Taiwan Soundscape

To respond to James Ho's message, here I have a recording of 'Fixing glasses and door mesh (Xio1 li3 buo1 li2 sha1 chuan1 sha 1 men2)'-- a typical megaphone call from a kind of street vendors who do their business by driving a van around streets. However, it was not a close up recording. I am afraid that it might dissapoint Mr Ho. Nevertheless, I've found this sound interesting as a good example to reflect the recent social phenomenon. I thus post the sound here to share with you all.

The sound was an ambience collected from the 11th floor of a tall apartment in Danshui, Taipei. In the recent years, this town is developing rapidly with constructions going on in every corner. The long-term existence of the vendor's service of fixing glasses and door mesh poses a question-- As long as there is a house, there is a need of his service. However, since people are moving to higher and higher floors, how should he run the business?

To the local residents, his megaphone call is filled in the air of the community. However, where is he? No one knows!

This is an every day sound, but no one can locate its physicality precisely. As a result, the call always sounds very lonely and the broken glasses and door mesh of the local residents remains broken...

Until 2 days ago when I was recording Big Ben at 12am, I've been forgetting to share this report with you. Here I enclose the link and the sound I recorded!

Hope you are going to enjoy it!

ps. In order to have it available online, the sound is compressed and the quality is negotiated. Please accept my apologies.

The recording site: At the south bank opposite to the Parliament.

I've started teaching in my department from today. Although it last only one term, it is a start! The course is called Phonography.

It has taken me two weeks for preparation. When finishing the first lecture today, students' actions seemed to be fine-- when they left the room, they came to me to say 'thank you'! I guess that means that they'll come back again to my lecture, right?!

What an opportunity that makes me happy! I feel great! Hope you can share my joy, too!

Mr Lin is a crocodile farmer. When it's the third day before little crocodiles are born, he would go to the egg room and talk to the eggy crocodile: 'nnnn'. The eggies would respond to him with 'nnnn'!

Lets have a think, what sound has been a part of your job? What sound can represent the (sonic) image of your professional? Yes, every job has its sounds!

'Around 9:45pm, 500 somthing taxis were passing through the front door of Sheraton Hotel at Zhong-Shiao East Road. The drivers pressed car horns all together to express their complain. Later on, they drove to Far Eastern Plaza Hotel and Sunworld Dynasty Hotel to express their disatisfaction.

Because their action was not against the law, policemen did not ask them to leave. The chief of Taipei police Zhou-Jun Wang was at the frontline to control the order.'

Here are my thoughts:

1. It must sound great! What a rare sonic action art! I hope someone has recorded it!

At the 2-28 Memorial Museum, there is currently a special exhibition-- Taipei's air raid during the WW2. There are quite a few interesting artifects presented, including the fire-alarming bell, the gas mask and so on. The staff can also assist visitors to experience the 'horrific' atmosphere of air raid by operating a manual air-raid siren.

This is exactly the interesting thing about sound-- in different era and environment, people's recognition of sounds are different. Taking this air-raid siren as an example, people in the past time would be scared to death while people nowadays simply whisk the machine with curiosity!

I  wonder if there are sonic artifects exhibited in this show...