On the front page of Aftenposten’s online edition today is an article about Hamna preschool in Frogner, Oslo, where sugar is forbidden. Yes, forbidden. The following foods are not allowed to be brought from home or served in the preschool:

• cake
• rolls
• yoghurt
• dairy desserts
• rice porridge
• chocolate sandwich spread
• jam
• peanut butter
• sweetened cereal
• juice
• juice drinks
• cocoa

Prim and brown goat cheese, traditional Norwegian sandwich toppings, are no longer served in the preschool, but they are allowed to be brought from home. Sugar-free variants of yoghurt and jam aren’t allowed either, because it’s not easily possible to tell whether or not the foods in question are actually sugar-free. In Norway, cocoa and blackcurrant toddy are traditionally served during breaks when hiking, but this, too, is forbidden in Hamna preschool. The kids are instead served caffiene-free fruit tea–with no sugar added, of course. Sometimes they’re allowed to have warm milk with honey.

When this sugar-hysteria first came to Norway, I was troubled when I saw how it was affecting the traditional, and extremely healthy and well-balanced, Norwegian food traditions. So many of the forbidden items on the list–rolls, rice porridge, jam, juice, cocoa, and brown goat cheese–are important components of that traditional food culture. And forbidding yoghurt and peanut butter? Things have really gone too far.

Aftenposten consulted some actual scientists about this development, and they, what with degrees in nutrition and all, had some sensible things to say.

- Jeg synes faktisk det både er misvisende og useriøst å operere med et slikt begrep. Det er ganske ekstremt, og det er noe jeg ikke er enig i. Sukker er ikke gift, og det er praktisk umulig å få til en helt sukkerfri barnehage, sier Svein Olav Kolset, professor i ernæringsmedisin ved Universitetet i Oslo til Aftenposten.no. [emphasis in original text]

Svein Olav Kolset, a professer of medical nutrition at the University of Oslo, thinks that “it’s both misleading and irresponsible to operate under this kind of concept. It’s quite extreme, and something I’m not in agreement with. Sugar is not poison, and it’s in practice impossible to create an entirely sugar-free preschool” [emphasis mine].

He continues:

- Jeg skjønner ikke den pedagogiske tankegangen her. Det går ikke an å melde seg ut av resten av matsamfunnet på den måten. Maten i barnehagene bør reflektere et normalt kosthold, og sukker er en naturlig del av den maten et menneske får i seg. Barnehagene bør forholde seg til de generelle kostholdsanbefalingene, sier han.

“I don’t understand the pedagogical mindset here. It’s not possible to check out of the rest of society’s food culture in this way. The food provided in preschools should reflect a normal diet, and sugar is a natural part of the food a person eats. Preschools should operate under general nutritional recommendations”.

Amen, Stein Olav. Hamna is not a private preschool, which means that it receives state funding, and therefore the city government’s implicit approval of its operating principles. It’s irresponsible behavior for a governmental institution to support a nutritional philosophy that is so extreme.

Nutririonist Line Kristin Johnson at the Center for Obesity at the Southeastern Norway Regional Health Authority, who has 19 years of experience in the field, is concerned that this sugar-hysteria results in the prohibition of foods containing important nutrients:

- Det er for eksempel sukker i de fleste yoghurter, men det er også både kalsium, proteiner og B-vitaminer. Dette er ting barn trenger når de vokser opp, sier Johnson, som som har jobbet som ernæringsfysiolog i 19 år.

As an example, she says that although most yoghurts contain sugar, they also contain calcium, protein, and B-vitamins–nutrients children need to grow.

I know that adults are trying to do right by children when they enforce such draconian nutritional rules on their kids. I understand that there’s little we can do about the way individual parents raise their children. Individual parents have generally not got the resources to consult nutritionists about the best way to feed their kids. Given the health care crisis in the US, many parents there won’t even be able to get nutritional advice from their pediatricians…advice that might not be terribly trustworthy, anyway, since most doctors have virtually no education whatsoever in the subject of nutrition.

Governmentally-funded preschools, do, however, have the resources to help them make decisions about how to run their programs. When preschool employees view their preschools’ nutritional policies as carte blanche to evangelize a non-nutritionist-approved meal program, the need for professional guidance in choosing these policies becomes even more evident. “Vi vil gi barna kunnskap om at sukker ikke er sunt for kroppen eller tennene”, says Eva Sollie, administrative assistant at Hamna preschool. “We want to give children the knowledge that sugar isn’t healthy for the body or the teeth“, she says.

I know that if I had a kid, I’d certainly want the meals it received at preschool to be planned by an administrative assistant. I mean, she probably reads “Hjemmet” and everything right?

New research results are out that suggest that vitamin D reduces cancer risk. I found out about this study because it was on the first page of Aftenposten.no: Solvitamin mot kreft.

It’s funny to read the Norwegian spin on the article. Dr. Johan Moan, the Norwegian researcher who analyzed these results for their relevance to the Norwegian population, says that if Norwegians spent twice as much time in the sun as they do now, the number of people dying from skin cancer would increase from 200 to 500 each year, but that the total number of deaths from cancer could possibly be reduced many times over. He suggests that if Norwegians would lay out in the sun regularly, while avoiding getting sunburned, the population might reap the benefits of increased vitamin D levels while avoiding the downsides of sun exposure. According to Moan, it’s actually medically irresponsible to recommend that people stay out of the sun, but he goes on to say that humans only need to be in the sun around “en tidel av en halvtime” in order to make enough of this vitamin—that’s three minutes a day! Somehow I cannot imagine that Norwegians get only 1.5 minutes of sun exposure on average per day–not in the summer, at least.

It’s fun to read the comments to the Norwegian article. Norwegians have absolutely no “solvett”—sense about how to behave in the sun. What with the dark winters, when summer comes around they just want to sit around in the sun the whole time. It’s considered crazy, bordering on immoral, if you don’t want to sit out in the sun. These people actually still lay out! They have the skin to show for it, too: Norway actually has the third-highest rate of skin cancer in the world, and very many people here have skin that looks like well-tanned and broken-in leather. There is absolutely no awareness of the fact that any color you get from sunning yourself is actually skin damage. The idea of getting a base tan as protection against sun exposure is common. Nobody here uses sunscreen—most are afraid that it causes cancer, and they consider SPF 10 to be high-factor protection. I’m quite sure that people are going to hear the “lay out in the sun twice as much” part of the message while tuning out the “three minutes daily” part of the article.

Yesterday the temperature here in Oslo got well over 90° F (32°C) and the sun was shining like holy hell. I had to be out of the house all day since the floor was being lacquered, and I couldn’t find anyplace to be that had AC. I had to go to the ceramics lab at 3 in the afternoon. Nobody was there, so the place had been closed up tight all day, and the kiln was on. Walking into the workshop there felt like walking into the kiln itself. My clay felt like the flesh of someone with a fever. There is no ventilation in the workshop, other than the little you can get from propping the front door open. I actually started getting the symptoms of heat stroke, and had to go sit outside in the shade and drink another half-liter water. When I was cleaning up the place before going home, I noticed that a small amount of water in a pitcher I’d left out on the table was warm to my touch—it felt like bathwater. So it had to have been well over 100°F (38°C) in there.

The floor sanders had kicked me out on Wednesday, too, so I took the dog with me to Johannes’s parents’ house. Being a bulldog, she did not tolerate the hot weather well. When she would collapse and need to take a little break from walking to sit down, people would stop and ask me if I had water for her. Duh! She didn’t calm down until I took her to the fountain outside Oslo S. She hadn’t been in that fountain before, but something tells me it’s going to become a favorite.

Norwegians love this weather. They were out in droves in the park after I left the ceramics lab yesterday. The air over the park was a blue haze of grill and pot smoke.

As for me, I missed the weather of a week ago, when it was 46°F (8°C) and rainy!

Aftenposten is finally getting the message out that fedme er ikke så farlig som antatt…det er verre at vi sitter så mye stille. The newspaper has generally stayed with the status-quo when it comes to coverage of “the obesity epidemic”, providing statistics about how many children are fat, how many adults are fat, which communities in Norway are the fattest, etc. You’ll still read those statistics in the article, but I think this is the first time I’ve read anything at all about the modern research being done on the subject of fat and wellness. Interestingly, the article is based on the reasarch of Glenn Gaesser, the darling of the fat acceptance movement and the author of “Big Fat Lies”. Some quotes from the article:

Fedmeproblemet er overdrevet. Det som gjør det usunt å være overvektig er ikke vekten i seg selv, men inaktivitet. Inaktivitet er mye farligere enn overvekt.

Flere undersøkelser viser at overvektige kan være like sunne som normalvektige, bare de er i god form…

En stor undersøkelse fra det amerikanske folkehelseinstituttet konkluderte med at personer som har noen kilo for mye, har mindre risiko for å dø tidlig enn de som er tynne, og at dødeligheten blant folk med fedme er langt lavere enn tidligere antatt.

Veier du noen kilo for mye, men er aktiv og har et sunt kosthold, så er situasjonen bra…

…i takt med at nordmenn er blitt tyngre de siste par tiårene, har folkehelsen også blitt betydelig forbedret. Gjennomsnittlig levealder har økt, dødeligheten av hjerte- og karsykdommer har sunket kraftig, kolesterolet har gått ned og det samme har blodtrykket, noe som gjør at stadig færre dør av hjerneslag.

Ekstremt få klarer å slanke seg uten å gå opp i vekt igjen. Gjentatte endringer i kroppsvekt er svært usunt, og det øker faren for en rekke sykdommer. All forskning viser at vekten er svært vanskelig å kontrollere, men både kostvaner og fysisk trening er lett å styre. Derfor bør man fokusere på det hvis man ønsker å være sunn…

I’m thrilled to see this message finally getting out in Norway, and in Aftenposten, no less.This article was published late Friday night on Aftenposten.no, which means it’ll probably be gone from the front page before many people have a chance to read it. I wonder if it’ll show up in the print edition.

Wow.

The first point I want to make is about the subject of the post, obviously. I think a lot of people, especially here in Norway, don’t really understand how deeply fat hatred runs in the US. If you haven’t been exposed to this kind of vitriol before, it’s hard to understand where my interest in fat acceptance comes from. I know it’s different here in Norway, but regardless, any time I step outside my house I expect that there is some percentage of people who feel about me like the guy in who wrote that list feels about fat people. It seems like it’s impossible to underestimate the amount of rabid hate directed towards fat people in my culture.

The second post I want to make is about the comments. Given this is a discussion about hate directed towards a group of people, someone mentioned racism. Then, since Fatshionista is so incredibly fucking PC, a bunch of members of the discrimination-comparison police squad came charging out from lurkdom to “educate” the poor soul who had the hubris to make the comparison. Here’s my favorite quote:

If I said that the discrimination faced by blacks and the discrimination faced by gays was WITHOUTADOUBT different and incomparable, would you ask me why or would you tell me I was wrong?

I think you should ask. I think you should open yourself up to the possibility of learning something new today.

Two things about this quote are typical of the way anti-racism activists act in discussions about race. First, the “WITHOUTADOUBT” part. There is no room for debate. What they believe is the Truth, it is Right, period. Second, should you disagree with them on any point (and it’s worth noting that the people being attacked by this kind of anti-racist activist are seldom bigots–they’re almost always anti-racist themselves), you are in need of being educated. Education preferably takes place by a fellow white person, as any “POC” involved in the discussion is tired of “educating” white folks. And for the “educator”, a condescending attitude is de rigeur. We whiteys need to understand that we’ll never be able to understand.

OK, I get that. I actually agree with pretty much every single tenet of anti-racism activists’ platform. The only tenet I disagree with is that black people get the last word, and their perception of any given situation is right. That’s the “WITHOUTADOUBT” part. And condescension I just despise. That’s a terrible way of trying to get someone else to see things your way–they lose face if they admit you might have a point. These attitudes turn people away from a very important cause.

Most importantly (and this was the point I originally intended to make when I set out to write this post), people learn by analogy. Telling someone they cannot compare two things, and telling them they also will never understand, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. First, how can I expect to understand even a little about your experience if I’m not allowed to compare it to my own? Comparison doesn’t mean you have to equate the two things being compared. Comparison allows you to see both the similarities and the differences. Comparison helps you see that you won’t be able to fully understand the other person’s experiences…but then, no one can ever fully understand another person’s experiences. Duh! And comparison does not have to result in a ranking of the things being compared. Finally, telling me I’ll never be able to understand doesn’t exactly motivate me to try to understand. No, telling me I’ll never understand inspires animosity. How is any of this conducive to accomplishing anti-racism activists’ goals?

I find it so frustrating to see advocates for causes I believe in shoot themselves in the foot.

Turgåing ikke nok til å komme i form
(Here is the equivalent article in English.)

Oooh, this article pisses me off. My first reaction is a simple “fuck you”. What is “enough” exercise? How good shape do you have to be in to be in good enough shape? Good enough shape for what?

Part of the reason this article gets on my nerves so much is because this is such an incredibly Norwegian attitude: unless you get your pulse way up, get out of breath, and get sweaty, you’re not really exercising. Walking is barely even considered exercising here. I myself get 6-8 hours of exercise each week between yoga and walking, while Johannes gets a little less with his walking and Jujitsu, although his Jujitsu workouts are so intense that he comes back with a soaking wet gi. I don’t know about Johannes, but my “numbers” are all good, I’m strong and flexible, and I don’t feel like my condition stops me from doing anything I want to do in life. Despite this, we both feel like we don’t get enough exercise. The attitude expressed in this article is precisely why we feel that way, and it makes me furious. It’s like we can never win unless we run or ski or jog on a treadmill or something. I’m tired of feeling like everyone thinks of me as a fat lazy slob because I don’t do those things. You know, I do what I can. I do the exercise I do because I enjoy it. I simply do not enjoy intense aerobic exercise. And I know that I’ll never maintain any habit that I don’t do for the joy of participating in the activity itself. There are definitely some people in this world who enjoy intense exercise for the feeling the exercise itself gives them, but they’re relatively rare. And I’ve said my piece before about people who claim to be motivated by health.

Then there are the many people, especially in the US, get virtually no exercise at all. American society isn’t set up for it, for one thing. It’s a strange country where people make every effort to avoid having to exert themselves (e.g. driving around the parking lot for five minutes looking for the closest parking place available. And I’m sure you’ve seen this picture), and then pay for the privilege of exercising at health studios. I’m sure some Norwegians are the same. Exercise is often not a privilege the working class can afford, we must remember. Imagine a single mother trying to follow these articles’ workout advice while working two jobs to try to feed her kids, in addition to her second shift. How is this article going to make her feel? She’s a lot more likely to die or experience a lower quality of life from a lack of quality medical care due to not having medical insurance than due to not being in “good enough” shape.

I expect a majority of the people in both the US and Norway will never meet the expectations outlined here. The exercise we’re able to do–”it’s not enough”, we’re told. Well, fuck it, then. If we’re never going to be in “good enough” shape to meet these researchers’ standards, then why bother at all? There are two things this article is going to achieve, and neither are in harmony with the authors’ stated goals. First, this information will make the sweat hogs feel even more self-righteous than they already do, and second, it will frustrate and demotivate the majority of us who exercise moderately or don’t exercise at all. I don’t debate the facts laid out in these articles, but is this what the authors are trying to achieve?

When I was a kid, I used to play with Legos all the time. They were easily my favorite toy. So, of course, when I read about this project in the evening paper, I had to go participate. For those who don’t read Norwegian, the project was an attempt to involve Oslo’s residents in the decision about what to build at Tullinløkka, a very central yet completely undeveloped square in the National Theater area of Oslo. Someone came up with the idea to dump three tons of white legos in the middle of Tullinløkka and invite anyone and everyone to build their idea of how Tullinløkka should be developed. So the legos sat out there for two weeks, rain or shine.

When Johannes and I got there, we saw a massive pile of legos surrounded by a table covered with amazing creations.

There was just a ton of stuff, stuff I’d never dreamed of making in my years as a Lego architect. I was simply dumbfounded by some of the things people had built. Round things, things with arches.

In front of the table was a massive heap of white legos, with probably twenty people of all ages sitting atop it, all concentratedly building.

Johannes and I settled at a table—walking on the legos felt really uncomfortable, almost sacreligious to me. We collected handfuls of legos from the ground, brought them to the table, and started building.

I built our apartment.

Mostly all I built with legos when I was a kid was houses. That interest was what fueled my first serious interest in a career–architecture.

Johannes built a tower.

It was sprinkling when we arrived, and the reain got worse as we built. A few people left, but not many. We stayed a while so Johannes could finish his tower. The legos had been dirty from being trod upon when we got there; now the rain was turning them muddy.
White might not have been the best choice of color for this project.

We actually didn’t realize that the purpose of the activity was to build our idea of a development project for Tullinløkka until we were about to leave. I think a lot of people probably didn’t realize the exhibition’s purpose. Regardless, it was an incredibly fun thing to do–sitting out in the rain in central Oslo, building away to my heart’s content with dirty, chewed-up legos that had probably been in the hands of and under the feet of hundreds. Not your everyday experience! This is the kind of thing that makes living in a city so very very cool.

I’m sitting here at my desk now. It’s right by a window that looks out upon several other apartment buildings, buildings that are so close I can watch other people’s TV’s (at least one guy–I think it’s a guy, anyway–watches some severly hardcore porn). It’s 70 degrees outside this evening after a day with temperatures in the 90’s, so everyone has their windows open–I can hear lots of conversations. I can also hear when Norway’s team is doing well in their soccer matches. The entire neighborhood erupts with whooping and clapping everytime something exciting happens in the game. I wouldn’t even know there was a game on but for the noise. It’s so fun to think of everyone in their individual apartments doing the same thing at the same time. I have to smile every time I hear their cheers.

Normally I love walking around the city. It’s one of the things I enjoy most about Oslo, and one the very few things that makes me feel like I belong here. It’s my main form of exercise, and a major reason I’m no longer chomping at the bit to move back to the US. Give me my headphones, a cool, overcast day, and I’m in heaven just walking around the city.

Recently, however, something has made me feel reticent and more than a little paranoid about my daily excursions. I’ve been repeatedly attacked by gay men.

Seriously.

The first time was a couple of months ago. I was taking the dog for a walk. We were right in front of the grocery store we usually go into, and all of a sudden I felt a bump on my legs from the back, like maybe I’d run into something or a woman with a stroller had rear-ended me. I turned around, at some gay guy was fleeing the scene, spitting obscenities, including the perennial Norwegian favorite “hore”. How did I know he was gay? He talked with that characteristic gay accent. The bump I felt was him kicking me in the back of my calf. My first instinct was to stop and grab him and make him tell me why the fuck he’s attacked me so pathetically from behind, but my second though was, “no, this guy is obviously insane–physically restraining him would be a bad idea”. Also was afraid to get into an altercation because of my glasses (I am terrified of my glasses getting broken or lost). So I let him go. The dog showed nor reaction whatsoever. One bystander asked me what the hell had just happened, did I know the guy? Never seen him before in my life, I replied.

It dawned on me after a few hours, though, that maybe I had seen him before. I remembered that once in that very grocery store there had been a guy in front of me acting like a real ass towards the cashier. I don’t remember what his problem was, but he was making a real fuss, and letting the cashier have it all the while. I snickered at him. Might this attack have been retribution for my snicker? Well, OK. If that was the case, then I’d learned my lesson. It’s wrong to laugh at people. You might get kicked from behind, if nothing else.

Now I’m wondering what the hell is going on. Today in front of my neighborhood post office, yet another gay guy attacked me. How did I know he was gay? He walked like a supermodel walks down the runway. He and I were walking towards each other, and I looked at him because his clothes caught my eye. He was dressed in a really cool, interesting outfit. I was about to smile at him when he spit in my face, and then proceeded to swish violently off down the sidewalk. I’m not taking a stab at him here by calling it “swishing” He was really workin’ it. I was so shocked all I could do was stare after him.

So is there a gay mafia here in Oslo? Have they got my picture taped up on some bulletin board in the men’s room of the one gay club we have here? What the hell is going on? I’ve been physically attacked three times since I’ve lived in this city, and two of those times by gay men. (The other time, the guy ran away so fast I couldn’t tell. He ran up from behind and shoved me, then ran away. I didn’t budge an inch, so he probably hurt his wrists. That’ll show him for trying to push over a fat chick!. That was the first time I got attacked, anyway, so I wouldn’t have thought to pay attention to whether or not he was gay.)

In light of our recent discussion about racism here on this board, I was interested to observe my initial thought on this most recent attack.

My first thought was, “I hate this country!”

My second thought was, “No, I hate the white people in this country!”

My third thought was, “No, I fucking hate the gay white people in this country!”

My fourth thought was, “Now I’m gonna have to fucking go and get myself checked for HIV.”

My fifth thought was, “Man, I should have stopped and yelled at him ‘Get the hell back here you fucking faggot!’”

My sixth thought was, “Faggot? What the hell? I’m not a homophobe!”

So basically I went from hating the general to narrowing it down to hating the specific, then hurling the specific demographic’s difference back in its face as a nasty slur. My instinct was to point out his otherness and turn it into a weakness, something he should be ashamed of.

Which is weird, and very telling. I’m not a homophobe. I’ve had a lot of gay friends. I went to NOLoSe, a convention for fat lesbians, for god’s sake, and it was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. I tend to like gay people more than straight people because they know what it’s like to be different. They’re used to people considering them disgusting, second-class citizens. They’re told that if they just try hard enough, they can be “normal”, and well, if they can’t be normal, at least they can damn well stop flaunting their gayness in our faces.

So what does it mean that I instinctually wanted to insult the guy buy negatively judging his difference, when normally I look upon that difference as a positive thing? At least I think I do. I have to wonder, now. Like I said in the racist thread, I know I’m less homophobic/racist than most other people, sow how disturbing is it that I have thoughts like these/am so ignorant about the situation? I still think my conclusion is right–that we’re bred to be wary of others and see them as inferior, worthy of less respect and care, and all we can do is to try to be aware of that fact and get over it. It’s just sad and scary when it takes so little to make the bigot in all of us rear its ugly head.
I also thought about that. I was mystified when the first gay guy kicked me, and I was paranoid about going out for a little while after that. I kept looking for him everywhere. I wanted to stop him and ask him why he’s kicked me. But I didn’t feel….personally insulted, in a way. Getting spat upon…it’s totally gross, and it’s considerably more self-righteous and derisive and personal and nasty than getting kicked from behind. I went home, broke down, and washed myself thoroughly all over with betadine. I don’t want to take the dog out.

You know, it’s funny. One of the reasons I’ve had such a hard time living here is the coldness emanating from everyone, this coldness that threatens to suck the life out of me. People don’t make eye contact, and they certainly don’t smile at each other, especially when they’re walking out on the street. So many times I try to smile at someone, and it’s hard to get the smile out on my face because of the blank general hostility that radiates from ethnic Norwegians. They’re fine when you get to know them as individuals, but as a monolithic group, they’re horrible. I hate them. I decided a while back to fuck ‘em, and go ahead and make eye contact and smile at them anyway, maybe even say something to them when they refuse to make eye contact and smile back. Because that’s what they do–pretend like they can’t even see you. I guess, though, that societal rules about eye contact, smiles, and conversation with strangers should never be broken, because otherwise your behavior is likely to get you ignored, spat upon, marked as someone interested in buying drugs or sex, or worse. That’ll fucking teach me to try to be nice to people. From now on I’m going to go around just like they are–refusing to make eye contact, with a blank, hostile caul over my face. And I despise them for it. I despise them for beating my innate friendliness and politeness out of me, for making me assimilate or be branded as a threat. I despise them for it. And I miss home.

Aftenposten.no - Oslo can ban niqab

Personally, I agree with the head of MiRA on this one:

Banning something that impinges on an individual’s freedom is never good. Adult women over 16 should be able to choose for themselves.

It’s one thing when you’re talking about a little kid, but presumably someone over the age of 16–well over the age at which most Christian kids get confirmed–should be able to make this decision herself. Many argue that the women who wear hijab, niqab, etc. aren’t in a position to make a free choice. Perhaps, but isn’t the case in every patriarchal society? How many women do you know who would feel improper with unshaven legs and armpits, for example? And that’s inside the house and out. The example might seem trivial, but the principle remains the same. There are certain things we feel like we have to do in order to be acceped by society. Some activists might think those standards are confining and work to try to change them, but I’ve never heard an activist fighting to restrict women’s choices.

Well, with the exception of the issue of the veil.

Personally, I cannot imagine what it would be like to be told that I must go to school dressed more immodestly than I’m comfortable with. I’m not exactly sure what to think, though–what would it be like to have your family to force you to encase yourself in heavy, dark material before appearing in public? How liberating would it feel to “have” to take the thing off at school?
An Iraqi couple owns the ethnic store across the street from my building, and since we go to their shop so much, we’ve developed a warm relationship with them. The woman came up to me excitedly one day and told me to be sure to watch NRK1 at 10:30 because she and her family were going to be on TV. They showed up in the background of the main scene, which was taking place in IKEA. the director had apparently told her to ask her kids to pretend they were fighting and making a big ruckus, and she was supposed to be trying to get them to behave. The director also asked her to wear a hijab for the shot. It was funny, I wold never have recognized her in the shot if she hadn’t told me what to look for–the veil made her look so much different, and so much older. She definitely lost a lot of her individuality by putting on the hijab.