The China-US Education and Development Forum for the Deaf was a full day of presentations plus an evening performance by students who were either deaf or blind. During the all-day forum we had several presentations given by our delegation. Kathy Johnson presented and told her beautiful story of how she found her way to China. She ended the presentation with giving everyone a white rose in which they held up to simulate a garden of roses. Leah Katz-Hernandez shared her story of growing up deaf and her experience working with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Terry Wilding presented on his experience being raised in a deaf family as well as his schools and program at Minnesota State Academies for Deaf and  for the Blind. Bakar Ali presented on the programs available to Deaf students at NTID, and Evon Black presented on programs available for Deaf students at Gallaudet. Dr. Zheng and I also presented on our Harkin Institute project, and Dr. Zheng shared her experience while living in the United States.

Reen is ready to interpret!

After a long day of presenting the group went to Chungchun University for an evening presentation. We would have never imagine such a beautiful performance by the students.

Eveyone was captivated by the performers!

The use of visual and spoken language with using hand signal to keep rhythm had me perplexed as to how they could follow the music. Definitely an area of performance we can learn from the Chinese.

Shawn was adorable interpreting the performance. I think the performers liked him too! They gave him flowers at the end of the performance. 💐

This was one of the performance that used hand signals to keep rhythm. There was a person at each corner of the stage and they were counting on one hand and keeping a beat with counts on the other hand. It was facinating!

The ASL and CSL interpreter together. I don’t know I think I will upgrade my interpreter wardrobe to include gold sparkles…😜

This piano performance was conducted by a student who is blind. There was a visual performance on the screen behind him that danced different colors and light to the sound of the music. It was so beautiful!

Another photo during the song performance by the student who is blind.

At the end of the evening all the performers honored Martin Esel, Kathy Johnson and our delegation on stage.

Back to the hotel for a dinner. Shawn is trying rooster head. 😮