中国手语/Chinese Sign Language

[Demonic_Duck]

Split off from here.

 

Thought I'd post a little about my experiences of learning Chinese sign language (CSL) as a hearing person.

 

I'm not sure when I first became interested in CSL, but I think it was a combination of encountering deaf people in Beijing and the book/film 《活着》, wherein poor 凤霞 loses her hearing and becomes effectively unable to communicate with her family. Any rate, last year I took a year out from work to concentrate on my Chinese at Tsinghua's 对外汉语进修课程, and found that they had a sign language society, which I promptly joined.

 

Almost all of the members were hearing (there were a couple that I think were slightly hearing impaired). It seems there's a surprisingly large community of hearing people, almost all university students, in Beijing who are learning CSL without any direct personal reason to do so (by which I mean family members or friends who are deaf).

 

Aside from weekly peer-taught classes, which focused on simple dialogues, one of the major modes of learning was through songs. While I'm an advocate of learning languages through the medium of music, it did seem like an odd choice for this particular language.

 

So how do you learn sign language through song? Well, first you learn the song itself if you don't already know it. Then, you translate the lyrics into CSL. You practice signing them through a few times, and then you try to keep up with the music. You can also lip-sync along with the music. If the signed song is to be performed, there will also be various other elements involved in the choreography - who signs which parts, movements on stage, etc.

 

At this point, it's worth pointing out that almost all of the sign language I learned was 文法手语 (signed Chinese), as opposed to 自然手语 (true CSL). 自然手语 often substantially different in grammar, and is generally much quicker to sign the same thing. A simple example is asking someone's name. In 文法手语, you might sign [你] [叫] [什么] [名字] [问号]. However, in 自然手语, you would sign [你] [名字] [什么] (with a questioning expression on your face). In addition to this, there are also significant regional differences, even within mainland China. Taiwan, meanwhile, uses a completely different form of sign language.

 

There were also other events that the sign language society organized. Some of these involved 支教ing in schools for deaf children. I only managed to get to one of these - it was a kindergarten, so the kids were very young. Like most (almost all?) deaf schools in China, they didn't use sign language in the teaching, which is unfortunate from a pedagogical point of view. Other than that, though, the kindergarten seemed well-run, and the teachers seemed to really care about the kids.

 

Another event was a joint 北大 and 清华-organized deaf culture festival. This was very interesting, not least because it was the first time I met students from 北京联合大学's program for deaf students. They were all extremely nice, and passionate about sign language.

 

Here's a video of one of my friends from there (please ignore the cheesy music):

 

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTE5NjI0MzA4.html

 

Unfortunately I've lapsed in my study of CSL since leaving Tsinghua and starting full-time work again. Hopefully I'll have time to get back to it at some point.

[Meng Lelan]

I will follow up with some comments...later. 

[Meng Lelan]

It's amazing how many Chinese movies I've seen that involve a deaf character. I always can tell the movie director doesn't know anything about the deaf because whoever acts the part of the deaf character does a lot of things that aren't realistic of true deaf behavior. 

 

I totally remember my first exposure to Chinese Sign Language in the 1980s. Nothing at all like American Sign Language. They gave me a book on CSL which I think may still have somewhere in my boxes in storage. True Chinese Sign Language has its own syntax, grammar, etc etc etc it is not word-for-word sign language that is signed Chinese. I knew I had become fluent in CSL when a deaf Chinese remarked to her friend "Wow look at Lelan's signing. ASL is exactly like CSL!" to which her friend obliged with, "Um...Lelan is signing in CSL. She's been here a long while."

 

If you want a real experience go to Beijing No. 4 School for the Deaf. What's really wild is hopping on the bus after school dismissal, packed full of signing deaf schoolkids. That was something. 

 

In the 1980s no one wanted to be around the deaf. Or the deaf were treated like zoo animals. That attitude has changed apparently because in 2011, I was on a Chinese airplane watching the obligatory safety video for takeoff, and the stewardess in the video spoke AND signed in Chinese. I was so stunned that I don't remember anything of that flight and almost forgot to disembark. Yet all the Chinese around me didn't seem like this video was anything out of the ordinary and carried on as usual. I guess they were blissfully unaware of how the deaf used to be regarded decades ago but I remember it all like yesterday. 

 

[Demonic_Duck]

There are still plenty of deaf people who've fallen by the wayside in modern Beijing, but they're generally older generations who never learned to sign or speak and presumably never received much of an education at all. You'll find them at roadside bike repair stands, mostly (and that's probably the lucky ones).

Interesting to hear how much attitudes have changed in the last few decades. I saw two signing 孙悟空s (strike a pose, pay a few kuai for a photo kinda thing) at 峨眉山, no-one batted an eyelid.

I was also surprised to see sign language used for the safety video on 川航 flights. However, they let themselves down by following up with an announcement about illegal activities in-flight which had Chinese-only audio and English-only text.