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Chan Man On Father Cyril

Published in British Deaf News, June 2000. Article written by Nick Sturley.

He has travelled all over the world on his own; He can speak [and sign] ten different languages; Half of South African and Chinese Deaf people know him. He received the prestigious World Federation for the Deaf’s First Class International Social Merit Medal at last year’s WFD Congress for his outstanding and remarkable work.

He is also the first Usher/deafblind Roman Catholic priest in the history. His name is Father Cyril Axelrod also known as “Chan Man On” by the Chinese deaf people which means “Peace For People”.

When Nick Sturley, who had already knew Father Cyril, heard he was in the UK, doing a course at Deafblind UK, he caught up with him to talk about his extraordinary life and work.

Born Deaf in 1942 in Johannesburg, South Africa, he was educated at St Vincent School for the Deaf in the same city. He then studied at Gallaudet University and Philosophy & Psychology at Catholic University of America, Washington DC. It wasn’t until late 1966 when he suddenly decided to have a career change.

“I was in a a hearing Roman Catholic church one day,” Father Cyril recalls, “and I saw that there were some deaf people there who were completely missing out what the hearing priest was saying. That was when I just simply decided to become a priest.” So he returned to his native South Africa to study Theology at St. John Vianney Seminary, Pretoria for three years before being ordained to the priesthood in 1970.

A Room... just a room

Father Cyril worked with deaf people in many parts of South Africa, but his first big task came in Soweto in 1978 when someone desperately appealed for his help. “A nurse from the hospital asked me to come over to the hospital as she was desperate for my help, so I went over and I was shown into a room...” Father Cyril pauses for a moment, “it was full of black deaf children, sitting on the floor doing nothing. I was told that their parents drop their deaf children there at 7am and collect them at 5pm every day because they had to go to work. They just sit there all day doing absolutely nothing, although they did have about half an hour of speech therapy during the day. That was it, it was terrible! I decided to do something about it.”

It was to become a difficult task for Father Cyril who tried other surrounding deaf schools, but they were full and the obvious distances of a large South Africa continent was a disadvantage. So he begged the local hearing school to provide him with a room for the black deaf children, but the school’s headmistress wasn’t forthcoming. “She laughed me off,” Father Cyril grimaces, “She just didn’t think it was possible that deaf children could be educated, but I didn’t give up. I battled for a room... just one single room was all I wanted that’s all. In the end, the headmistress finally gave in and gave me a room.”

He then brought in deaf children and he took a retired teacher for the deaf out of his retirement to work with him. The school provided them with a blackboard and desks. The room was divided into two age groups of 3 -10 and 11 - 15 respectively.

Father Cyril had another problem - the standard language in the school as there were four different South African languages which were confusing for the deaf children. Father Cyril decided that English would be the standard teaching language because it was easier for everyone. But his suggestion wasn’t favoured. “The South African government didn’t like it. They insisted that I should use those South African languages to teach the deaf children subjects,” Father Cyril sighs.

He campaigned and battled with the government, and won in the end, for the right to use English as a teaching language. The school has flourished into Sizwile School for the Black Hearing Impaired and has about 200 deaf children there nowadays (Sizwile is an African word for “We have heard”).

He also founded the first Social Welfare office in Cape Town in 1986.

The Visionary

“I used to regard myself as a deaf priest for so many years during my mission to the deaf people in South Africa, In that time I was totally unaware of Usher syndrome. Of course, I did not notice my gradual vision deterioration.” Father Cyril explains on how he discovered that he has Usher.

He was on a preaching mission in USA and one morning he suddenly stumbled down the stairs and crash landed at the bottom. “I looked up at the large window, I noticed something at the end of sides like the curtains but that window had no curtains at all. I realised that something might have gone wrong with my eyes.” Father Cyril decided to see an eye specialist in Kansas City. That was when he was diagnosed having Usher syndrome and he was told he would be blind in five years’ time. “I was devastated!” Father Cyril grimaces,

“then I went to Boston for a second check up and the doctor gave me a different medical point of view, he was correct to say that my vision deteriorating very slowly.”

Father Cyril still has residual vision. It was quite common in the early 80s, a time where awareness about Usher syndrome was beginning to emerge, for many eye specialists to be drastically negative by blurting out that the patient would go blind within the next ten years which usually does not happen.

However, this devastating news this is for Father Cyril, It did not stop him from working as he returned to South Africa to continue his work until he had a dream... a vision.

“One night, I was sleeping and I was having a dream... a sort of a vision that something from China was appealing for my help. I didn’t know what it was until I went to the meeting of the Redemptorist priests in 1988.” He cryptically explains.

Mission To Macau

At the meeting of the Redemptorist priests, a speaker there asking for someone who might be interested in a mission at Macau, China. “That was when I realised about my vision,” Father Cyril explains, “so I approached Father General about it and he said I should go there.” At first Father Cyril was reluctant to go, “I told Father General that I had an eye problem and I wasn’t sure if I should go, but he said it wasn’t my problem, but God’s problem! He also said God said that I had a mission I must do. So I agreed to go.” He packed his bags and went to Macau, knowing that a complete uncertainty was looming onto him and also not realising that he would spend the next 12 years of his life there.

Macau is a small Portuguese-run government city, a hour away from Hong Kong, and is in the southern part of China. So was Macau a idyllic postcard-picture perfect place? “It was like an ant colony!” he points out, “Macau is a four square mile city with a population of over 450,000. There were tower blocks everywhere, most of them very close to each other. The streets and roads were always packed and cramped.” That sounds like an Usher person’s worst nightmare! So how did he get around? “I always carried my blind white cane, but the people there didn’t seem to understand why I was carrying it. I was always being bumped and pushed, but I managed OK.”

The claustrophobic “ant colony” Macau wasn’t the only challenge he faced, he also has had to learn Chinese in both spoken and sign languages from scratch and had managed to build up an understanding of the complex language over the years. He also has had to learn Portuguese as well in order to communicate with the government who had refused to communicate in English or in Chinese. Anyway, his first task of course was to evaluate the deaf people in Macau and he worked in a sort of a “disability centre” where disabled people, including deaf people, normally gather there. Father Cyril remembers, “They all believed that they were all the same; deaf, blind, wheelchair users, body disabilities. I explained to them and also to the Portuguese government that they weren’t all the same. They rubbished me and insisted that they should stay together as before.”

Father Cyril refused to give in and he gradually made developments by working on a gruelling 18-hour a day schedule, winning trust and confidence from the Macau deaf people as well as other disabled people. And the government was beginning to accept the fact that the deaf and disabled community had a diversity value. He established, with support and help, Educational Center for the Hearing Impaired Children in 1990, Macau Association for the Deaf in 1994 (in which for some strange reason, a law has had to be passed to make way for the setting up of the Association), followed with the Sports Association for the Deaf two years later and Macau Social Services in 1998.

There has been many occasions where Father Cyril told the Macau Deaf Community about the deaf people around the world, he always received a stern response. “They didn’t believe me that deaf people were living independently, work in good jobs and so on. They [Macau] seemed to assume that the deaf people from all over the world were like them - being a charity case, asking people for help and all that.” That was when he decided to show them a thing or two by organising and leading a group of six deaf Macaus to the 1995 WFD Congress in Vienna, Austria where over 3,000 deaf people from all over the world gathered there.

“They were totally blown away!” Father Cyril says proudly, “they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. They were always asking questions all the time to bring back the knowledge to Macau to help improve their lives in which it certainly did!”

Tactile touching

In 1994, Father Cyril was asked by Hong Kong Society for the Blind to volunteer in a project to develop communication methods for the deafblind people in Hong Kong. The reason for this project was due to the strict traditional Chinese culture, it was forbidden to shake hands and touch onto someone. Deafblind people in Hong Kong and China has been severely neglected in the past because they rely on touching to communicate in which case they were unable to do so.

A tactile Chinese deafblind sign language was developed and Father Cyril had already travelled round the world and had already gathered knowledge in different communication methods for deafblind people, he was able to help to work a way round the “no hand touching” problem. Usually the signer, with a deafblind person’s hand on the signer’s hand, signs “bed”, for example, on the signer’s own face which meant the deafblind person’s hand touching the signer’s face which was breaking the “no hand touching” tradition. In the form of the Chinese tactile deafblind sign language, the signer forms the deafblind person’s hand into a “bed” sign and then places it on the deafblind person’s face. It is as if the deafblind person is signing “bed” himself/herself but with support from the signer.

This new initiative benefited young Chinese deafblind people, but sadly not for the older Chinese deafblind people who has been neglected and unsupported for so long. Father Cyril feels for them, “I’m sad for them because they are old and probably too late to start learning again. There’s nothing anyone can do only except to be as supportive as we can”.

Sit at the front, Father Cyril!

Father Cyril’s 12-year mission at Macau is now finished as the Macau deaf people are now able to continue on their own and most recently, it was becoming apparent that his vision was deteriorating making it difficult for him. “I started having communication and mobility difficulties,” he explains. He is currently in the UK doing a course at Deafblind UK to help him adjust his life.

Father Cyril was pleasantly surprised when he heard that he may be the first born Usher/deafblind priest in the history. Jack Gannon who is editor for WFD History News heard about Father Cyril and did a research and discovered that there are no proven records of any actual Usher/deafblind priest in the history of the world. What did Father Cyril think of it? “I was so proud!” he simply exclaimed.

And he had another surprise in store for him when he was at the WFD Congress in Brisbane, Australia last year, he explains what happened, “On the last day, I wasn’t bothered to go to watch the closing ceremony, but I was insisted on going and I reluctantly agreed to go to watch it. I then was told I must sit at the front... you know Usher seating? I didn’t want to go down there as any one of the seats would be fine with me. But I was told to sit at the front! So I grumbled my way down and sat in the front.”

When it was announced that Father Cyril was to receive the prestigious First Class International Social Merit Medal. “I was completely stunned!” gawks Father Cyril. He collected the award with a standing ovation from everyone. “I felt so proud to receive this medal,” he happily sums up.

•Update (Feb 2010) – On the following year in 2001, he received a Honorary Doctorate at Gallaudet University, Washington DC, USA by their Deaf President, King Jordan, in recognition for his work. He then undertook an aromatherapy course at Peterboough. He is now living in London and still doing the missionary work in spite of his total deafblindness. He has published his autobiography "And The Journey Begins" in both English and Chinese languages. He has also met the Pope Benedict a few times.

© Nick Sturley / UsherLiffe 2005-10. All Rights Reserved.