A Clash of Two Cultures

After such a long time, I laughed out whole-heartedly while reading a book.

So I am reading this book by Anne Fadiman called 'The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of two Cultures." I am doing it as a requirement for my Medical Anthropology class. And now I am glad I am reading it. Winner of National Book Critics Circle Award for this book, Anne Fadiman examines the cultural, linguistic and medical struggles when a Hmong girl was diagnosed with epilepsy and taken to American doctors for treatment.

I have not yet finished the book but I am already loving it and calling it one of my favorites. The book talks about the communication barrier between the American doctors and the Hmong parents that was preventing timely recovery of the little girl, Lia Lee. The parents loved Lia. They treated her like a princess. They were just not able to comprehend the prescription by the doctors. They would hence, end up giving wrong medications or skipping it altogether. The situation worsened to the extent that the Doctor recommended the case to the Child Protective Services to take away Lia from her parents for a minimum period of six months.

Obviously, the parents did not understand why their child was taken away from them. So, they threatened, a couple of times, to commit suicide if their daughter was not returned to them. That is when Anne Fadiman wrote, "The Child Protective Services considered placing the entire family in a psychiatric hospital, but decided against it." I think this is one of the saddest and the funniest lines I have ever read. You will understand it if you ever read the book.