11.20.2007

the future first asian american deaf male star

This is a great story about 22-year-old Vichay Phommachan, who says his goal is to become "the first Asian American deaf male artist and entertainer": Singing hands. Although he was born able to hear, he became deaf after having a high fever at age 3, and now can only hear loud noises. However, he still enjoys pop, R&B, soul and dance music (by feeling the sound vibrations from the music to make out the song's melody)—so much so that he auditioned for American Idol. How? Because Vichay is unable to communicate verbally, his 30-second audition consisted of him interpreting lyrics of a Korean pop song through sign language. I guess it was pretty unique, because he actually made it to the next round. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to advance beyond that. Still, you gotta hand it to the guy for having dreams.

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