CHAPTER 28

Original (Written: 2005-05-01; Published in "Lun's World"): 2014-03

Written: 2025-09-10

Dealing with Lun Lun often involves strategy—sometimes effective, and sometimes leading to unexpected situations.

When Lun became obsessed with amusement rides, he would pester us endlessly. In order to calm him down—mostly me—I used a “mind diversion tactic,” threatening to take him to the hospital. Eventually, we actually ended up at the emergency room entrance. At that moment, the tactic worked: he stopped pestering. But ever since then, he associated the word “hospital” with amusement rides.

Every late spring, when traveling amusement parks arrived in different cities, Lun would get excited and say in a mix of Chinese and English: “train, train… turn turn.” Recently (early 2005), he changed it to: “turn turn, hospital.”

At first, we were puzzled. Then we remembered: three years earlier, when he began showing signs of depression, he would shout all day about wanting to go on amusement rides. I took him to the empty parking lots of nearby malls to check things out in person. But even after seeing there were no rides, he wouldn’t give up. I nearly lost my temper, and decided to take him to the emergency room entrance to scare him a little.

At the time, he was terrified of hospitals. Honestly, his attitude was similar to a pet dog afraid of the vet. As soon as he saw the hospital, he wanted to go straight home. I think that incident made him associate amusement rides and hospitals.

It turns out that autistic children perceive visual experiences differently than typical people. When looking at a picture, most people distinguish between the main subject, supporting elements, and the background. Autistic children, however, may give equal weight to every detail. As a result, what they perceive is a combination of colors and themes, and they’re able to clearly remember each detail.

There was a Japanese painter who became famous for painting dot-by-dot. When asked why, he replied: “That’s how I see the world.” He was autistic.

This kind of memory style is actually very demanding. I remember that even when our car was still far from a mall, Lun could instantly tell whether there were amusement rides there. Then he’d say: “turn turn, hospital.” We’d still try to argue with him.

Among our friends, there’s another young man with autism, a year younger than Lun, who also has this kind of observational skill. His family often has to avoid shopping malls and take detours home. Their reason is similar to ours: after participating in rides, he becomes overly excited, anxious, and pesters everyone all day. His emotions spiral out of control. His mother and sibling/s can’t manage him, and I don’t have much physical strength or courage either—so for the family, avoiding trouble is the best approach.

With the help of medication and as he’s grown older, Lun’s emotional state has improved quite a bit. Just this past spring break, he visited three temporary amusement parks and had his fill of fun. In fact, he only plays two or three kinds of rides: the mini train, rocking horse, and bumper cars. The mini pirate ship is about the limit of his courage. He actually really loves the rides designed for children under 4 feet tall. But now at eighteen, without eating much, drinking, or exercising, he’s already 5’2”. Naturally, the staff can’t always make exceptions for him. We had to go along with it, and eventually, he was forced to accept it.