Beijing’s Rich Legacy in Sound

Last year I embarked on a new project for which I still don’t have a satisfactory title. It started out being the Beijing Hutong Sound Project， then the Beijing Sound History Project， and now the Beijing Sonic Re-enactment Project. The lineage of titles reflects the project’s conceptualization from last summer， when it first began， up until the moment earlier this year when I started realizing its potential to transform my life and reconcile the gap between my identity and my heritage. My identity is that of a half British (I write “British” because my father， John Chinnery， was English， but I was born and raised in Edinburgh.) and half Chinese contemporary art critic and exhibition curator who lives and works in Beijing. I speak fluent Mandarin but look completely Western – people tell me I’m a spitting image of my father. My heritage can be understood in terms of culture or family， but I have to confess that I am woefully ignorant about both.

This is where I need to introduce my Beijing family home， which last year was transformed into the Shijia Hutong Museum – from which you can infer that we don’t live there anymore. My mother struggled many years for the return of the beautiful courtyard house where she grew up， but ultimately settled for a “swap” – the 1，700 square metre courtyard house in the centre of Beijing for a 120 square metre flat on the fourth ring road. An important clause was inserted into the contract ensuring the government couldn’t take advantage of the house’s amazing location for commercial purposes， so it sat there derelict for many years until the Prince’s Charities Foundation (This is the first time that Prince Charles’s foundation has done a project outside of Britain.) started looking for a location to build a museum in Beijing. They not only found a venue， but a site with rich family history. My mother’s parents， Ling Shuhua and Chen Xiying， were illustrious writers， and my mother’s maternal grandfather was the last Qing dynasty mayor of Beijing. Shijia Hutong was， after all， home to many powerful families. The rather unique qualities of this particular hutong ended up giving the museum its theme and contents. However， during its planning process I asked whether the museum planners had considered the idea of doing anything with the rich soundscape of traditional Beijing. They were intrigued and thought it best to task me， a descendent of the house’s previous owners， with the job of making it happen.

Let’s now make another digression and rewind to 2005， when I ran the arts programme for the British Council in Beijing. I invited four British experimental musicians to Beijing to create a different kind of music project. The musicians were commissioned to experience Beijing’s sound environment， and create music or sound projects in response. They were asked to each create something from a different perspective that could not be presented in a concert hall or art gallery. Their works had to be offered back to the city， in the city itself. One of these musicians was Peter Cusack， someone who went around the world looking for rich and interesting sound environments. He told me that Beijing had the most interesting sound environment anywhere in the world. The project he created was to ask members of the Beijing public to name their favourite Beijing sounds as part of a radio competition; the most popular requests would be recorded by students and made into a CD. However， many of the sounds requested were almost impossible to record， as they had disappeared. This got a lot of media attention discussing the disappearance of Beijing’s way of life.

Although this last fact didn’t really come as a surprise， it was interesting that sound， of all things， alerted people to this fact. Sound is ethereal. It is emitted and disappears. Yet it remains in our memories like smells. Sound and smell are quite similar in that way; they interact with a more primitive form of memory than cognitive or even visual memory， the kind of memory that elicits a more emotional response before analytical abilities kick in. Although people don’t think about sound when asked to remember something， it might be interesting to relate to memory the other way round – by asking people to remember sounds. The memory of sound can elicit associated memories like a receptacle for history. Peter Cusack’s ideas stuck with me over the years but did not relate to my work in a direct way until recently， when the Shijia Hutong Museum project began.

When the museum wanted to create content based on Beijing hutong life， Cusack’s project immediately came to mind. I remembered the amazing response people had to his radio competition and the surprising amount of media attention it attracted. The importance of sound in people’s memories has been underestimated， or perhaps barely even considered. I thought a project in a hutong museum should concentrate on the sounds of Beijing’s old hutong life， that of the street hawkers with their various instruments and calls to sell different wares. This indeed was much of what made Beijing’s sound environment so unique.

Beijing’s culture has been made unique because of the presence of the Forbidden City at its heart. The entire city radiated away from this central symbol of power， and no building could rise higher than the Forbidden City’s walls or compete with its symbolic colours. As a result， all residential buildings were limited to one storey， and the grey colour of courtyard walls and roofs was an enforced deference to the red-walled and yellow-tiled palace. Imperial power not only dictated Beijing’s architecture， it also was home to the ruling elite’s aristocracy， keeping a whole class of people with money in their pockets and no occupation to keep them busy. This leisurely class was famous for its love of flowers， birds， fish， and insects – lovingly bred to their genetic and aesthetic limits. Two of this quartet – birds and insects – were often bred and kept for the sounds they made. This taste for small， exotic creatures often got stronger the higher up in the aristocratic hierarchy， with the emperor at the top.

All of these cultural traits are still discernible in Beijing today. You will see old men taking their covered birdcages to parks， swinging them to an almost alarming degree from side to side as they stroll leisurely while humming some Peking opera tune. They hang the cages on their “own” tree branch， uncover the cages， and listen to the birds warble their territorial trills. You’ll see rickshaw riders sleeping in the shade of an alleyway， with Guoguo crickets (gampsocleis gratiosa， a large chirping insect sometimes called the Chinese bush cricket) in small wicker cages bundled together under their tricycle’s awning making an ear-piercing racket. You might see the knife sharpener making his rounds and advertising his trade by clanking metal plates strung together like fish scales. And if you’re very lucky you might even hear the melancholic and magical sound of pigeons flying in a circle overhead with drone whistles attached to their backs. You’re more likely to come across these sound cultures in south Beijing， where traditional life is more intact. Needless to say， after one hundred years since the fall of the Manchu dynasty， there is hardly an aristocracy left to carry the torch. However， their mantle has been taken up by Beijing’s working class， many of whom came from the Manchu aristocracy and others that used to serve them.

Apart from the sounds produced by small pets like those described above， the most obvious and abundant sound comes from hawkers selling their goods and services to people living in hutong courtyards. Hutongs and their courtyards are remarkably quiet. Sound finds it difficult to penetrate the thick outer walls. Even today， the loud Beijing traffic noise is completely cut off when one ventures deep into a hutong. To sell their wares， street hawkers developed a whole range of simple instruments and voice calls to penetrate deep into courtyards to allow their occupants to know immediately what is being sold outside. Everything from daily essentials like water delivery and waste disposal to services such as hair-dressing and foot massages， and even luxury items for women， was sold in this manner. Even late at night， hawkers would sell snacks for nocturnal mahjong addicts. Everything sold is customised for its neighbourhood， and every sound is customised to accurately communicate a distinct message. The combination of singing hawkers and sonic pets， as well as musical games I haven’t had time to mention yet – one can only imagine the richness of traditional Beijing’s street life. The ruptures and changes to history and Beijing’s way of life means most of these sounds have now disappeared completely. It is both a shame and inevitable. The hutong way of life has disappeared for both good and bad reasons， and neither nostalgia nor naiveté is going to bring it back. However， that doesn’t mean we can’t try to recreate that sound environment in an attempt to experience something amazing. At the very least， it can help us understand Beijing culture better. However， there are many challenges that accompany such a project. For a start， if these sounds have disappeared， how does one recreate them?

The thinking at the beginning of the project concentrated on Beijing’s traditional way of life. Inspired as I was by the amazing richness of a bygone era， I named it the Beijing Hutong Sound Project. However， this train of thought very quickly developed into something more ambitious. If one is going to recreate a time using sound， it shouldn’t stop in the past; it should continue all the way up to today， creating an up-to-date history of Beijing using sound. This was a significant breakthrough in my approach. The Beijing Hutong Sound Project was fundamentally a cultural heritage project， but this new way of thinking connects everything to the contemporary， and potentially offers a new way of looking at history itself. At this point I changed the project’s name to the Beijing Sound History Project to reflect its new focus on sound and history rather than hutong culture.

However， the challenge of the endeavour， and the excitement of it， can only be discovered in the process of our attempt at being rigorously accurate in the recreation of each sound. This process requires the participation of a whole gamut of different kinds of people and professions. The sounds， after all， need to be recreated. Historians， experts on traditional culture， collectors of old instruments， performers of all kinds， theatre companies， residents of all ages， and people of all walks of life participate in this project at different stages to re-enact sounds that they remember from their own past. The traditional sounds of street hawking and pet sounds were by far the easiest sounds to recreate. It is the more subtle sounds that are far harder to get right. In Beijing we are used to the sound of wind blowing through massive poplar trees that were all planted since the 1950s. Before that Beijing’s wind blew through far smaller trees and plants， creating an altogether different sound. The sound of rain falling on tarmac is quite different from that on the old mud streets. Bicycle bells and car horns of different eras all need to correspond. Bus brakes have a distinctive moan with each passing era. These compose the backdrop against which history happens， but they form an invisible memory that makes up our history. Not the history in books， but our embodied emotional memory. The kind of memory that makes up life. Only through re-enacting these sounds can they come back to life. That is why I have changed the project’s name for the second time to the Beijing Sonic Re-enactment Project. It’s not as snappy as I’d like， but it’s more accurate than before.

I realise that I haven’t yet adequately explained how this has changed my life. Although I am mostly known as a curator， I am also a practising artist. This project is a goldmine of previously untapped content that can be represented in a myriad of possible ways. This sound history can be straightforward history， a giant artwork， a rich database of sounds， and a conduit to all kinds of other projects. Just a month ago I met with a pigeon whistle expert who is helping me to train pigeons outside of Beijing to fly and carry the drone whistles on their backs for me to record. He told me the story of his great-grandfather who invented a way for the emperor to enjoy exotic butterflies in the snow. On a perfectly still day in a snow-covered courtyard， he would fill a wide vat with boiling water， upon which he would place a special gourd with a butterfly inside. The steam would rise up in a wide column of humid warmth. After the gourd’s lid was opened， a butterfly would gingerly climb to its edge and fly up into the air. It would flutter about within the confines of the steam column against a snowy backdrop. As the water cooled， the column slowly descended， and the butterfly with it， all the way until the butterfly was forced back into the warmth of the gourd. This winter I plan to succeed in getting a butterfly to fly in the dead of winter. I believe that having a pointless skill like that can change one’s life.

This project is currently up and running at the Shijia Hutong Museum. But this is merely phase one. We have recorded and processed only about 5% of the sounds we need to record for this project to be ultimately meaningful. While this project will hopefully always have a home at the museum， it needs to be shared with a larger audience in the future， so the next phase will be to place it on the internet. When that happens， perhaps I’ll have more stories to share with you.

Colin Chinnery is Honorary Vice-President of the Scotland-China Association.