Crocs And Birkenstocks: How Such "Ugly" Shoes Became So Trendy

Apr 09, 2024

Sign language services are relatively good in such Asian countries as Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Why do they lag in Hong Kong? An exploration of the island's particular circumstance

A volunteer translates in sign language for a live stream of Hong Kong Pride during the coronavirus Covid-19 epidemic outbreak, November 14, 2020, Hong Kong, China.

HONG KONG — In May 2020, Chung Chi Keung, a deaf man suffering from depression, committed suicide 16 hours after being discharged from Kwai Chung Hospital in Hong Kong.

In July 2023, the Coroner's Court held an inquest, revealing that the suicide risk assessment form had not been properly filled out, and that Chung hadn't had access to a sign language interpreter while in hospital, and was left to communicate there with only pen and paper.

The incident raised concern among Hong Kong's community of people with hearing impairments around the hospital's failure to provide timely sign language assistance, which had clearly created miscommunication.

The general public knows very little about sign language, as a language and a service. If they think that there is sufficient support for the deaf in this society, and that it is only negligence and individual failures that led to this tragic incident, this glosses over the real problem of insufficient service, and also oversimplifies the complex linguistic reality of sign language.

Singapore news media The Initium invited Shi Wanping, a sign language researcher at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Associate Director of the Center for Sign Language and Deaf Studies, to help share a basic understanding of sign language and some of the related issues.