You’ve probably heard of Deaf culture, right? Are you aware that Hard of Hearing (HOH) people have their own culture, and raise their children in it? I didn’t understand this until my children grew up. For example, my children knew they shouldn’t speak during a tv show, but should wait for the commercials. Videotapes and DVDs should be paused before saying anything. I thought this was a polite thing to do, not a HOH thing to do, but apparently I was wrong.
I invited a couple of friends from over for lunch, with the intention of watching a movie afterwards. After having our fill of food, we went to the living room. They sat on the couch, and I lounged in the recliner. A few minutes after the movie started, I heard my friends mumbling, and paused the DVD so they wouldn’t miss anything. Fifteen seconds later, I heard silence, and restarted the DVD. This happened again, then I heard my name quite loudly and turned to lipread.
Friend: “Cindy – you don’t need to pause the movie just because we’re talking!”
Me: “But I don’t want you to miss the movie!”
Friend: “We’re not missing it. We know what’s going on!”
Me: “You’ve GOT to be kidding me!”
Friend: “We can talk AND listen to the movie, Cindy.”
Show offs. They make it sound like it’s easy to walk and chew gum at the same time, too.
6 comments:
FUNNY!! This is standard procedure in my (d/hoh) house.
So I'm not strange, huh? LOL!
When I have my HA's on it even feels weird not having captioning on. I turn it off to see if I can understand what they are saying. Also, if I have to leave the TV room and I have my HA's on I don't say pause because the clarity is so awesome I can hear it several feet away.
There is though a difference between being deaf and hard of hearing. The difference being sound.
Jeffrey - so you can understand the TV with your hearing aids on and NO CAPTIONS?
Wow - i'd never thought of a HoH culture! Interesting, I think i'll start to look into it... Thanks! x
Dean - Little by little, I discover my HOH culture traits when hearing people show me something different. Oh - thanks for visiting my blog and putting me on your blogroll.
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