北京有家无声食堂，那里的员工有很多开不了口的故事 | A restaurant for the hard of hearing

Located in the Songzhuang Artist Village (a famous artist community in Beijing), there is a "silent" Sichuan cuisine restaurant whose employees are mostly hearing-impaired. Here, customers write down their orders, and it's even better when they know sign language. In any case, it's not like other Sichuan restaurants, which can get noisy.  

北京宋庄的画家村里，有一家无声的川菜馆，服务生大多是聋人。在这里，他们拿着平板记下客人的要求，有的顾客也能用手语完成点餐，丝毫没有川菜馆里常见的喧嚣。

The restaurant is named after Mi Na, wife of the owner Su Qing. It is she who spurred him to quit a nine-to-five job before moving to Beijing and renting this place for their restaurant. One of its supervisors, Chen Fangfang, was a professional dancer in the well-known dance "Thousand-hand Bodhisattva," which featured hearing-impaired performers. 

餐馆以老板苏青妻子的命名。当初正是在妻子的鼓励下，他告别了朝九晚五的生活，搬到北京，租下了餐厅现在所在的房子。而餐厅的主管之一，芳芳，还是当年参演过《千手观音》的舞蹈演员。

Su's elder brother lost his hearing at a very young age. Born in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Su used to work as a director for a media company in southwest China's Chongqing city. He went home for the Spring Festival after being absent for three years, only to find his brother much more depressed and deeply isolated. There was no way he could communicate with anyone in the family, as his little brother, the only one who knows sign language, was not by his side.

苏青来自内蒙古，他的哥哥是一位听障人。十多年前，苏青在重庆一家影视公司当编导。有一次，已离家4年的他终于回家过年，却发现哥哥忧郁了许多。原来，除了苏青，家里没人会手语，4年以来，哥哥没法与任何人交流，非常孤独。

"It is prevalent in most families like ours. I hope they could be more inclusive, and try to communicate with those hearing-impaired members of their families."

“我想中国大部分有聋人的家庭都有这样的问题。我希望，聋人所在的家庭能够接纳他们，努力和他们沟通。”

Su made a documentary on deaf people's lives in 2002, which won him awards at several film festivals. Yet he always wanted to do more for them.

为此，2002年，他拍摄了一部关于聋哑人生活的纪录片，还获得了一些电影节奖项。但，除了展现他们的生活状态，苏青还想为聋人们做更多事情。

So he came to Beijing and started this restaurant.

于是，他来到北京，在宋庄开了这家聋人餐馆。

There were barely any customers when he opened for business in 2008. 

2008年，餐厅开业，那时的宋庄还非常荒凉。

"We were desperate for customers every single day. There were hopes when we saw the car light coming close, but it just passed us like a gust of wind. At the time, there were two ponds in the front and back of the restaurant. On cold days, when the water evaporated, the building was always covered in heavy fog. You could hardly see beyond five meters. Everyone recalls the desolation."

“每天都在等客人来，但没有客人。车灯远远的过来了，以为是客人，结果呼的一下开过去了，很失望。那时餐厅前后刚好都有一个池塘，秋天以后，因为水塘的水蒸发，一出门外面全是雾，5米之内都看不清，那种荒凉每个人都感同身受”。

Under such conditions, many employees texted Su after the Spring Festival, saying they would not come back.

在这样的环境中，很多员工过完年后发短信说不想来了。

"One of our supervisors, Fangfang, had thought about making a living by dancing across the country. Some of the other staff members even thought about making porcelain."

“现在的主管之一，芳芳，还曾打算回去跳舞，到全国各地去跑票。还有人说要去景德镇去画陶瓷。”

But Su never gave up. He persuaded them to stay by saying, "You cannot always dance for a living like you can now. Let us hold onto it. I'm sure you will get what you need both financially and professionally. Together we can make it."

苏青没有灰心。他力劝芳芳还有其他人，“跳舞是青春饭，我觉得不太好。坚持下去，你们一定会有经济和工作上的积累，我们能走出来的”。

Su recalls those hard times, "When the business was so bad, we would work on new dishes, try them together and put the good ones on our menu. The winter was freezing cold, but we couldn't afford a better heating system. In that case, our best dancer in the house, Fangfang, taught us the Bunny Hop dance to keep warm. It was really fun." One year later, business picked up.

苏青回忆那段日子说，“最困难的时候，我们就研发菜品，然后大家一起品尝、试菜，过关的就放到菜单上。那时候冬天很冷，取暖没有现在好，芳芳是舞蹈演员，她就带着我们跳兔子舞，还是很快乐的”。一年以后，生意就做起来了。

Being used to living among their kind, some of the waiting staff felt it extremely difficult to walk toward customers with normal hearing. "I pushed them out of the kitchen, so that they had to figure out how to communicate with them."

有员工不敢上去服务，因为他们从来没有和健听人打过交道，一直生活在听障群体中。苏青说：“我就把他们从里屋给推出去。他们没办法，只能自己想办法怎么去沟通。”

In order to warm them up, Su made them say "good morning" with sign language to each other every day. Feeling uncomfortable about it, they didn't reply to Su's greetings at first. But they gradually got used to it later, when Su asked them to say "good night" as well.

为了教会他们调整人与人之间的关系，苏青让他们每天相互道“早安”。刚开始大家都很不习惯，不回答苏青的问好；后来苏青还要求他们说“晚安”，这些习惯也慢慢地都养成了。

"It took a long time to rebuild their self-identification. I hope they could identify themselves first as a man or a woman, then as the staff of the restaurant, all those before a hearing-impaired who talks in sign language. Those days were gone when they see themselves only as imperfect."

“自我认同的建立需要时间。我希望他们的自我认同是这样的：首先，我是一个男孩，或者女孩，第二，我是一个餐厅的员工，然后呢，我是一名听障者，我用手语和别人交流，而不是他们来的时候那样，就只有‘我是一名残疾人’。”

At last, Su's wish was fulfilled when all of the staff members learned to serve and to communicate. There was a time when Su made everyone a small name tag that explained the silence. But they got rid of it later, thinking it was merely to gain sympathy. Fangfang and other staff decided to use their notebooks in the apron pocket. It was much easier.

最后，聋人服务员们都学到了许多服务、沟通的技能，苏青的“念念不忘”有了回响。起初，苏青还给他们每人做了一个戴在身上的小名牌，方便客人了解餐厅的服务特色。但后来服务员们都把名牌扔了，因为觉得这是在博取同情。芳芳带着员工，开始用文字和客人交流——每人都在围裙中间的兜里放一个小本，掏出来就写。

Their families were totally surprised to see the change, as they'd become more considerate and independent.

他们回家后，家人都很惊喜地发现，孩子变化很大，会照顾人，会做事了。

Anyone who walks into the restaurant can feel the warmth and loving atmosphere. "Songzhuang is an artistic place. Those imaginative customers might think we are doing some kind of performance art, and they are happy to fetch the tableware by themselves," says Su.

客人走进这家餐厅，就感觉到它安静、温馨、充满爱的氛围。 “因为宋庄艺术氛围很浓，有些想象力很丰富的客人，觉得这可能是行为艺术，挺好，就自己跑到碗柜去拿餐具”。苏青说。

Fangfang has been working here for over 10 years. She even brought her friends in, who are more than happy with this job. "We used to work for normal people. It was difficult to communicate when I always had to write it down. And some of them bullied me like delaying the salary or firing me for not communicating properly. But I've learnt a lot of things here, like making coffee, dessert, tea and many cold dishes."

芳芳已经在这里工作了十多年，还带来了自己的姐妹们。她们对这份工作很满意：“以前工作的地方老板都是（健）听人，做什么都要靠写，不好交流，而且他们会欺负我，不按时发工资，还经常会因为沟通不畅辞退我们。在这里，我学会了很多，比如做咖啡、甜品、泡茶，还有各种各样的凉菜。”

She even bought an off-road car to spend vacation with her parents.

她还买了越野车，休假时会带着父母出门旅游。

"Our restaurant helps them break the wall. They used to keep away from normal people, doing things that they could manage alone. They were afraid to communicate and always kept to themselves. Here, they can talk with all kinds of people: artists, bosses, managers, engineers, etc., and even become friends with them. They opened up to the world," says Su.

“我们的餐厅帮助这个群体打破了沟通的壁垒。以前，聋人们习惯把自己和健听人区分开，只做一些独立能完成的工作，迈不出去和外界交流这一步，始终跟自己较劲。在这里，他们可以和各种人打交道，艺术家、老板、经理、工程师，甚至和他们交朋友。个人的空间一下子就打开了。”苏青说。

There are over 20 million hearing-impaired people in China, making them the country's largest group among the handicapped. "In the past 10 years, we've proven that the hearing-impaired and normal people can get along very well in the house," says Su. "I hope that more people could help them integrate into society in similar ways, so that they'd have a chance to find the meaning in their lives."

在我国听力残疾人群超过2000万人，位居各类残疾人群数量之首。“我们用这10年的经验证明，聋人和健听人可以在同一个空间里共存，而且沟通得非常好，”苏青说，“欢迎社会上有相同意愿的朋友效仿，让这个群体更多地和社会接触，去寻求他们的人生意义。”

Director：Chen Xiao

Editor：Zheng Zhihua, Gao Xingzi

Filmed by: Yan Jingwei

Designer：Li Xiaojie

Article Written by: Yao Xinyi, Zhu Siqi

Copy Editor: Henry Weimin

Producer：Wen Yaru

Chief Editor: Wang Dongmei

Supervisor：Pang Xinhua

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