■Pointing

I think most people were told not to point at other people when they were young. As a child, I often pointed at people and my relatives slapped down my hand. My Deaf parents never said anything about pointing so I learnt from this experience that I must not point directly in the presence of hearing people.

However, pointing is an integral part of sign language, functioning as pronoun or end-of-sentence pronoun.

Quite a few Deaf people have the experience of being hit without warning by a hearing stranger. It may happen more often to men. You are joking in sign language with Deaf friends and get punched all of a sudden. The assailant must have thought that you were laughing at him (or her) when seeing you pointing.

The mishap can develop into a criminal case, so cautious Deaf people try to avoid pointing at hearing people.

When you sign with hearing people, it sometimes happens that they suddenly turn their eyes away. You turn to see what happened and you discover that they were just looking in at the direction you pointed. In fact, you were not showing them anything but you pointed to express a pronoun or end-of-sentence pronoun.

Hearing people tend to use pointing less frequently than the Deaf when they sign. In particular, they often omit the end-of-sentence pronoun, which makes conversations difficult to follow, as you cannot know which is the subject and which is the object in their sentences.

Pointing helps to distinguish subjects from objects. For example, a 4 year-old Deaf child can differentiate between the subject and the object by pointing.
(PT=pronoun expressed by pointing)
(-pt=end-of-sentence pronoun. It is expressed phonologically linked to the previous word and it agrees with the subject of the sentence.).

A: PT1 PT3 love -pt1
B: Really?
A: Yes. PT3 PT1 love-pt3. Don't you? (Asks C)
C: ...

In the above conversation, PT1 is I and PT3 is He. We can see here that a 4 year-old child knows how to differentiate between a subject and an object by agreeing with the end-of-sentence pronoun and subject.

This conversation could be translated as follows:

A: I love C
B: Really?
A: Yes. And C loves me. Don't you?
C: ...

This is an actual conversation that took place in Tatsunoko Gakuen, a Deaf free school they are attending (the above conversation is also recorded on video). We see that Deaf children have the same kind of conversation as hearing children; I still find she is a precocious little girl though...

* Translated from the e-magazine of May 9, 2007 (# 083)

■What is a “honmamon” service?

Do you remember an NHK drama series, “Honmamon”, which started in October, 2001? Honmamon means “genuine” in Kansai dialect.

Since I use a JCB credit card, the company sends me a JCB information magazine every month. In its current issue, I found an “ear mark” article introduced in the “JCB service improvement report” section, in which JCB reports about their improved services for their customers. The improvements have been made based on customers’ comments.

The report says that they have placed an “ear icon” on thirteen JCB service desks around the country because of a comment to JCB from a customer. It goes like this. “I have a hearing-impaired person in my family and he has a lot of trouble at the customer service desk. Do you offer some special services for deaf people?”

The “ear icon” was invented by All Japan Association of Hard of Hearing People in the 1970’s. The icon is usually found on a front desk in public offices as a sign post for help for the deaf. The sign says “We communicate with hearing-impaired people by writing.”

(http://www.zennancho.or.jp/special/mimimark.html)

The JCB report also says “We communicate with hearing-impaired people by speaking clearly, showing our lips or writing down messages.”

If you lost your hearing ability after having acquired Japanese as a mother tongue, communication by writing is no problem. Or, if you are hard of hearing but can hear a little, this assures you of better communication when people are willing to speak clearly and show their lips as well. It is easy to realize that these strategies work well if you have enough Japanese language skills.

However, what if you are deaf and a native speaker of Japanese sign language? Do they work well? Hearing-impaired people’s writing skills in Japanese varies from person to person. Some can write what they want, some find it difficult to grasp the intention of what is written and others just don’t know how and what to write.

In spite of various levels of their Japanese skills, people who offer services for the deaf seem to believe that hearing-impaired people have the same ability in Japanese and that it is enough to set up an “ear mark,” speak clearly, show lips, and write down to communicate with the deaf.

These are not “honmamon” services at all.

Moreover, to my surprise, the JCB report indicates that you could find the details, such as addresses and phone numbers of those JCB offices where such services are rendered in its home page.”

“Oh, Mr. JCB, are you trying to make deaf people confirm ‘phone numbers’?”, I wondered. When I checked the home page, they provided only phone numbers, and no fax numbers or e-mail addresses.

When will they ever provide the “honmamon” services to us deaf people?

*Translated from the e-magazine of April 23, 2007 (# 082)

■“Impaired Hearing” vs. “Deaf”

The incident I’m about to describe happened some time ago, when I was on my way to Kita Kyushu in southern Japan. I usually fly with Japan Air Lines to get frequent flyer points but on this trip I had ended up with Starflyer, which was then one of the new entrants into the Japanese airline business.

(When I first heard of Star Flyer, I pictured someone frying stars. I’m not alone in mixing up “flyer” with “fryer.”*)

When I had my boarding pass issued at the Starflyer check-in counter, I saw a clerk writing down, “Excuse me madam, but your hearing . . .” In an instant I jotted down for her, “Yes, I am a Deaf person.” The clerk’s look told me it was the first time she had seen the word “Deaf” actually used. Then she pointed to one of her ears as if to say, “So your hearing’s impaired, right?”

This exchange brought it home to me that Deaf is still not a familiar word to many people.

In Japanese, some people mistake the Deaf for wax figures or elderly people, because all these words start with the sound “roh.” What is worse, the Federation of the Deaf is sometimes confused with “federation of the elderly,” “wax product association” or even “church for the elderly,” since the Japanese word for association sounds exactly the same as church.

I’m not singling out Star Flyer. It is common for all airlines to regard the Deaf as “people with impaired hearing.” They serve us while clinging on to the negative perception that the Deaf are “people with hearing difficulties.” I suppose it never occurs to them that there is a group of people whose first language is sign language.

Special assistance service pages on airline websites speak volumes for this perception: The JAL web page states that writing pads are available onboard for passengers who have difficulty hearing and speaking.

Another example: The All Nippon Airways (ANA) special assistance web page says, “Please indicate the following when booking flights: Are you accompanied by a guide dog?” They say they need to know in advance if passengers have difficulty in hearing so that they can be prepared to communicate in the event of an emergency.”

To my surprise, Star Flyer narrowly passes the test in this regard: “For passengers with a guide dog/partner dog: You may let him/her on board free of charge. Please advise us about your dog at the time of booking”.

In their references to guide dogs, the ANA and JAL pages start with “For those with hearing difficulties,” while Star Flyer begins by saying “For those with guide dogs.”

The difference means a lot more to us than it sounds.

Why can’t they use phrases like “those who communicate with sign language,” “those who use hearing aids,” or “those with guide dogs” instead of referring to customers’ hearing abilities?

There is another episode relating to air travel. At the end of check-in procedures I always hear the same phrase trotted out by airlines: “Is there anything else you need, madam?” I guess that’s one of the stock phrases listed in their customer service manuals.

So the other day, I was only joking when I said, “What services are there?” To which I received the reply: “Priority boarding, Braille magazines and so on.” Exactly as specified in their manual, I assume.

Service according to a manual is not a big deal. What matters for people in the service sector, just like for translators, is to provide appropriate services depending on the situation and on whom they’re dealing with. It’s a pity not many of them are aware of that.

*Translated from the e-magazine of April 9, 2007 (# 080)

*Since Japanese doesn’t have a katakana character (showing phonetic spelling) to represent the letter “l,” we use the character for “r” to represent the “l” sound. For instance, “fryer” and “flyer” share the same phonetic spelling in Japanese. That’s one of the reasons why Japanese people in general are not good at distinguishing “r” sounds from “l” sounds in English.

■If locked up in a restroom…

When I was visiting Manila school for the Deaf in Sweden, I was involved in a horrible predicament. To tell you the truth, I was locked up in a restroom.

I had an uneasy feeling when I was going into the restroom. But seeing Ms. Akahori, who is also Deaf, come out without any trouble, I didn’t think twice. Alas, my premonition came true.

Let me reprint what Ms. Oka wrote, since she was also with me at that time.

A Deaf Person Gets Locked Up in a Toilet (by Ms. Norie Oka)

A Deaf person got locked up in a restroom. I knew there was someone inside, but I was at a loss of what to do in order to reach the Deaf person inside. So, I asked another Deaf person, who was with us, for help.

Seeing that the person inside was desperately turning the doorknob, the person outside did the same thing from outside. This way, the person inside realizes that there is someone outside who is aware of the situation, and that there is a person locked inside. It means that help is near.

Judging from the circumstances, a Deaf teacher of the school asked first of all, “Is the person inside deaf or hearing?” Knowing that the person inside was deaf, she immediately called a janitor to open the door with a screwdriver.

After a while, the door opened. Actually, the door could have opened if pushed and turned at the same time. We could have communicated by writing if there had been an opening of about one centimeter under the door. After all, it is a school for the Deaf.

It turned out that they have been having problems with that door for some time. Good grief! The person inside has not had much luck with restrooms her entire life.

Well, that unfortunate person in the restroom was me.

That hearing person, who was with me, seemed to have realized that the person who was locked up might be me, Kimura. Without knowing what to do, since I was inside, and without letting me know that “help was soon to come”, she went to get Ms. Akahori who was chatting with a Deaf teacher. In the meanwhile I was sweating with fear (literally) thinking I might be locked in the toilet for good. I felt my heart pound quickly.

After all, Ms. Akahori is “Deaf”. She knew exactly what to do first and she turned the doorknob. When I saw the doorknob turn in front of my eyes, I genuinely felt myself come to life again. At least it was certain that someone outside knew my existence. It must have been only a few minutes, but it felt like forever to me. I wouldn’t mind dying from unavoidable disasters such as big earthquakes, plane crashes and so forth. However, I refuse to die because of an accident in a restroom.

A Deaf is a person who sees, not a person who hears. Therefore, under the circumstances where a man of eye has a hard time grasping the situation outside, a man of eye can easily figure out what to do first in order to reassure a Deaf and can act instinctively. How about a hearing person?

I gave it another thought and realized that it is important for those hearing people who want to communicate with the Deaf to expand their imagination so that they can simulate the man of eye’s world and understand their views.

For example, I believe those hearing people who “knock on the door” of the room where only the Deaf people are inside, to be with poor imagination. They can’t see that those whom they wish to communicate with, don’t hear.

The Deaf, a man of eye needs to let the hearing people know and understand how the Deaf structure their world, otherwise a man of ear will never understand a man of eye. In short, I think making efforts reciprocally is indispensable.

* Translated from the e-magazine of September 18, 2006 (# 078)

■A visit to bilingual Deaf education facilities in Northern Europe

In August, I had an opportunity to see bilingual Deaf education in three countries in North Europe: Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

In Denmark, from August 1982 to June 1992, a project of bilingual Deaf education was introduced in a Deaf children’s class. In Sweden, bilingual Deaf education for deaf children was firmly established by the Swedish Government Bill* adopted in 1981.

This year, in 2006, they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Swedish Government Bill at Manila School for the Deaf, a pioneer in bilingual Deaf education school in Stockholm.

Unlike Japan where some people still insist seriously that Bilingual (Deaf education) means Japanese sign language and manually-coded Japanese, in Northern Europe, they understand that the first language for Deaf children is sign language that they can naturally acquire without special efforts as their mother tongue, and that the second language is the written language.

In all schools for the Deaf we visited, teachers recognize that simultaneous communication (Sim-Com) causes unnecessary confusion to deaf children and brings no benefit. They seem to understand the real meaning of “Sign Language is a Language.”

Those children who went through the bilingual education that started in 1982 have now grown up and we fortunately we had a chance to talk with some of them. They say they are fluent not only in Danish sign language, but also in reading and writing Danish. In addition they can read and write English. It is also no problem to read German and Swedish. (Some people say you can’t be called bilingual even if you can read and write Swedish and Danish, because they are very similar. But if you can't read Danish, you can't read Swedish either. If you can read and write Danish and can sign Danish sign language, you are already bilingual enough.)

Deaf educators in North Europe understand the importance of sign language as a mother tongue. The success of bilingual education depends on how much importance is put on sign language as the first language.

In the late 1990s, a program for providing babies and infants with cochlear implants started in earnest. Until a few years ago, educators in North Europe were optimistic about the babies and infants in North Europe and said they should not be excluded from bilingual Deaf education. They still considered them as deaf babies and infants after having cochlear implants and so thought they should be provided with a sign language environment in order to be able to acquire not only reading and writing abilities but also letting them have access to speaking abilities.

But we found drastic changes on this visit. In Denmark, almost 100 percent of deaf babies and infants have cochlear implants. Doctors give advice not to choose bilingual Deaf education and not to learn sign language as the first language in order to obtain the best results from the cochlear implants (CI). Parents agree with the advice and are actively choosing cochlear implants. (As a result, the number of the children in the Deaf school is decreasing rapidly.)

The fact is, with the advancement of technology in CI, people have become impatient in giving children with CI the opportunities to acquire sign language as their first language and then adding spoken language (listening and speaking) afterwards.

In other words, the more prevalent cochlear implants become, the less necessary sign language becomes.

I got the impression that the children with CI in schools for the Deaf in North Europe tended to be quiet. Their pronunciation may be as clear as hearing people, but it seemed that children with CI generally had a lower sign language ability. I was worried that many children with CI were not lively and their eyes didn't focus.

How about in Japan? There is plenty of information about bilingual Deaf education from North Europe, but no Japanese school has begun “real” bilingual education. They say, teachers in schools for the Deaf use “sign language”, but the “sign language” the teachers use in schools for the Deaf is Sim-Com . Additionally, most of them have the idea that sign language is only the instrument to learn Japanese.

I believe that we will be facing children with CI in future without much experience in bilingual education and CI will be accepted naturally. It is because Japanese Deaf education still draws on the idea of oralism (the theory of teaching hearing-impaired or deaf persons to communicate by means of spoken language).

Bilingual Deaf educators in North Europe muttered regretfully about the situation in Japan, “Time has gone backward.”

Since the 1990s Japanese educators and researchers have been to North Europe over and over again. But there is no “effort for change” in Japan. Only Deaf free schools are trying hard to realize the true bilingual education.

I would like to observe carefully how they deal with and what strategies they use vis-à-vis CI in further advancing bilingual Deaf education in North Europe. I do hope that bilingual Deaf education in Japan will be established within the public education system (under the responsibility of the government or with strong governmental support), not only in free schools, as soon as possible.

*Swedish Government Bill (adopted in 1981)
“The Government Commission on Integration points out that the profoundly deaf have to be bilingual to function among themselves and in society. Bilingualism on their part, according to the commission, means that they have to be fluent in their visual/gestural sign language, and in the language that society surrounds them with, Swedish.” (quoted from “JAPANESE DEAF NEWS”)

*Translated from the e-magazine of Sept. 11, 2006 (# 077)

■Election of President of Gallaudet University

Gallaudet University (G.U.), the sole university for the Deaf, will have its 142nd anniversary in 2006. (In Japan, Tsukuba University of Technology opened this April. It is a single department college and is expected to be upgraded to a ‘university.’)

G.U. made history when there was a campus movement to ‘have a Deaf president.’ The ASL slogan, ‘Deaf President Now!’ became famous.

When the executive board of G.U. nominated a hearing woman as the 7th President in March 1988, stormy opposition was raised by the students. The reason for that was that there had been no Deaf President elected since its foundation, going back more than 100 years. Campus activists, including graduates, were active for about a week. As a result of various activities such as blockade by barricade at the doorway of G.U. and a boycott of classes, (there may have been discussions between student leaders of opposition activities and executive board members during that time), the first Deaf president in the history of G.U. was brought in. The 8th president was Dr. I. King Jordan.

This campus movement at G.U. attracted the U.S. citizens’ interest (in likeness to the black American movement and women’s liberation movement), and its story was carried in major newspapers, such as the Washington Post. It must have appeared on TV news programmes. Structure of movement at that time was easily understandable from the outside. The issue in conflict was quite simple, “Will we have a Deaf president or not?”

This movement brought about a change in the Deaf/ hearing ratio in the executive board. Until then, hearing people had occupied the majority or greater majority. There burst out complaints that it was disadvantageous for the Deaf to have their opinions duly represented when majority votes were taken. I hear that since then the ratio of Deaf to hearing has been changed to be more than 51%.

Incidentally, Dr. Jordan, who was elected as the Deaf president is a late deafened person. However, in those days, he was elected as ‘Deaf president’ of a kind. He may have been a right and resourceful person who could compete against other hearing candidates. In those days, whether that person was culturally Deaf or not was not considered an issue.

I had a chance to speak with Dr. Jordan when he visited Tokyo to participate in the World Congress of the Deaf in 1991. I don’t think he remembers me, but he left me with an impression of having a gentle personality.

Since the 8th president Dr. I. King Jordan was elected, 17 years has passed and the new 9th president of G.U. was nominated by the board to assume the position in January 2007. But objections were once again raised by students and campus opposition activities once again were underway. However, I have not yet heard the news that the board decision has been reversed at this time.

It is difficult to understand the issues, from the outside, this time. Though Dr. Jane K. Fernandes, a woman nominated by the board, has never studied at a school for the Deaf and began to learn sign language at the age of 23, she can be said to be a ’Deaf president’ in the same sense as was Dr. Jordan.

I think the board members recommended her as a suitable person for a university reformer (accepting hearing students has been introduced because of the deteriorating management at G.U. at the undergraduate level following the graduation school’s example), but objections from students and graduates has been growing.

The information I received from the U.S. concerning the reasons for the objection is rather mixed and needs sorting out but what seems to be the issues are listed below.

1. Dr. Fernandes isn’t culturally Deaf. With the previous president, the conflict was between ‘whether he/she was hearing or Deaf.’ In this case, it is ‘whether he/she is culturally Deaf or not.’
2. Whether Dr. Fernandes is culturally Deaf or not isn’t really an issue. The issue is that Dr. Fernandes is soft on audism (giving priority to hearing).
3. Dr. Fernandes is not popular among students.
4. The process of decision making by the executive boards is not transparent enough. Dr. Fernandes is Dr. Jordan’s favourite. Besides, there were no African American candidates in this election (the race issue).

The recommendation by executive boards was given in March at the previous time, but this time, it was given on April 30. Graduation ceremony is held in May at G.U. and after that the long summer vacation begins. Some suggest that the time when there would be fewer students on campus was deliberately selected

Whether it is true or not, I have the impression that the U.S. Deaf community is very mature.

Tsukuba University of Technology is less familiar to the Japanese Deaf community (because there are many students who don’t know sign language and few students have contact with the Deaf community). G.U. has nearly a 150-year tradition and a large number of graduates who have proved their excellence, not only in the U.S., but also globally. G.U is the focal point of the Deaf society throughout the world.

Ella and MJ, whom I respect, are graduates from G.U. (MJ is currently a professor in G.U. and he gave an interview to the Washington Post) and we can feel the richness of human resources in G.U. graduates.

The structure of current conflict isn’t easy to see from the outside. As a result, high-level political strategy and ability will be required of students and former students who oppose the current presidential election. We have no choice but to watch how it evolves from the other side of the earth.

* Translated from the e-magazine of May 22, 2006 (No. 075)

From the editor: In writing this article I referred to two articles that appeared in the Washington Post. I thank Mr. Michio Saito for translating for me.

■Reikong arrived at exactly 7:00 a.m.

The students on the Sign Language (SL) interpretation course at my college have to do a great deal of homework in their second year. In the first year they may be busy preparing for exams or writing papers, but the amount of assignments seems far less than that in the second year.

In their second year, the students are often required not only to write papers but also to videotape their SL interpretations by the next class. Sometimes they have to tape them after the fourth and last period on one day and before the first period the next day, so many dormitory students come back to the college after having had dinner at the dormitory. Alternatively, a number of day students buy food at convenience stores and return to the college to study there until 10:00 p.m., when the college closes.

Well, the central character of this story is a certain second-year student, we’ll call her Reikong. One day she was given an SL interpretation videotaping assignment in the second period. Seeing her bewildered face, I asked her, “What’s the matter with you?” She answered that she doubted if she would be able to finish her homework by the following morning’s class, because she had to go and take notes for a Deaf student at a university in the city center that day and didn’t have enough time for videotaping.

Since I planned on coming to the college the next day at around 6:30 a.m. to finish off some work, I said, by way of a suggestion, “Then how about coming to the college tomorrow at seven o’clock? I’ll also be here around that time, and if you do come early, I’ll come downstairs and unlock the door for you.” The entrance door of the college is automatically locked until 8:00 a.m. and students cannot enter freely until then. Typically for a hearing person, Reikong only smiled back, and we left it at that, without having confirmed whether or not she would really come at 7:00 a.m. the next day.

If she were Deaf and had intended to come at seven, she would have reconfirmed the way to contact me or the exact time to come in order to call me downstairs and to have me open the entrance door. We may call it the Deaf way.

All the same, she came to the college exactly at 7:00 a.m. To tell the truth, I had a kind of sixth sense that she would come at 7:00 a.m., so I came to work at 6:30 a.m. as planned and put my cell phone on my desk while waiting for an E-mail from her.

I had certainly told her that I would come to the college at seven, but this is an example of a typical Deaf expression that tends to use numbers. I had said seven o’clock, but what I had really meant to say was that I would be coming in early the next morning. It didn’t matter whether she came at 6:30 a.m., when I was coming in, or at 7:30 a.m.

As she lives in an apartment near the college, I expected that she would send me an E-mail when she left home, so I had put my cell phone on the desk to be contacted by her.

However, it didn’t vibrate at all at 7:00 a.m., nor did I receive an E-mail even after seven. I was just beginning to think “She’ll come after 7:30 if she comes”, when I received an E-mail from her.

I picked up my cell phone and read her message that said, “Have you already arrived at the college, Ms. Kimura?” Without thinking twice I sent her a message back, “Yes, I have.”

First I thought that she would leave home after having confirmed that I was at the college and judged that her behavior was acceptable in Deaf culture, but as soon as I pressed the “send” button I realized something.

“Maybe she has already arrived downstairs . . .”

Having rushed down the stairs, cell phone in hand, from the fifth to the first floor—we can’t use the elevators in the college until 8:00 a.m.—as I had suspected, I found Reikong waiting in front of the entrance door, arms folded.

She told me that she had arrived at 7:00 a.m. and had been waiting for me to come down. Though I was sorry for having kept her waiting, I wondered why she hadn’t send me an E-mail to reconfirm the appointment time if she had really intended to come at 7:00 a.m.

So I asked her, “What would you have done if I hadn’t been here?” Then she said, “It can’t be helped,” and added, “I would have killed time practicing outdoors until the entrance door was opened.” I asked her, “Well, did you come at seven because I had told you to do so?” She thought for a moment and answered, “Yes, because you’d told me to come here at seven, I thought you’d be here by seven . . .”

Later I brought up the subject of this incident with my class and suggested that we have a little discussion about it.

I’m not sure that the following can really be termed a conclusion, but there are certainly differences between hearing culture and Deaf culture. In hearing culture, when a teacher tells students to come at seven, they come at seven without reconfirming the appointment time because they think that what a teacher tells you must be definite. And if the teacher is not there, they wait until he/she comes. If he/she does not come for a while, they would contact him/her. In the event that he/she doesn’t show up after having overslept or something, they simply bear with it. A few students said they would reconfirm the appointment with their teacher, but they were in the minority.

In contrast, in Deaf culture, when a teacher tells students to come at seven and they intend to do so, they reconfirm the appointment time and how to have the door unlocked, that is, to contact the teacher by sending an E-mail a little before they arrive at the college or by making contact with the teacher in case of emergency. If yet to decide, Deaf students may confirm how to get hold of their teacher when they do decide to come.

It may be necessary for both teachers and SL interpretation students to think that they might be reflecting the differences in the two cultures, when they encounter things that seem strange and defy comprehension, no matter how trivial they seem to be.

* Translated from the e-magazine of June 12, 2006 (No. 076)

■Wipe (sign language interpreter) in TV commercials

I believe Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is currently the only company that broadcasts TV commercials with a sign language interpreter in wipe. Recently, the sign language interpreter has changed. The new person looks like a young mother. It is quite obvious that they looked for “someone who looks good on TV and who can do sign language interpretation as well.”

A sign language interpreter is added on screen in a small separate frame. But I have always wondered, “Why don’t they assign a Deaf, native speaker?”

I can immediately see that the new sign language interpreter is a hearing person, because her signs are different from that of the Deaf. The word order follows that of Japanese. You don’t need to observe carefully to notice that her signs are unnatural both grammatically and phonologically.

I heard that several TV commercial strips are produced according to the time span available. TV commercials are made in advance, so you don’t need to use a hearing person.

If the condition is to be a woman who looks good on TV, you can just search for a native signer (=Deaf) who meets that condition. All you need to do is to sign the promotional message in the time span allocated. You don’t need to interpret the recorded spoken Japanese, but to show sign language restructured to carry the meaning of the spoken Japanese message that they want to promote on the TV commercial within the time available.

This method could have a bigger impact to the Deaf, sign language users, and works better as TV commercial.

The idea that only “hearing” sign language interpreters bring various information to the Deaf, the users of sign Language, is really out of date.

The Deaf often take charge as sign language interpreters (ex. American Sign Language →International Sign, Manually Coded English → American Sign Language etc.) even in the simultaneous interpretation in the US and some parts of Europe. It’s up to their ingenuity.
I suppose that the difference is “in the perspective” that the US and European countries have, and we don’t have in Japan. Maybe Japanese people have this fixed idea that only “hearing” people give and transmit information to the Deaf.

Tokyo Electric Power Company makes their TV commercials with sign language interpretation. That in itself is wonderful. But if they can move one step further and get into a pioneering spirit and understand that using a native signer as a sign language interpreter is only natural, I am sure their company image will be boosted.

*Translated form the e-magazine of May 1, 2006 (# 074)

■ Guessing culture and verbalizing culture

The National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities College where I work is a six-storied building. The rooms of the Sign Language Interpretation Course are on the fifth floor. There is a copying machine under the management of the administrative office in storage room (alias copying room) on the fifth floor.

When the electric lights of the copying room burnt out, I asked my colleague Mr. I to have them replaced with new ones. He told me that I should only ask a staff member in the office on the first floor because the staff member then would request the section in charge to do so.

I used to ask Mr. I to call the staff member of the office before e-mail became wide spread. But now, I can ask the staff member directly by e-mail. Having written the mail and reread it, I started to wonder if what I came up with was all right. So I showed it Mr. I. The result was what I expected.

First sentence I wrote was as follows.
-------------------
Because two electric lights of the storage room (copying room) burnt out, would you please request the section in charge to replace them?
-------------------
After I rewrote it with Mr. I’s advice, my second sentence was as follows.
-------------------
Because two electric lights of the storage room (copying room) burnt out, please see to it.
-------------------
If I signed the second sentence to a Deaf person in JSL, he/she may respond “So what?”
In JSL, we verbalize the request in full (as in the first sentence), but in Japanese, not all words are expressed. In short, it looks more natural to leave certain things unsaid in Japanese and let the reader fill in the gap…

Indeed students of the Sign Language Interpretation Course talk to each other in JSL, but they don’t seem to express things fully. Without expressing everything, they expect me to guess what they mean. Is this the first language interference of their native tongue Japanese…..?

The other day, I told a student in charge of our e-mailing list to set up an emergency e-mailing list to send messages in one go in case of an emergency and be responsible for the e-mail addresses. Then, the student started to say to me “The usual e-mailing list too……” in JSL, but didn’t finish. Somehow my head was switched to the Japanese mode then and I guessed that the student wanted to say “Must I be in charge of the usual e-mailing list too?” Before I knew it, I signed “So what?” in JSL. The student hurriedly explained to me that she only wanted to confirm if she needed to take care of the usual e-mailing list as well.

On a different occasion, we found errors in a document and we needed to rewrite it. The senior staff member went downstairs before we confirmed who was to replace the document.

Negotiation, of a sort. This time I tried calling the office via sign language interpreter. My position was, I would like the staff member to do it, but if I had to, I would. I signed to the interpreter “With regard to the errors in the document, should I make the replacement document or would you?” But the interpreter said to him something like, “Do I make it or will you make it?”

My colleague Mr. I heard this conversation and said to me “Oh, that expression sounded as if you demanded the staff member to make the replacement document.” In Japanese, I should have left it at “With regard to the errors in the document, the replacement should be…….”

It seems that hearing people think JSL has only straightforward expressions. I suggest that hearing people understand that there are reserved expressions in JSL as well. But, as in this case, when we need tactics, the way we use our reserved JSL reflects the way JSL verbalizes things.

* Translated from the e-magazine of April 10, 2006 (# 72)

■Proposed removal of the hearing ability requirement: Is it really to be welcomed?

A piece of epoch-making news came out on April 14. It was reported that the hearing ability requirement for hearing-impaired people to acquire a driver’s license would be totally removed. According to the news report, the Road Traffic Law will be revised to implement it in 2008.

If this means just the abolition of the hearing ability requirement, I would welcome it with open arms. But reading through the reports in Mainichi Newspapers and the Yomiuri Shimbun on the Internet, I begin to wonder if the proposed revision of the law should be simply accepted.

Large-size rearview mirrors will have to be installed to make up for the removal of the hearing ability requirement. I have no objection to this, because there are already many Deaf people have wide mirrors installed in their cars. I myself don’t have a wide mirror equipped in my own car (a BMW Mini) for fear of spoiling its beauty. I can do without a wide mirror.

The reason why Deaf drivers install wide mirrors is they find it necessary to have them not only to keep the blind spot to a minimum and monitor traffic in the rear but also to speak in sign language with Deaf passengers in the rear seat.

Since I lack such advanced skills, I just remain silent while I drive.

The problem is that a sticker to show that the driver is a hearing-impaired person must be affixed to the car. This is said to remind other drivers to refrain from blowing a horn toward the car with the sticker, which I think is nothing but an unwanted favor. Be that as it may, from the standpoint of protecting personal information, the compulsory use of the sticker on the car tells everyone around that the driver is a hearing-impaired person. There is a possibility that cars with this sticker might be shadowed and attacked by people with malicious intent.

Deaf people are not different in appearance from hearing people. Therefore, some well-intentioned hearing people who lack an understanding of the Deaf have made the well-meaning suggestion that Deaf people wear a badge on their clothing so as to be easily recognized. The same problem as this suggestion seems to exist in the obligatory use of the sticker. Many Deaf drivers will find it difficult to accept this condition about the sticker.

Another problem is that hearing-impaired drivers are obligated to participate in a safety training session. This will be an increasing burden on Deaf drivers, because they have to attend the training session intended exclusively (?) for hearing-impaired people every time their driver’s license is renewed.

The abolition of the hearing ability requirement is considered, not surprisingly, a worldwide trend. In many highly-motorized developed countries, the installation of wide mirrors is obligatory, but there are no conditions as far as hearing ability is concerned. Why is it then that Japan will be the only country that makes the use of the sticker obligatory?

I propose that this obligatory condition be reported to the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). Probably, the WFD would respond in a negative fashion, with a comment like, “That’s crazy!”

Various obligatory conditions following the removal of the hearing ability requirement would drastically lower the comfort index of Deaf drivers.

I don’t think that the revision of the Road Traffic Law should be welcomed without due consideration. It is my sincere hope that Deaf movement groups adequately address the problems involved.

* Translated from the e-magazine of April 17, 2006 (No. 073)