A daily reading | a girl with excellent listening

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Department of Computer and Software Engineering

At the age of 26, Jiang Mengnan heard the cuckoo call for the first time.

It was on the campus of Tsinghua University, and she was passing through the woods as she was running in the morning, and a strange voice came into her ears. She stopped so she could hear more clearly—regaining her hearing, distinguishing whether the sounds in her head were illusory or real, a puzzle she had to solve.

At the age of half a year, she lost her hearing in her right ear and had a hearing loss of more than 105 decibels in her left ear.

She is a doctor of bioinformatics at Tsinghua University, and her introverted personality, coupled with long-term scientific training, makes her have an obsession with "precision". But in the world of sound, she is a full-fledged beginner, and accurately describing a sound is a difficult thing for her to accomplish.

1

Jiang Mengnan was born in a Yao town called Mangshan in Hunan, and his parents were both junior high school teachers. They pin their poetry on their daughters, who follow their mother's surname according to ethnic customs, and the name is "the years are quiet, and the dreams of Jiangnan" means.

For a long time, Jiang Mengnan was a quiet child. She rarely made a fuss and never opened her mouth to speak. Her parents frequently shook the key beside her, or clapped their hands, hoping to get her response, but most of the time all they saw was her mune expression.

When Jiang Mengnan was 9 months old, Zhao Changjun and his wife took her to Hunan Xiangya Hospital for examination and were diagnosed with "extremely severe neurogenic deafness". Before Jiang Mengnan was 3 years old, the couple took advantage of weekends and holidays to frequently take her to Changsha, Beijing and other places to see a doctor. It costs a lot of money to travel around for medical treatment, and the couple's salary is soon unsustainable. In addition to working and taking care of his daughter, Zhao Changjun spent a lot of time running tea gardens and orchards. In those years, he was tanned and became an authentic tea farmer and fruit farmer. The income from the tea garden temporarily made up for the family expenses, and Zhao Changjun bought a box-style hearing aid for his daughter.

It was a somewhat obsolete machine, more than 300 yuan, and the main engine was the same size as the pager of the time. He and his wife put it on first, afraid that their daughter would not be able to stand it, and first turned the power to a minimum, only to be startled by the loud noise. Subsequently, they gradually increased the power, but until it was the maximum, and the daughter still did not respond to the sounds of the outside world. "It's almost equivalent to a tweeter in your ear." Jiang Mengnan's mother, Jiang Wenge, said. Sometimes when my daughter sleeps, they won't take off her hearing aids. Zhao Changjun knew that what had been ringing in his daughter's ears was a train whistling sound. He felt sorry for his daughter, but he hoped that at some moment, she would suddenly be awakened by a loud noise.

This never happened.

2

The couple's expectation of their daughter's voice gradually turned into a longing.

"She can ask for money from me and go to the commissary to buy a bottle of soy sauce, and I'll be satisfied." Zhao Changjun had to face the reality and hoped that his daughter would have basic life skills in the future.

When Jiang Mengnan was 1 year and 4 months old, Zhao Changjun and his wife did not know the first time they took her to Beijing to see a doctor. The result, as in the past, was fruitless. Back at the residence, they packed their bags in silence, and Jiang Mengnan fiddled with the toy ball on the side, accidentally rolling down where she couldn't reach.

"Ahhh."

The couple froze momentarily. In the quiet room, they all heard their daughter's voice. It was a vague "aaaah" sound, and the daughter had the consciousness to take the initiative, which was enough to save them from the repeated disappointment.

They looked at each other, so excited that they could not speak, and even cried. Both men were greatly satisfied with this shout: Jiang Wenge believed that his daughter was shouting "Mother", while Zhao Changjun was convinced that she was calling "Daddy".

After growing up, Jiang Mengnan analyzed the reasons why she suddenly "spoke" - through the hearing aid, she could hear a faint sound, although she could not distinguish the direction of the sound source, nor could she understand the content of the sound. This faint, seemingly meaningless voice allowed her to blend into the world of sound.

After returning home from Beijing, Zhao Changjun and his wife were more convinced that their daughter could speak and speak normally. They held their daughter every day, starting with the simplest syllables, practicing lip synchronics in front of the mirror and teaching her how to place her tongue.

At first, Jiang Mengnan only opened his mouth and made no sound. The couple let their daughter touch their throats, feel the vocal cords vibrate, and put her hand in front of their mouths, allowing her to feel the airflow as she spoke.

Jiang Wenge once used his summer vacation to study at a speech rehabilitation institution for deaf children in Changsha. She attended classes with children a few years old, and she was an adult in the whole classroom except for the teacher. But this did not prevent her from listening carefully, and she got the first speech rehabilitation certificate in Yizhang County.

Jiang Mengnan gradually learned to speak, but she could not hear her own voice. Unlike ordinary people, instead of relying on auditory memory to correct her pronunciation, she needs to remember the shape of the mouth when each syllable is pronounced, each word, and the state and placement of the tongue. Even if everything is perfect, it is difficult to coordinate the vibration of the vocal cords with the change of mouth shape, and to mobilize the vocal cords to pronounce them accurately. It's a process of constant experimentation, "practicing each word a thousand times is less." Looking at the children who did not understand things, Zhao Changjun did not know how effective such a training method would be. He said the method was "stupid", but he was determined and "stupid" had to be "stupid" to the end.

When Jiang Mengnan was a little older, his parents realized that their accents were too heavy and began to let their daughter practice on CCTV news programs. Almost every day, she carried a small bench and sat in front of the television at home, staring at the announcer's mouth. She watches at least 3 news shows a day.

This concentrated "listening" ability training continued until Jiang Mengnan was 6 years old. She caught up with the language level of her peers, and in some ways even surpassed her own age — before elementary school, she had mastered pinyin and knew more than many of her peers. Now, her memories before the age of 6 have been blurred, and the difficult beginning of life only exists in the narration of her parents, like other people's stories. But the skills she has learned will always be engraved into her brain, and in the days to come, she will also receive the unique gifts of fate while facing the injustice of fate.

3

Since elementary school, Jiang Mengnan has been sitting in the middle of the front row of the classroom. She needs to read the teacher's mouth to "listen to the lesson", but keeping up with the teacher's speed throughout the whole process is almost an impossible task - in the classroom, sometimes she needs to listen and watch, and the teacher sometimes speaks with her back to her classmates.

Most of the time, she relies on Kanban books and then catches up through self-study. She followed the steps at her own pace, but inadvertently stepped ahead. By the summer vacation of the fourth grade, she had already completed the fifth grade curriculum. After passing the school test, she jumped straight to sixth grade. In school, in addition to studying, Jiang Mengnan is also adapting to collective life. She gradually realized her specialness: when others called her behind her back, she would not get any response; in music class, her classmates sang together, and she could only follow the lyrics.

Zhao Changjun had long anticipated his daughter's troubles, and he always said to her, "Don't compare yourself with others." Everyone has a problem that they need to overcome on their own. ”

Her father's words had almost become her rule of survival. In her future life, she will encounter more difficulties: she can't hear alarms, she can't answer the phone alone, she can't hear the radio at the airport or train station... Every time life enters a new stage, new problems will also arise. When she went to Tsinghua University to study for a doctorate, the research group was talking about "brainstorming", and the more intense the discussion, the more she couldn't keep up with the rhythm, but she could always find her own solution. Doctors had told her that because of her severe hearing loss, her sense of balance would be poor and she would have a hard time learning to ride a bicycle. Now, on the campus of Tsinghua University, she rides her bicycle to and from class every day, with ease. She doesn't need an alarm, but sleeps with her phone in her hands the whole time, waking up every day by the vibration of her phone. Sometimes, not being able to hear becomes an advantage, "I don't have to worry about being woken up while I'm sleeping."

In the eyes of many people, Jiang Mengnan is a girl who is strict with herself and has a strong personality. She said she grew up in a "hard mode" environment where everything became commonplace over time. But more often than not, she was also an ordinary girl, but no one saw it. When she first arrived at Chenzhou Sixth Middle School, she had to re-adapt to the new teachers, which made the class more difficult. She was as homesick as her roommates, and one day after the lights went out, she hid in the bed and cried, and there was no sound.

In 2010, she took the college entrance examination for the first time, and her score exceeded a line, but she was not satisfied with her results and chose to repeat the study. At that time, when writing college entrance examination essays, she remembered that when she was a child, her parents would take her to town every time it was not dawn, carrying a large bag and a small bag, waiting for the car on the side of the road - they took their daughter to see ear diseases, and the long-distance bus left early. She said she cried and wrote about the experience, and as soon as she came out of the exam room, she knew that she was off topic. After the results came out, her strong subject Chinese had just passed the passing line - 99 points.

4

The following year, she was admitted to Jilin University. Changchun is 3,000 kilometers away from home, and she did not let her parents accompany her, so she took the train alone to report.

Because of her own experience, she wanted to choose a medical major, but immediately realized that doctors had to communicate with patients, and sometimes patients wore masks. She finally chose pharmacy, "the same can cure the disease and save people.".

Sometimes, people really forget that she has a bad hearing. Like many girls, she loves fitness, has fashion taste, and is even more confident. On top of that, there was a scarce contagion in her—sincerity and kindness to others.

Jiang Mengnan said that she rarely felt inferior because she could not hear, and she began to face this problem very early instead of avoiding it. When she was a child, her parents often took her out and asked her to communicate with people more. "This is my daughter and she can't hear me." Zhao Changjun would always introduce his daughter to others in this way, and he did not shy away from it. In front of others, parents never showed inferiority.

In 2018, when Jiang Mengnan graduated from Jilin University with a master's degree, a local doctor in Changchun saw her story and took her to the consultation room to persuade her to implant a cochlear implant. "You've come so far, why don't you try it and see how likely your life is?" She was struck by the doctor's words.

This summer, after a successful cochlear implant in her right ear, she regained 26 years of hearing loss.

Because she had been in silence for too long, at first, she was not used to this world of sound. Even if the sensitivity of the cochlea is adjusted to a very low level, she cannot withstand the "noise" of the outside world. Ordinary ambient sounds will make her feel that "her eyes are trembling.". Sometimes a plastic bottle fell lightly to the ground and she would be startled. After gradually adapting, she began to look at the world again, "it was originally noisy, this is what it has always been." Every sound is fresh, car whistles, class bells, thunderstorms... And the singing she'd always wanted to feel.

Now, she loves listening to soothing piano music. On the campus of Tsinghua University, she rides a bicycle, and her mobile phone is directly connected to the cochlea, without the need for vibration, and electrical signals can go directly to the brain. It was a moment when she was alone, and "it's hard for ordinary people to have this wonderful experience."

Although she could speak and mastered the way each word was pronounced, she had never really heard them pronounced. For her, if she closes her eyes and listens to someone, it's like listening to a language she hasn't learned at all.

During the period of cochlear implantation, Jiang Mengnan needed new speech rehabilitation training. Her parents made video calls to her every day. They first wrote down the content of the day's practice in a notebook, then blocked their mouths and read it out in order for their daughter to distinguish. Jiang Mengnan can't remember the process when her parents taught her to speak when she was a child, and now in some moments, she says she seems to have experienced the feeling of sitting in her mother's arms and practicing lip strokes in front of the mirror more than 20 years ago.

After recovering her hearing, Jiang Mengnan still maintained the habit of text communication with her parents, and she had to text and WeChat with them almost every day.

Once, Zhao Changjun did not pay attention to the continuous messages sent by his daughter, and then the mobile phone rang.

The phone rang, and the daughter seemed a little anxious, and she wanted to confirm whether the parents who did not reply to the message in time were experiencing any problems. Zhao Changjun told his daughter that the mobile phone was not around, the father and daughter exchanged a greeting, and then hung up the phone, no one felt anything unusual.

But soon, Zhao Changjun ran excitedly to his wife. For the first time in more than 20 years, he heard his daughter's voice on the phone.

- dzxyjsjx -

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