Found In Ceylon

Fiduciary Privilege and Serendipity

It was last May when “Hong Kong” suddenly entered our daily Sri Lankan Sign Language vocabulary. I was talking with Naizer, the president of the deaf association in Matara, when he said something about a new five-year scholarship for deaf people to study flowers.

Because agriculture is part of the school curriculum in Sri Lanka, this struck me as not such an odd thing. Still, I pressed: “Flowers?” I also mouthed mala, the Sinhala word for flower.

Realizing my confusion, he shook his head in the very subtle way that says “no,” and fingerspelled H-O-N-G-K-O-N-G.

Several minutes later, I had a much clearer picture: there was supposedly some scholarship out there that would sponsor five deaf Sri Lankans to study sign language linguistics at an university in Hong Kong for five years. Applications were being completed and submitted; the selection would happen by the end of the month following interviews in Colombo.

Sounds wonderful, right? Yet, the first thought that came in my head was oh my god, a rural deaf Sri Lankan living in the megalopolis that is Hong Kong?

Still, I pushed that thought aside and asked more questions such as: who were the sponsors? Which university? What’s going on there? Why?

Sadly, the only paper Naizer had about the Hong Kong program was in Sinhala and he couldn’t tell me much more than whatever vague information he had already told me. What a great opportunity, it’s all very nice, sure, I said, and I didn’t think too much about it again.

Until two weeks later in the main school building when Chamali, a 11th year student, came up to me in tears. “I want to go to Hong Kong, but they’re not letting me apply!” she said.

I thought she was talking about flowers again. The sign for Hong Kong is the same as the Sri Lankan sign for flower; rather apropos if you look at Hong Kong’s flag. Then I suddenly remembered the scholarship program, and asked her for more information.

“Pubodha and Pasan are applying, but I can’t!”

What an outrageous injustice, I thought. Never mind that I didn’t know what the reason was, but certainly Chamali should have an opportunity to apply. She was bright, sure, perhaps not as intellectually talented as Pubodha or Pasan, but she carried her own and was an incredibly dedicated student.

So, the next morning, in Ginette and my near-daily meeting with Mr. Abeygunawardana, we brought up Chamali’s concerns about Hong Kong. It was quite queer to even talk about this; we had been focusing on far more basic needs such as whiteboards or sign language training for the hostel matrons. To contemplate scholarships in Hong Kong (which felt as far away from Matara as Mars), was a luxury.

Mr. Abeygunawardana explained the situation: he had wanted all four of the top-form 11th year class–Pasan, Pubodha, Sanjeewa, and Chamali–to apply, but he had gotten the information far too late to ask Sanjeewa or Chamali’s families for written permission to travel to Colombo for the interviews. Sanjeewa and Chamali were both residential students and live far away, while Pasan and Pubodha both were day students living in Matara.

Oh, that’s a reasonable explanation, Ginette and I both said, and we moved to the next item on the agenda.

But we thought about this a little more. It wasn’t quite that easy to let Mr. Abeygunawardana off the hook here. I remembered a conversation I had with another student several months earlier where he listed the three richest students at Rohana in order: 1. Pubodha; 2. Pasan; 3. Shans Ahamed. He rattled them off matter-of-factly as if it was no different than the girls’ ranking of each other by who had the longest hair (and if memory serves me right, it was Dilhani and Penshrila leading the hairy pack).

Those richest three students happened to be all day students. And they also were high achievers, both academically and in general. Pasan had an e-mail address! Pubodha had been to a deaf youth leadership camp in Sweden as one of the two Sri Lankan representatives! Shans Ahamed came to school with a new mobile phone every week!

Was there a connection between academic achievement and residential/day school status? Or even a correlation, as I feared, between wealth and academic achievement and opportunity among deaf students in Sri Lanka?

Of course there is. Both Pasan and Pubodha had extra classes after school and very supportive families who wanted them to overcome their deafness and achieve anything at any cost. I thought about Shashini, another well-off student in sixth year who was also really, really smart; she had a computer at home and easily passed all her English tests.

One could argue that wealth in Sri Lanka is a consequence of hard work by individuals, who then pass on those values to their children, turning them into academic overachievers. In that case, why not reward them for their focus and dedication?

But that goes ultimately to the heart of privilege–that some people have a choice that others don’t. And that in a more just world, those people of privilege (whether it’s race privilege, gender privilege, hearing privilege, or more), would stand up for those who do not possess those, and level the playing field despite systematic oppression.

There wasn’t much Ginette or I could do in this situation, however, and when Pubodha was ultimately selected as one of the five students to go to Hong Kong, we congratulated her with all our hearts on her incredible achievement. I just couldn’t help but wonder: was she picked because she was smart, or because she was smart and rich? And I’m purposely neglecting the question of class and caste in Sri Lanka, simply because I know nothing about that.

There’s a similar a tortured proposition in any deaf community whenever a hearing person is picked over other deaf people for a position. The question always is: Was it because she was more qualified? Or becaus she was qualified and hearing?

Pubodha left for Hong Kong last November, skipping the Rohana graduation and the O/L exams and becoming the first Rohana student to study overseas. And since then, I’ve always wondered how she was doing in such a foreign place. The only time I have heard from her is a short e-mail last December saying, “it is so cold.” Hong Kong may be one of the hottest places Americans could visit, but apparently it’s cold to a Sri Lankan!

Then Sri Lanka reaffirmed its identity as a place of serendipity when I sat down for lunch with my friend Minoru who was visiting from Rochester. After ten years in the United States and earning both a bachelor’s and master’s degree at RIT, he is going back to his native Japan this summer. I was delighted to see him one more time in San Francisco before he left.

As we slurped down soba at a Japantown restaurant, he said with a slight knowing smirk, “So, I wanted to ask you about Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.” My mind reeled right there. A Japanese who’s been living in upstate New York for eight years is asking me about Sri Lanka and Hong Kong?

“I know all about it,” he said. He went on to explain that it is part of the Asia-Pacific Sign Linguistics Research and Training Program funded by the Nippon Foundation, housed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and led by Dr. Gladys Tang and Dr. James Woodward, an American sign language linguistics professor who used to teach at Gallaudet University.

The ultimate goal of the program is to encourage the growth and study of indigenous sign languages in the region by training qualified Deaf people to develop sign language materials. Indonesia and Sri Lanka are the pilot countries.

And he even found this YouTube video:

And Pubodha’s in there (she’s standing all the way at the very right during the first panning shot of the students). What an achievement for her!

It’s incredible to finally learn about this program from such an unlikely person in such an unlikely place. Connections in the Deaf world knows no bounds, and once again, I am reminded that while Sri Lanka may fade in the background from time to time, this country never abandons you.

 Print This | Share This |