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colleague lao wen first met tang xia in the fall of 2023. she wore a ponytail, black clothes and white shoes, and went to participate in community activities with several hearing-impaired workers.

lao wen went up to her to greet her, and when he found that she answered faster than he expected, he deliberately covered her mouth with his hand and said, "do you know what i'm saying?"

tang xia stared at him for 2 seconds and said, "cover your mouth. i can't hear what you are saying."

she was born with severe hearing impairment and can hardly hear any sound in both ears. as a child, she learned lip reading and articulation (with non-standard pronunciation) through special rehabilitation training.

the second time i met tang xia was in the summer of 2024. she had cochlear implants in both ears, and lao wen wanted to cover her mouth to test her hearing. she turned around quietly, turned her back to him and said, "you speak, and i will answer."

she is 28 years old. although her hearing is still not as good as that of normal people, she can hear now.

tang xia's voice was locked for 28 years

7 years old, learned to speak a complete sentence

on february 14, 1996, valentine's day, tang xia was born into a poor peasant family in yueyang, hunan, and became one of the 27 million hearing-impaired people in my country.

she was diagnosed with profound hearing loss when she was 4 years old.

at that time, her right ear hearing was more than 90 decibels, and her left ear was more than 100 decibels, which means that her left ear can only detect sounds of 100 decibels and above, which is equivalent to the noise of a jet taking off.

tang xiangyue, the father, said that he and his wife both had normal hearing and no family history of hearing impairment. they initially thought their daughter was just late in speaking and did not think about deafness. many years later, the family learned that tang xia's deafness was caused by a gene mutation.

the best treatment time for cochlear implants is between 12 months and 6 years old. the doctor once suggested that tang xiangyue implant a cochlear implant for his four-year-old daughter, at a cost of 500,000 yuan.

that was in 2000. for this family that made a living on farming, farming could barely make ends meet, and 500,000 was an astronomical figure.

unable to come up with that much money, tang xiangyue could only scrape together money to buy his daughter a pair of hearing aids worth more than 4,000 yuan. in the following 20 years, tang xia successively changed four or five pairs of hearing aids, each of which cost about 10,000 yuan on average.

the hearing aid is worn directly on the outer ear. when tang xia first wore it, she always felt uncomfortable and wanted to take it off, but she gradually got used to it. even with the hearing aid, she could not hear the sound normally. many sounds sounded intermittent, which greatly affected her life.

it is often said that "nine out of ten deaf people are dumb" because they lose their hearing before language is formed. this is the case with tang xia.

after returning from the hospital, tang xiangyue took his daughter to a special school in pingjiang county to teach her how to take care of herself. but tang xiangyue was unwilling to give up, as he hoped his daughter could learn to speak, read and write, and support herself when she grows up.

after moving to several places, tang xiangyue finally took his 6-year-old daughter to a rehabilitation school for the blind, deaf and mute in changsha.

there are more than a dozen students like tang xia in this private school. most of them have some residual hearing and come here to learn the ability to speak.

this is a difficult process.

tang xia vaguely remembers that she followed the teacher to do mouth and tongue exercises and breathing exercises every morning, and then read, write, and do various sound tests. the teacher held a book with pinyin, characters, and pictures, and taught them to speak one-on-one and hand in hand. tang xia looked at the teacher's mouth shape when speaking, tried to listen to the sound made by the other party, touched the teacher's neck with her hand, felt the vibration from the nose, and then put her hand close to the teacher's mouth to feel the breath, and learned to speak step by step.

liu fan, the mother, said that she and her husband rented a house near the school to accompany her daughter to school for two years. she accompanied her daughter to class every day and watched how the teacher taught her. after returning home, she corrected her daughter's pronunciation according to the teacher's method, sometimes even using a wooden board or spoon to press down her daughter's tongue and let her try to make a sound. if she read a word correctly, she would read another word. if she said a word correctly, she would try to read three words in a row, stacking them up continuously, from simple to complex, and then remember the pronunciation.

tang xiangyue still remembers that after several months of learning, his daughter was able to speak a complete sentence for the first time. he and his wife both cried with excitement.

later, tang xia learned to judge what the other person said by lip reading and facial expressions. gradually, she took off her hearing aids and could understand some slow lip reading.

two years later, she had basically mastered the methods taught by her teacher and left the school for the rehabilitation of the blind, deaf and mute.

however, the sounds that entered tang xia's ears were intermittent, and it was difficult for her to hear complete sentences, and her speech was therefore very unstandard. she could not distinguish the pronunciations of various people, and could not tell which ones used nasal sounds, which ones used flat tongues, or which ones used rolled tongues, nor could she tell whether the other person's voice was hoarse, low, or sharp.

tang xia in her hometown when she was a child

it is not an ideal school, but it is the result of hard work.

when she was 8 years old, tang xia entered the village primary school.

liu fan was worried that her daughter could not keep up, so she helped her with her homework every night. she remembered that tang xia was very serious about her studies and would not go back to her room to sleep until she finished her homework. in the final exam of the first grade of elementary school, tang xia ranked second in the class.

but when she reached junior high school, the knowledge became more difficult and her grades gradually dropped.

liu fan and her husband only have primary school education and are unable to help their daughter. tang xia said that the teacher sometimes teaches in her hometown dialect and she often cannot understand.

due to hearing limitations, she was unable to communicate normally with classmates and teachers. tang xia remembers that since the first grade of junior high school, some male classmates in her class often imitated her speech, and she gradually realized that they were mocking her.

until one day, a male classmate imitated her speech again, and tang xia couldn't help but lose her temper and started fighting with the other party. tang xia remembered that no one in the class spoke up for her, which made her feel deeply hurt. tang xia said that she later went to the teacher to put an end to this situation, and the teacher also reprimanded the classmate, but in the following years, this situation continued to occur one after another.

during those years, tang xia had almost no friends, became increasingly lonely, and spoke less and less.

liu fan remembers that during that period, her daughter would secretly cry from time to time, and she had no way to deal with it. at that time, they did not have much time to take care of tang xia. in 2006, tang xia's sister was born. two years later, she was also diagnosed with hearing impairment, with a hearing loss of more than 70 decibels in the right ear and more than 60 decibels in the left ear, which was better than her sister.

tang xiangyue recalled that when his youngest daughter was 3 years old, she was also sent to a rehabilitation school for the blind, deaf and dumb in changsha. fortunately, her hearing was better than her sister's, and with early intervention, after wearing hearing aids, her hearing was almost the same as that of a normal person, and her mandarin was also standard.

liu fan remembers that the teachers at the rehabilitation school for the blind, deaf and dumb were worried that tang xia would have difficulty graduating from junior high school due to her hearing impairment. no one expected that in the fall of 2011, after graduating from junior high school, tang xia was successfully admitted to the xiangbei women's vocational school to study computer science.

this is not her ideal school, but it is the result of her hard work.

after entering the vocational school, tang xia hoped to make new friends and actively participate in school activities. but once, she signed up for a club and was laughed at by the club members during the interview because of her non-standard mandarin. she was 15 years old at the time, and her self-esteem was severely hit again. she hid in the dormitory and cried for a long time.

tang xia didn't know how she got through those dark moments. after graduating from technical secondary school, she studied for a year in college and graduated successfully.

tang xia at work

no more being repelled by 500,000

after graduating from college, tang xia wanted to do a graphic design job, but she couldn't find one. so she followed the villagers to a supermarket to work as a weigher, and then went to a factory to work as a cutter and packer, with a salary of one to two thousand yuan, and no social security.

liu fan recalled that one time, her daughter came home and said she had twisted her waist and felt very uncomfortable. she told her daughter that since she was a girl, she could ask boys to help carry heavy things. but tang xia said she didn't dare to do so, fearing that others would dislike her even more.

in november 2019, vipshop central china operations center hired tang xia as a quality control specialist, mainly responsible for statistical reports, etc., and her work location was in ezhou, hubei. this meant that tang xia had to leave hunan and work across provinces.

tang xia said that she was afraid to leave her hometown, but she quickly bought the train ticket. "i have poor hearing and have encountered difficulties in finding a job." "it is very difficult for disabled people to find a decent job."

after arriving in ezhou, tang xia lived and ate for free in the company, and received a monthly salary of 4,000 to 5,000 yuan, with social security and provident fund. she found that there were other disabled employees in the company, especially the arrival of several hearing-impaired colleagues such as wang qing in 2023, which triggered a wave of workers voluntarily signing up to learn sign language to strengthen communication. the news media also reported the story of 100 workers learning sign language for five hearing-impaired colleagues.

in the eyes of many colleagues, tang xia is serious and down-to-earth in her work. occasionally, when she encounters something she doesn't understand, she will take the initiative to ask her colleagues for advice in writing.

she is also very creative. a colleague remembered that when the company was collecting creative ideas, tang xia wrote several pages and submitted them.

liu fan said that after his daughter went to work in hubei, she sent money home on time every month. her work and life seemed to be going well, and he never heard her cry again.

a female colleague who had worked with tang xia for two years took the initiative to match her with her cousin. in march 2022, the two got married and held a wedding banquet.

before getting married, her husband haoran took tang xia to the hospital for a check-up and found that her residual hearing was constantly deteriorating. the doctor again recommended cochlear surgery to save her residual hearing.

unlike 20 years ago, this time, tang xia's family was not scared off by the 500,000 yuan surgery fee.

the company paid social insurance for its employees in accordance with the law and also purchased commercial insurance. tang xia found out that social insurance can reimburse at least 50% and commercial insurance can reimburse more than 10,000 yuan.

tang xia found the company's labor union and was told that the company had set up the wei ai fund (vipshop employee wei ai mutual aid fund) to help employees in need who suffered from sudden accidents or serious diseases, and could reimburse 50-60% of their personal expenses. a statistical table in the hands of the labor union officer showed that as of may 2024, the wei ai fund had helped 1,981 people nationwide and donated 15.2 million yuan.

tang xia calculated that more than 70% of the 500,000 yuan surgery fee could be reimbursed, so her family scraped together 200,000 yuan for the surgery.

in june 2022, tang xia had an implant surgery in her left ear in changsha, hunan. in april 2024, she had an implant surgery in her right ear in a hospital in shandong.

the doctor informed that after the cochlear implant surgery, sounds entering the human brain would form a new programmed reaction. he suggested that the family provide tang xia with language training and pronunciation correction as soon as possible to improve her hearing and speaking abilities.

to this end, haoran closed his newly opened company in another place, returned to ezhou and rented a house, and accompanied his wife to practice listening and speaking whenever he had free time.

tang xia's pronunciation still needs improvement, for example, "banzhang" is pronounced as "ba da", but she speaks mandarin much better than before and can have basic communication with colleagues. colleagues find that tang xia is more active than before.

tang xia joined the company's dance club and started learning to dance. after she was able to hear music, her dancing skills improved significantly and she is now the club's main dancer.

tang xia is learning to dance

she went to see the movie "catch the doll" with her husband, and she also plans to learn swimming and yoga pilates. she still has many dreams, such as going shopping in shanghai, going to xi'an to see the terracotta warriors, and dreaming of being able to teach her children to speak in person in the future, "hearing the children call me mom"...

previously, a colleague asked tang xia, "what is your dream?" she thought for a while and said, "help my parents share the family burden. my sister is still studying." the other party asked, "imagine that one day you become a foreman," and she immediately replied, "i dare not imagine it."

at the age of 28, everything has just begun.