大象传媒

I spent part of my Gap year in Romania. My travelling companion innocently photographed some people waiting in the street. Within seconds police had threatened to confiscate her camera for taking evidence of a bread queue.
Wearing camouflage, we heard on this programme yesterday, is illegal in Barbados; while feeding the pigeons in Venice or hugging someone of the same sex in Senegal can also land you in trouble. Some years ago we went on a riding safari in Botswana. We were told to pack bush colours, so our son Alexander, who always follows instructions precisely, sensibly took his school army corps fatigues. When we had to cross an African border we feared he was going to he arrested.
Alexander鈥檚 whole life has involved finding himself on the wrong side of unwritten and unexplained rules. As someone with Asperger syndrome, he will always be a foreigner in this neurotypical world, which the rest of us arrogantly consider normal. He uses logic and deduction, only to learn he was supposed to employ emotions and guesswork. He is constantly having to research and then implement the nonsensical rules of those around him.
He is supposedly 鈥渄isabled.鈥� Though in truth 鈥渄ifferently abled鈥� is never more apt than when applied to Asperger syndrome, which can enable intuitively what we neurotypicals might spend years learning, such as knowing how computers think and feel. Loving him has taught me much, I hope, including tolerance for different social languages.
Take two generations. I knew a grandmother who queued for hours for the latest must-have Christmas present. When her grandson never wrote to thank her she assumed that he at best didn鈥檛 like it, and at worst had no manners. He, meanwhile, knowing with ease how to send texts and operate an iPad, could only assume that someone who didn鈥檛 have email wasn鈥檛 interested in hearing from him...