At a hairdresser’s shop in the Cambodian capital, there is none of the usual chit chat you might expect when getting a haircut — because the barbers are all deaf.
They have graduated from the only education course for deaf adults in Cambodia, where the vast majority of people with hearing problems never had the opportunity to learn sign language.
“I didn’t have any contact outside of my family. It was like being in prison. I was stuck there. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have any education,” barber trainee Oeun Darong, 27, explained in Cambodian sign language.
Photo: AFP
Until the late 1990s, Cambodia was one of the few countries in the world without its own sign language.
But that is changing thanks to the work of American priest Charlie Dittmeier, who began to develop the kingdom’s own version with help from foreign linguists and researchers after he was posted in the Southeast Asian nation 13 years ago.
“We get people coming to us at the age of 25, 30, 35. They have never been to school a day in their life. They have no language,” said Dittmeier.
His Deaf Development Programme (DDP) is one of only two groups running schools for people with hearing problems in Cambodia. The other one is for children.
About 30 deaf students aged 16 or older are currently taking a two-year course at the DDP center in Phnom Penh, learning simple sign language, writing, reading and other life skills, said Dittmeier.
A third year is spent in job training like at the barber shop, where the students receive instructions — given in sign language — on how to offer haircuts, shaves and ear cleaning.
‘I couldn’t talk to my family’
Many have spent their life working in rice fields or as cattle herders, with no one to teach them how to use sign language.
“I was by myself. It was a sad life. I couldn’t learn anything. I couldn’t talk to my family,” said Darong, who once thought he was the only deaf person in the world.
He was born into a family of farmers — one of eight children — and missed out on an education.
“The others would walk to school but I was left at home taking care of the cow, fishing and working in the garden, while they would go and learn how to read and write.”
Other pupils at the same deaf school had even worse experiences, such as the pair rescued from one of the country’s rehabilitation centers, which rights activists criticize for unlawfully detaining street children, beggars, drug users and other undesirables.
“They had no social skills at all. They did not know how to take a shower,” said Dittmeier.
On the walls of the DDP center, some drawings show the basic rules of hygiene, while others teach Cambodian sign language.
“We are constantly trying to expose them to new ideas and then they start developing the signs. Then our work is to record the signs. We draw them. We scan them. We put them into books and dictionaries,” Dittmeier said.
“When they start wanting to talk about new topics they will develop new signs. It shouldn’t come from the hearing people — it should come from the deaf people. And so their life expands, their language expands, their world expands.”
No longer ignored
There are estimated to be more than 50,000 deaf people across Cambodia, yet only a fraction of them have learned sign language.
For those who do, it can be a life-changing step.
“I can now communicate,” said 23-year-old student Kheng Nat. “People don’t ignore me or discriminate against me here. It is not like at home or in the village.”
The situation in Cambodia, which has no state-funded education program for the deaf, is by no means unique.
“Worldwide, deaf children and young people are often denied an education, including in sign language,” said Shantha Rau Barriga, disability rights director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“Sign language is critical for deaf people to be able to communicate, express themselves and learn,” she added.
The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) campaigns for better access to education for the 70 million deaf people around the world, the majority of whom live in developing countries that lack well-trained sign language teachers. In many nations, the quality of education for deaf people is low and the illiteracy rate is high, according to the WFD, which deplores “a massive ignorance in education systems about the importance of sign language.”
One of the first things students do when they enter the DDP school in Phnom Penh is to choose their own sign name — a crucial step towards leaving their solitary life behind.
“I met lots of deaf people here who are now my friends,” said Darong. “I’m not by myself anymore.”
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built