How to say “excuse me” when passing through deaf people

March 14, 2009 in Deaf Experiences, deaf culture
Tags: deaf culture, Filipino Deaf Culture, MCCID, Tess Buenaventura

Let’s say there are a group of deaf people chatting down the hallway or any passage where there is no other access in going to the other side except passing through them. Now what would you do? How will you deal with it without being rude and respectful of their rights and feelings? Watch this short amusing yet reality video to find out.

What’s in a Sign Name? Second Part

February 2, 2009 in Deaf Experiences
Tags: deaf culture, deaf people, fingerspell, MCCID, sign name

Sign names play an integral part of being a deaf and belonging to a Deaf community. You are not “in” if you don’t have a sign name. It’s either you are an irrelevant person from the eyes of the Deaf or you are too significant that a special sign must be assigned to you. Here are what I observed:

Deaf education in the Philippines, my retrospect

November 10, 2008 in Deaf Experiences, Notable Filipino Deaf, Notable Filipino Deaf Institution
Tags: Aimee Coryell, Bible Institute for the Deaf, CAP College Foundation, Catholic Ministry to Deaf People, deaf culture, Dennis Balan, Ervin Reyes, IDEA Deaf, Julius Andrada, May Andrada, Mirana Medina, Philippine Association of the Deaf, philippine deaf education history, Philippine Federation of the Deaf, Philippine School for the Deaf, Rosalie Macaraig, Silent Odyssey, Silent Odyssey reaction, Teatro Silencio Filipinas, Wayne Shaneyfelt

Since our country is currently celebrating a week-long event making people aware about deaf and deafness, methinks it’s appropriate to share with you how deaf activities stirred up suddenly these past two decades. I’ll call this era the fourth wave borrowing the term coined by Dr. Liza Martinez and Mr. Rafaelito Abat in their research [...]

Disability or just culture thing?

September 9, 2008 in Deaf Experiences, Discrimination Issues
Tags: deaf culture, disability

I observed that when a deaf person is being laughed at or chided due to incoherent and often grammatically crazy English, they argued by saying, this is part of deaf culture. But when they don’t understand simple written instructions, they excuse themselves by saying they are disabled. We call this situation in Tagalog, “sala sa init, sala sa lamig” or “not fit for either hot or cold”. I am talking from my perspective of a Filipino deaf and not the Deaf in general.