The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

by

Anne Fadiman

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Spirit Catches You makes teaching easy.

Nao Kao Lee Character Analysis

Lia’s father and Foua’s husband. Having immigrated with Foua and the rest of their family to America from Laos, Nao Kao is a devoted father who advocates strongly for Lia, often allowing his strong temper and stubborn disposition to dominate the interactions he has with doctors and social workers (often to near-disastrous results). Nao Kao is suspicious of American healthcare, and though he ultimately shows Fadiman kindness by openly welcoming her into his home, he holds grudges against people he believes have wronged him (like, for instance, Sue Xiong, an interpreter he thinks does not accurately translate what he says). In his fierce support of Lia and his family, Nao Kao fully embodies the Hmong temperament Fadiman outlines of determination and conviction in the face of coercion while also exhibiting a large capacity for loyal, gentle familial love.

Nao Kao Lee Quotes in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down quotes below are all either spoken by Nao Kao Lee or refer to Nao Kao Lee. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cultural Values, Spirituality, and Medicine  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

Neil was pretty sure, however, that because Lia’s condition was progressive and unpredictable, he could treat it best by constantly fine-tuning her drug regimen. If he had chosen a single pretty-good anticonvulsant and stuck with it, he would have had to decide that Lia wasn’t going to get the same care he would have given the daughter of a middle-class American family who would have been willing and able to comply with a complex course of treatment. Which would have been more discriminatory, to deprive Lia of the optimal care that another child would have received, or to fail to tailor her treatment in such a way that her family would be most likely to comply with it?

A decade ago, that is not the way Neil looked at the situation. He never seriously considered lowering his standard of care. His job, as he saw it, was to practice good medicine; the Lees’ job was to comply.

Related Characters: Anne Fadiman (speaker), Lia Lee, Foua Lee, Nao Kao Lee, Neil Ernst
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

At this point, [Lia’s sister], who was three at the time, ran over to Lia and started banging her on the chest.

“Don’t do that, there’s a good boy,” said Martin, addressing the little girl in English, of which she did not speak a word. “[… P]lease tell them they have got to watch these other little children. Lia is not a doll.”

Related Characters: Anne Fadiman (speaker), Lia Lee, Foua Lee, Nao Kao Lee, Martin Kilgore
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Once I asked Neil if he wished he had done anything differently. He answered as I expected, focusing not on his relationship with the Lees but on his choice of medication. “I wish we’d used Depakene sooner,” he said. “I wish I’d accepted that it would be easier for the family to comply with one medicine instead of three, even if three seemed medically optimal.”

Then I asked, “Do you wish you had never met Lia?”

“Oh, no, no, no!” His vehemence surprised me. “Once I might have said yes, but not in retrospect. Lia taught me that when there is a very dense cultural barrier, you do the best you can, and if something happens despite that, you have to be satisfied with little successes instead of total successes. You have to give up total control. That is very hard for me, but I do try. I think Lia made me into a less rigid person.”

Related Characters: Anne Fadiman (speaker), Lia Lee, Foua Lee, Nao Kao Lee, Neil Ernst
Page Number: 257
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Spirit Catches You LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down PDF

Nao Kao Lee Quotes in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down quotes below are all either spoken by Nao Kao Lee or refer to Nao Kao Lee. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cultural Values, Spirituality, and Medicine  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

Neil was pretty sure, however, that because Lia’s condition was progressive and unpredictable, he could treat it best by constantly fine-tuning her drug regimen. If he had chosen a single pretty-good anticonvulsant and stuck with it, he would have had to decide that Lia wasn’t going to get the same care he would have given the daughter of a middle-class American family who would have been willing and able to comply with a complex course of treatment. Which would have been more discriminatory, to deprive Lia of the optimal care that another child would have received, or to fail to tailor her treatment in such a way that her family would be most likely to comply with it?

A decade ago, that is not the way Neil looked at the situation. He never seriously considered lowering his standard of care. His job, as he saw it, was to practice good medicine; the Lees’ job was to comply.

Related Characters: Anne Fadiman (speaker), Lia Lee, Foua Lee, Nao Kao Lee, Neil Ernst
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

At this point, [Lia’s sister], who was three at the time, ran over to Lia and started banging her on the chest.

“Don’t do that, there’s a good boy,” said Martin, addressing the little girl in English, of which she did not speak a word. “[… P]lease tell them they have got to watch these other little children. Lia is not a doll.”

Related Characters: Anne Fadiman (speaker), Lia Lee, Foua Lee, Nao Kao Lee, Martin Kilgore
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Once I asked Neil if he wished he had done anything differently. He answered as I expected, focusing not on his relationship with the Lees but on his choice of medication. “I wish we’d used Depakene sooner,” he said. “I wish I’d accepted that it would be easier for the family to comply with one medicine instead of three, even if three seemed medically optimal.”

Then I asked, “Do you wish you had never met Lia?”

“Oh, no, no, no!” His vehemence surprised me. “Once I might have said yes, but not in retrospect. Lia taught me that when there is a very dense cultural barrier, you do the best you can, and if something happens despite that, you have to be satisfied with little successes instead of total successes. You have to give up total control. That is very hard for me, but I do try. I think Lia made me into a less rigid person.”

Related Characters: Anne Fadiman (speaker), Lia Lee, Foua Lee, Nao Kao Lee, Neil Ernst
Page Number: 257
Explanation and Analysis: