Hanoi Deaf Association, Vietnamese Sign Language and Ethics

This week was by far my favorite week of service learning. I finally got to met the board of the Hanoi Deaf Association Monday night. Several of the board members know some ASL so I was able to communicate to them and have them explain parts of VSL to me in ASL. I learned so much in 1 night. There are also enough similarities between the two languages that I was able to reach a basic level of communication with the other board members. OH-I-SEE and UNDERSTAND are the same, and the VSL sign for SAME is like the old ASL version. That gave me the tools to ask questions and pick up new vocabulary. 

They invited me to their board meeting Tuesday night from 8:00-10:00 and one of the interpreters, Phoung took me there on her motorbike. Phoung's english is fairly limited but I still managed to learn a ton from her on the two motorbike rides. She said that the first deaf school in Vietnam was founded by a french man... which explains the similarities to ASL (the closest language to ASL is FSL). She is self taught in sign language; she learned by going to the board meetings just like I am doing now. Currently she teaches at a university about special education. She has two classes, one teaching sign language and one teaching oral methods of communication for the deaf. This is wild to me because in the US those two things are never taught in the same school... there is a deep ideological divide between the two.

The meting itself on Tuesday was fascinating. With only minimal help from Phoung I was able to understand the basic concept of the meeting. I got that they were discussing how to prioritize what to do with a new grant... if they managed to get one. They were debating spending the money on designing a website (they don't currently have one), funding more classes to teach VSL, buying a small laptop and something else I couldn't understand. It was so cool because the grammatical structure was similar enough that I could tell when they were talking about money, when they were ordering/prioritizing things and when they were asking questions/ debating things. I also really liked watching just how intense the conversation was... the same way conversations with large numbers of people signing can get at home. Only one person can really be "heard" at a time so a lot of time was spent shifting people's attention to new speakers in the conversation. I almost laughed when one guy was saying "LOOK-AT-ME, LOOK-AT-ME because it felt so similar to some of my deaf friends back home. 

On the other hand there was a ton I couldn't understand and a ton of signs that have different meanings in the two languages. My head was spinning by the end of the conversation because I kept on getting strings of gibberish of what the signs would mean if they were in ASL. DIALOGUE... ASK... SAME ...DIMINISH... RAIN... L,L,L etc. kept on going through my head. Later I found out that the sign I was seeing as DIALOGUE meant LEADER and the sign I was seeing as ASK was club, RAIN was GRANT, LLL was STREETS and so on. I feel like as I learn more my headaches will decrease and I will cease getting such strings of gibberish running through my head.

I'm so excited. I'll also get to attend their weekly general body meetings which are intended to serve as a social group and a way to teach the deaf new vocabulary. It sounds like many of the deaf people in Hanoi only find out about VSL later in their lives so one of the main goals of the organization is improving language skills of its members.

The one thing I'm a little uncomfortable with ethically is that the Vice-President of the association asked me to teach him some ASL in exchange for help learning VSL. I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of teaching ASL because I'm not a native speaker, and in some ways it feels like cultural imperialism. Furthermore there have been alot of problems in the US with people who don't really know sign language teaching it and mangling the language. However I like the idea of being able to contribute something, especially given just how welcoming and accommodating the organization has been to me. I also really respected the reasons the Vice President wanted to learn ASL. First he often runs into deaf people from the states and would like to be able to communicate with them and show them around Ha Noi. Second he wants to be able to access the wealth of information about deaf rights in ASL. Deaf rights here (and rights for disabled people in general) are very different then in the states and he would like to be able to learn from the experience of the deaf community in the US.

I'm got to thinking however after the Tuesday meeting that there could be another less ethically uncomfortable way for me to give back to HDA. When they were discussing creating a website their major concern was that hiring a website designer would use up all of their money. I was thinking that maybe I could use blogger to at least create a rudimentary website for them. I could create two interlinked blogs, one in VSL/Vietnamese and one in ASL/English. I could video them signing the information they wanted on their website and then translate it into ASL/English for the other blog. The blog would give them a way to increase awareness of Deaf issues both here and in the US and allow new members to find them. Then when they start an actual website they could simply borrow the material from the blog and place it on their new website.

One other thing that I realized during the week was the stark difference between Disabled People of Hanoi and the Hanoi Deaf Association. DP Hanoi has a nice fancy office and while it claims to receive little government funding, it still receives some. HDA on the other hand has a tiny office that could barley fit the board members and me. DP Hanoi had three permanent computers and laptop. HAD had one computer and the Vice President brought his own laptop to the meeting. DP Hanoi had a website and wifi... HAD didn't etc. etc. Really interesting contrast... I'll be curious to learn more about why in the weeks to come.

Week two: Relationship

             I must confess I’m not sure quite what to write for this blog. So far I have only worked with two people within the DP Hanoi organization, and only for one day each so I have not had much time to establish any meaningful relationships. The day I worked with the vice president DP Hanoi I didn’t have much of a chance to establish a strong relationship for two reasons: the first was the business atmosphere of the organization and the second was the strong language barrier between the two of us. The first two hours I worked with the VP were spent editing translations (see my last post) and very little was said other then what was necessary for the extremely difficult work we were doing. After we finished the editing we did get to talk a little but because of my inability to speak Vietnamese and the VP’s limited English skills we had a hard time getting past basic questions like what I studied and where I came from. However Tina and Vi later told me that she didn’t even quite understand what I studied because her Vietnamese translation of my major to her colleagues had more to do with economics (which I don’t study) then political science. Perhaps the strongest indicator of a lack of a real relationship between the two of us is that I don’t even remember her name.  I did get to learn that she got into the field of disabled rights through working with the government agency concerning construction. It was there that she learned about bout making physical spaces more accessible. She even went on a trip to Washington D.C. to study accessibility right in the US.

            The second day I worked with the head of the Teng Sung association learning how to make mosaics. Bac Ky, the head of the Teng Sung association seemed like a really nice guy. He spent the first part of our visit telling us about his involvement in the war and how he became disabled by a landmine. I found his relationship to his country to be quite interesting. While he seemed to quite proud of his participation in the war (he made a point of telling us why the Vietnamese won against the Americans), he seemed critical of the lack of disability compensation for veterans like himself. He told a story of how he met an American soldier after the war with similar disabilities to him and explained how the American soldier received a monthly salary form the government while he did not. One interesting aspect of my relationship with Bac Ky was the way he viewed my ethnicity. After he went around asking the ethnicities of all the other UC students in the room he turned to me and made some comment, which Anh Thai translated as “Oh, a true American”. This disconcerted me somewhat as all the other UC students were born in the US as well, and while they may have lived in other countries before are as much American as I am.  He also spent most of the time he was talking looking directly at me rather then at Vi or Tina who could actually understand what he was saying. This was particularly pronounced every time he said the word Mỹ. As Mỹ was one of the only words he said that I could understand this was particularly noticeable to me.

As weird as this experience made me feel it didn’t stop me from really enjoying learning how to make mosaics. Bac Ky showed us how he lined up the tiles and coordinated colors to make a frame. We then arranged and glued down the tiles on two pictures. Later he showed us how to cut tiles in half—a difficult process done entirely by hand. He was extremely friendly and helpful the whole time. It was clear he was passionate about his artwork and that he really enjoyed showing us how to do things. I was quite surprised that he let us each cut a tile seeing as we each wrecked a tile and they cost 1000 dong a piece. I do wonder where he gets the money to buy his supplies and what percent of the money he earns from them go back to the organization. I tried to ask him how long it took him to do a mosaic but he said that he mainly just does them in his free time between DP Hanoi meetings so he didn’t really know.

Bac Ky

Making the Moasics

Day Two: Editing Translations

Have you ever looked at something translated from another language like a chip bag or a website and thought that with a little editing it could be so much better? I've certainly thought that given a few minutes I could easily fix the minor grammatical errors that occur in translation. In some cases this is the case. Take for example the following excerpt from the DP Hanoi website:

"Hanoi Disabled People Association (DP Hanoi) was established by the decision No. 266/QĐ-UB dated 16th January 2006 of the chairman of Hanoi People's Committee. The officially first General Assembly in order to establish DP Hanoi was organized on April, 12th 2006 and the second was on April, 12th 2009. DP Hanoi is a social organization of the disabled in Hanoi City area, who come from any background, ethnicity, religion, gender, social status, causes of disabilities, and who are voluntarily willing to participate in any activities of the disabled and for the disabled."


It took Mary and me only a few minutes to correct it to roughly the following: (I had to reproduce our edits from memory because they were saved on one of the organizations computers... Mary and I did a better job originally)


The Hanoi Disabled People Association (DP Hanoi) was established by decision No. 266/QĐ-UB on January 16th, 2006 by the chairman of Hanoi People's Committee. The first general assembly to establish DP Hanoi was held on April, 12th 2006, with the the second on April, 12th 2009. DP Hanoi is a social organization for the disabled in Hanoi City area, which welcomes individuals from any background, ethnicity, religion, gender, social status or causes of disability, who are voluntarily willing to participate in any activities by and for the disabled.


However, once we launched into the real editing work with the Vice President of DP Hanoi I realized that tons of work had already been put into these few sentences. Over the next two hours or so Mary and I worked in close collaboration with the VP of DP Hanoi to translate and edit 3 short paragraph news articles -- roughly 12 sentences. Yes, that's a rate of 6 sentences per hour. 


So what took so long? Turns out translating things into english requires a really complex knowledge both of English grammar and of the actual situation your writing about. We spent approximately 20 minutes establishing the relationship between 4 organizations to determine where to place the organizations in the sentence. Was the Me Linh Disabled People's Association established with permission from the Ha Noi People's Committee or the Me Linh People's Committee? What organization was the mobilizing board associated with? Eventually we produced the following sentence:


With assistance from the Hanoi Disabled People's Association and the Me Linh People's Committee, the Mobilizing Board for the Establishment of the Me Linh Disabled People's Association received permission from the Hanoi People's Committee to establish the association. 


Basically my point in telling you all of this is editing translations is hard work with real genuine challenges. Afterwords my head felt like it had been through a nước mía machine (sugarcane juicer). I really hope that the work we did today goes to real use and that someone who reads it feels motivated to learn more about the association and the life of disabled people in Hanoi. 

Week 1

This first week of service learning was a rather frustrating experience. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to be able to work with the deaf association I at least hoped that I would be able to contribute in some form. Maybe edit English translations or clean the office or something. Instead it turned out to be a meeting discussing what the other four UC students who are volunteering would be doing over the next few months. The whole experience was a true exercise in patience and an introduction into just how difficult communication could be with this organization.

I spent most of the time sitting while Anh Thai spoke to the head of the Teng Sung association in Vietnamese. Occasionally bits of information were translated, but I felt like much more was discussed then was translated. It makes me a bit nervous for when I actually start working with the deaf association. I learn signed languages easily enough, but before then communication could be pretty rocky. I guess in some ways my experience was like that of a deaf person having one of their family members or friends translate for them. Without a professional translator you just feel like you are missing so much information.

However I did learn some interesting things from the meeting. The organization was founded with help from a Danish organization. While the brochures and website all talk about equal access and disabled right, the main goals of the organization seem to be rebuilding the esteem of the disabled people and giving them some way to contribute to their family. For example one of the main programs is that members produce handicrafts, which are then sold to bring income to the disabled people and their families. However when I asked about making homes more accessible for disabled people they didn’t seem to understand. This seemed odd considering that many of their members were bedridden (whereas I’m guessing that people in the US with similar disabilities would not be). I have a feeling that this disconnect comes from language in their brochures being borrowed from the Danish association.

I don’t know much yet about what the deaf association does, but hopefully I will find out Monday. I’m hoping that next week I will be able to actually be useful or at least learn more about how the organization is run and what it does.