Of course, we all know that deaf people live everywhere. There is no Deafland from which these people originally came, and there is no Deaflanguage that they universally use. That said, deaf people are unique in their society, their culture, and their languages, and their concerns and appraisal for the place in which they live are gaining significant credence with academics the world over.

Being exposed to deafness from a very young age, my views on it are not conventional. Being a fluent user of British Sign Language has opened my eyes to a world that has so much depth, character, and willpower to survive, that deafness is never seen as a disability in my eyes. At least, in Britain, where things seem to be powering along at a pioneering rate (for once), that is now the case. And it was this exact point that got me thinking. What about that island on the other side of the earth, that place that I bang on about day-in-day-out, that place with such beautiful culture, heritage, language, that place that I covet so much? What is the outlook for deaf people there? Surely in a country so technologically savvy, conditions for deaf people are the same, if not better, than in the UK? What about their sign language: how does it look, does it work, in fact, is there one? In deed: what about deafness in Japan?

Estimations on the amount of deaf people living in Japan, as in the UK, vary greatly. Anything from 0.1% right through to 8% of the total population have been officially quoted (127,000 – 10.1m), and the problem lies with just one question: ‘what is deafness?’ Both medically and theoretically, this has been a hard question to answer, the result of which being that there is not just one definition. Also, the indicators of deafness are seemingly in abundance. You thought this was going to be easy, right..?

Some people prefer the medical definition: i.e. when that person cannot hear frequencies of a certain decibel, s/he is proclaimed as being deaf. Great, no problems so far. Some people prefer the dictionary definition: i.e. an adjective used to describe the lacking of hearing or having impaired hearing. Again, pretty simple to understand, right? Well, actually…wrong. You see, some people then take it a step further, preferring to disassociate those that are deaf, i.e. those with profound (or total) hearing loss, with those that are hearing impaired (i.e. those having some, but not total, hearing loss). With that in mind, are there then two groups of people, i.e. those with deafness and those with ‘hearing-impairedness’. And just to throw another spanner in the works, and perhaps the biggest spanner, actually; there are those people that then split out the deaf grouping into those that are deaf and those that are ‘Deaf’. This is perhaps the most controversial, and the least objective classification, however the logic is as follows: in this theory those described as being deaf are those that consider their deafness to be a biomedical condition, i.e. a lack/loss/deprived form of hearing, which impairs their everyday lives. Those described as being ‘Deaf’ however, are those that consider themselves to be first and foremost Deaf, over all other classifications, and would see themselves as subscribing to a societal, and cultural world in which Deafness is accepted, where the native language of the Deaf people of that country is used, usually sign language, and in which these people come together to share their views and opinions. The first, with the lowercase ‘d’ is seen by the second with the uppercase ‘D’ to be inferior, as they have not permitted themselves to move on from their condition and cannot move past the fact that they are disabled in some way.

Have I confused you enough, yet?

The main problem with all this is that different authorities and organisations use different theories and indicators to help drive everything from government policy, to benefits and rewards, to employment and jobs, to housing, culture, language, and even whether deaf people are permitted to drive or not. With all of these differing opinions and differing angles from which to make a case, you can therefore say without question that nobody has any clue whatsoever what deafness actually is. But why is that a big deal? And what has that got to do with Japan? Well, for that, my friends, I have to take you back to 1867…

You see at this time, a new and promising expert in the field of acoustics was on the scene. Born on March 3 1847, Alexander Graham Bell was in the midst of pioneering a brand new system of teaching the deaf, for that was what he was at the time; the invention came a little later, you see. Startled by the way in which his mother had gradually lost her hearing, Mr Bell was captivated by hearing loss. This caused him to become more involved in the field, and eventually, his theories on teaching the deaf were so celebrated that he managed to swindle a chance to go to the US and try out his hilarious concepts on the poor, unsuspecting children of deaf schools all across America.

You’re probably wondering: ‘why is Ryan being totally unpatriotic (again) by denouncing one of the most prominent, and potentially one of the most important technological inventors of our time, as a fool?’ Well, that one is certainly easy to answer…

His method was simple, and was not, in my view, particularly clever. It consisted of talking at a slightly higher than normal level, using everyday words of the English language, but he would position himself directly at the forehead of the person to whom he was talking, so that the sounds of his voice were being directly emanated through the receiver’s skull. This method had worked with his mother, therefore why would it not work with all deaf people? And with children of course, their minds were open to new things, so it would be easier with them, wouldn’t it? Well, actually…no.

You see, Mr Bell’s mother had lost her hearing over a lengthy period of time. Due to this, she had at one time been a fully hearing person, without any aural challenges at all. As such, she had been exposed to the spoken English language, as had her peers, through school and while she was growing up, therefore, she had a decent command of the English language before she couldn’t hear it anymore. Mr Bell therefore, was simply amplifying his voice by speaking nearer to her head, thus she was able to hear and understand the intonations of his voice without a problem and convert these into words with which she was familiar. Mr Bell then thought that this theory would work across the board, even with children who had been born profoundly deaf, had never heard a word of English, or seen one written down, and had absolutely no concept of sound. Over in the USA they used American Sign Language among themselves and their families, a language so distinct from spoken English that it was absolutely impossible for this method to work. Further to this, Mr Bell proclaimed that sign languages were not assisting in the method of learning spoken English, therefore he came up with a cunning plan: why not tie the hands of the deaf children behind their backs, or make them sit on their hands, so that they have no choice but to learn the spoken word. If they sign, we simply whack them with a cane. Now, there is absolutely no doubt at all that the method will work, right…?

Unfortunately, it was exactly at this time that the Tokugawa Shogunate, on its last legs and hoping for miracles basically, had sent the last of its envoys to Europe and America, to garner information about their teaching methods for children, in particular of course: yep, you guessed it…deaf children. The envoys quickly became aware of Mr Bell and his ludicrous methodology, and took his marvellous theories back to Japan, without haste. They had found something that was definitely working, they had seen it, and heard it, with their own eyes.

And, it would seem, so had many other people. Many medical journals began reporting ‘significant improvements in the understanding and production of the spoken word’. If it could work in England and America, then why not in France, Spain, Italy…Japan?

The unfortunate thing about all of this however, is that Mr Bell had quite clearly got the wrong end of the proverbial stick. Being a British Imperialist just prior to the turn of the last century, Mr Bell’s work was seen as gospel really without any proof at all. We had ‘conquered’ the world, we had infiltrated many countries and pillaged them of their culture and their heritage and made a stamp on the globe so big that people looked to us for all the answers. If we could do that with the Indians, or the Native Americans, or the Africans, or the Maori, or the Aborigines, then why couldn’t Mr Bell eradicate deafness too?

What this meant however was that, quite frankly, Mr Bell could have said that parachuting deaf children to the moon was a cure for deafness and he would probably have been believed. On top of that, to a certain degree, Mr Bell was not telling the whole truth. You see, when he went to America, he realised pretty sharpish that in fact his methods were not going to work quite as famously as he had planned. In fact, in some of the schools that he visited, the fact that the children were tied up from the moment they arrived to the moment that they left meant simply that not only could they not speak English, but they couldn’t use sign language either, and so all of their lessons began to suffer as they simply could not converse at all. Couple with that the fact that when his peers came around to see for themselves this amazing work that he was doing, as did the envoys sent by the Tokugawa Shogunate, he rearranged the classes so that only the ones who had not been deaf from birth, i.e. those who had had some concept of English prior to losing their hearing, were seen by them. This meant that an unbalanced representation of his work went on show, et voila, it looked absolutely like his methods were working. I ask you: have you ever tried to teach a blind person to see?

After the envoys had taken news of Mr Bell’s courageous efforts to teach the deaf back to Japan, there was a bit of a social revolution in America. You see, it seemed that the deaf children didn’t actually like being tied up, and more to the point, neither did their parents. As well as them, other experts in the field, those with half a brain it transpires, began to see right through Mr Bell’s dispassionate viewpoint on deafness and were more of the opinion that retaining the culture and the language of the deaf would be far more agreeable, and probably easier, if not a little more costly in the short term, to deal with. And so the ideas on deafness in America were reborn.

Back in Japan, the envoys had only just got back. Japan by this time was going through a Restoration, and their doors were firmly locked shut to radical new ideas, unless of course, you were a politician. And it didn’t matter either, as Mr Bell’s ideas were having marginal success, or at least that seemed to be the case. You see, in Japan, up until that point, teaching provisions for disability groupings had been nonexistent to say the least. Therefore when this new concept was introduced, seeing as it was a something whereas before there had been nothing, it seemed that improvement was being made. It would seem that Mr Bell’s legacy in the Land of the Rising Sun would stick like glue for many new moons to come…

So what about deafness in Japan today? Well, in terms of job seeking, all companies, by law, have to operate fair systems that promote equality and opportunities for all. Authorities currently state that a company must have at least a 1.8% ‘disability representation’ in order to meet guidelines, otherwise they will be fined. Of course, we all know of Japan’s staunch enthusiasm for work, and it is this attitude that has very much garnered a survival of the fittest mentality. In terms of benefits to any given company, of course this is not a bad thing, and in deed for the individual it ensures that they are developed as far as possible. With regard to so-called disabled people however, this means that instead of a company hiring the quota needed to stay fine-free, many of them opt instead to employ ‘normal’ people, pay the fine, and so the amount of room left in which deaf people can get a footing on the career ladder is ridiculously squeezed. Once out of work, it is then very hard to get back in, and so the cycle becomes worse and worse. The government’s role in this process is unclear, and there have been instances that show that the government has actively encouraged this practice, though this of course, has never been proved.

All that said, however, I do realise that I may be banging on like there is absolutely no hope for deaf people in Japan, like their culture and heritage and language have been cast off into the abyss, never to be seen again. This of course, is most definitely not the case, but again, the happiness and healthiness of deaf people depends largely on what you classify deafness to be.

You see, deaf people have this knack for finding each other. It’s fascinating to witness. Like ants building a nest, they just make it work, and nearly always they are brought together by language. In Japan, this is no different.

Japanese Sign Language, or 手話・shuwa (literally ‘hand talk’) is a vast and uncompromising language used by a significant proportion of deaf people in Japan. Studies into sign languages across the globe have revealed, much as you may imagine, that the majority of signs within sign languages are based on creating a pictorial representation of an idea. So, for example, the sign for 自転車・jitensha (bicycle) in JSL is made by moving your fists in circles in front of your body, to represent feet pedalling a bike. However, what is more interesting is that studies into JSL have found that it is a much richer, and more diverse language, than its western counterparts, such as British Sign Language (BSL), French Sign Language (LSF), or American Sign Language (ASL) because many of the signs are based on kanji, which in turn were originally derived from pictures or images of concepts themselves. That said, a significant minority of the signs are simply arbitrary, i.e. they do not denote anything, much in the same way that the word ‘grass’ does not tell you anything about its colour, or what it is. Why all this is so amazing however, is that when JSL is used correctly, it creates a vivid and instantly understandable interpretation of the meaning that is being conveyed, and for that reason is possibly one of the most descriptive and user-friendly sign languages on the planet.

For Japanese deaf people therefore, they have a language that allows them to communicate about their world much better than any spoken language. They are able to understand concepts, and describe situations with such intensity and detail that you would think that they are not just communicating, but drawing a masterpiece. Much of this is down to the grammar, the way in which the language is built, if you like. With spoken languages, one word has to follow another, so the languages are pretty linear, and you have to almost wait until the end of a sentence before you know what is being said. That means that they all must follow a pattern in which there is a subject, an object and a verb, but not always necessarily in that order. With sign languages, grammar is based on placement, and it is where you sign the signs, rather than in what order you sign the signs that denotes whether your grammar is up to scratch or not. In this way, you create a picture of the event that you have experienced, and instantly the receiver is there with you.

For spoken languages also, they are absolutely full of redundancies, i.e. we do not need the words ‘the’ or ‘a’ or ‘of’ or the verb ‘to get’ (this verb can always be replaced with another verb, so why does is exist?), or a whole host of other words in order to make ourselves understood, however we include them anyway. When I first started learning Japanese, after finally managing to conquer French and Spanish to a fluent level, I almost jumped for joy when I realised that verbs in Japanese only conjugate for tense, i.e. past tense and non-past tense, and not for person, i.e. 食べた・tabeta is ‘I ate’, ‘you ate’, ‘he ate’, ‘we ate’ etc; I could have kissed somebody! That said, there are still redundancies to be seen: you can quite easily get by without particles は・wa (ha), が・ga and を・o (wo), but when speaking politely, we use them anyway. For JSL, redundancies are simply not an issue, as none of these parts of speech are important in a visually-based language; JSL basically says: ‘who cares what the subject is, or the verb, or the object?’ Every single sign has to compliment the picture that is being created, so ‘the’ or は simply have no place.

So how easy is JSL to learn? Well, without an interrupted education, it’s at about the same level as learning Spanish. (For those of you who have never learnt a language, Spanish is usually considered one of the easier romance languages to learn, mainly due to the fact that everything sounds as it is spelt and any irregularities are easy to spot, and generally are few and far between.) That said however, education for deaf people in Japan has not really changed that much since the Tokugawa Shogunate laid their grubby hands on Mr Bell’s ‘approved theories’, therefore although Japan is home to many deaf schools, and even one deaf university, many children are still encouraged not to use sign language, and in some instances, sign language is still totally forbidden in class (less the ropes and shackles, of course). This means that deaf children are not experiencing a full education, and when they should be learning history, geography or science, they are actually just struggling with how to speak Japanese. It’s almost like being taught English as you were growing up as a child, and then going to school only to find that everybody speaks Mandarin.

As in many countries, there is more than one form of signed language in Japan. All of the others, apart from JSL however, are man-made constructions designed to assist children with all manner of disabilities, and are therefore not fully-fledged languages in their own right. They do not have the extensive lexical and grammatical elements of JSL and therefore they do not function properly as a language. Further to this, successive governments have failed to realise that there is a distinction between them and JSL, and therefore they label everything that is a signed language as JSL. This means that JSL is still not a recognised language of the nation, much like ASL is in the USA, and BSL in Britain, meaning that the entrenchment that children face in the classroom simply worsens.

I have loved Japan for many years now. I love its culture, its heritage and its people, more than I ever thought possible. Apart from way back at the beginning when I was blinkered by the bright lights of Tokyo, never once have I been under the illusion that the Japanese were perfect, that they were somehow this super-race, with this super-language, living on this super-island. That said though, when it came to systematically failing a significant proportion of the population, never did I think that it would be possible in Japan. Of course, it is not all doom and gloom, and there are in deed glimmers of change on the horizon, where the revolutions that occurred in America in the last century may just about permeate Japan in this one. Princess Akishino is a huge advocate for the deaf, and has been documented giving conferences in JSL many times. There is now whole television programmes devoted to ‘deaf topics’ presented by JSL users. But as with everything else, Japan has a history so deeply intertwined with homogeneity, that opening up to deafness is going to be a struggle. Whereas the argument about whether deafness is a condition or a culture has been raging in the Western world for decades, a century even, in Japan, it hasn’t even started, and it pains me to admit, that for once, Japan is not advanced in its viewpoint. That said, with a change of power comes a change in opinion, or at least, that is the suggestion by the DPJ, so maybe now, at last, the deaf will have a voice.

* Intro drawing by Shawn Feeney.

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