I looked for a definition of autism today and found the website of a remarkable autistic woman called Alison Hale. Here is the site http://www.hale.ndo.co.uk/index.htm Please read it to get some insights into what people with major learning difficulties experience in their school lives. I would love to read her autobiography some day. What has that got to do with China? To Alison, writing was just shapes and spaces which changed constantly. It was utterly meaningless to her for many years. Voices were the same. She could become familiar with a voice but when a new person came in to her life the sounds were different and she could not interpret their meaning. Most of us can slot the sounds and tones of a new voice into a general pattern called ‘English’ or whatever language we were born to and access its meaning, but for Alison every voice was unique and had to be coded individually for meaning. Living in China is a little like living in Alison’s world. I walk around the streets and hear people speaking but don’t know their meaning. They are just making sounds I don’t understand. I look at shop signs, street names, newspapers. I go into a bookstore with a thrill of anticipation but I see marks on paper that I don’t understand. The worlds of speech and print are meaningless. Even the looks on people’s faces are foreign and in a different code than the one I knew so well at home. I have had to relearn one of my favourite accomplishments, to read body language. Living in China is like being in Alison Hale’s world for a while.