HK Sign Language Day draws 2,400, as organisers push for public understanding

About 2,400 visitors joined the first day of Hong Kong Sign Language Day in Tsuen Wan on Saturday, as organisers hoped to encourage greater public understanding of Hong Kong Sign Language and deaf culture.

The two-day event, organised by the Hong Kong Society for the Deaf, includes sign language workshops, stalls run by deaf people and interactive games.

The event, featuring workshops that taught signs related to the upcoming Mid-Autumn festival, such as “moon cake”, “the moon” and “the moon rabbit,” comes ahead of the International Sign Language Day on Sept. 23.

Cheung Hon-wah, director of the Hong Kong Society for the Deaf, said the event aimed to help the public discover how interesting sign language can be. “We want more members of the public to understand sign language and promote barrier-free communication,” he said.

Cheung said he hoped the event would encourage more people to become professional sign language interpreters, urging the government to create more interpreter jobs  in public services, such as hospitals, so the public would better recognise the need and in turn attract more people to the profession.

“A deaf person needs sign language interpretation on many occasions, but we can find that the number of professional sign language interpreters is not enough,” Cheung said.

The Hong Kong Council of Social Service lists 53 professional sign language interpreters in the city, a figure that falls short of the roughly 6,000 people who use Hong Kong Sign Language as their primary form of communication, according to the Census and Statistics Department.

Deaf attendee Ah Tan said it is very difficult for deaf people to find jobs, and that support for deaf employment is insufficient. 

“Especially when the employer knows that you cannot hear, they will not know how to communicate with you,” Ah Tan said.

She added that finding customer-facing jobs is difficult as she could not hear others on the phone.

The government offers several schemes to support employment of deaf people. The Labour Department provides job matching and on-the-job training subsidies for companies of up to HK$60,000 per person for nine months.

John Yip Ho-yin, the organisation’s honorary secretary, said there is not enough incentive for companies to hire deaf people.

“Companies are not interested in hiring deaf people, as it requires more company resources for training. After the subsidy period, companies will have to hire them on the same terms as hearing people,” he said.

He added that more subsidies for companies to hire deaf people would help them integrate into society.

Debby Ng, 40, visited the event with her son because he was interested in learning sign language. “He sees sign language interpretation on television and thinks it is interesting,” Ng said.

“The overall experience was fun, as sign language activities are not common,” she added.