Deafness no obstacle for a girl who has dreams
Print Edition
Zhou Jiayi, a young woman who lost her hearing when she was just three days old, has been received at the White House, hosted a solo painting exhibition, and has two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree to her name.
Her mother worked ceaselessly to ensure that Zhou would lead a full life despite her disability.
Learning Chinese is fraught with difficulties for deaf people for obvious reasons. Written Chinese doesn’t present any problems but spoken Chinese is very colloquial and may jump from one context to another. The inability to hear is a major disadvantage.
Zhou recalled, using sign language, that when she was at primary school, she took the Chinese character of “blood” for “red water popping out of the hand” when she was writing, which made her distressed mother force her to write a letter as practice every day. She practiced mail writing for five years and that has become one of her ways to learn the language. The 1,825 mails she wrote in those five years also laid a solid foundation for her studies in art.
In the early summer of 2004, Zhou graduated from Shanghai Institute of Technology and went to the United States to study. She spent nine years to earn a bachelor’s degrees from Washington DC’s Gallaudet University in graphic art, art and art design major as well as a master’s degree in international development.
In Zhou’s room, on her bedside table, there are a set of nine photos of herself taken from when she was 7 years old to her university days.
She said that before she studied art she didn’t like to communicate and didn’t smile. But once her studies began, smiles returned to her face.
“I should remind myself from time to time to cherish life,” she said.
Also beside her bed is a piece of paper and a pen. Zhou says the inspiration for her art comes in her dreams. Each time she wakes up, she will note down or draw the images in her dream.
“Since we cannot get rid of disability, why not create a kind of ‘incomplete beauty’,” she said and she added that she can use sign language, graphs, texts and colors to express her understanding and perception of nature, society and life.
Zhou’s works were selected for an art exhibition with the title “A Vision that Smells of Soap.” She has also held solo exhibitions in Hong Kong, Boston and Washington, DC.
One of her art works representing the inner voices of deaf people was collected by the US consulate in Panama.
“In my childhood, I naively thought that there are no deaf foreigners overseas, so I wanted to go overseas at that time,” Zhou said, “After I went abroad, I know that there are also deaf people there but I learnt a phrase from them — ‘We still have a dream’.”
After going to the US, Zhou realized many dreams. She became a student representative invited to the White House to attend a poetry, music and reading event hosted by President Barack Obama. During an interaction session, Zhou told Obama in sign language that she supports him and Obama replied that he loved her.
Zhou received a World Deaf Leadership Scholarship in 2008, the first Chinese student to do so, and was also invited to give speeches in Japan and Vietnam as a “leadership scholar” in 2012.
Zhou has also been invited to work as a sign language interpreter at the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters Conference between international sign language and Chinese sign language. She increased the amplitude of her sign language gestures to make conference participants see more clearly. Each day after interpretation, her hands ached but she was happy that her efforts were worthwhile.
After studying in the US, Zhou has another dream: to promote deaf culture in China both in artistic form and teach Chinese deaf people to learn sign languages from other countries or teach foreigners to learn Chinese sign language via Skype.
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