Deaf History: Eastern Asia

Japan

The Yōrō ritsuryō legal code, enforced in 757, included descriptions concerning the recognition and classification of disabled people, including those labeled as being deaf (mimishi(h)i). Some historical documents and pictures, particularly a folding screen titled Festival of Hôkoku Shrine, indicate that deaf people took part in Buddhist charities for lowly people (Hinin Segyô). The script for a play published in the middle of the Edo period (mid-18th century) describes how a deaf girl was taught with gestures and/or sign language by her family, and a record published in the early Meiji period (mid-19th century) reveals that in the late Edo period (early 19th century) there were a considerable number of private schools (Terakoya) where some deaf children studied calligraphy, gestures, and/or signed Japanese. In 1878, Tashiro Furukawa, a hearing teacher at a private school, established the Kyoto School for the Deaf and Blind, indicating that Japanese education for the Deaf and blind had officially begun. Subsequently, between 1879 and 1881, schools for the Deaf and blind were founded in Osaka, Tokyo, and Kanazawa. The Kanazawa school was established by Sei-ichiro Matsumura (1849–1891), who was Deaf. Following a period of economic stagnation in the 1890s, the school for the Deaf and blind was separated into a school for the Deaf and a school for the blind. The number of schools for the Deaf had increased to approximately 90 by the 1940s, including ones in Korea and Taiwan. In 1934, a preliminary meeting for the establishment of the Japanese Federation of the Deaf (JFD) was held. It comprised 15 members who were Deaf, and diverse issues pertaining to Japanese Sign Language were discussed. The JFD was officially founded in 1935.

Korea

Few historical documents have been found concerning the education of the Deaf or the existence [Page 219]of deaf people in Korea prior to the 19th century, with the exception of Princess Jeong-Hwa (1604–1667), who was a daughter of King In-Jo. In 1894, Rosetta Sherwood Hall (1865–1951), an American missionary, started to educate blind girls at her school in Pyongyang. Then, in 1898, she founded the Pyongyang School for the Blind, the first school for the blind in Korea. She began to take interest in the education of the Deaf and sent her colleagues to a school for the Deaf in 1908. In 1909, the Pyongyang School for the Blind was renamed Pyongyang School for the Deaf and Blind. In 1924, 13 deaf or blind students stayed in the Pyongyang school (between 1910 and 1945, Korea was a dependency of Japan). In 1911, the governor-general of Korea founded Saisei In, a charitable organization that included departments for orphans and patients. In 1913, Saisei In was transferred to an external bureau, in which the department of education for the Deaf and blind was newly settled, meaning that education of the Deaf and blind for the most part began in Seoul, the capital of Korea. After World War II, this school became a national school, and in 1959, it was separated into two schools, one for the Deaf and one for the blind. In the 1940s, new schools for the Deaf and blind were planned for major cities besides Pyongyang and Seoul; however, these plans were interrupted by World War II. After the war, schools for the Deaf were founded in each state of South Korea. Little information is known about schools for the Deaf in North Korea. In 1921, the Korean Association for the Deaf, consisting of Deaf people, hearing teachers, and researchers into Deaf education, was established in Seoul.

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