In the opening scenes of Adam Wong’s The Way We Talk (看我今天怎麼說), deaf children are being taught in a specialist school but are prohibited from using sign language to communicate with each other. The teacher, who does not sign, reprimands them severely insisting that they must speak to her. Her harsh and authoritarian approach is akin to that taken by colonialising authorities insisting that children must speak their language in an attempt to wipe out that which is spoken in their homes and among their families in a concerted attempt to weaken the bonds of their communities. The teacher claims she’s doing this for their own good, as do some of the children’s parents, because they believe that they will not be able to live “normal” lives if they cannot speak and that signing weakens their ability to do so.
Of course, this is also motivated by internalised ableism and the stigma surrounding disability. Bella lost her hearing following a childhood illness and received a cochlear implant at an early age. Her mother did not want her to learn sign language because she believed doing so would set her back but instead forced her to listen to lines from television dramas multiple times, beating her with a coat hanger when she failed to repeat them with perfect pronunciation. Her prejudice is later exposed when she discovers that Bella has begun learning to sign as an adult, asking her if she wants to be like “one of those deaf people”.
Bella had internalised a degree of this stigma herself, receiving financial aid as a kind of poster girl for an organisation promoting cochlear implants for whom she gives what is an incredibly insensitive speech in which she remarks that she believes that thanks to technology like this there will one day be no more deaf people in the world. Later she tries to use the sign language she’s learned in one of their videos but is quickly told off. The way the videos are framed presents the use of cochlear implants as a path towards a “normal” life, the point being that wearers could communicate in a way they describe as “normal”. If they were also signing it would imply that implants didn’t work and people wouldn’t buy them. In a later and even more insensitive ad, Bella is pictured with a caption that says the implants restore “joy and colour” to the wearer’s world as if the lives of deaf people were somehow colourless or devoid of joy.
It’s being called out for these unexamined views that gives Bella pause for thought on encountering Wolf, a tempestuous young man who refused a cochlear implant and is determined to preserve the existence of sign language which is after all his mother tongue. Wolf is frustrated by the march of technology. At Bella’s conference, he’s annoyed by the organisers who tell him they’ve cancelled the sign language interpreter because the captioning machine is good enough while appearing indifferent to his objection that they’ve removed the ability for a deaf person to ask a question. He isn’t against the use of cochlear implants for those who want them, like his friend Alan, but is also determined to preserve deaf culture through the preservation of sign language.
Alan, meanwhile, has swung in the opposite direction and agrees that speech is essential for integration into mainstream society without really considering that it’s the society that should change to become more inclusive rather than forcing everyone to conform with it. Having been repeatedly turned down for employment, ironically in one case at least because she didn’t know sign language, Bella begins to feel that her dream of becoming an actuary is eternally out of reach. Though she’s secured a job at a high profile company, she feels as if she’s a diversity hire, essentially exploited while the company uses her to improve their image as a caring employer but only ever has her doing busy work as if they don’t trust her with anything important. Her mother had always pushed her to be “normal”, as if her deafness were something shameful to be concealed but it becomes clear that living this way places her under a lot of pressure while she may be more comfortable with communicating through sign language which affords her the freedom to express herself without constraint.
Crucially, the point is that Bella should have the choice to use whichever communication style she likes or all of them together rather than being pushed towards that which best suits a hearing society. Those in charge of decision making often claim they’re acting in the interests of inclusivity, but more often than not their decisions are influenced by a desire to cut costs such as relying on AI captions rather than paying an interpreter. Wolf’s dream of becoming a diving instructor is dealt a blow when the Hong Kong diving agency refuses to allow him to take the exam without a qualified deaf diver to interpret, only there obviously aren’t any because they’d all have been in the same position. With a gentle empathy, Wong exposes the petty prejudices of the hearing society but equally reveals the path towards the claiming of an identity among a strong and vibrant community.
The Way We Talk screened as part of this year’s BFI London Film Festival.
Original trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 