I met up with Joo and another woman whom I had met the previous week at 약수역 and we hung out at a Dunkin Donuts for about half an hour chatting, while we waited for another guy to show up. The guy who we were waiting for is from China. He is ethnically Korean, but grew up in China because his dad moved there for work. So, apparently he came back to Korea to learn Korean Sign Language. I don't know his name either! He had a Chinese name and a Korean name, neither of which I remember...
my movie ticket
Anyhow, we headed over to the movie. The film was made by Deaf Media which I think is a production company... and the event was held in some sort of Community Center. I didn't really know what the movie was going to be about or what type of film it was going to be. Joo showed me the ticket and said that there were two parts to the film (documentary). The first was about deaf Koreans living in Japan. The second was about deaf communities in India and Nepal.
To give a tiny bit of background on the Japan documentary, there is a fairly large group of ethnic Koreans living in Japan, and some of their families have been in Japan for 3 or 4 generations (presumably after the war).
When I studied abroad back in the spring of 2008, we took a trip to Japan and while in Osaka - where the largest concentration of jae-il kyopos (재일 교포), as they are called lives - learned about the Korean-Japanese population and history. It seemed that although they're very much integrated into Japanese society and some even have Japanese names, most of them attend Korean school instead of a Japanese school. And even though their families have lived in Japan for generations, they are still not allowed Japanese citizenship and must maintain their Korean citizenship.
So, this documentary discussed the interesting situation the Korean deaf population in Japan is in. Many of them expressed that they feel they missed out on learning their Korean heritage and culture, as they could not attend Korean school and instead attended Japanese deaf schools. They don't know Korean Sign Language (although apparently due to the 35 year long Japanese occupation of Korea, KSL and JSL are 70% the same... However, Joo told me she couldn't understand what they were saying). In addition, the Japanese government wont provide them with any support or assistance, as they are not Japanese citizens, and the Korean government does not provide them with any because they are living abroad. So, they are kind of stuck in an odd state of limbo.
The second movie, about India, was a bit more interesting in my opinion, because the filmmakers traveled around the perimeter of India and into Nepal to explore and meet new people in various deaf communities. It was interesting to see the different signing styles used. Some of the people interviewed used American Sign Language, but most of them used British Sign Language (which is completely different from ASL) due to the British colonization.
The movie had no sound, everything was signed in either KSL, JSL, ASL, or BSL, and everything was subtitled in Korean at the bottom. I tried reading the subtitles but most of it was over my head and went by WAY too fast. Sometimes I got the gist of what they were saying, but Joo interpreted the entire movie for me into ASL so I could understand it. Whew. That was a lot of work for her!
After the movie, there was a Q & A session. We only stayed for a bit because we were hungry, but it was interesting how it was conducted. At the time we were there, they were discussing the first film, about Japan. So, they had the filmmaker, who is Korean, the MC, one of the Japanese-Korean people who was interviewed in the film, a Japanese Sign Language interpreter, and a voice interpreter. So, an audience member would ask a question, and the MC signed it so the audience could see it. While he was signing it, the JSL interpreter was interpreting the question into JSL for the movie participant, and then there was someone interpreting what was being asked and said into spoken Korean. Wow, talk about a lot of languages going on all at once!
L: audience member asking director a question, director, Japanese-Korean guy, JSL interpreter
Anyhow, after the film, the four of us went out to dinner. The Chinese guy and I kept trying to talk, but we had some serious communication issues because he didn't know any ASL and I don't know KSL. So, he was ask me something and I would sit there and thing and stare at him. Then I would ask him something and he would sit there and think... and then we'd laugh and give up. Joo and the other woman, who knows a bit of ASL, would also help us get our message across.
One of the questions he asked me was if I had a lot of friends. the sign for friend in KSL looks an awful lot like the sign for marriage in ASL, so I thought he asked me if I was married, to which I exclaimed, I'm only 22!
FYI the Chinese guy doesn't actually look sad, its just a bad picture of him...
After dinner, we went back to Dunkin Donuts and met another guy who was going to the movie, as there were two showings. He had lived in the States for a while 15 years ago, so he know a bit of ASL too. Man, I felt so monolingual... Sad. Americans are terrible compared to just about every other country...
Anyhow, the movie was an interesting experience, and more than that, trying to communicate with a variety of people with only a slight common knowledge of the same language was definitely a memorable experience!
HyeJung and me - she is going to the States to study in August
That night I slept over at Sarang's and the next day we went to her church to the deaf service because I wanted to say goodbye to people. After the service, we went out to lunch. Sarang knows a bit of ASL and a bit of BSL (she grew up in Indian), which know one there knew. But she did a pretty good job of communicating with people and HyeJung can read lips really well, so Sarang was talking to her in Korean. The majority of people at our table knew ASL, so most of the conversations were in ASL, although I did learn a few Korean signs. I just thought it was really amusing how many languages were going on at once in different modes of communication; KSL, ASL, spoken English and spoken Korean. If only I knew them all!
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