Reflection on the fake interpreter at the Nelson Mandela

Headlines in the UK have recently reported the bizare story of a fake sign language interpreter during the Nelson Mandela memorial.

I feel news has already covered many topics on this recent news. I'm not going to contribute to any speculations on who the interpreter is or anything about the secruity breach.

No, I am more interested in the response by the audience. Here are some facts.

• Despite the news story being relevant to a Deaf community, no subtitles are features on the relevant videos related to articles found on large news sites.
• During a radio interview, the interviewer asked the Deaf community to phone and give their views.
• Sign Interpretation has been given a spotlight. More people have become aware of sign interpreters.

 I feel perhaps, if any good can come of this, there should be a movement to give more access to a minority of people. The Deaf communicate in many different ways. In the UK, there is the technology. Sign interpretation and subtitles should be available for the Deaf.

Jenseits der Stille - Beyond the Silence, a German Film.

I've been meaning to watch the film for a while, as I found the basic concept interesting. Jenseits der Stille or Beyond the Silence centres around a hearing child that grows up with two deaf parents. It begins in a small German town, where there are no professional interpreters nearby and both parents never learnt how to speak. Deafness is a keen theme in the film, as well as the use of sign language. But the main core is the concept of Music, as the hearing child grows with a love of playing the clarinet.

There was some interesting scenes that would repeat throughout the film, such as the deaf father looking at the window and asking his daughter what it sounded like outside. This helped emphasis the change of scene and was well conducted. There are other scenes that repeat too, and overall I have to comment on how artistic Beyond the Silence is. There is plenty of dancing, including in the best scene of the film where the song 'I will survive' started to play, which was an incredible mix of sign language and sound. Constantly, there is beautiful background music which only on occasion stops into silence which is bold and dramatic.

There is a mix of tragedy, love and romance which has a neat balance. The romance is especially well portrayed and easy to understand. There is one or two romance scenes that are nude but remain artistic. There is also a lot of skinny dipping for reasons I never really followed........

A few things were a little sudden and the plot didn't convince me completely. The father's personality and motives was not clear and while the script said he was against the child playing her clarinet, he never really said it himself, it was more the girl being a little angsty and a bit jumpy.

But as characters, each character was great and had some good depth. I liked how 'real' they seemed to be - no one looked overly beautiful like a model, each seemed like a person that could exist in everyday life. There was also mini sub plots for example, between the father and his sister, and the aunt and the uncle. This was good and made a good story altogether. 

Overall, this is an interesting film to watch for the curious and there is a lot of style in the film. I enjoyed it. However, it's not for everyone and I do not think it would have decent rewatch value.

Points wise...

The Plot: +5 Points

The Quality of Drama: + 8 Points

Music/Settings/Charisma of the film: + 10 Points

The Characters: + 10 Points

Cheese: 0 Points

Bonus Points: +5 for topic, +3 for particually excellent scenes

This film scores 43 points, equal to four stars.

A tired nonsense post.

Firstly, I apologise for this post. Tiredness and I have been cheating on life for quite a while, so while I will try to be coheriant in writing, I may occasion drift and lose the strength to guard grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. So conclusively, bare with me!

But on the upside, things have been moving along quite nicely. I've finally got round to reading The Time Traveller's Wife and The Other Hand. I enjoyed both books, but I found The Other Hand best written and more gripping. (I'll write reviews later.) I've started reading "Jpod" by Doulas Coupland, which is a very weird humour book. It's kept me entertained though. I'll also probably try to read a couple of others on a go, it makes it easier to read more sad or serious stuff when I have a crazy wacko humour book to read now and then to dilute things a bit.

My appetite is a bit screwed again, but I'm trying to eat more, again. Maybe I'll talk about recipes I followed in future posts.

I've been volunteering for a charity dedicated to raise awareness for hearing loss and the deaf commuinity [among many other related things] which has been great. Funnily enough, there was a strange coincidence today. I was an event in Bristol, and I was introduced to a particular lady who was responsible for managing events in the South East of London. That includes East Anglia, where I'm from. We were talking, and she mentioned she was doing an event in my hometown, on the Monday when I'm actually home. So... I'll be helping out there too. It is strange. I could have passed this opportunity to get involved with the charity in the first place. I could have let myself sink further down to a pool of anxiety and depression. But that one time I didn't has lead to some pretty good things. Of course, it's not always that simple. And if it was a matter of myself simply deciding not to feel down then the game of life would be much easier.

I also met a man who is very good at sign language, and combines it with religion.
Oh, religion and deafness is also what I really want to do for my third year dissentation. I've decided that writing a novel for marking in a short time is not for me. I'll still do creative writing, but I really want to get involved with research within the study of religion, especially with a sociological perspective.

I imagine if I told my brother about all this, he'd find it quite a bit boring. But maybe he'll like me talking about the LARP game I was involved with Saturday, and another I will be involved in later this week.
 If I get enough sleep.

Speaking of which, adios!

Deafening by Frances Itani

I've finally finished reading "Deafening" after purchasing the book sometime in October. The book did not ask to be rushed, nor was strong enough to hold my interest for too long; yet I can happily reflect that it has been a generally good and worthwhile read.

 The main character in Deafening is a deaf girl called Grania, who grows up in the beginning struggling to fit in a family living in a hearing world. She has a talent for reading lips, and her grandmother Mamo encourages Grania to learn how to speak. Deafening is separated into five parts which allow for time skips and different themes. I found the first part was quite interesting, and enjoyed reading about Grania's family and Grania's childhood. Then came the second part of the book, and suddenly Grania has finished school and falls in love with a hearing man called Jim.

Too quick.

Grania grows up quite slowly at first, so it is rather strange that she is suddenly a woman and is in love. I liked the fact Grania was a strong character and very independent, so I was disappointed she was wooed so quickly. Jim on the other hand becomes more and more likeable in the book. From the second part onwards, he slowly becomes more and more interesting, as he joins WW1 and carries wounded soldiers on stretchers back and forth.

I understand that the book is a historical romance, but even so, romance shouldn't just happen like that, it should be developed. I think Frances Itani was keen on exploring deeper into the historical side of the genre, so goes into detail Jim's life during WW1, and his friends he works with. There is the emotion of fear, sadness and longing that Itani portrays well, but it's hard to believe that Grania can be so in love.

The finale of Deafening was probably where all the drama was waiting to orchestrate, and although it seemed quite rushed and sudden, the climax was overly well conducted. As the author's first novel, I feel that Deafening by Frances Itani is quite the impressive read.

War of the Arrows (Film)

After a nice three days, I decided to end tonight watching a film. Out of the choice of the Sherlock film, and a Korean archy-warchy lots of fighting-y film, I decided to watch the one that was least likely to be watched by any friends coming over.

So I put the Korean DVD in the laptop.

War of the Arrows
Choi Jong byeong gi Hwal

This is a film about heroes. The main hero, Nam Yi, goes through a very traumatic childhood, (as every main hero tends to) and trains to be an archer/hunter kinda dude. It all goes well, and he gets pretty badass, until he decides to take to the bottle, starts camping out in the forest and visiting brothels. Then he's all pretty lame, until he finds a reason to live and fight. His sister and her partner is taken away by Chinese forces and sent back to China as slaves. Time to become an archer/hunter again, and fight the Chinese army despite being completely outnumbered.

What I like about the film is how the characters develop. Each main character have a turning point of absolute bravery, and would rather die standing.

Against a sword, even Nam Yi's sister isn't lame in this pretty macho film.

The enemy is pretty cool too, with their studded leather and similar, menacing haircuts. They have stronger bows, and swords. You really feel the effort Nam Yi has to go through, and his ordeals.

There were many small things I liked about the film for example, Nam Yi's consistent inventiveness, the focus on the bow as a weapon rather than the sword, the major, major references to Korean culture as it was back then, and the sign language dude in the enemies' army. He is pretty dang funky, has a lot of lines to sign and really impressed me. It was quite unexpected in this film.

What did get to me however was at the end of the film, I was getting too much of a House of Flying Daggers feel, though I won't spoil the ending!

The Plot: +7 Points
The Quality of Drama: +10 Points
Music/Settings/Charisma of the film: +9 Points
The Characters: +10 Points
Cheese: 0 Points
Bonus Points: +2 for fighting lady,
- 2 for cliché, - 2 for ending.

This film scores 34, equivalent to 3 and a half stars!

Ting shuo / Hear Me - Taiwanese Deaf Film

It is a rare opportunity to be able to watch an entire Taiwanese film perfectly dubbed. Now imagine the luck when I found a Taiwanese deaf film called "Ting shuo", or "Hear Me", completely subbed in English, available on Youtube. Of course, being interested in the Deaf Community, I had to watch it.

The film focuses on two sisters who communicate using sign language, and a boy, also fluent in sign, who fancies the younger girl. It is a tale of romance, while addressing top issues within the deaf community and the outside world. Only parts of the film are spoken, so the emotions and signing the characters display and show are the main medium for storyline. 

As with many Taiwanese films, there is a heck of a lot of drama, and this is incredibly well done in Ting Shuo. The story is very touching, and beautiful. It manages on the whole to avoid cheese, though the extent of the guy's infatuation may seem a little creepy to other viewers. 

I would defiantly recommend this film to others.

The Plot: +10 Points

The Quality of Drama: +10 Points

Music/Settings/Charisma of the film: +10 Points

The Characters: +10 points

Cheese: - 2 Points

Bonus Points: +3 for humour, +5 for topic

This film scores 46 points! Equal to 5 stars!

Samuel Heinicke, the "Artifical Method" and Deafness

For a couple of months I have been interested in writing fiction with a deaf main character, and for even longer, I have been interested in learning BSL. But the more I research, the more I realise how little I know about the world of deafness.

Take the "Artificial Method", also known as the "German Method", for teaching Deaf students how to communicate with the power of speech. According to an extract, 'It takes a much longer time to educate the pupils by this system than by any other methods, and more painful to the efforts on the part of the pupil. Indeed in many cases it is so painful to the poor deaf-mute as to cause blood to issue from the mouth.' Canadian Illustrated News, August 1st, 1874.

This method is thought to have been refined and made popular by Samuel Heinicke, a man who
rejected the inheritance of his farming background and eventually opened a school that specialised in teaching deaf children. Samuel Heinickke sought to use a logical, systemanic approach, inspired by earlier European oral advocates and teachers, Amman and Baron van Helmont. (Margret A. Winzer 1993)

The school still runs in Germany. Although the school itself taught language to the deaf in various ways including sign, reading and writing, he claimed "It is only by learning articulated speech that a deaf person gains position in a hearing society” (Eriksson, p54). This method opposed the system of instruction in Paris, created by Épée, who was keen to focus on sign language. This can be understood further in his 'L'instruction des sourds et muets par la voie des signes méthodiques.' The instruction of the deaf and dumb by the sign method, 1776.

Admittingly, I had no idea about the Artifical/German Method and still know very little about it. A quick search reveals that he sometimes used the senses of taste to help bring this about, but I think I'm going to look into this a little more later.

I'm also reading "Deafening" by Frances Itani, which focuses on a main character who is deaf, and uses the "Artificial Method" amongst other methods of communication. May do a book review later.

Further Information:
- Samuel Heinicke was inspired by a book called "Surdus loquens," or "The Speaking Deaf," which was explained how a European doctor taught the deaf to speak.
- http://lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/heinicke-samuel.htm -- Interesting introduction with a good bibliography for broadening research.

Recommended reading:
The History of Special education: From Isolation to Intergration by Margret A. Winzer, 1993.

Updated 2nd of Jan, 2013.