After returning from Zhengzhou I settled in my apartment on the 10th floor of the Longfor complex. 

I was excited to have a kitchen but none of the markets near my apartment had food American food. I decided to venture out to search for a Wal-Mart. I thought surely they will have some American food. Xuan had an important meeting in Beijing with CDPF (China Disabled Persons’ Federation) so I was on my own for the week.

I took the metro to Tomb Station which was about five stops. I needed to take the 209 or 234 bus since the store was too far from the metro. I had Wal-Mart set in my maps so I felt I could find it on my own. The 234 arrived and I got on.  I quickly realized on my maps that I was going in the opposite direction of the store. I got off at the next stop and started walking back towards the station. Finally, I arrived at the station, but on the opposite side of the freeway. I wasn’t sure of which bus to take or if it would take me in the right direction so I hailed a taxi and showed him the address. About 20 minutes later I arrived at the corner of a street that had a sign for Wal-Mart, but I didn’t see a building. There were steps leading down so I followed and realized the store was underground.

It definitely was as large as stores back in the US, but it didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t going to find any American food in Wal-Mart. There was some European foods so I bought some spreadable cheese, peanut butter and what appeared to be crackers. When I  finished my shopping I emerged onto the street. I had not planned very well, because I had not mapped my trip back to the metro. Luckily, I had taken a picture of the metro exit so I crossed the street and headed in the direction that I thought it should be, but the sidewalk seemed to end because of a large overpass, so I turned around and started to walk the other way. I walked for a while, tried to hail a taxi with no success. I saw some young teenage boys and thought I would take a chance that they knew a little English. I tried to ask them where the metro was, but they didn’t speak any English. I showed them the picture and they pointed back towards the overpass and motioned to keep going. So I turned back towards the overpass and walked in the direction the boys indicated. As I got to the area that I thought was blocked off I noticed a small walkway that actually went to a walking platform right under the overpass. I arrived at a large shopping area that looked very familiar, but I knew I was several stations away from where I lived, and from the only other area I had been in on the first day, Shapingba. I kept showing the metro picture to every police or security guard I encountered and they kept pointing me in the same direction the young men had indicated. Finally, I saw the metro sign and entered the station. I realized I had walked two stations from Tomb Station and was now 7 stations from home. I was in fact at the Shapingba station. I didn’t care. I was happy to be on the train and headed back to Weidianyuan.

During the week I had the opportunity to visit campus and speak to students. It was the first time to travel to the campus by my self. I tried to remember the shortcut that the student had taught me, a path through the trees. I remembered! I call it the snake path even thought I didn’t see snakes…it felt like a snake path.  It was National Teacher’s Week so the students gave me flowers.

I was asked by the University if I would give three presentations, one for faculty, one for graduate students and one for undergraduate students. I prepared a presentation on Rehabilitation Counseling in the U.S. for faculty but a few hours before my presentation it was cancelled.

The presentation to graduate special education students was focused on inclusive education, and the presentation to the undergraduate students was focused on employment of people with disabilities in the United States.

The presentation went well and students had many questions, mostly about the opportunities to study in the United States. It was a great week and I was happy to have had the time to get over jet lag.

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet a faculty member from the rehabiliation training program at the university. In China Rehabilitation is focused on speech training so i was able to share how in the US we have Rehabiliation Counseling which is focused on employment. We had a wonderful conversation and lunch at Hell’s Kitchen. I’m not sure what the smoking dish was but it tasted wonderful and was very spicy.  Chongqing Normal University is a beautiful campus and i am looking forward to meeting with leaders and other faculty on campus.

I arrived in Chongqing on Tuesday at about 1:30am, slept for a few hours, then met Dr. Zheng at 4pm to fly to Zhengzhou.

My first stop on my journey was Zhengzhou, China. Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan Province with a population of about 7 million.  We arrived very late and checked into the hotel. The hotel where we were staying often has important government officials stay there and when they do there is security checks to get through the gates. On this evening as we arrived the police stopped us for a blind security check. We all had to get out of the vehicle and show a passport or ID and hotel stay confirmation.

Finally, we checked into the hotel and got to our room. Such a soft bed….ahhhh. I slept like a baby.

The next day we went to Zhengzhou University to meet with Professor Meng who developed the first interpreter education program in China. China has less than seven interpreter education programs but only a couple teach “natural” sign language. The other programs teach signing exact Chinese (which would be similar to SEE in the US). Professor Meng wanted Dr. Zheng and I to meet a Hanzi, a deafblind girl, who is being supported with volunteers from the CSL program. Every week ten volunteers donate 1-2 hours to go to Hanzi’s house to teach her language. In China programs for deafblind do not exist. Hanzi was a delightful and cheerful young woman who said that her goal was to go to college. We visited for several hours then went to a local restaurant for lunch.

After lunch we went to the Gallery of the Silent. A center where deaf artist display and sell their art. Professor Meng wanted to support entrepreneurship and self-employment of deaf artist. This center was one of her visions for improving the lives of people who are deaf. Artist start at the center and once their work becomes well known they can then open their own businesses. It was a wonderful tour that ended in a traditional Chinese tea.

 

The next day we drove to Kaifeng Special Education School. When we arrived we were greeted by the staff and student with a performance. We spent the morning touring the school and learning about their program. In the afternoon we were able to meet with staff to talk about their approach and philosophy for educating the deaf.

On Friday we went back to the University for an all-day seminar on interpreter education. Some colleagues from the UK had arrived and we meeting with interpreter education students. The seminar focused on language development of hearing students wanting to become interpreters.

The three colleagues from the UK are all professors of sign language studies and are all deaf. It was really a challenging day moving between 5 languages: Chinese, English, CSL, BSL and ASL. After working with the interpreter education students we attended a preview of a new open online CSL program. Zhengzhou University has been working for several years to produce an online product that would allow anyone to learn CSL. They showed a preview of some of the lessons and asked for feedback from us as well as some folks from the deaf community. It was really good to see the work that China is doing to try to not only standardize but publize and advocate for learning CSL. Professor Meng has worked very hard to improve services and access for people who are deaf in China. Her dream is to have a deaf university modeled after Gallaudet.

We ended the day with a presentation on CSL poetry by Zhangpeng. His presentation was focused on how deaf culture and deaf art evolved in the United States. Although the presentation was completely in CSL I was able to understand his presentation because of being familiar with the context.

Zhangpeng shared how his own development of CSL poetry was inspired by deaf American artist like Ben Bahan. He also shared how Gallaudet University was the heart of deaf culture and deaf identity. For the 300 plus students that were there that night it was empowering. They asked a lot of questions about going to galluadet and studying there. Even though I didn’t understand everything being shared I understood enough to know it make a significant impact on the students who attend. It was a beautiful evening and I felt really proud to be part of the American deaf community.