Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't have asked for less
Review: In short: elongated. Fadiman has the perspicacoius ability to take an anecdotal quip and stretch it out to the length of, well, this 300 page book. Buyer beware: you're getting much more than you bargain for with this one. Overly-specific med-speak, tens of pages of garment description and an overview of the Vietnam War all seemed to have enough weight that Fadiman could wedge them comfortably in this tale about a sick little girl. Whether you're looking for action, drama, comedy or informative writing, you'll find none of it here. Let's just hope this is Fadiman's second and final work.
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Summary: Eye Opening
Review: Being in the healthcare field I knew I wanted to side with the decisions the healthcare team made when people were telling me about the book. All that changed the moment I opened the book. I oscillated back and forth siding with the family and then the medical professionals, until about half way through the book when I finally settled down and opened my mind to the words of the author. Now done with the book I realize there never were two sides. I realize that there were no wrongs and no rights, but a series of tragic mistakes. My eyes are opened and my mind is armed with the knowledge this book brought. This is a book everyone today needs to read. In a society where we place so much blame on one thing or another we need to remember that we are all on the same side it is to our benefit to approach the situation with an open mind and a lot of understanding. Otherwise the results could be as devestating as they were for the family in this book.
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Summary: A masterfully told story
Review: Fadiman does an excellent job of exploring and representing the very unique viewpoints of two very different cultures: allopathic medicine and that of the Hmong. Remarkable is the extent of her interviewing and research. In addition to being exceptionally well-written, the way she intersperses the details of Lia's illness with the social, historical, political forces surrounding the Hmongs works well. This was one of those "couldn't put it down" books. Anyone interested in cultural competence and the meeting of two very different cultures will find this heart-wrenching and fascinating.
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Summary: Eye-opening and fascinating
Review: This book, along with The Poisonwood Bible, should be required reading for anyone in the "diversity industry," the people who put on those meetings at workplaces and schools about how we're all the same, just treat everybody with respect, let's sample wontons/ravioli/kreplach and see how similar they are, etc. That approach vastly oversimplifies the complexity of dealing with other cultures. This tragic story in which there are no villains shows how easy it is to fall into a trap of ethnocentricism without even realizing the beliefs you take for granted, and don't even think of as "beliefs," are actually the product of your upbringing. For example, I'm in healthcare, and when I walk out to the waiting room and call out a patient's name I'll often use a beckoning gesture in case the patient doesn't understand I'm ready to have them come into an exam room. I learned from reading TSCYAYFD that this gesture is offensive to the Hmong, who only use it for livestock.I highly recommend this book to anyone in healthcare and anyone interested in a true and deep understanding of the complexity of dealing with different cultures.
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Summary: A Heartbreaking Tale of Cultural Clashes
Review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is a wonderful book that explores the complex subject of cultural competence in the U.S. health care system. It raises awareness for the urgent need of health care providers who have knowledge about other cultures (specifically non-Western cultures) and are also willing to adapt to the cultural traditions and beliefs of their patients. This narrative tells us the story of Lia Lee, an epileptic child born to a Hmong family who immigrated to the U.S. After a series of unfortunate events that stemmed from cultural clashes between the hospital and the Lee family, Lia eventually ended up brain dead in a comatose state. The lack of communication between the doctors and the Lee family, in addition to their inability to understand each other, linguistically and culturally, made cooperation impossible, and eventually ended up with devastating results. From the beginning, Nao Kao and Foua Lee (Lia's father and mother) had difficulties with adapting to the ways of the Western medical system. Lia was the first child that was born in the United States. She was also the first to be born in a hospital, as traditionally Hmong women gave birth at home without the assistance of medicine. As a result, Foua was unaccustomed to the all of the events that occur in a hospital when a baby is born. For instance, once Lia was out of the womb, she was whisked away by the nurses and given all kinds of medical tests to determine if she was healthy or not. Being that this was Foua's fourteenth child, Foua was used to having the baby in her arms immediately after birth and caring for her from then on. Having this abrupt separation between mother and child was not normal to her. Also, there is a Hmong cultural tradition that women follow soon after birth. The act of burying the placenta has cultural significance that is related to one's soul and life after death. Foua, however, did not get to bury Lia's placenta; it was incinerated at the hospital. Not that she would have been able to even ask anyone about it because there was no one present during her delivery who spoke Hmong. Thus, this was another traditional Hmong practice that conflicted with the practices of Western medicine. As the story progresses, you see the endless struggle that plays out between the Lees and the doctors at the hospital. One only wishes that the providers would be more sensitive to the beliefs and traditions of the Hmong culture. Sadly, this never comes to fruition as the story ends up in tragedy. The book goes into great detail about the Hmong culture and the history of the Hmong people. Sometimes, however, this seems to distract the reader from the main story of Lia. Although this information is placed in the book to provide the reader with a better understanding of the Hmong, it seems a bit too much at times. However, overall this book was quite an engrossing read. The story pulls you in and makes you become a part of the Lee family's ordeal with the Western medical system. This is a highly recommended book for anyone, especially those who are interested in cross-cultural interactions between doctors and patients.
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Summary: Wow
Review: As a first year student, we were asked to read When the Spirit Catches You... and I must say that this book is absolutely incredible. There were times when I thought the doctors were ridiculous and times when the Lee family was being ridiculous. As one reviewer wrote, I was on an emotional rollercoaster. I felt anger, sadness, joy, RESPECT. I learned so much from this book! To be completely honest, there were sections that were a little dry, and I did get bored, but the feeling you get from completeing this story...from seeing Lia as a baby to seeing Lia six years later is completely euphoric. It is amazing to see how the Hmong and American culture come together toward the end, through hardships and friendships.
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Summary: From the book's hometown...
Review: Coming from the town of Merced as in the book, i both completely undersand and am amazed at the information presented in this book. I have grown up integrated with Hmongs in public schools, though like the book illustrates they are very separated. My hmong peers' parents do not speak english, wear traditional clothing, and seem from another world, though the younger generations have adapted to our more modern society. This book was fascinating to me, as i recognized the location very clearly and the doctors who are actually my pediatritians as well. I got to see what actually happens behind the heritage ties of the hmong community right in my own home, which could'nt have been better portrayed in this book. I definatly recommend it to everyone, you will not only be enriched with history and culture, but growing controversy between these cultures and the "modern" united states.
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Summary: The Hmong/American Experience and Tragedy
Review: The tragedy of an immigrant Hmong family from Laos/Cambodia and their struggle with an epileptic child and the American medical community. If you are looking to find out answers about epileptic treatments, don't look here. This is the worst tragedy that can befall an epileptic child and her family. It is the story of the American medical community who tries to help by forcing confusing medical treatment on a family who can't even read or write, let alone understand the complex regimen of multiple prescriptions with confusing dosage/time schedules and horrendous side effects. A medical system that thinks they are helping by having the child removed into protective child service programs, who dump the child into a foster care system. The story of the child is one of a child lost in the medical system. The story of this child is also lost in Fadimen's book, which becomes more a detailed history of the Hmong people. Two books in one - it is informative, detailed, and frustrating in its abundance of information and lack of hopefulness. I have heard nurses and doctors say that they have learned a lot about the South East Asian community - but 20 years too late, in my mind.... The miracle of this book is that the epileptic child is never abandoned by the family, and at the time of the writing, was still alive and being cared for lovingly and protectively, though in an almost comatose state.
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Summary: The Collision of 2 cultures
Review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, is a novel about the collision between two cultures. A refugee Hmong family living in a small American town called Merced, had a child named Lia who is diagnosed with severe epilepsy. The doctors and the little girl's parents want what is best for her. Unfortunately for the girl, her parents do not understand the ways of American medicine and did not follow the instructions of the doctors, which led to the terrible tragedy that changed her for life.
Originally, I was assigned to read this book for my World Civilizations one class, while we were studying religion. When I first looked at the book, I thought that it would be quite boring, and that I was greatly going to dislike it. As I read on, I found this book to be quite interesting. The thing I disliked most about the book, was how it was it got quite repetitive. After the fist quarter of the book I felt that I had a good understanding of the book and that I did not have to read on. After a while, I said, "I get the point already!" This book was very descriptive, and had too much detail, which led me to get bored at points. But for the most part, I found the book to be interesting.
To me, the most interesting part was when Lia started to get better, they would give her less medicine, but when she got worse, they would double the dose. This struck me as interesting because with American or "Western" medicine, if you get better and stop taking the medicine, than you will get a horrible relapse that is worse than the original infection or illness. It was an unfortunate thing that Lia's parents did not understand the ways of American culture and American Medicine.
The Shamens, who tried treating Lia back in her homeland, tried animal sacrifices, and other sacred rituals to try and treat her, but none of them worked. Her parents continued to pay them, but there was still no luck. What I want to know, is why did her parents keep paying the Shamens and not get mad at them when their "treatments" and "rituals" did not work? This was the biggest question that I had throughout the whole book.
Lia's parents attribute her attacks of epilepsy to a slammed door when Lia was a baby. In the Hmong culture, if a baby or a young person hears a loud noise a spirit will come and you will loose your soul. The doctors who treated Lia knew little about Hmong culture, and they said that powerful drugs could fix her epilepsy. Little did they know the Hmong culture see connections between everything. Unlike us, the Hmong do not separate the mind from the body. The doctors struggled for a long time to try and figure out how they could get the message across to Lia's parents that they needed to keep her on the medicine in order for her to get better and not to have long term damage. Unfortunately, that message did not get across, and Lia now has been badly damaged for life.
Lia is now paralyzed for life and just sits in her bed all day. I do not think that it was Lia's parents, or the doctor's fault that Lia is in the condition that she is in today. I think that it is the fault of the two cultures colliding and the misunderstanding between them.
The Hmong did not understand English, and they did not understand anything about the American culture. This is an unfortunate thing, and I think that there needs to be a better way to communicate between different cultures.
Anne Fadiman does a great job writing this book. You get a great perspective from both sides of the "story." She has descriptively writes each event as the story goes along. I actually felt as though I was in the story. The only complaint that I had about this whole book, was that it was too long and after a while it gets extremely repetitive and boring. Other than that, I thought this book was very interesting, and I learned a lot about the Hmong culture.
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Summary: the spirit catches you and you fall down
Review: The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down
Reviewed by: Ruth Mimi In the Hmong language, The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down, means symptoms of a seizure. This is an example of how the Hmong interpret all illness in spiritual terms. I think the novel was quite intriguing, but very long. This novel is about a Hmong family that doesn't know any English. The family was forced to move away from their village to go to the United States. The daughter Lia has epilepsy, and it is very hard for the family and the doctors to communicate.
Lia had her first epileptic seizure when she was three months old, when her sister slammed the door. The sound of the door startled Lia and caused her soul to depart from her body. The parents Foua and Nao Koa Lee thought it was their oldest daughter's fault for giving her a seizure. The doctors tried to explain that it wasn't her fault, but the parents didn't listen. During the first phase, her respiratory muscles contracted along with the rest of her body, and she would often stop breathing. Her lips and nail beds turned blue. She also vomited, urinated, or had high pitched gasps. Her status epileptics would last for about twenty minutes or longer.
Lia changed medicine 23 times less than 4 years, I think that is ridiculous, but if it is necessary then she has to. Lia's parents didn't know how to read the label on the medicine, so they often didn't give her medicine to her. Her doctors didn't know why she was getting sicker, than her last visits. Later, they figured out that the family wasn't giving her medication, so the doctors hired a nurse to give the medication to Lia. I think the doctors should have figured out before that the family couldn't read English, especially if they couldn't speak the language English. The seizures became more frequent and more complicated to control. Lia's parents were suspicious of Lia's doctors and the American medicine. At points, the family thought the doctors were trying to kill her. The family was often curious on why they took blood away from her, while she was getting her shots. She was becoming weaker, so that was why Foua and Nao Koa Lee stopped giving her medication.
After a while, the doctors were fed up with the Hmong family because the family didn't cooperate with the medication. Her doctors obtained a court order to have her placed temporarily in foster care; in order to have her medication properly controlled. I think that was the best thing to do for Lia. Lia was getting worse and she needed to get well taken care of. Either her family should just visit the foster home more often or the nurse should have stayed with the family, but the problem was the family didn't know what to say to the nurse. One thing her family could have done was learned English, so they could have cooperated with the doctors medication. Her disorder came in control when she moved to a foster care home, but Lia had "the big one" an intractable seizure accompanied by sepsis and shock.
Overall, The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down, is a fantastic book! I recommend this book to everyone, especially to those attracted to issues with cross-cultural medicine. It is a well-written novel, and it will enhance your knowledge of grammar. This book is a guide for those who are interested in Hmong culture. It is an intriguing case study of a medical tragedy, which will make you curious of the events in the book that will happen next. This author wrote an extraordinary book for all people.
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