Welcome to the year of the rabbit!
恭喜发财!
Feb 022011
The Sound
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The Story
While travelling in China last year, our group visited Shangli Ancient Town, a small village in western Sichuan Province in which many of the village’s beautiful old structures remain intact. The narrow streets were thronged with tourists – very few of them non-Chinese – and the town was ringed by rivers, over which stood beautiful stone foot bridges. (You can find another nice description of the town here.) As we approached the central plaza of the town, I was transfixed by a repetitive chanting song. I scouted around and found its source – a clutch of young boys sitting on the ground in the middle of the crowd, playing some sort of card game which involved slapping their cards on the ground at certain moments of the chant. I was able to capture a bit of it, which is what you hear here. I don’t have enough Chinese to make out the words they’re singing (which may well be in Sichuanese dialect anyway). One of the things I love about this recording is that at first it sounds like the boys are doing just a simple monotone chant…but as it continues a lovely melody emerges. And at least one of the group of boys seems to be a pretty good singer. I’ve cleaned up the recording just a bit, filtering it so as to bring out the voices and reduce the background noise.
I am a collector of sounds. I carry a digital recorder with me and when I hear interesting or beautiful or striking sounds I try to capture them. This is one of my favorites.
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The story
The street where I captured this sound (you can see the man doing his exercises while listening to the rad
Last Spring when I spent a week in China as one of the winners of China Radio International’s “Charming Sichuan Knowledge Contest.”Along with nine other winners (from all over the globe) I spent a several days in Beijing, then flew to Chengdu for a whirlwind tour of Sichuan Province. On our first morning in Chengdu, I woke up early and slipped out of the hotel so that I could have a few minutes to wander the streets by myself. (During most of the trip was very tightly organized and moments in which I was free to simply explore were rare.) As I wandered the side streets of Chengdu, I heard a woman singing. I turned on my recorder and walked in the same direction. She was simply walking, singing (as you can hear) in a full voice through the early morning streets. This is a “dirty” recording. Passing vehicles intrude on the song. At one point she slows down and I pass her, at which point her voice becomes quite loud on the recording. A little while after that I pass an old man on the sidewalk who is doing is morning exercises while listening to the radio. You can hear the broadcast as I pass. Eventually I stop and the woman continues along the narrow street.
Later that day I gave a short speech to the Sichuan Tourism Authority
Feb 152010
Welcome to the year of the tiger.
恭喜发财!
