Mary and max

Thinking about our discussion in class regarding autism and mental illness, I wanted to share this film:

Mary and Max. Its a clay animation film about a girl whose mother suffers from mental illness and a man with autism who form a friendship despite their differences. The film gives a really unique perspective into the minds of two characters who just want answers to life's key questions. It's on Netflix instant queue so you really have no excuse not to watch it! (If you don't have Netflix we can have a movie night)

Stigma and Disability

"Finally, stigma theory reminds us that the problems we confront are not disability, ethnicity, race, class homosexuality, or gender; they are instead the inequalities, negative attitudes, misrepresentations, and institutional practices that result from the process of stigmatization.( Thomson, 1997, p. 32)" 

I was reading Theorizing Disability, and this quote spoke to me, because the perception of mind creates the the inferior thinking against for both the people with the disability and others without the disability. I think that the imagined and idealized form of body within the group, in other words, society creates dangerous thought process and idea of normal; thus, it creates the stigma around the subject--in this case, body and the different body. 

I often see some note like--"adjustment to disability"at my internship site when a client is referred to the art therapy. Most of these clients were recently gone through the big changes in their lives. It is hard for them to see their body changes in a positive way because it is different from before. I respect/admire their efforts to make adjustments and courage to keep themselves up, because the difference sometimes means hard. However, I think this difference looking at this subject matter, 'disability' needs to take one step further to look at people with 'disability' on the same level. So they are not different but the same in the view of human existence; thus they are not inferior. 

Autoethnography

Korean.
Buddhist.
Painter.

These are interrelated different identities that I correspond with.

I struggled to be a Korean because of my mixed environment that I grew up. I was hiding in my closet with a flashlight after 11pm every night to finish my homework when I was in the high school. I tried to speak well and do well in this English speaking world. But I couldn't not be the American, because I was Korean. When I realized this, I didn't have to try so hard on myself any more. Also, Theses years were worthy, because it gave me an opened eye to understand America and Americans better, moreover, cultures, values, the difference in general.

I was born in a buddhist family. But I didn't think about being a buddhist seriously until 2008(though I some time to time said that I wanted to be a buddhist nun to mother when I was a child.) But now, this is one of the strongest identities I find myself. I do not know how to explain my understandings of it, how they affected me. The learnings and all practices really helped me to see things without ends, to see the unseen etc. I constantly try to "know myself."

I paint because I survive. This is what I think every Wednesday when I drag my body to the painting studio. I need to paint in order to function normally without getting depressed. I can forget things that is attached from everything around me and paint so painting is my exit to my own world. It's a step to my wonderland, that I can focus on me.