Anthem success fulfills signer's deeply held wish

How do we sign China's national anthem?

Earlier this month, the meeting of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, offered a textbook example.

At the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing, thousands of political advisers rose for the national anthem, The March of the Volunteers, during the session, which was livestreamed to a national audience.

A camera suddenly zoomed in on Tai Lihua, a deaf dancer and member of the CPPCC 13th National Committee. Along with her sign language interpreter, Tai signed to the music as the other political advisers burst into a powerful vocal rendition of the anthem.

"It has fulfilled our (the sign language community's) strong wish to sign the national anthem (in unison)," said Tai, who is also director of the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe, during an interview with Beijing News.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the China Disabled Persons' Federation, which oversees policymaking relating to disabilities, unveiled a set of rules on how to present the national anthem in Chinese Sign Language.

CSL, a unified national system, facilitates cross-regional communication for the nation's estimated 27 million hearing-impaired people.

The rules were unveiled on March 1 at a factory in Beijing where more than half the workers have hearing impairments.

While addressing the gathering, Liu Zaijun, honorary chairman of the China Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said that before the advent of CSL, people from different regions had difficulty communicating.

"The signs varied from place to place, just like dialects," he said.

A media release by the China Disabled Persons' Federation said the rules will help fulfill the wishes of those who rely on sign language to join in when the national anthem is sung.

The March of the Volunteers was written during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and officially became the national anthem of the People's Republic of China in 1982.

The federation said the new rules will allow hearing-impaired people to feel the national spirit and patriotism embedded in the anthem.

The rollout was the latest effort by the authorities to promote the use of CSL. During the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), China made the establishment of a unified national system for sign language and Braille a major goal in promoting the welfare of people with disabilities.

In a landmark move, the federation released the latest CSL dictionary in 2019.

Gu Dingqian, an expert on deaf education who was involved in the dictionary's drafting, said the lack of a unified sign language system resulted in communication barriers for hearing-impaired people nationwide.

"When I was conducting a field survey, many special education teachers told me that students from different places signed in different ways and many had to spend more than a week to unify how certain things were signed," he said.

The recent progress is in line with government efforts to enroll more disabled students in colleges. However, that usually requires the students to travel from their home regions to other locations, which can often result in communication problems.