Aspies For Freedom

Press Release
April 22st, 2006
http://iautistic.com/zong_pr_en.php

Posted on behalf of my friend Eric


Autism Awareness Day is coming soon, and an autistic is creating his own autism awareness campaign to commemorate it. The “zong” (中 campaign focuses on using Chinese letters as metaphors to express the essence of autism to the public.

Eric Chen, a Singaporean diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), is inviting sponsors and interested non-profits to join his campaign.

Says Eric, “Participants will not only help raise autism awareness in an unusual and exciting manner, but will also receive much needed publicity for their work and effort in promoting autism.”



"Autism spectrum" refers to a range of developmental disabilities including autism. Affecting mostly males, it is marked by poor social interactions, obsessions, odd speech patterns and other peculiar mannerisms that make one appear eccentric.

Autism is a mystery to most people who could not comprehend why autistics behave so inappropriately. It was not surprising that many autistics experience severe depression resulting from social rejection. “It was impossible for me to appreciate and enjoy human life when people treated me like garbage,” he remarked of his earlier life experiences.

After successfully entering the human world, Eric decided to take matters into his own hands. He wrote a book entitled “Mirror Mind” to help non-autistics enter into the realm of autism.

He occasionally shares his experiences through his talks and appearances in the media, including the Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao. However, he feels that these steps towards autism awareness stop far short of his expectations.



Eric feels that it is very difficult for non-autistics to enter an autistic’s world and vice versa. “We need someone who has experienced both worlds to create an emotionally gripping campaign. Most autism campaigns tend to focus on bland facts or vague messages that fail to express an autistic’s heart.”

Eric will continue to create more campaigns that he believes will intrigue the masses and convey autism in a touching yet exciting way. He expects his work to raise many eyebrows as autistics find it difficult to work with emotions and communicate clearly, both essential elements of successful advertising.

Eric begs to differ. “It is my desire to show the world that if an autistic can reach out to normal people, surely we all can learn to embrace our unique differences and accept each other as who we are”.



Eric is also known as a computer whiz, artist, writer and businessman. He is inspired by a vision of a world where everyone can live meaningfully. He has written more about himself on his website at http://eric.rainbowhuman.com

Dear Amy,

To clarify, the campaign is focused in Singapore and Eric hopes to be able to find sponsers to pay to put the advertisments in a mainstream newspaper.

However, Eric hopes to be able to do it internationally if he can find people to support him.

So far, sponser response to his campaign remains lukewarm but there are some media enquiries from the local press.


Autism Awareness Day is on 27 April according to his website. For the date, he refers to:
http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168...--,00.html

The advertisments themselves are at
http://iautistic.com/zong.php


At this moment, Eric is also coming up with another autism campaign to be released later on his website.

I hope this clarifies things.

Perhaps he just got a little confused.  I'm aware that April in the US is Autism [Curebie] Awareness Month.  So an incressed number of events are held by curebie orginzations all month long.

Bonnie Ive been following Eric's writings for a long time and as far as i can tell (i have no idea what awareness day he's talking abt and since i dont know either i shall shut up), it sin't meant to be interpreted in that way. He sees NTs and Aspeis as different but neither group superior to the other, and he feels by 'reaching out' to the other group he can help them understand what it's like in the Aspie world.

Abt "entering the human world", its just an allusion/metaphor which is not so different from employing a web domain name like "wrongplanet". Aspies often describe the experience like being form another planet, and this is more along the lines of what he means. Not that he's less than human.
"Normal" simply is another loose term for majority. i understand it is no longer politically correct and people may be sensitive but as far as I can see it's simply just a way of saying "non-autistic", since not many people especially in Singapore might now what neurotypical means.

Obviously I am not Eric Chen and don't claim to have some monopoly on interpreting what he writes correctly, but I've seen him featured in  newspapers and he definitely is proud of who he is and especially his aspeiness and in many ways i find him level headed and sensible. He isn't pro cure or anti cure or an advocate of the autistic rights movement in this sense(which is perhaps why there might be some misunderstanding going on here) but he is definitely a strong self-advocate, aware and that he sees nothing wrong with being treated as subhuman is definitely far from the truth.
Just my thoughts. Perhaps it wouldve been better for him to actually post here rather than get a friend to do it, but I guess his friend was just trying to help him disseminate the info and might not be sure of AFFs views on curebies; she is not autistic so its highly unlikely she would have known beforehand.

A black person who goes to a job interview acting all ghetto and talking like a rapper is not going to get the job so things have not changed.

All people, not just aspies, have to make concessions to societal norms.

It would be like a woman saying, "My industry is dominated by men, but I've found  ways to make it to the top.".

This is not an expression of self hatred, but ingenuity.

Depends what way she found to make it to the top and if all the effort was really worth it.