Daily Life

Of Pilots, Racism, and Feet in Mouth.

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One of the difficulties with Autism is communication. It is defined as a Communication disorder. Some would argue it is a Communication Dis-alignment. We communicate fairly well with out own, but when we have to enter the world of Neurotypicals (Regular Brained people), it can sometimes be difficult. Even those of us who have trained ourselves to follow the social norms, we slip up. We misread the situation, or we don’t express ourselves clearly enough.

This morning, I slipped up.

I was on LinkedIn. Linked is is supposed to be a business Social Media. Where you can meet people and companies in the same field as you. You can use it to find work, and read blogs about your field of specialty.

It is not.

This morning, I was on LinkedIn, and I saw a post. The post I believe was supposed to be empowering. It stated “If I get on a plane and see a Black pilot, I’ll breathe a sigh of relief knowing the person in charge is capable of overcoming many obsticles to achieve their goals.”

Beautiful. I agree. Overcoming obstacles is a good thing to be able to do at 30,000 feet.

So I commented. and I screwed up. My logic at the time was clear in my mind. If the person is doing a great job (At whatever they are doing), then why does skin color, or ethnicity matter?
I also do not remember seeing the Pilots when gettin gon flights in the last decade…

I felt I was clear. Let them do their job, whether they be Black, Yellow, Red, or White.

I did apologize for misreading the situation. But I’m still not really convinced I did…

I had forgotten that this was a whole thing. And later someone posted about Affirmative Action.

Now, I have been out of the Continent for a long time, but here is what I have gathered was the intention of Affirmative Action: Look at credentials, and experience when hiring people. Don’t look at race, gender, or other things not connected to the job.

In China here it is a whole strange thing. We have men doing jobs here that I would not expect, and feel a bit uncomfortable with here. For example, I have met so many men who sell women’s underwear. Not just happen to be at the store, but who’s job is to Hawk them. Stand in the street call people out, look at them and find the right size, and style for them.

And Why shouldn’t they be able to do this, or any other job? My old western upbringing tells me warning bells should be ringing, but nobody else bats an eye. So I have to think about what is actually preventing this? Not his knowledge of fabrics, sales techniques, and style.

But the Pilot post drew me back to a few days ago.
The title is misleading. But the body of the text explains that an Ethnically Non-Chinese Pilot, flying in Chinese Domestic Airline, was forced to Emergency land at an airport that was not the destination (Beijing).

The Policy in Emergency Landings states they must make the announcements in English first, then in Chinese. I believe this is so that it is recorded in English on the black box, but I don’t know. He did this, but the complaints quickly turned to his piloting ability.

The insinuation to me was that Chinese Pilots can land in any weather, bad or good, so why give us the unqualified foreign pilot?

The Airline, did back the pilot up, and defended the decision, which was not his to make in the first place.

So my point that I was trying to make, and apparently failed to on Linked in is this: Good people come from all walks of life. All races. All Genders. All Heritages. All Sexualities.

To find a good worker, you look at their resume, not their skin color.

If you wish to read the full article on the Pilot in China, it is here

Down Time or Extra Cash?

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Some things happened today that made me reflect on how important my down time, and my family time are to me. I got to thinking about part time work.

Part Time Jobs

For those in the know, working anywhere that is not directly connected to your Visa registration, is illegal. 8 years ago this became very pertinent. I worked at an elementary school that owned the next door kindergarten. The Kindergarten had a different name, but was linked. An Example would be if I worked at a School called “Beijing Elementary School” and the Kindergarten was called something like “Beijing Elementary Super-tots.” At one point, the school began to assign teachers who worked in the elementary to have classes next door in the Kindergarten. They got raided by the police and those teachers lost their visas.

So keep that in mind, it can be dangerous to work outside your legal company. Many teachers don’t let that bother them, and they take on private tutoring jobs at people’s houses, or they work in the evening at a cram-school. They figure, the police don’t raid places at night, or go to people’s apartments, so they are safe. And the money is good. (1000RMB per hour, or about $150 USD an hour). I have seen places get raided at night. I have heard about security guards of apartment compounds reporting frequent visitors, who are picked up at the community gate. (If you have study material coming from the house, you get deported.)

So I don’t do it. I have done it in the past, but never for the money. I have done Easter or Christmas events at cram schools for the children. But we are careful about this, I don’t get paid, but instead have my children involved in the events, so it is volunteering. That is permissable, but I still don’t like it.

Family Time

16 years ago, when we were pregnant with my second child, I was offered a lot of part time jobs. Everyone was telling me that a second child will be expensive, and that I will need to work harder to earn more.

I told them no.

Unlike many families here, My wife and I have almost always been on our own. At that time, my wife needed me at home to help out with our son, and the house. She did not need me coming home late. She needed help, and as her husband it was my job to do so.

I went through a time, where I convinced myself I had to work more, and when I was building up the school I was at, I worked a ton of extra hours (I think I timed it at 75 hours per week including class, curriculum development, standards modification, and planning for the new program.) It caused a lot of strain on my family, and myself, and I promised I would never do that again.

Now I help with homework, and enjoy time with my wife and children whenever I can.

Burnout

Now here’s the thought that started this article in the first place. I am working within my limits. Over the last several years I have realized how much I really need my down time. As I study up on my autism, I learn more about myself. I recognize why I feel so exhausted when I get home from a day at work. Just being with people, even kind and nice people, is draining. I still have to mask a lot.

My Mask helps me deal with the fact that sounds hurt. It helps me deal with smell difficulties, and needing social distancing. It helps me contain urges to flap, twitch, or break out in silly dances. While all of these things are much less in demand at my new school, they are still there. And No, doing a silly dance or flapping with people does not help like flapping or twitching on your own. It is called stimming.

Stimming is an action we do to help regulate our own feelings and minds. It helps us focus our minds, and experience our authentic emotions. The moment we are doing it with others, we are focused too much on the other people and it does not help in the slightest.

I have a few students in my class who are on the spectrum. Two of them like my attention. One has tactile sensitivity. He absolutely loves fuzzy things, including my arm. The other cannot handle loud constant noise, and handles this with sharp sudden noises. He enjoys throwing books on the floor to make this sound as he can feel it and it breaks up the sound of a busy classroom.

I love helping them, in my class, or at recess. But If I were to be asked to help them after school I would have to decline. Yes, I can sympathize with them, but I know I would not be much help to them if I am in need of my down time. I truly hope that their families are allowing them to have their down time to recuperate from the day, too.

If you have read any of my earlier articles, you are aware of how exhausting it can be for myself and other autistics to deal with the world. I do not wish to make anyones time more difficult. In fact I wish to do the exact opposite. But I cannot do that, if I cannot manage myself. So no part time work, no to things that break up my family time, or down time.

ShenZhen

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It has now been one month since we moved to ShenZhen from Beijing.

For me, it has been a relaxing month. Yes, we are still unpacking and organizing the house. I expect this will take a long time, as we never fully unpacked over the 4 years we were in ShunYi district of Beijing. Yes, our bedrooms are smaller. Our living room is bigger, and we have a beautiful view.

ShenZhen is what’s considered a New city. it started growing out of a village in the 80s. So in a way, I am older than this city. There is a ton of nature here. Lots of parks, lots of trees, and grass. Even the overpasses here have flower gardens built into them. the flowers and bushes hang down from the overpasses.

The city is smaller than Beijing, which is great, as we can get around better here. We have not explored much of the city yet. We have learned about the different regions by friends, adverts and videos in the display panels of the elevator in the building we live in. My wife and I have had to run around the city a bit. So we do have a bit of an idea. We look forward to exploring more, but in our own time.

One of the things I like about the city is, and this may just be me, but Life here doesn’t feel rushed. Yes it is a city, and is aiming to become a global city, but the general feel of life is much more relaxed. While there was some places in Beijing that you could relax at, the overall feeling of the city was claustrophobic to me. Most parts of the city were densely packed, and the looming buildings could be overwhelming. Most people were nice, but the sheer number of people pressing against you could be overwhelming. In the streets here, I have breathing space.

As an Autistic living here in ShenZhen, so far, my mind is at ease. My family and I can be quite particular with food, there are restaurants with cuisine from around the world, helping us with that. My Smell sensitivity used to force me to use only the “Premier” cars in the ride-hailing app (DiDi), here even regular Taxis are scent free, and easy to breathe in. The ocean is nearby, If I want to walk there and just listen to the waves. We have this beautiful view of the city framed by mountains from our house. I sometimes just go out to the balcony and stare. So far, I have not felt overwhelmed by the population density, or crowds. The malls we have gone to so far have not been too loud, or too scented.

Life is good in ShenZhen.