DB was the name he gave himself.
DB lost more than 80% of his hearing when he was a little child. Because of DB’s deafness, his father abandoned him and walked out on the family
DB grew up and attended college. Even with Cochlear Implant (CI), he still needed a sign language interpreter in classes and at study groups to ensure him capture all that was said and taught and to converse with others.
One day, his interpreter failed to show up at a study group and, again, a few days later for DB’s class presentation. As a result, DB flunked his class. He informed his instructor about his interpreter’s AWOL, but the instructor told him, “It’s not my problem.”
Determined not to let his hearing ever becoming a hinderance for him again, DB decided to “fix” his deafness. He buried himself in the school library and lab, with a zeal to completely wipe deafness off his life.
Concerned about DB’s searing obsession, DB’s girlfriend and his best friend encouraged him to attend the birthday party of city Mayor’s son.

At the dark parking structure, DB stumbled upon a criminal in hiding. To prevent DB from disclosing his whereabouts, the criminal set out on a foot chase for DB across midnight downtown streets but abandoned the pursuit immediately and ran away the moment he heard police siren.
Terrified, breathless and disoriented, DB ran into the heart of police activities. With blinding floodlight shining on his face and police pointing guns at him, DB was frightened, bewildered, and unable to hear or make himself heard. On the tense and chaotic spur of the moment, the police opened fire.
DB woke up in a hospital a few days later.
He mustered all his strength to put that incident behind him and pressed on. His obsession rooted deeper and burnt hotter than ever. Nonetheless, DB’s inner world grew a whole lot darker and the chasm widened. Despaired, DB resolved to drugs not only to numb the lingering agonizing pain from the gunshot wounds but also to fill the void within.
DB despised his father for rejecting him and longed for a new identity. He changed his birth name and family name to a new name – Dominik Bell.

Years passed, DB’s dream finally came true – the birth of Vox Box (VB), a perfect device which made the deaf hear and speak and was on its way to eradicate deafness from the planet of earth.
Vox is the Latin word for “voice”.
Reports of a perfect device of fixing deafness ricochetted throughout the world, setting tongues wagging. DB, a man of unknown, became an overnight media sensation. Orders of VB flooded in from around the globe; fame and wealth came rolling in. DB was the envy of many and was at the pivotal point of changing the world.
Or so he and many others thought.

Amidst waves of accolade came the utmost criticism from none others but the deaf communities – not everyone wanted to be “fixed”. In fact, many had embraced their deafness as their identity and culture. They did not want to change; they didn’t need to be changed.
Under the masquerade of his picturesque life, the spiritual warfare waged on ever intensively. DB plummeted deeper as his drug dependency became focus of his life.
DB’s world came crashing down in a whirlwind. VB, the perfect device, was not perfect after all; it had severe side effects. The radio frequency VB transmitted made many people seriously ill in several countries.
Orders dwindled and production lines eventually came to a complete halt. DB lost everything.
Crushed and unable to face his defeat, like his father had done years ago, DB walked out on his wife and unborn child.
He became a wanderer, lost hope, was shackled by his intensifying inner torments and ebbing away….., until he met J, who led DB on a journey of finding his true identity – Dominik, “Belonging to God”, and from brokenness to wholeness.

The film's production crew, except the producer, was under 25 year-old during the production period.
The two-hour film was written and directed by Jonathan Blair, who was 19 year-old at the time and a CODA (Child of Deaf Adult). He also played the role of J.
It took two and half years to finish the production. During the first year of production, due to lack of experience, they were shooting one scene a month. As time progressed, they gained experiences and were able to pick up speed. They had to because their leading actor, a 16 year-old, was growing up on them.
The film was actually hilarious and humorous at times. Even though I didn't understand American Sign Language (ASL), thanks to the closed caption, I could still understand the storyline.
Maybe the story was too compelling, during Q & A session after the film, a woman in the audience asked the director to compare the pros and cons of CI and VB - the device invented in the film.

'Sound and Fury" is the title of 1999-2000 award winning documentary of Artinian family with generations of deaf people. It documented the heated and often emotional debates between the hearing and deaf family members about CI for their deaf children and grandchildren.
The debates were not on costs and advancement of CI, but, more often than not, on the deaf culture and the deaf people's identity in both deaf and hearing communities. The debates were silent but not quiet.

“Who am I?” “What defines me?” are the types of questions that most of us, hearing and deaf, will ask ourselves in our lifetime.
Does my ability, disability, accomplishment, failure, behavior or even sexuality define me? Should my identity be rooted in something temporal or eternal?
The quest of our individual identity is often long and arduous. Yet, until we find out who we truly are, the quest continues.

Who killed Romeo and Juliet? 你觉得呢？文章我写得七七八八了，就是好奇你的看法。

Shakespeare for coming up with this plot.
2. R & J themselves
3. R & J's parents/families
4. The Prince
5. The Friar
6. The messenger.

回复 SayaLee小夜: I still think that R & J killed themselves. I don't believe in Chance and Fate. "Choice", "Chance and Fate" did not pour the poison into R's mouth and stab J with the dagger. They did it to themselves.

[Pause] When stripped down to its roots, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is simply a snowball named ‘Choice’ rolling down a great big hill named ‘Life’. And for this, I am sorry, as I have no definite answer as to who killed Romeo and Juliet but to say that everyone had a choice [Pause] –even if they could not see the effect of their choices in the future, [Hand gesture] every character from the ones of a flicker like Rosaline and the Prince to supporting characters like Tybalt, the Friar, Montague and Capulet and lastly to the two star crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet; they had all contributed a choice they made which led to the tragedy.

I winged it, I actually expected a lower mark.

6小时的听证会吗？估计联系你的工作。