The Five Project is an autism organization of some sort (I actually didn't know much about them other than that they wanted a presentation on autism and neurodiversity, and now that they liked it and are apparently hoping I'd be willing to do something like it again.) I wrote a script that was kind of a mix of English and Chinese but mostly English, Vivien (an exchange student working with Steven Kapp) helped me translate, and then I recorded and edited a video that was mostly along the script, though rarely actually identical. We each updated the script to match about half of what I actually said. And then yesterday morning, I logged into the virtual presentation, which I live-"blogged" into Notepad++.
Now I'm sticking that here.
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IT IS HAPPENING NOW AND I AM A BALL OF NERVES.
People are interested to hear me talk, and they're impressed with my ability to speak Chinese, and they're not NLMC-ing at the moment (there's time yet and considering the opinion folks tend to have of white people's ability to speak Chinese combined with my actually being able to speak I'm expecting it any minute. Wonder what it looks like in the more subtle/委婉 Chinese way.)
Not a lot of comments going on at the moment, which is OK with me. I can hear comments arrive, and I can hear myself talk (ugh I sound so not-fluent, even compared to my usual Chinese, reading aloud sucks), so I can do something not particularly thinking intensive to try and distract myself from my nerves until I'm needed.
want to add "很多人以为自闭症有悖于好好生活。" (A lot of people incorrectly believe that autism contradicts with a good life, ish.)
Just learned that 卡=lag, that's cool, but the reason for learning (apparently the meeting room and video are laggy for some people) is less cool.
It's a good thing we did transcript because of the lag. Captions wouldn't have solved the lag problem, though I do still want to get those done. I have less time pressure on captions than we did on the transcript, so that's good.
At the bit where I say "my carrying my computer around isn't because I want to be able to play computer games whenever I want" in the video, I typed "(I also like to play computer games)" and that got a laugh. Typed in Chinese, of course.
Oh yay, comments so far including folks saying "huh, never realized that" kinds of stuff about the sitting still and not stimming taking the energy we could use for learning. And needing to learn to understand our body language rather than assuming we have none or assuming it'll be like neurotypical body language.
Still no sign of "not like my child," I am so confused. Happy, but confused.
Also convinced that not like my child is coming in the Q&A, because it's not like that's how things usually go or anything, and it's not like I have anxiety or anything, of course not!(SARCASM on the "it's not like" statements.)
Q&A has a lot of "when did you start typing" and "what'd you do in China" type stuff. Also some questions about kids, and about managing sensory sensitivities. How is there no NLMC I AM CONFUSED.
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Note after: No one did the whole "not like my child" thing. I wish that didn't surprise me, because it should be typical. But I am surprised, and getting "not like my child"-ed at is a common enough problem that We Are Like Your Child exists, and is a thing I contribute to sometimes.
I've actually been asked if I'd be willing to do something like this again. And I totally would. I'd let people share the video, as long as credit to me for actually saying all this stuff and Vivien for translation+transcripting help. It's on Youtube, not captioned yet so still unlisted, but I know Youtube is blocked in China.
Now I'm sticking that here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IT IS HAPPENING NOW AND I AM A BALL OF NERVES.
People are interested to hear me talk, and they're impressed with my ability to speak Chinese, and they're not NLMC-ing at the moment (there's time yet and considering the opinion folks tend to have of white people's ability to speak Chinese combined with my actually being able to speak I'm expecting it any minute. Wonder what it looks like in the more subtle/委婉 Chinese way.)
Not a lot of comments going on at the moment, which is OK with me. I can hear comments arrive, and I can hear myself talk (ugh I sound so not-fluent, even compared to my usual Chinese, reading aloud sucks), so I can do something not particularly thinking intensive to try and distract myself from my nerves until I'm needed.
want to add "很多人以为自闭症有悖于好好生活。" (A lot of people incorrectly believe that autism contradicts with a good life, ish.)
Just learned that 卡=lag, that's cool, but the reason for learning (apparently the meeting room and video are laggy for some people) is less cool.
It's a good thing we did transcript because of the lag. Captions wouldn't have solved the lag problem, though I do still want to get those done. I have less time pressure on captions than we did on the transcript, so that's good.
At the bit where I say "my carrying my computer around isn't because I want to be able to play computer games whenever I want" in the video, I typed "(I also like to play computer games)" and that got a laugh. Typed in Chinese, of course.
Oh yay, comments so far including folks saying "huh, never realized that" kinds of stuff about the sitting still and not stimming taking the energy we could use for learning. And needing to learn to understand our body language rather than assuming we have none or assuming it'll be like neurotypical body language.
Still no sign of "not like my child," I am so confused. Happy, but confused.
Also convinced that not like my child is coming in the Q&A, because it's not like that's how things usually go or anything, and it's not like I have anxiety or anything, of course not!(SARCASM on the "it's not like" statements.)
Q&A has a lot of "when did you start typing" and "what'd you do in China" type stuff. Also some questions about kids, and about managing sensory sensitivities. How is there no NLMC I AM CONFUSED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note after: No one did the whole "not like my child" thing. I wish that didn't surprise me, because it should be typical. But I am surprised, and getting "not like my child"-ed at is a common enough problem that We Are Like Your Child exists, and is a thing I contribute to sometimes.
I've actually been asked if I'd be willing to do something like this again. And I totally would. I'd let people share the video, as long as credit to me for actually saying all this stuff and Vivien for translation+transcripting help. It's on Youtube, not captioned yet so still unlisted, but I know Youtube is blocked in China.
Hi Alyssa:
ReplyDeleteI first found out about the Five Project back in 2009 when a Third Culture Kid wrote about their experiences with autists in China and Singapore.