Volume 1 Issue 10 May 2551 www.discoveringdeafworlds.com
Enabling Awareness, Witnessing Breakthroughs Can you believe DDW has been on the road for seven months already?! We sure can’t believe it. A blink of the eye and this yearlong journey will have come full circle. Looking back at previous newsletters, we realize that much of our attention has been on the inspiring deaf people we have met, but we are just as often in the masses of hearing people…everyday and everywhere…on buses and trains, in restaurants and cafes, at youth hostels and temples, and so on. For example, we recently spent 72 hours in transition from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos with a group of sixty plus fellow travelers from twenty different countries, all hearing, except for Christy. With no means of easy escape from each other, we shared a bumpy, swervy, intense bus ride along the mountainside, 18 hours on a cramped, overbooked, standing-room-only slow boat down the Mekong River with the southeastern Asian sun beating down on us, and an overnight stay at a local farm village where the only available hostel had no electricity, questionable bed bugs, and a bathroom that made any public squat toilet more appealing.
What is DDW? Dave Justice and Christy Smith are traveling the world to learn and share stories of empowerment, inspiration, and connection between international Deaf communities. Discovering Deaf Worlds (DDW) is an opportunity to give deaf people worldwide a voice. For more information, photos, video logs, and newsletter stories, visit www.discoveringdeafworlds.com.
Aboard the slow boat to Laos where lifelong friends were made! Regardless of the conditions during this three-day journey, something magical happened: people who had no clue about the concept of a deaf “community” on day one were educating each other about deaf culture by day three. It often starts when someone approaches us drawn to our use of sign language, which stands out even in a room full of ten different foreign languages being spoken. We can feel the eyes watching us, and sometimes their heads even bob hypnotically, moving in sync with our signing hands. After we break the ice, the first question our new hearing friends almost always ask is, “So sign language is universal, right? That must be cool to know a universal language!” But of course, sign language is not universal. The roots of sign language, just like any verbal language, are influenced by culture and geography. For example, the sign for “Thank you” in Japan is adopted from the karate-chop-like gesture a sumo wrestler makes after winning his prize money, whereas in China, “Thank you” is signed as a fist with a bending thumb to represent the subtle head nod Chinese people use to acknowledge thanks in passing. BREAKTHROUGHS, continued on page 5 May 2551 1