2019.12.09
The straight-A profound hearing loss student, Lin Yi Jie(right) had a discussion with the founder of the Alliance Cultural Foundation, Stanley Yen(middle). Yang Kun Yuan(left), Head of the College of Humanities and Education of Chung Yuan Christian University was the host.
Source: https://udn.com/news/story/7314/4136156
“I never took hearing loss as an excuse for running away from any challenges,” said Lin Yi Jie, a straight-A profound hearing loss student. Graduated from Taipei First Girls High School and National Taiwan University, Yi Jie broke through the limitations of listening and speaking, she has outstanding performance both at school and work.
On October 30, Yi Jie was invited to be the speaker of the “Redefine the World and Yourself Symposium” in front of almost 300 teachers and students from the Dep. of Special Education of Chung Yuan Christian University. She had a deep conversation with the founder of the Alliance Cultural Foundation, Stanley Yen, and gave suggestions to all the teenagers.
The symposium was co-hosted by the Children’s Hearing Foundation(CHF), Chung Yuan Christian University and Gigabyte Education Foundation at the Chung Yuan Christian University. “The stories of people with hearing loss pursuing their dreams inspired us in so many ways, they encouraged us to introspect ourselves and explore the meaning and purpose in our lives. It is my hope that those teachers who will be part of the Special Education are able to share the same belief with CHF by helping children with special needs,” said Yang Kun Yuan, Head of the College of Humanities and Education.
Never say never, Yi Jie keeps pushing herself to the limits
Yi Jie is now stationed in Yunlin for a Taipei start-up company. “When the opportunity comes, you just gotta seize it!” she never bailed out because of her hearing loss but strived even harder for opportunities.
In fact, Yi Jie is suffering from Enlarged Vestibular Aquaduct since she was little. Any changes in surroundings or mental stress condition would make her hearing much worse. During the school period, Yi Jie had to went through hearing degradation every time when class was reassigned. However, as a result, she turned out to cultivate strong ability to adapt to any environment .
It has been three years since Yi Jie graduated from the university and she has already tried three different jobs. The first job was a customer service specialist, while she had to answer phone calls every day, she wanted to educate those who think they are the boss because they spend the money. For the second job, she was a product strategy specialist. Now, she is working for Taiwan Data Science Corporation. Yi Jie’s boss decided to hire her while they were on phone interview. Her boss valued all the experiences she had, figured that she is a high adaptability person and is suitable for a start-up company.
Listening is the first step to stepping into the world
During the symposium, Yi Jie and Stanley talked about the importance of listening. “Listening is the first step to stepping into the world,” said Yi Jie. When she was an exchange student in France, she noticed that French students were not afraid to voice their opinions and willing to listen to others patiently. The host would only come up to a conclusion when everyone done sharing their thoughts.
Stanley pointed out that “Human to Human” is what we need in the future. If you are a teacher or an engineer but you know nothing about humanity, you won’t be able to “Heart to Heart” with others. When you devote yourself to education, caring for others is the key.
Stanley suggested teenagers to be like Yi Jie, be bold enough to try new things and involve in volunteer work, to get a new job if the current one is not suitable. Moreover, make good use of every summer vacation and every opportunity to discover the true self and make plans the future. “Interacting with different kinds of people helps us to do self-introspection and find our uniqueness. Once we are open-minded about others’ opinions, self-admiration won’t be an issue.”
Stanley also shared a story to prove the importance of listening and communication. There are two hundred software engineers in a US company, and every time when they are presenting ideas to clients, they often rejected ideas by saying “This is not what I want.”
Once, they went to a bar and the bartender accidently heard over their conversation and decided to join them to meet the client. Surprisingly, the meeting went smoothly, and they closed the deal because the bartender paid attention and listened carefully to the client. “Sometimes, knowing how to listen and communicate are more important than knowing the skills.”
Children’s Hearing Foundation aims to help children with hearing loss
Children’s Hearing Foundation aims to help children with hearing loss learn to listen and speak. During the past 23 years, more than 4,000 children came out of silence. Many of the children CHF had served are now in their teenage years or working as an independent person. In order to let the public know people with hearing loss can also live their lives to the fullest, and promote the importance of auditory- verbal intervention, CHF has held several symposiums in universities and colleges, hoping to create a better understanding of the hearing loss and break the bias.
Asides from symposiums, CHF launched a film “The Sound of Love,” which documented the stories of several hearing loss teenagers.
Children’s Hearing Foundation was established in 1996 by Ms. Joanna Nichols and her husband Mr. Kenny Cheng. Their daughter Alana was born with profound hearing loss but started her training in auditory-verbal therapy. Now, not only can she speak fluently, she was able to attend normal schools. She is now the host of a TV show called “Follow Alana,” the show has been nominated by the 54th Golden Bell Award.
In order to provide the same opportunities to other children with hearing loss in Taiwan, Alana’s parents decided to establish the Children’s Hearing Foundation and devote themselves to the charity work of helping children develop listening and spoken language.
