was researching Hayao Miyazaki for my Jap essay and i came across this interview excerpt from Jan 2006:

YS - You have received a number of prizes, including the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002 and an Oscar for best animated feature film in 2003 for Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away), which first came out in 2001. Hauru no Ugoku Shiro also was awarded the Osella prize for outstanding technical contribution at the Venice International Film Festival.

MIYAZAKI - Prizes do not mean anything to me. I think it is more important to make a child aware of the existence of a weird creature like a water spider that breathes through its backside.

In Yadosagashi, the leading character, a girl, encounters a lot of bugs when she spends a night at an empty house. The insects stop approaching her after she draws a line between herself and them.

That kind of thing would never happen in real life. But children like to play with these kinds of rules that stop you from crossing some kind of boundary. I think it is important to hold on to that kind of sensitivity. It also is important to have the feeling that everything in the world has a life. That is why the girl observes civilities [toward bugs, trees and shrines].

His first statement, that prizes dun mean anything, and the example of what is more impt to him... just made me really impressed. well, perhaps one can say that he can afford to say such things since he's so accomplished, widely-acclaimed and all, but still, i would give him a benefit of the doubt and believe that he really thinks these little things are important... such an attitude is just very admirable in my opinion.

also, in the last paragraph where he says "it is important to hold on to that kinda of sensitivity. It also is important to have the feeling that everything in the world has a life..." i just feel like the world would be so much better if more ppl think this way. you know, just have some basic respect for all the living things around you... ok not to be extreme lah, not like let all the mosquitoes suck your blood as much as they want kinda thing u know.... but like if some bug is just crawling along a window ledge, just let it be... like dun try to kill it or something?? (the difficult thing though for me is i sometimes dunno where to draw the line...eg. sometimes i get really scared and just want it to go away and in the process might unintentionally murder it)

along these lines, i once was very impressed with my landlord. i think Kai once wanted to kill a bug. then he got a scolding from his dad (and started crying...) but my landlord didn't really care that much about his wailing and made it a point to drill it into his little mind that it is NOT ok to try to harm any living thing.... haha this 'poor' little kid also got another scolding once when he tried to scare a pet bird our neighbor (who went away for a few days) brought over... i was just really impressed how he tried to teach the kid about the world, and how he really tries to instill this sense of respect for living things into Kai...