Saturday, October 23rd was the Deaf Social Happy Hour (DSHH) at Murphy’s Tavern in Manchester New Hampshire. This event occurs at a different bar or restaurant every month in Manchester. It is a social gathering of the Deaf community and a really great opportunity to improve on sign language skills and get to know new people. This particular DSHH was especially interesting. It was a fairly small crowd, around 10-15 people, but extremely diverse. As per usual everyone began by introducing themselves and sharing his or her name sign. Name signs are like nicknames. A name sign is a sign conforming to the grammar of American Sign Language (ASL) and associated with an individual, given to them by a Deaf person. Receiving a name sign is an honor. It marks you as a member of the Deaf community. Everyone then talked a little about their backgrounds. There was a deaf man from an oral background who had just begun to learn sign language, there was a hard of hearing woman who was a fluent signer, a young man with a cochlear implant and his girlfriend who can hear and does not sign, a handful of Deaf signers and a handful of Sign Language Interpretation (SLI) students including myself. The age range was equally diverse, which is unusual for DSHH. It’s not often that the SLI students get to sign with younger Deaf people and it made a nice change.
That night there was a live band, which made visibility a little difficult at first. Visibility is especially important to signers because when signing socially the hand shapes and movements involved can be small and difficult to discern without appropriate lighting. In this case the house lights were down and the band was using dance lighting on stage. The result was a dark room with different colored lights flashing all over the place, not what you would call ideal. One of the native signers explained that if one stands with one’s back to the lights directly in front of the person with whom he or she wishes to sign it will cast a shadow on their partner. In this way both signers will be able to see and be seen by one another. Eventually (and thankfully), the band went to plain white lighting and it became much easier to see and communicate.
The Deaf community has its own rich culture, with all the social niceties and taboos one might expect from any other culture. I witnessed many of these behaviors. I saw people touching one another on the shoulder or waving at someone to get their attention. I observed people asking someone closer to get the attention of the person they wished to talk to. I observed people operating on “Deaf time”. This behavior has its roots in Deaf history. A long time ago, before the invention of teletypewriters (TTY) and texting, members of the Deaf community were limited in terms of long distance communication. They would have to meet in person to make plans or catch up, so Deaf people would arrive at events early and when the event was over they would hang around arranging a time to meet again. Early arrivals and long goodbyes became the norm and now it’s not uncommon for people to joke, “sure the event ended an hour ago but we’re on Deaf time”.
As for me, I talked to a young man about relationships. He and one of the other SLI students had met before, when the first man mistook the second for his ex boyfriend. Together they told me the whole story and the first man complimented me on my signing, which admittedly was flattering. I learned two different signs for family reunion and we all shared our favorite drink recipes.
I’m feeling much more confident at these events. When I think back on the first DSHH I attended I was scared to death (I actually had a minor panic attack) but now I’m excited about them. I really look forward to going, meeting new people and just talking. Events like DSHH are the only opportunity I get to sit and sign with people outside of classes. The people who come to DSHH are really nice and always welcoming, even more so now that I’m relaxed about attending. There are people I recognize from Silent Lunches and other DSHH events and though I wouldn’t say we’re friends yet they recognize me and that counts for something. I intend to continue going to DSHH and I am confident that with time I may even earn myself a name sign.