Reading your post, I understand it a bit better what my husband means by saying that Rei is better off staying in Australia. Rei has his dad's brown hair, and while he looks Japanese (to me) and has a lot of his mum's features, I am told he does not look Japanese 'enough'. I think it is part of any homogeneous-looking culture to draw a distinction between insiders and outsiders- based on looks. My dad was once posted in remote Africa for his work- and he had the middle-eastern wheat-olive coloured skin- he was often asked by the rural people if the 'white people' had some sort of skin disease that made them 'white'? Dad wasn't even 'white' per se (Dad was ethnically Iranian), but to them it was either 'black' or 'not black'= white.

I have often wondered about how it is if someone is disabled, to actually start living outside without any help from those who care for them the most. As someone who is not disabled, we face less constraints, but we are also exposed to 'the outside' early on. That is an interesting point you make.

Thanks for writing this post. It gave me some insight that I appreciated.