Mélange Accessibility for All Magazine October 2022 | Page 60

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Interpreting for Deaf Chinese in South Korea
What was your first job and what was interesting about it ? I remember my first job was helping my father in his paint shop when I was a young girl . One day a customer came in and wanted a specific color of paint that was on the shelf behind me . I nervously grabbed it and said with both my voice and sign language , “ Baba ! How much ?” Father replied with two fingers up . I quickly looked at the customer and said , “ Two yuan !” and put my palm out . The customer smiled widely and quickly paid for it . It was one of my fondest memories working in my father ’ s shop because I felt so proud for making a sale for baba !
Why did you want to come to America ? I have always aspired to come to America because I have heard a lot of stories about Deaf people going into higher education like the famous Deaf university , Gallaudet University , in Washington , D . C . During my youth , Deaf people were not allowed to go into higher education , and I have always yearned to learn as much as
I can . One day , when I was 20 years old and attending Beijing Union University as a student , I met Dr . Kathy Johnson while accomplishing her Ph . D . dissertation on Deaf people in China . I became more inspired to go to America after watching several of Dr . Kathy Johnson ’ s presentations about Deaf people in America . Unfortunately , life had different plans for me , with SARS spreading in 2003 , preventing me from being able to go . I met her again 20 years later when she recruited a Chinese Deaf research scholar for her