Saturday, May 13, 2006
Lend me your ears
Living in Washington, DC proves to be an experiment in culture shock most of the time. Some of us newbies like to think we're numb to the new experiences we have in this perfect little 202/703 melting pot -- and just when we think we've seen it all, something unexpected and, indeed, shocking happens.
When I first decided to move to the area, I did what I thought was the unthinkable. I posted ads for a roommate on Craigslist. Sure, I had a boyfriend and swarms of NoVa friends; I just wanted to reach outside of my comfort zone. After sifting through the freaks, I came to her. She was from Chicago, bachelors from Iowa and living/working in Korea -- to familiarize herself with her family culture. What more could one want in a roommate? She was coming to DC to finish her graduate education, didn't mind cats, did the apartment hunt from overseas and trusted me enough to send me her blank checks to cover her half of the expenses. We met moving in and we've been friends ever since.
She was coming back to the area to finish a program she had started at Gallaudet University in DC. The school is renowned for being the only school in the world for the deaf and hard of hearing. While she's not deaf, she was working on a master’s degree in deaf education. Speaking (gesturing?) fluent sign language, she would teach not only deaf elementary students, but work with the hearing parents who had a deaf child -- or conversely, work with the hearing child of deaf parents. She came home once with a story about a class full of hearing children with deaf parents who were taking turns answering her cell phone because they had never had the opportunity. She babysat for a deaf couple that, at first, blared the radio for their hearing baby. She had a gift with children and a real knack for bridging the gap between the hearing and deaf community. Yeah, I had no idea there was a gap.
She told me of deaf groups that felt cochlear implants (devices surgically implanted in the head to create an artificial cochlea (that's the curly, tuby thing in your ear that you interpret sound with -- anything more than that, enroll in nursing school with me -- or google it)) were an insult to deaf pride. While a number of people in her program here hearing, there were deaf people, even at the school, who thought it inappropriate that they be 'hearing' and still work with the deaf. Much like an exit exam, all of the students in her program had to pass a proficiency "sign language" exam before they graduated. From what I understand, a very grueling day of pushing your sign language to the max.
When she first moved in, I was completely entertained by her school-stories. Not so much for their content, but more for the parts when she would become either agitated or very much involved in the retelling -- and her hands would slowly creep up to chest level. At first the little finger movements were lazy and intermittent. Then, once they got revved up, she'd be spitting out the story verbally and physically. Sadly, the most I gleaned from this relationship was learning how to say "farting" and "transsexual" in sign language. VERY useful phrases when my repertoire includes "cat, sea turtle, beautiful, Ireland and Christmas". I once came home to find a second set of shoes at the door, someone's coat but the entire apartment was dead silent and her door was closed. I thought the obvious. Little did I know she was in the middle of catching up -- deaf style -- with a good friend. Imagine my surprise.
But admit it -- when you go to a concert that has the woman down front signing the whole thing -- you're watching her, too. Trying to decipher the words being said with the gestures being made. I'm amazed. I'm amazed at the language itself. And when we'd go out with her friends, it was so unbelievable to watch them sign at each other while still verbally speaking out loud. Sometimes they'd stop talking in favor of signing and I'd have to start waving my hands around to make them speak again. Then again, there were benefits of signing -- taking bar orders from across a room. Talking about cute dudes while dancing. Of course, I appreciated all these benefits from the outside. Again, if the dude were a tooting transsexual from Ireland on Christmas, I'd be set for conversation. Er, at least the opening sentence. (I always make it a point to learn the really CRUCIAL aspects of any language...)
In any case -- each and every one of them graduated on Friday. Gallaudet not only has a bachelors and graduate program, they also have elementary and high school programs, too. Graduates of all ages were being celebrated on Friday. And I was there. And I might as well have been in downtown Sai Pan because I don't speak the language there either. I have never been in a room so full of people and have it be SO quiet. Sure, there was a quiet hum of chatter -- but from the sound of it, you'd think there were maybe 100 people there -- not thousands. Most people were signing to each other. I couldn't start up a witty conversation with the people around me. I couldn't even chuckle along with them -- since I didn't hear, er, see the joke being told. The few people who did speak to me also signed to me simultaneously: "Is that seat taken?" etc. But by and large, I was alone and unsocial in a crowd of people which was the strangest experience for me.
For those of you not very familiar with deaf culture, a few important items to note for your next deaf/HOH engagement:
* Deaf/Hard of Hearing (HOH) people don't clap. Few do, but not with gusto. The preferred method of "applause" is to hold up your hands and shake them (not at all unlike the hokey-pokey shake, for a visual). You know how you hate to be the first/last one to clap at something -- it was like hours of that for me. Out of thousands, maybe a hundred of us were clapping, the rest were waving/shaking. Which makes visual sense to the deaf speakers, er, signers, er, keynote people. (On the other hand, their main commencement speaker was this hysterical cowboy of a man from Colorado who was not deaf. He is the "father of the Leadville 100" (google it). When he cracked a joke, the group laughed about 2 seconds after I had started my snicker because of their signing/closed captioning delay.)
* Deaf people don't realize how loud they really are. I speak in generalizing terms and by no means to offend. They stomp when they walk. The cough and clear their throats and snortle loudly -- not ever knowing how it must sound to the hearing community. And no one "blessed me" when I sneezed (I got over it).
* Deaf people don't say "excuse me". Again, a broad generalization. Being deaf appears to be very physical. While most of us keep a pretty large personal bubble about us -- and shudder about its breech on the Metro -- deaf people rely on touch to communicate. If they are attempting to get your attention, they'll touch your arm. They stand and sit close to one another to see lips and to perhaps have a private signed conversation. So it stands to reason that when walking through a group of people, they aren't likely to mutter "excuse me" when they bump into you. Again, perhaps they can't "mutter" at all. And I'm ok with that.
* Signing is distracting. As seen above -- when the room goes quiet in a large place, like a graduation, for a speech or whatnot, the slightest noises are distracting to the hearing. However, a quiet signed conversation can still rage on next to you. And it did. And I couldn't stop staring out of the corner of my eye. And across the room, you could see most people engaged in a two or three person signed conversation. Even the grads on the main floor were signing to each other throughout.
It was quite an experience. I was so proud of my old roommate. She's going to make a big difference in a lot of people's lives -- hearing or deaf. And it was really a very revealing and amazing peak into the world of a deaf or hard of hearing person.
But, truth be told, when I left that graduation, I was so glad to hear the nonsense chatter on the radio and call my BFF on the cell phone and talk. Maybe we are over stimulated as a society. And I wouldn't last a day in solitary confinement.
When I first decided to move to the area, I did what I thought was the unthinkable. I posted ads for a roommate on Craigslist. Sure, I had a boyfriend and swarms of NoVa friends; I just wanted to reach outside of my comfort zone. After sifting through the freaks, I came to her. She was from Chicago, bachelors from Iowa and living/working in Korea -- to familiarize herself with her family culture. What more could one want in a roommate? She was coming to DC to finish her graduate education, didn't mind cats, did the apartment hunt from overseas and trusted me enough to send me her blank checks to cover her half of the expenses. We met moving in and we've been friends ever since.
She was coming back to the area to finish a program she had started at Gallaudet University in DC. The school is renowned for being the only school in the world for the deaf and hard of hearing. While she's not deaf, she was working on a master’s degree in deaf education. Speaking (gesturing?) fluent sign language, she would teach not only deaf elementary students, but work with the hearing parents who had a deaf child -- or conversely, work with the hearing child of deaf parents. She came home once with a story about a class full of hearing children with deaf parents who were taking turns answering her cell phone because they had never had the opportunity. She babysat for a deaf couple that, at first, blared the radio for their hearing baby. She had a gift with children and a real knack for bridging the gap between the hearing and deaf community. Yeah, I had no idea there was a gap.
She told me of deaf groups that felt cochlear implants (devices surgically implanted in the head to create an artificial cochlea (that's the curly, tuby thing in your ear that you interpret sound with -- anything more than that, enroll in nursing school with me -- or google it)) were an insult to deaf pride. While a number of people in her program here hearing, there were deaf people, even at the school, who thought it inappropriate that they be 'hearing' and still work with the deaf. Much like an exit exam, all of the students in her program had to pass a proficiency "sign language" exam before they graduated. From what I understand, a very grueling day of pushing your sign language to the max.
When she first moved in, I was completely entertained by her school-stories. Not so much for their content, but more for the parts when she would become either agitated or very much involved in the retelling -- and her hands would slowly creep up to chest level. At first the little finger movements were lazy and intermittent. Then, once they got revved up, she'd be spitting out the story verbally and physically. Sadly, the most I gleaned from this relationship was learning how to say "farting" and "transsexual" in sign language. VERY useful phrases when my repertoire includes "cat, sea turtle, beautiful, Ireland and Christmas". I once came home to find a second set of shoes at the door, someone's coat but the entire apartment was dead silent and her door was closed. I thought the obvious. Little did I know she was in the middle of catching up -- deaf style -- with a good friend. Imagine my surprise.
But admit it -- when you go to a concert that has the woman down front signing the whole thing -- you're watching her, too. Trying to decipher the words being said with the gestures being made. I'm amazed. I'm amazed at the language itself. And when we'd go out with her friends, it was so unbelievable to watch them sign at each other while still verbally speaking out loud. Sometimes they'd stop talking in favor of signing and I'd have to start waving my hands around to make them speak again. Then again, there were benefits of signing -- taking bar orders from across a room. Talking about cute dudes while dancing. Of course, I appreciated all these benefits from the outside. Again, if the dude were a tooting transsexual from Ireland on Christmas, I'd be set for conversation. Er, at least the opening sentence. (I always make it a point to learn the really CRUCIAL aspects of any language...)
In any case -- each and every one of them graduated on Friday. Gallaudet not only has a bachelors and graduate program, they also have elementary and high school programs, too. Graduates of all ages were being celebrated on Friday. And I was there. And I might as well have been in downtown Sai Pan because I don't speak the language there either. I have never been in a room so full of people and have it be SO quiet. Sure, there was a quiet hum of chatter -- but from the sound of it, you'd think there were maybe 100 people there -- not thousands. Most people were signing to each other. I couldn't start up a witty conversation with the people around me. I couldn't even chuckle along with them -- since I didn't hear, er, see the joke being told. The few people who did speak to me also signed to me simultaneously: "Is that seat taken?" etc. But by and large, I was alone and unsocial in a crowd of people which was the strangest experience for me.
For those of you not very familiar with deaf culture, a few important items to note for your next deaf/HOH engagement:
* Deaf/Hard of Hearing (HOH) people don't clap. Few do, but not with gusto. The preferred method of "applause" is to hold up your hands and shake them (not at all unlike the hokey-pokey shake, for a visual). You know how you hate to be the first/last one to clap at something -- it was like hours of that for me. Out of thousands, maybe a hundred of us were clapping, the rest were waving/shaking. Which makes visual sense to the deaf speakers, er, signers, er, keynote people. (On the other hand, their main commencement speaker was this hysterical cowboy of a man from Colorado who was not deaf. He is the "father of the Leadville 100" (google it). When he cracked a joke, the group laughed about 2 seconds after I had started my snicker because of their signing/closed captioning delay.)
* Deaf people don't realize how loud they really are. I speak in generalizing terms and by no means to offend. They stomp when they walk. The cough and clear their throats and snortle loudly -- not ever knowing how it must sound to the hearing community. And no one "blessed me" when I sneezed (I got over it).
* Deaf people don't say "excuse me". Again, a broad generalization. Being deaf appears to be very physical. While most of us keep a pretty large personal bubble about us -- and shudder about its breech on the Metro -- deaf people rely on touch to communicate. If they are attempting to get your attention, they'll touch your arm. They stand and sit close to one another to see lips and to perhaps have a private signed conversation. So it stands to reason that when walking through a group of people, they aren't likely to mutter "excuse me" when they bump into you. Again, perhaps they can't "mutter" at all. And I'm ok with that.
* Signing is distracting. As seen above -- when the room goes quiet in a large place, like a graduation, for a speech or whatnot, the slightest noises are distracting to the hearing. However, a quiet signed conversation can still rage on next to you. And it did. And I couldn't stop staring out of the corner of my eye. And across the room, you could see most people engaged in a two or three person signed conversation. Even the grads on the main floor were signing to each other throughout.
It was quite an experience. I was so proud of my old roommate. She's going to make a big difference in a lot of people's lives -- hearing or deaf. And it was really a very revealing and amazing peak into the world of a deaf or hard of hearing person.
But, truth be told, when I left that graduation, I was so glad to hear the nonsense chatter on the radio and call my BFF on the cell phone and talk. Maybe we are over stimulated as a society. And I wouldn't last a day in solitary confinement.
# posted by Cathy @ 7:20:00 PM 
