottom... darn. Can I work my way up? Oh, it looks like this system is really rigid. Only a few rungs? What about my kids? Well, I'll adjust my expectations and see if it's worth the trade-off."

The Japan-hating expatriate has huge privilege from being some combination of white, American and male. Japanese give them a lot of room. When they act badly, Japanese will simply ignore it. The expatriate senses weakness. "They let me get away with bad behavior - that means I am better and stronger than them - I hate them because I am better than them - I am better than them because I hate them." But the expatriate also starts to understand that the Japanese don't really need them. Japan is pretty much the richest non-white country in the world when it comes to economic power and median living standards. The expatriate may start penning angry rants about Japan, but there is nothing they can really do to get any kind of meaningful revenge in a collective sense. Though they can be very cruel to individual Japanese, and then later, to Asian-Americans.

They realize the sheer uselessness of their hate, and it makes them hate even more.

I wish I had a better note on which to end this piece! 

When Children Die

This is going to be a very heavy post.  I'm not going to write much myself, or talk about my connections to the subject, because it affects me too much emotionally at the present time.  Instead, I'm going to leave several quotes.

From CNN: Mother recalls night flood changed everything
September 23, 2009

[...]

The force of the water slammed Bridgett into a tree. The 24-year-old mother fought to straddle a branch and wrap her right arm around another one -- the left held the 30-pound boy tight to her. She yelled for Craig, who called back from another tree.

"Where's Slade at?" she hollered.

From the darkness, and above the roar of water and rain, she heard her 26-year-old husband respond: "Baby, I don't know. I lost him."

He had slipped through his arms after they'd jumped. An 18-foot wall of water hit them both.

Over and over, Bridgett screamed her son's name.

Preston Slade Crawford
December 12, 2006 - September 21, 2009
Master Preston Slade Crawford, age 2 of Horsley Mill Rd., Carrollton, passed away Monday, September 21, 2009. He was born December 12, 2006 in Carroll County, Georgia the son of Bridgett Danielle Lawrence Crawford and Jerry Craig Crawford, Jr. Besides his parents, Slade is survived by a brother, Cooper Gunner Crawford; paternal grandparents, J.C. & Pat Crawford of Carrollton; maternal grandparents, Glenda & Royce Rowland of Augusta. Funeral services will be conducted Friday, September 25, 2009 from Martin & Hightower Heritage Chapel with Rev. Joey Dedman and Dr. Steve Davis officiating. Interment will follow in Carroll Memory Gardens. The family will receive friends at the funeral home Thursday from 5 PM until 8 PM. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to First National Bank of Georgia, Donations for Slade Crawford, 201 Maple St., Carrollton, Ga., 30117. The family will like to extend their sincere appreciation to Carroll County Fire & Rescue, Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, the many volunteers, Department of Natural Resources, Carroll EMC, Georgia Forestry, Carrollton City Fire Department, Carrollton City Police Department and Carroll County Inmates. Messages of condolences may be sent to the family at www.martin-hightower.com. Martin & Hightower Heritage Chapel of Carrollton has charge of the arrangements.

The passage below connects me to my religion, and also to the history of my father, who as a baby also came very close to death in postwar Japan.

From Toshikazu Arai's blog, Echoes of the Name: Dharma Talk at Fraser Valley Buddhist Temple


As we live our life, we meet new people and part with old acquaintances. Meeting and getting acquainted with new people is usually a happy occasion, but parting brings sadness. Especially parting with loved ones by death gives us a great pain. My parents died more than twenty years ago, but even now, I sometimes feel as if they were sleeping in the next room when I am not fully awake in the morning. Then I realize that I am a fatherless and motherless child, all alone in the world. It might be that by departing from this world, they made me truly stand up on my two feet.

People often say someone had a long life or another one had a short life. However, there is no saying which person's life is more valuable. What is important is what meaning the person's life has had to "me." Each person comes to this world with certain tasks to perform and depart after fulfilling them. Even the life of a baby who has died a few days after birth has a meaning. For example, the little boy who Kisa Gotami gave birth to and died at about four acted as a Bodhisattva for her by guiding her to the Buddha Dharma. I used to have a sister who died at one and a half years old just after World War II. I was wondering what was the meaning of her life, now that I am the only person who remembers her in the world. I realize that by departing from this world, she gave me what would have become her food in order to let me survive the poverty and sever lack of food just after the war. Because I have been able to live, I have had the fortune to meet the Dharma. If I attain birth in the Pure Land, she would certainly welcome me there with joy.

I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in meaning.

Another Visit?

We were initially planning on visiting Sunny's home state once a year.  This year, we already went in March.  However, I'm thinking of going again for Halloween.  Sunny always talks about how awesome Halloween is with his foster family and all the fun stuff they would do, so it would be a wonderful treat for him. 

A major negative would be the expense of the visit, especially since we just had some minor flood damage and I still don't know how much that's going to cost to renovate.  Then, another positive AND negative to the potential visit would be the fact of seeing BB.  The situation with BB has become increasingly painful for me.  I'm at the point where I dread seeing pictures of him.  My stepfather was recently able to visit the foster family as a side trip from his business trip, and he's about to send a bunch of pictures he took... he told me BB has curly blond hair starting growing on his head now.  Honestly, I felt the news like a slap in the face from nowhere.  I just want to crawl into a hole and wait for news that 1) BB is coming to live with us 2) he's going to stay there, maybe adopted by Sunny's foster mom.  I would make it through either way, but I can't stand this waiting around.

He's getting older and older and more at risk for attachment issues when/if the move does happen.  The only reason I know of that they haven't placed him with us is that the state has a budget crisis (like all states nowadays) and his case doesn't have high priority.  He has a great placement, nobody is arguing about where he needs to go, so what's the rush?  That's how they must think.

I would like to see BB, but I also don't want to see him. I don't want to see him grown up so much and think that for the last 13 months he should have been living with us and taking his first steps with us and saying his first words with us.

I need to put on my big girl panties and just look at the pictures and try to be happy.  

Atlanta Flooding

Four people dead so far. This is terrible!

My mother just sent me this picture she took.

Chinese Adoption Corruption and Maddening Stereotypes in the Media

These last few weeks there have been a flurry of large media stories covering major corruption in international adoption. Guatemala. Guatemala again. Ethiopia. Now China.

I hope this new exposure will eventually lead to some serious reforms.

It's not like there aren't ethical minefields in foster care adoption... but at least families have some degree of insight into the problems. When I have questions, I can pick up the phone and talk to everyone involved. Problems in international adoption are ten times worse, and they're also ten times less transparent. You're dealing with foreign legal systems, foreign languages, foreign cultures. International adoptive parents who shrug off these corruption stories by saying "well it doesn't apply to my case" usually have no evidence whatsoever. They just don't know at all and likely never will.

There are exceptions. International adoptive parents may or may not face the same knowledge barriers (e.g. some Chinese-Americans adopting from China).  Or they're adopting older children and/or are in touch with their childrens' biological families.  In fact, that's how I think a lot of these corruption cases have come to light: older adopted children tell their new parents that the agency's story is a lie, and the new parents have enough integrity to believe them and investigate further.

Anyway, I think the fact that these corruption cases are being discussed in the mainstream media is a good step. However, I still have major issues with the way they're being framed. The LA Times China article has two major failings: 1) it doesn't include the adoptee viewpoint and 2) it fails to challenge stereotypical thinking about China.

How hard would it have been for the reporter to ask an adoptee for their perspective?  The same reporter, Barbara Demick, wrote an article several weeks ago --
Adopted teen finds answers, mystery in China -- about a teenager who had a reunion with his birth family in China. Why not include a few sentences of his reaction to the story? Instead, the American perspectives are all from adoptive parents. And this includes one randomly chosen adoptive mother who is pretty much the living embodiment of cluelessness.

She wonders what she would do if she discovered that her daughter was one of the stolen babies. She knows she could never return the Americanized 6-year-old, who is obsessed with "SpongeBob" and hates the Chinese culture classes her mother enrolled her in. But she said, "I would certainly want to tell the birth family that your daughter is alive and happy and maybe send a picture."

"It would be up to my daughter later if she wanted to build a relationship," she said.

Shades of the Anna Mae He coverage I complained about last year.  There are so many things wrong in this paragraph. It presumes being Chinese as somehow incompatible with being American, ignoring the existence of 3.5 million Chinese-Americans who have somehow managed to pull off this incredible feat.

And SpongeBob obsession is supposedly total proof of being American. They don't watch Sponge Bob in China... actually, let me confirm that by doing a few seconds of searching on Google.

Variety: China sponges 'SpongeBob'
Cartoon sweeps ratings on CCTV
"SpongeBob SquarePants" has swept to the top of the ratings on Chinese state broadcaster CCTV's Kids Channel. The quirky toon has become the most popular children's show in 15 key cities, drawing viewership of 20.5 million to Bikini Bottom.

Oops!

And I won't get into that "because she doesn't like Chinese culture classes that lets me off the hook for everything" implication. This is an extremely complicated issue (see a great blog post on it here).

Leaving reunion totally up to the child is also a cop-out. There are many complicated steps that need to be taken as soon as possible in order to maintain relationships. Waiting until it's no longer your responsibility means removing choice from the child, not giving them more choice.

I can't stand this woman's attitude and what it represents about international adoption. It's so selfish and ignorant. If this were me, I would feel morally obligated to do a lot more than maybe send a picture.

Meltdown Post-Mortem, 504 Post-Mortem

Sunny had a major meltdown last night. It's the first violent fit Sunny has had in almost three weeks. I suppose that's good and bad at the same time... they were happening several times a week earlier this year.

I could almost see it coming. NN and Sunny had some alone time yesterday for the first time in the visit. She took him to the toy store and bought him a ton of toys. Then they went back to her hotel room for a bit and they played Pokemon while watching a Lego movie, then they met us for dinner and he came home with us afterwards.

He was getting into overstimulation mode... overstimulated with toys and overstimulated with emotions. At bedtime, it all spilled over. I had to restrain him for a combined time of about 20 minutes.

This time Guy stayed away. He has a tendency to get really mad when he hears Sunny cursing at me, and then says unhelpful things, such as "you're acting like a baby".

One of the things Sunny said tonight was that he wasn't happy about people at school calling him a baby. I'm not surprised that happens. We talked with his second-grade teacher at the 504 meeting the other day about how emotional Sunny gets in the classroom. Sometimes, when the teacher tells him to move his seat or tells him he can't do something, he'll start crying, and throw himself on the floor. Or he might sit down, sulk, and make handgun/lasergun shooting motions at the whole classroom.

I mentioned to the teacher that Sunny is manipulating to get attention when he does things like throw himself on the floor. Since she can't just ignore the behavior like we do (it distracts the whole class), the best strategy is to reward him for the absence of negative behavior, e.g. "you responded nicely when I said 'no', good for you, here's your 'right response' sticker!". We talked to Sunny later about the shooting stuff, and told him it was absolutely unacceptable to do that in class. Play-shooting is for playgrounds, not for classrooms. We'll have to monitor that behavior pretty closely and stay in touch with his teacher about it.

His teacher also told us about one really charming episode. The whole class have portable dividers made from laminated file folders that they can use when they need extra privacy for schoolwork. There was a class discussion about distractions, and Sunny reminded everyone not to distract him when he had his folder up. He said, "Sometimes it's hard for me not to get distracted. Because I have TWENTY things going on in my head at the same time! I want to focus and do my work right but it's hard for me!"

That was very touching to hear. He's so smart and self-aware.

After the meltdown last night he was remorseful, of course. I reminded him that this visit is a difficult time because it brings up happy things and sad things from the past, all mixed together. I told him he was like a ship sailing on the sea and the sea was a little stormy right now, but he could get control and make his way through the storm.

NN is in town for two more days. Tonight we'll do some sort of combined activity, then maybe on Saturday they can go to an indoor event together.

Hilarious for Locals

The city-data.com forums are great if you want unvarnished information about any geographic area. Of course, mixed in with that, you will also get unvarnished racism and unvarnished stupidity.

SouthernExplorer
Junior Member
Looking for majority white areas of the Metro
I am from New Orleans, and my wife is from Memphis. After we got married, we tried living in New Orleans. It was ok until Katrina hit, and it became too ghetto and distressed. We then moved to Memphis, and we just did not like being white minorities. We want to stay in the south, close to Memphis and NOLA but want a big city feel. Atlanta fits the bill.

We just want to be in an area with our own kind. Moderator cut: Please no stereotyping individual races.

So, as we look to move to Atlanta, we want a majority white area. Ill be working in Midtown, and my wife is getting a job in Sandy Springs. Our price range is a maximum of $550,000. I do not mind a long commute. Thanks!

gt6974a
Senior Member
1 post huh? In that case, I'd say the Bankhead area b/t 285 and downtown. Most of the affluent live there.

SouthernExplorer
Junior Member
Great, thanks so much for your reply. Do you know the name of some of the subdivisions in that area that would be in our price range?

skipcromer
Senior Member
I second! Bankhead would be perfect.

Bankhead is.... not a serious recommendation.  But the poster did end up getting a lot of really serious recommendations. This  great explanation was given for complying with his request:

RoslynHolcomb
Senior Member
Personally I'm delighted to help these type people find that which they seek. Goodness knows I don't want them living anywhere near me or mine.

The poster is so archetypal of the plight of the Southern upper-middle-class white flighter.  Can't live in the country because they loathe lower-class white people.  The Southern cities are full of black people.  Can't move out of the South because the Yankees might look down on them.  And nowadays... can't live in the dying exurbs because they're filling up with Latinos and other immigrants.

He will eventually retire to South Carolina.  But even there, he will die frustrated.

Sunny Calmed Down Yesterday

We had a visit break yesterday. We were planning on taking Sunny over to NN's hotel after his gym class, but NN's ankle injury was acting up and it was rainy and we just decided to get together tonight instead, at my mother's. They'll be here until the end of the weekend.

I think this break worked well for Sunny. He was pretty calm yesterday and got all of his stars for good behavior.

At this point, Sunny hasn't had a hitting episode in more than two weeks. He did have a major screaming meltdown last week in the car with Guy, but it didn't involve hitting. I've had to restrain him a couple times since then, but each time I was able to let him back up within seconds.

If this keeps up and maintains for a while, I guess we can start thinking about taking him off medication entirely. The new psychiatrist we saw last month had us do something very smart: get a blood test to make sure the medication wasn't creating any long-term chemical imbalances. They said it would be important to establish a baseline before doing any kind of change. We have a follow-up appointment in October.

I would also be open to a medication change as long as it was a medication with less potential side effects than the one he's currently on. He's never had any side effects yet, but I'm still worried.

I don't think a specifically ADHD drug would help. Sunny's foster mom said that their psychiatrist had already tried him on Adderall... and it greatly improved his school performance, but also made him "mean" and unhappy. I'll take his current average-with-supports school performance over that scenario. The thought of medicating away Sunny's naturally joyful personality is horrifying.

Celebrity ADHD?

I thought I had absolutely no interest in blogging about Kanye West, who seems to be the number one topic of conversation in the blogosphere over the last few days.  I don't have TV, much less cable, and haven't watched MTV in decades.  One celebrity was mean to another celebrity because they got an award they thought should have gone to yet another celebrity... yawn.  I'm usually interested in looking at any kind of racial analysis in the media but I care so little about the celebrities involved that I didn't muster up the energy in this case.

Then I read this post at the Republic of T that casts the episode in a different light...

In fact, four of the five most common social problems experienced by kids with ADD/ADHD could easily apply to West.

* Interrupting others – One of the primary symptoms associated with ADHD is impulsivity. The uncontrollable urge to speak makes it hard to listen. Additionally, kids with ADHD have difficulty focusing on one thought for very long, therefore getting their thought out may be more important than joining in the rhythm of the conversation.
* Failure to understand others anger – Kids with ADHD don’t perceive their inconsiderate actions as rude. They may not be able to understand why the schoolmate they interrupted 10 times in a five minute conversation was angry. After all what’s wrong with joining in on the conversation.
* Being Perceived as Self Centered – Self centeredness can be a serious problems both for kids and adults. The ADHD personality may come across as one that doesn’t understand the feelings or needs of others. If this trait is carried forward into adulthood it can be very problematic in personal relationships. For kid with ADHD it often causes problems with schoolmates, parents, and teachers.
* Not respecting others space – Little Johnny sat behind Sara in class. He continually bumps her chair and when no one is looking pulls her hair. Little Johnny doesn’t understand why he keeps getting in trouble, after all he likes little Sara. Kids with ADHD struggle with the concept of personal space. When you combine the disregard for others personal space with ADHD symptoms such as hyperactivity and inattention, classmate Sara should ask for a different seat assignment immediately!
* Poor sportsmanship – One of the common traits of ADHD children is becoming easily frustrated. Frustration can spill over into other activities such as sports; leading kids with ADHD to cheat if they fall behind and throw temper tantrums if the outcome isn’t acceptable. Often poor losers have trouble finding others to interact with socially thus adding to their already unpredictable behavior.

And in West’s behavior, I recognize at least one symptom of ADD/ADHD.

Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequence

I have mixed feelings about using ADHD as a label. I think it's used too often to label and limit kids. But there's also power (for the good) in understanding the way they think and benefiting from the experience of others with similar conditions.

All the above behaviors also apply to Sunny. I do think he has ADHD. After talking with NN, I think it runs in his maternal family, just like it runs in mine.  As I've often said, I don't think Sunny's ADHD is as severe as my cousin's or my uncle's. ADHD is just a bracketed subset along a mental spectrum. Sunny has a lot of problems with interrupting, personal space issues and so on, but he can function in a normal classroom with a fairly light set of 504-plan accommodations.

I almost hate to say it, but Sunny's personality seems rather Kanye-ish. He has a strong and very rigid sense of fairness. He interrupts others and speaks loudly. He expresses whatever he feels at any given moment, whether it's love, sadness or anger. He has a huge amount of confidence and thinks he's great at everything. He's very popular with other kids, but they also get mad at him at all the time. Sunny's ten-year-old friend often gives him lectures about his behavior! If he had a blog it would probably be in all capital letters.

This is not to say that he's helpless to change the more negative aspects of his behavior. We work on sportsmanship all the time and we've made some decent progress. He's capable of good sportsmanship, it's just more difficult for him than for the average child.

I agree with the blogger Terrance that if Kanye has ADD/ADHD, it isn't an excuse. He was still acting like a jackass (as Obama said). Or maybe he was drunk. Likely it was all three at the same time: he was being a drunk jackass with ADD/ADHD.

Terrance, who has ADD, offered this piece of advice for challenging situations based on his own experience. It's one I'm going to keep in mind for Sunny.

My strategy, for those times, is to fall back on a rule I taught myself years ago: “If I don’t say anything, I can’t say the wrong thing. If I don’t do anything, I can’t do anything wrong.”

And I almost forgot, my stepfather was diagnosed a few years ago (in his late fifties) with ADD plus PTSD.  He has horrendously bad impulse control.  I love him, but he's totally helpless in many ways and if it wasn't for my mother he'd probably be sleeping in a ditch somewhere.  Medication (a varying combination of Ritalin, Wellbutrin and Lexapro) has vastly improved his quality of life.  He had to discontinue the Ritalin for a while because of his Hepatitis C, but he wants to get back on it.

Sunny's Bio Grandma Made It

NN arrived in Atlanta yesterday.  She traveled here with a friend of hers.  She'll be staying for a week in a nearby hotel.

Today, they hung out at our house for a while with Guy and Sunny.  Sunny played lots of games with them and showed off his skateboarding.  Then, when I got home from work, we all went out to dinner together.  As a present, I'd made her a small photo album/scrapbook (I scrap, in a very rudimentary picture+caption+sticker way) covering Sunny's time with us and his major milestones.  We went through that book, and also the larger book I made of all his bio family pictures.

This is a really emotional time for Sunny.  He read through a couple of old cards that his Mommy __ sent, and then he had the same reaction he had the day we told him she died.  He... wilted.  Sunny cries frequently, loudly, and often in a very calculated and melodramatic fashion, but when he's really saddest, he doesn't cry at all... instead, you can see all of his energy leave him, and he gets very quiet all of a sudden. It affects me greatly to see him like that.

NN was so supportive.  She hugged him, reassured him that his mommy would always be with him, said she was happy he has the mom and dad he has now, and that his mommy was happy about that too.  But it was OK he was sad... she was sad too.

At the restaurant he was a little bit manic -- definitely more fidgety and argumentative than normal.  Guy took him outside at one point for a walk to try and cool him down a little bit.  He must have been emotionally overstimulated.  I think he'll be calmer through the rest of the visit.

In the car back, he mentioned at one point that he didn't want to hear about women being pregnant, it made him too sad, because his Mommy ___ was pregnant with him, and she also died.  We reassured him again.  NN told him, "She died because of a heart condition."  Later that night, when I put Sunny to bed, I tried to reassure him, in a roundabout way, that he was not responsible in any way for her death.  I have a feeling that that sort of association might be on the edge of his mind.  I told him that Mommy __ was very happy that she was pregnant with him and gave birth to him, and that it was a wonderful thing that happened in her life.

Then Sunny said that one reason he was sad Mommy ___ died was that it meant she wouldn't ever be pregnant again, and that meant he couldn't have more brothers and sisters.  That sounds kind of weird now that I type it up.... but it makes sense according to little kid logic (which is not selfish per se, but definitely self-centered).  Then we talked about brothers and sisters, and Sunny said he hopes that I can get pregnant with a baby, and we can also adopt BB, and then we could adopt his foster cousins.  I reminded him his foster cousins already have parents!  "But what if something happened to their mom and dad?"  I talked him out of that somewhat disturbing train of thought. 

He needed a lot of hugging and kissing goodnight.  There'll definitely be a lot to process over the coming days.

I'm proud of NN for making it here. 

Losing parents through being fostered or adopted is often compared to parental loss via death, with the analysis that loss through death is somehow cleaner, less complicated and less ambiguous.  But after tonight, I'm not sure where I stand on that distinction.

The Eagle Raid

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of.  I was actually thinking about going to this rally, but other things came up.

Hundreds rally against raid of gay leather bar

Patrons and supporters of the gay leather bar the Atlanta Eagle are gathering today at 5 p.m. in the parking lot of the establishment to hold a rally to protest a controversial raid where eight employees were arrested by Atlanta Police on Sept. 10. The Eagle is located at 306 Ponce de Leon Ave. and remains open.

The rally will be followed by a short march to City Hall East, located at 675 Ponce de Leon Ave.

The APD released a terse statement why it raided the bar on Friday. On Friday night, supporters gathered at the bar in a support of solidarity and held hands and raised their arms in the air to show their strength as community. Attorney Alan Begner is representing the Eagle and expects some kind of legal action to take place, but he was not sure as of Saturday.

[...]

Ramey, who was not at the bar when the raid began arrived after being called, described how police brought three paddy wagons to the Eagle Thursday night and there were 62 patrons in the bar.

"There were 62 victims, not including the staff. And not one person had a weapon or drugs on them," he said. "When they couldn't find anything, an officer said, 'I guess we have to go through IDs' and he brought in a laptop. All of this was against their civil rights. There was no probable cause. Why did they have to have up to 30 police officers to control 62 homosexuals?"

All I know about The Eagle is that it's been around forever, and it's very gay. It certainly doesn't have a reputation for being dangerous. Despite this, the APD decided to send three paddy wagons and THIRTY POLICE OFFICERS on the raid. The planning resources must have been enormous. And now, they're going to have to spend a lot of money in legal fees, because they're just about to get hit with a flurry of lawsuits. I'm sorry for the patrons and employees who were humiliated during this homophobic raid and I'm also sorry for the Atlanta taxpayers who are going to pay for this mess.

Here's an idea. After they got the mysterious complaint, the APD could have sent one or two undercover police officers to the club to investigate. Then, the next day, they could have talked to the owner, and said, "Based on the results of our investigation we're going to have to cite you for breaking code number [insert code number of whatever frivolous nightclub rule that deals with go-go dancers] unless you do such-and-such to get into compliance."

Instead, they just went completely nuts.

One good result... all the Atlanta mayoral candidates have felt obligated to release statements against the raid. The gay community has enough clout that this sort of stuff can't be swept under the carpet anymore.

Another Health Care Failure

This is a tragic case and I think it's all too common.

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Hmm, a desperate plan for this mom?

After speaking again to the CPS social worker that I'm supposed to take his birth certificate, etc to and sign him away.....after even sending his history to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation....after sending a desperate and maybe a little scathing email to every representative including Obama that represents my zip.....I decided to try to go viral.....I'm uploading this to youtube....please help me spread the message

[...]

It should not be criminal to be mentally ill. It should be criminal to be treated by the insurance companies and our health system the way my son has been.

This boy was adopted from Russia at three years old. He looks about ten currently. He's now in a juvenile detention center for assaulting his mother. In order to get him into a non-punitive residential treatment center that costs $450 a day, she's being forced to give over custody to the state.

Biological parents also sometimes have to do this because of mental illness issues.

This is just cruel... regardless of how I feel about international adoption, this is the only family the boy has now. He should not be severed from them because of healthcare bureaucracy.

I also blame the international adoption agencies for this. They sugarcoat the risks to an insane degree. They don't tell prospective parents about residential treatment centers and psych meds and how much they cost.

Foster care families at least have some layer of protection. Sunny's contract includes residential treatment coverage. I know treatment has been a lifesaver for other families, allowing their children to recover and then come back to the family.

Unless the state takes the coverage away because of another budget crisis... then something like this case could happen to us. Sunny's foster mom just told us that adoption subsidies on several of her children had just been reduced dramatically, without warning.

I've written before that I don't think there should be any tax credit or subsidy given to encourage international adoption.  But once those children are here, that's different... all children, biological, adopted or foster, should have access to mental health services without tearing their family apart.

Email from Ojiichan

Dear __-chan

In the freezer, you'll find still a packet of Unagi no kabayaki, still uneaten.

Cut into the portions, and either microwave or steam thoroughly before place them on the HOT STEAMING RICE.

If you serve Unagi with cold rice, you'll burn in hellfire forever. Got it?

Response:

OK Dad. Thanks!

I actually do love this dish. It's a kind of barbecued eel.

The email represents a great, light-hearted encapsulation of a typical communication pattern between us since I was, oh, five years old. Father issues insane, arbitrary, hyperbolic demand, threatens hellfire. Daughter gives cheerful monosyllabic response, ignores demand.

A Fresh Perspective on Adoption Disruption

The story of Anita Tedaldi's international adoption disruption was put forth in the New York Times and created a lot of commentary. Personally, I was not too sympathetic on her behalf, and I think the story reflected the fact that that international adoption has a huge potential for this kind of disruption because the levels of screening and training are, frankly, pathetic.

The harshest critic of international adoption I personally know is actually my husband. I have big issues with it, but I also try to keep a nuanced view, and I don't think responsible international adoption is completely impossible. Guy has a stronger viewpoint. Recently, a wife of a colleague of his, on hearing he was an adoptive father, said something off-hand like "oh international adoption is great" and he came right back with "Do you know why people adopt internationally? Because they don't want black babies!"

I know that's not always 100% true... in fact I've met white and black parents who have adopted children from Africa. But among a white, upper-middle-class demographic, it seems like the "default" for adoption is international: Chinese, Guatemalan, Russian. I can predict fairly easily what type of person will ask "what country?" with no clue that anyone they know socially would even consider adopting from U.S. foster care. And that really irritates me.

Anyway, I left a comment about my relative lack of sympathy for Tedaldi over at Harlow's Monkey. I actually believe adoption disruption is warranted in certain circumstances, for the good of the child, but the ex-parents need to take responsibility for what they did... Tedaldi abandoned her child under different circumstances than his first mother, but she still abandoned him.  She shouldn't use her adoptive parent status as an excuse.

I didn't post about it because I don't write that much about international adoption here anymore; I've said most of what I feel like saying already.  I noticed today that the story made it over to Metafilter, however, and I ran across a really fascinating comment from a perspective that isn't often covered.  It's not about international adoption per se, it's about the effects of disruption.  I think it's worth quoting:

Well, that hit home. I've never quite understood or come to grips with what happened to my brother. After adopting him as a young baby, my parents put him in a group home at the age of 8. He then bounced around various groups homes and foster care for the next 10 years. I mean there were some severe incidents, but it's your f*ckin' child. Like somehow if you still have the receipt, there's a return policy on 'broken' humans??

My brother is 5 years older than me, and as a child, I idolized him. The first incident occurred when I was two and a half. Apparently, he figured out that the coffee table in the living room was at the precise height of my mouth. He stood there with the table behind him and from the other side of the room asked me for a hug. As I quickly approached, he moved out of the way and my front teeth magically disappeared (and remained that way until I was 8). That same year, he put me up in our tree house and from the ground told me to jump and he'd catch me. Not so much - I ended up with a broken hip. The final straw (as my parents tell me) was when they came home and he was attempting to drown me in our pool from outside of it.

When my brother turned 18, my father (freshly divorced and neither of the two 'remaining' children speaking to him), went out and found my brother. He brought him to Toronto, and he's been back in my life for the past 20 years. These days, we both live & work together. The only time this part of his past come up, is in jest. I just have to wonder - if the situation were reversed and I, as the only biological child, had been the 'culprit', would they have given me up?

posted by gman at 5:31 AM on September 10

It's a disturbing story, and also inspiring. 

We're never going to achieve a really clear, honest understanding of the reasons behind certain childhood tragedies.  Some mysteries are going to keep eating at us forever... but that doesn't mean that the people involved are doomed to be broken apart forever.  That's what I got out of it.

ETA/P.S.: reading between the lines of the original piece, my educated guess is that Tedaldi figured out that her child had FAS, or some other severe neurological issue.  Even though she totally denies it was developmental and says it was purely attachment-related.  I think that would be the most likely reason to disrupt a 4-year-old child.

Mushroom Hell

The aftermath of all those great wild mushroom dinners we've been having is the inevitable pickling. When Ojiichan can't eat all the mushrooms he finds, he pickles them in salt and stores them in jars in our fridge.

To eat these pickled mushrooms, you have to go through a special soaking/rinsing desalination process that lasts 2-4 days. The end result is a vaguely mushroom shaped, tasteless brown lump of chewy congealed slime. If cooked in miso soup it's at least edible, in all other forms it's absolutely vile.

The jars of pickled mushrooms in our fridge have been... well... mushrooming. He left this morning for Japan and I really wish I could just chuck all the jars out. But then he'd get mad the next time he came back to visit, because he knows I hate pickled mushrooms and wouldn't have eaten them, and wasting food drives him crazy.

We get along pretty well in most environments, but the kitchen is an area where arguments can flare up very quickly.

The last big argument we got into, last visit, involved me trying to brew myself some herbal tea. I started a pot, then walked back into the kitchen five minutes later to pour the tea, and discovered it was no longer there. "What happened?" I asked my dad.

"I THREW AWAY YOUR JUNK TEA!!"

"How could you do that! Why didn't you just tell me you wanted to use the teapot?"

"IF YOU WANT TO MAKE STUPID JUNK TEA BUY ANOTHER TEAPOT!"

I walked away and didn't talk to him for the rest of that day. I have somewhat of a temper too and the easiest way to avoid blow-up is to depart from the situation.

If he ever moves in with me permanently he has got to have a separate kitchen.

A Fork to the Head

Sunny loves wrestling. Guy occasionally shows him Youtube clips of the pro wrestling stars he remembers from the 1980s, and whenever Guy and Sunny play-wrestle, Sunny always wants me to call the matches. I'm supposed to yell in Vince McMahon style, "AND IN THIS CORNER, THE UNDERTAKER!"

Once we heard that the Decatur Book Festival would be featuring a "literary wrestling match", we had to go check it out.

The Decatur Book Festival has built on partnerships with artistic, educational, business, and governmental organizations from Atlanta and all over the nation, and is now the largest independent book festival in the country and the fourth largest overall.

At this point, we could just keep doing what we’ve been doing and call that “good enough,” but where’s the fun in that? Here are some of the new and unique programs we’ve added to this year’s festival:

Wrestling Match: Is the pen mightier than the sword? Novelist, writer, and journalist Michael Muhammad Knight and legendary professional wrestler Abdullah the Butcher face off for the first time. Abdullah is widely known for his brutal fighting style.

The match was short but intense.  First introduced, the young Michael Muhammad Knight danced around the ring wearing a fancy cape embroidered with his initials.  He sounds like an interesting writer -- I think he's pioneering a sort of "avant-garde American Islamic" genre.

Then Abdullah the Butcher was introduced. He's a local hero, even though he always played the villain as a pro wrestler. In his heyday he was billed as the "Madman from the Sudan" but was actually born in Canada. He semi-retired to Atlanta, where he runs "Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs and Chinese Food".

It took a while for Abdullah to walk up to the ring. Once he reached the ring, I had serious doubts as to whether he would be able to climb up into it, due to age and weight considerations.

Before he could attempt the climb, MMK attacked him from inside the ring, and tried to kick him in the head. Abdullah grabbed MMK's foot, dragged him out of the ring and onto the ground, got him in a headlock, threw him to the ground again and bashed him on the head with a chair.  Then he bashed MMK with the chair a couple more times.  Then he stabbed him in the head with a fork.  Copious amounts of bright red blood covered MMK.  At this point, disregarding Dekalb Medical's sponsorship of the event, all the onlookers began screaming, "CALL GRADY!  CALL GRADY!"  I reassured Sunny that the blood was fake.  Abdullah wrapped up the short but intense match by bashing the prone MMK with a large water cooler jug, then turned around and headed back to his House of Ribs van.  I think the whole thing lasted about five minutes.

When I told Ojiichan about the event, he immediately recognized who Abdullah the Butcher was.  "He is very popular in Japan," he said.  Apparently the fork to the head is a classic schtick.

Sunny did have a nightmare last night that someone stabbed him in the head with a fork, but he said it wasn't too bad, because he was OK afterwards in the dream.  I hope I haven't scarred him too permanently.

Dekalb County Taxpayers Paid $389,161 to Cover Up Jaheem Herrera's Suicide and Blame His Mother

I'm so disgusted right now.

I don't know if I wrote about this before here, but I'm somewhat close to this case. I know the school in question (Sunny does NOT go there). I know kids who were classmates of Jaheem Herrera. I know parents who witnessed bullying first-hand there and told me how bad the problem was.

I know enough that this is a cover-up. A very expensive cover-up. School officials need to take responsibility.  Instead, they're scapegoating his poor mother. I'm disgusted with them and I'm disgusted with Moore. I feel terrible... I'm going to look up Masika Bermudez' address and send her a sympathy card.

Homophobic bullying (with a nasty added dose of race-related anti-immigrant hate) was what killed Jaheem Herrera.

Report: Family violence, loved one’s death affected 5th-grader before suicide
August 26, 2009 --

Domestic violence and the death last year of a beloved grandmother may have played a role in the suicide of a DeKalb County fifth-grader, according to an investigative report released Wednesday.

Jaheem Herrera, 11, hanged himself in a bedroom closet April 16 after coming home from school. His mother, Masika Bermudez, alleges that Jaheem had been bullied and that school officials did nothing even after she complained six to eight times.

But an investigation by retired Fulton County judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore found “no evidence that anyone told administrators or teachers about other students teasing or harassing Jaheem.” A written copy of Moore’s findings, summarized at a May 20 news conference, was made public today.

School records show Bermudez visited Jaheem’s teacher and principal only once each during the school year, Moore said. Neither said Bermudez complained of bullying to them.

In an affidavit, Jaheem’s homeroom teacher said Bermudez “has at no point ever come to me to express any concerns about bullying, threats, physical violence or name calling (being called gay) in relation to her son.”

The teacher said Jaheem “never withdrew from the other students, never isolated himself and never ceased activities he enjoyed. He simply did not show any symptoms to me of sadness or depression.”

Bermudez’s attorney, on the other hand, said students called Jaheem “snitch, gay, virgin, you ugly … They threatened and attacked him in the bathroom in December 2008, choking him until he passed out.”

Moore noted that Norman Montgomery Keene, his mother’s “significant other,” had pleaded guilty twice to domestic violence charges. In 2006 in Rockdale County, Bermudez said “he lunged across the kitchen and grabbed her by the throat, shoving her against the east wall.” She told police he hit her with a kitchen chair and kicked her in the throat after she fell to the floor, Moore said, quoting from the original police report.

Keene was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to battery and obstructing a person from making an emergency phone call, Moore said. A decade earlier, she said, Keene pleaded guilty in the Virgin Islands to a gun charge and to beating Bermudez and kicking her in the chest.

Moore also noted that Jaheem was extremely to close to a grandmother who reportedly raised him. After her death in October 2008, she said, a teacher heard Jaheem say he wanted to be buried next to her.

The judge found school officials responded appropriately to two fights involving Jaheem that were reported to them. Two other incidents, one of which involved a schoolmate placing Jaheem in a chokehold, only came to light after the boy’s death, she said.

In the week of Jaheem’s death, Moore said, some students teased him for carrying a pink bookbag, which they described as “gay.” Other students said Jaheem shrugged off the name-calling.

On the day of his death, she said, Jaheem’s mother sent him to his room after he got involved in a disagreement with his sisters. “When it was time for dinner, his mother sent his sister to get Jaheem. His sister found Jaheem’s lifeless body hanging in the closet,” Moore reported.

Moore noted that Bermudez’s attorney would not allow the judge to speak to his client. He did provide written answers to Moore’s questions.

ETA: Can you believe this woman?  From Southern Voice:

Moore made an oral presentation to the media and the members of the DeKalb County School board about the factors contributing to Herrera’s death at a press conference in May. At the time, she stated the school system was not at fault in Herrera’s death, including that he was not bullied and that when students called him “gay” they meant “happy.”

Deny, minimize, lie, lie, lie. A very familiar pattern from my own experience of being bullied.

Mushroom Heaven

It's been a wet, stormy week in Atlanta. The weather has made our neighborhood a mushroom-hunting heaven for Ojiichan, who spent the last few days combing through people's yards in search of boletes and giant puffballs. Luckily, no one reported him to the police. Last night we ate a delicious wild mushroom-centered dinner spread.

Sunny is doing well. I'm kind of exhausted right now... I'm at an intensive stage of the most recent infertility treatment. I'm also halfway through my next piece on Buddhism for Racialicious, but it's growing longer than I want it to be. I probably won't get it done before the weekend.

Right now Sunny is watching through the first season of Avatar. We don't have television, but Sunny gets to choose what he wants to watch from Netflix on-demand, and I also download some shows for him. Avatar seems like a pretty decent show. Of course, Ojiichan has determined that it's "garbage" because he happened to find out it was made by Americans.

Guy had added The Suite Life of Zach and Cody for Sunny last week. It's really not Sunny's type of show, but I think he wanted to see it again because his tween- and teen-aged foster sisters used to watch it. I had to take it back off the queue because I was shocked at how sexist, racist and moronic it was. Maybe I caught it at a bad time, but... wow. A series of jokes about how one of the boys was a total pussy because he got beat up by a guy who got beat up by a girl who knew kung fu because she was Asian. It sounded like frat boy humor, not something for kids. Sunny didn't complain too much when I took it off, since I replaced it with Avatar.

I'm so glad we don't have television, and haven't had it for a year now. It keeps Sunny from obsessing over objectionable shows. It also keeps him from watching commercials and pestering us to buy him stuff that he'd never even play with if he got. All the bad messages from commercials seep into kids' brains so easily. For example, Sunny used to be able to sing the "Free Credit Report" song by heart.

We saw Ponyo a few weeks ago. Sunny liked it. Guy wants to go back and see it again on his own, so he can concentrate on the amazing visuals without having to answer Sunny's gazillion questions: "Where is she going?" "Watch the movie and you'll see." "What's he doing?" "I don't know, watch the movie and you'll find out." "What's going to happen next?" "Watch the movie." "Mom, dad, did you see that?" "ARRGHHH!!"

I love Miyazaki movies and think they have great messages for kids. Of course, some of them are a bit too dark for Sunny. Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke would scare him too much. Maybe he'll be ready for those in a few years.

Ponyo is a beautiful movie but it doesn't have much of a plot, and the usual ecological focus of Miyazaki is not present, or else it's present in a very different form than in his other work. A lot of that comes from the fact that he's adapting a pre-existing story (The Little Mermaid) instead of creating his own. I recently left a comment defending Ponyo on that point in response to criticism from another Miyazaki fan:

I think Ponyo was more about compassion than ecology. In the movie, compassion was a supernatural force. It could destroy the world or save it.

The original Little Mermaid story has a really strong Christian influence and the themes of sacrifice, redemption and original sin are central to the story. Miyazaki translates it into a more Buddhist/animist frame (Ponyo’s mother as Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion/Goddess of Mercy) and there is neither original sin nor sacrifice remaining.

I do agree that this philosophical translation isn’t successful in that the conflict and decision point don’t have much weight. But I enjoyed the dream logic of the visuals that carried the movie along in place of conflict.